What is the path to a luminous life?

Questions help you awaken to your truth.

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“The way of individuation is finding your own particular answers to life. It means carving your own path, slaying your dragon, instead of taking pride in others deeds...”

~Carl Jung

One way to achieve greater consciousness is to use inquiry to sort through everyday distractions and return to what’s most important in your life.

One day, you wake up in midlife and ask yourself, is this all there is?

Questions help you sift and sort through your life to bring what you love into the light of awareness, but it’s not always a comfortable process.

Back in 2009, I was suffering as a result of my younger brother’s death, which is currently a 22-year-old cold case homicide in Knoxville, TN. He was gay, and law enforcement didn’t work the case to solve it.

I was in Jungian counseling at the time, but I needed more help because I’d never been in such darkness in my life. I heard about Byron Katie’s method of inquiry, called The Work, and attended her nine-day school on The Work.

Inquiry blew the lid off my life in a good way.

I found my center of gravity again. I joined her Institute of Work, and for the next eight years, I spent 700 of the 800 hours required for certification.

I found my truth by doing the hard work of inquiring into wanting the murderer to be put in jail.

I had worked with the Investigator of Violent Crimes for five years to keep my brother’s case alive.

The truth was I was the one who was in prison, not the perpetrator.

My husband and I attended a small group workshop called “The No Body” at Byron Katie’s workshop in Ojai in 2009. When I questioned, "I want the murderer in prison,” and turned it around, I found I was the one in prison (of my mind), not the perpetrator. I’ve never cried so hard in my life as I did that day because I was so sad about what I had unwittingly done to myself.

That day, I was released from the prison of my mind.

My mother used to ask me every time I visited her,

“Sherold, do you think they’ll ever find out who killed Byron?”

“Mom, God is the ultimate judge. Whoever did this will have God to deal with.”

Inquiry is how you find your truth.

Inquiry summons you to personal accountability and courage.

It’s humbling work, but it can help you regain your life and free yourself from suffering.

You might be suffering from a loss or have a relationship issue or fear of what’s happening to our country here in the U.S.

I’m a master coach who uses inquiry to uncover my clients’ truths from their conditioned beliefs and fears.

If you’re interested in coaching and freeing yourself from suffering,

Please email me at sherold@sheroldbarr.com, and I’ll share my summer coaching packages.

As one of my favorite Jungian analysts, James Hollis, PhD, said,

“That is what questions are designed to do - lift us out of the debris and distractions of daily life, to bring us to greater consciousness, help us sift and sort, and to lift the multilayered psyche in its mechanism into the light of awareness.”

Today’s questions:

Ask yourself,

What supported me during childhood?

What gave me a sense of inherent value where I didn’t feel I had to earn love, approval, and validation?

“I love Sherold’s posts because she allows herself to be vulnerable.  Her writing is raw and real and that’s what makes it worth reading.  She always makes me think! “

~ Kay Van Patten