50+ Juicy Questions for Super Heroes AKA YOU!
/Dear Friends,
In the last couple of weeks with Oregon on Fire and Texas and Asia Drowning there are moments when I have been on my knees with sadness and grief. Sometimes grief brings a call to action.
What is my place in the ongoing conversation about how we share and care for our world?
Particularly, how do we care for the neediest among us, including the more than human world who is speaking up loudly right now!
With that in mind I offer up these 50+ Juicy questions for you to explore for yourself, with your family, friends, co-workers, or tribe.
Please receive them as they are being offered. As an opening to question, in an alive way, how we live. They are invitations to wonder, reflect and take stock of your life. They are to bring us more awake and have us question the choices we make and our unconscious habits and stories.
They aren't meant to be answered all at once. They are designed to get your super-power juices flowing. These won't all be "new" questions for you. And if you'd like, consider them freshly.
They are an offering to use in a way that works for you. Perhaps in loving and embracing the questions we will live into the answers.
Imagine in front of each question "I wonder?"
Wonder is the antidote to judgment.
Is it possible wondering could be the paradigm shift we need?
Remember: I wonder…
What’s your heart saying right now about what is happening on the world stage?
How about your gut?
What do you think when you hear "we the people"? Have we lost our capacity to be a "we"? If so, what can you do to reignite it?
How do you connect with people outside of your private life?
What is your legacy? What are the actions and qualities you want to be remembered for?
Has your heart been broken? What happened? Did it break open or apart? Has it changed how you see others when their heart is broken? If yes, say more about that?
What does success mean to you? Would it be helpful to shift the definition slightly to include more caring and sharing?
What do you see as the most important issue of our time?
How do you listen to others? What does it mean to listen with an open heart? How do you like to be listened to?
How do you measure giving back to your community?
How do you hold both "me and mine" and "we and ours"?
What and where do you invest most of your time? How do you spend your "free" time? How is your time divided in your home life?
How could you redefine fun so it included both yourself and taking care of the world around you?
What could you do to help others have reverence for nature -in equal measure- to seeing it as a resource and recreational landscape for humans?
What can you do to make the world safer for females? Children?
Why do some people "deserve" to retire while others will never have the resources to do so?
How will your legacy support the future of our children’s children?
How do you extend your care from your private world to the public world and find a balance doing that?
If the price of our consumer products included the cost to the environment how could we fairly distribute that cost? Would your purchasing change if the cost to the environment was written on the product?
If you look back on your life and the progress "we’ve" made thus far, how do you interpret the cultural definition of progress? Is there a way you would more clearly define progress so that it included taking care of the more than human world and people whose basic needs aren’t being met?
When are you vulnerable? When have you seen someone’s vulnerability as courage? How could your being vulnerable support you and the world?
What is the most pressing issue in your community? What’s one thing you can contribute to this issue?
What are the most important qualities and skills needed right now? What quality or skill can you deepen and extend to the world?
How do you hold both independence and interdependence? What needs to change in the U.S. for us to have a healthier balance between the two?
What and where are you investing your money/retirement? How do your investments impact the environment? How do you investments support females and children?
What are the top 5 ways you disconnect from your feelings and/or your intimate relationships?
What’s the difference between being actively engaged and disconnected?
How do you bridge the gap of your differences with others?
What are your super-powers? Don’t know? Ask five different people to name your top 3 qualities? See if they resonate? How can you utilize your powers to take better care of your private and public life?
What do you see as your greatest contribution so far?
When you say one thing and do another, how does your heart feel? How do you take care of your heart?
Does shame and guilt about not having done enough yet, prevent you from taking action now? If so what can you do to change that?
How has pain been a teacher for you?
What are the things that inspire you to step out of your comfort zone?
How do you balance self-care with taking care of the world?
What is needed of you?
How do you speak up for what matters to you?
Who is the leader you feel the most inspired by? What are the qualities that inspire you? How could you cultivate them in your own life?
How do you extend yourself to “strangers”? What could you say or do to engage the clerk at the store, gas station or anywhere else you are served?
What are you willing to change to take care of the more than human world?
What does your soul want to say to the world?
When you are in a group are you a talker or a listener? How do you know for sure which you do more?
How do you hold your own truth and listen openly to someone who has a different truth?
What’s your carbon footprint? How do you offset that?
What are you willing to sacrifice for the greater good?
What do you do to take care of your personal health? Can you add something to how you care for yourself that includes taking care of the more than human world?
How is your personal health connected to the natural world?
What impact does your emotional health have on your physical health?
How do you feel when you hear that the number one cause of poverty in old age, in the U.S., is being a mother? How do we go about changing that statistic so mothers who give so much time and energy to family are taken care of?
What habit or choice could you make that would take better care of the "we" today? Ask this of yourself everyday. Change is a given, engaging in it a choice.
50+ things you can do
Wonder why you think that way, why someone does that, why you don’t get it, smile at a stranger, smile at a friend, offer a hand, be vulnerable, share your story, listen, listen again, give a hand, a smile, a big hug or a touch on the shoulder, pray, give money or time to someone in need, own your strengths, love is a verb-be loving, get involved in one community cause, laugh, consider minimalism, become more like the person you most admire, be a leader, rest and renew, model interdependence, think independently, question your privilege, question your beliefs and values, question whether you really need that consumer product you want to buy, buy local, grow some food, plant a tree, stay connected to blogs, podcasts and people who inspire you, find one positive thing that is happening in the world right now, question your beliefs, join an organization that does something that matters to you, give one hour of time a week and five minutes a day to being a citizen, bring your neighbor a pot of soup, offer to babysit a friends children, model what you want to see in the world, accept imperfection, get to know five neighbors, have a block party, pick up garbage in your neighborhood, ride your bike, walk, support solar and wind power, read -drawdown, the mother of all questions, inconvenient truth-the sequel, sex and world peace,- question our economic model, listen to your intuition, don’t complain, tell people what you care about, ask for the kind of listening you want, hone and share your strengths, change one habit today, learn something new, do what you love, be kind, try tenderness on, live one line of beautiful poetry, eat more vegetables, teach children what it means to be a citizen, take a staycation, come to your senses, find beauty in the small stuff, imagine the world you want every day and live as if it is already here, have a gratitude practice, trust in the mystery, ask for help, ask for help again, know you matter, know that if you are here on earth at this time you are meant for this time, live it like you mean it.
I appreciate your willingness to explore these. May they deepen your life in some big or small way. You matter. YES YOU.
With Love,
Carol
Embodying Social and Environmental Justice