The Dance of Questions and Consciousness

Today, I danced on the edges of aspiration and reflection with CAD (Change Agent Development) Community, and in doing so, I noticed something about the way I entangle myself with answers. It wasn't only the answers I found that awakened consciousness — it was also the very act of forming the questions.

My mind, ever busy in rushing to conclusions, is often blind to the possibility that power lies not only in the certainty of an answer, but in the uncertainty of a question. As I listened, in a breakout session, to a fellow thinker having their thinking resourced by another member of the community, I stopped and asked, “What question would the Thinker ask here?” vs trying to answer the question asked by the resourcing community member.

This approach shifted my perspective. Resourcing someone’s thinking, I realized, is not about giving them the right questions; it’s about guiding them toward thinking in a new way, and in this communities case from a living systems perspective. It’s not about what the Thinker thinks, but is about how the Thinker is thinking.

This premise came from witnessing the resourcing community member working hard to come up with the ‘right’ questions, and the Thinker, equally hard, to provide the ‘right’ answers. It reminded me of a challenging exam, where both parties were locked in a traditional ‘expert-other’ dynamic. A cycle of attempting to appear knowledgeable, while perhaps missing discovery that could come from true inquiry.

I found this new way of seeing the dance of questions and consciousness fascinating and enlivening. The struggle to clearly see was creative, beautiful and required all three roles to be willingly played, which were the Thinker to be resourced, another community member to be resourcing and another to be witnessing. I believe this to be one reason why a developmental community is a powerful agent for self-development.