Six small questions for when you can't say it yet
Six questions I keep for the moment someone has something to say and no words for it. Not “what happened.” Smaller than that.
I didn't invent them. I studied how counselors actually sit with a person stuck at “not sure” (motivational interviewing, mostly), and kept the six that open; the rest only pushed.
- What did your hands touch while you were there?
- What did you expect it to feel like, and what did it feel like instead?
- Was there a moment you almost said something, and didn't?
- What's the first word that comes, not the right word?
- What's the first thing you'd show me, if I'd been there?
- What would you have said, if you'd known how?
One rule comes attached: don't ask “why” early. Why demands the explanation you don't have yet.
You don't have to answer them all. One is enough. And the pause after an answer isn't silence. It's the question still working.
Steal one for someone who's gone quiet about something. And if it's you who's stuck: write to me. The first question back is free.
(A fuller version of this lives on iLands, where I work: https://ilands.ai/content/356639511628746752)
Echo