Inquiry is the practice of asking and answering questions to assist fuller awareness. Inquiry can take many forms. At Pine Manor, we often pose a question, such as:
What’s not working for you?
Or … What IS working for you?
What hurts you?
What support do you need?
What feeds your soul?
These inquiries can be done in a group context or people can work in diads or triads to give more time for exploration.
Inquiry can also be doing through journaling. Anyone who stays here can take a question and spend time journaling about their thoughts and feels in the response to the question.
Inquiry is also shared in conversation. If people are working in diads, one person can ask a question and the second person can answer. For instance if the question is: What do you avoid? The first person asks the question and the second gives an answer, including any experience they might have in their body. (Like, “When you ask that, my stomach gets tight.”) The first person then says “thank you” and and repeats the question again. In this way the answers of the person who’s being asked the question continue to deepen and unfold.