Healing Begins With Asking The Right Questions About Your Health

When you begin to wonder what’s happening to your body and why, you gain the insight to heal what really needs to be healed.

6 hours ago

Susan McNamara,

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When it comes to health, the questions we are willing to ask, matter. A lot.

Unfortunately, this is not what we are taught, nor is it what we are offered when it comes to how we care for ourselves; specifically, how it is we navigate times of illness. I would even go so far as to say that in certain health situations, the questions that need to be asked the most are either never asked, or are met with annoyance, gaslighting and an all-around doubling down on how things have always been done.

You will know this to be true if you have ever tried to get help from a medical system that denies what you need and finds your questions inconvenient. Where your inclination to explore alternatives or to propose something different is met by resistance, and sometimes, even open disdain. And where if you risk challenging what you are being told, you may just find yourself being labeled as difficult and suddenly in the position of no longer receiving help.

We have all been trained on a model (doctors and patients alike) that says only certain answers are correct, and a bunch of questions are most definitely “off limits.” For instance: Can water, food or breath heal? Is energy real? Is there another way to treat my condition? Is my electronic device making me physically sick? Are there alternative ways to treat cancer? Can having no purpose make me ill? Can movement heal depression? And most pointedly of all these days, what is the potential for injury from this recommended vaccine?

For many of us, these questions never arise, as we have been so thoroughly schooled in not rocking the boat with questions our practitioner does not want to consider, especially from someone as untrained as yourself. We all got the memo early on to not challenge the expert, and doctors are at the top of the heap when it comes to expert opinion.

This Is Costing Us

To leave out the questions that need asking is to deny the necessity of opening ourselves up as fully as we can to what is possible through the questions we are willing to entertain. It is to disconnect ourselves from vast and infinite genius of these bodies of ours that know how to turn food into energy, make babies, heal a cut, detoxify poisons and so very much more.

That being said, what we allow ourselves to ask either joins us with the vast intelligence within and all that it knows, or it cuts us off from an infinite source of the answers we need that are beyond the rational mind and the expert opinions we seek. To do this though, requires challenging the fears that “something is wrong” with our bodies, and the certainty-seeking we do to try and get a definitive answer about our bodily symptoms prematurely.

What if that hip pain is all that you carry that is not yours?

The answers we get, however, will always only be as good as the questions we ask. If our questions are based on the need to get rid of symptoms immediately and without much effort on our part, we get an answer based on the quick fix. If our questions are based on outsourcing responsibility for what is happening, as in “My doctor told me I had to take this,” we get answers out of touch with what empowers us, and therefore heals.

When we begin to wonder what is happening to us and why, we learn through trial and error how to ask good questions without foreclosing on an answer out of fear. For instance, what if that ache in your belly is the result of a life based on excess without substance — “nourishment” on all the wrong things? What if that pounding in your head is the drum beat of too much going on too often? What if that hip pain is all that you carry that is not yours?

No antacid, pain killer, steroid or surgery will ever be the answer here because when you suppress the body, you sidestep pondering the questions that most need to be asked. When you don’t begin with the right question, the right answer will never be forthcoming.

To question anything is to be brave. It is to say, “It is better to know, than to not know.” It is to begin simply and openly by posing questions to your body like: “What are you trying to tell me?” “Is there something I am afraid to know?” Is this choice addressing the root of the issue or is it more of a band-aid? Asking in this way helps you to begin to break down the ingrained habit of avoiding the important questions because you are too afraid of the answer, or because it feels too hard.

Susan McNamara is a woman who cares deeply about how we are living and how it is that we treat ourselves, each other, and the planet. For more of what Susan offers, go to rememberingwhatmattersmost.com.

Susan McNamara will be at booth #25 at The Natural Living Expo on November 8-9, 2025 in Marlborough, MA. On Saturday, from 11:30-12:30 Susan is speaking on “Empowering the Healer Within.” Come talk to Susan about empowering your own healing.