4 questions for great decision-making

We were just minutes from descent to Australian soil when the pilot came over the audio to make an announcement.

“Sorry folks, we’re going to have to circle for a while — all air traffic into Sydney is on hold due to a lightning storm.”

We ended up circling to the north of Sydney for about an hour. Each time the storm came into view, any irritation I felt about the delay melted. It looked like a cartoon storm writ large: spectacular, wild and alive with lightning. “Let’s definitely not fly into that,” I thought.

With extra time on my hands, I reached for my favorite meditation teacher Tara Brach’s podcast, where she shares beautiful guided meditations and potent lectures on topics including spirituality, buddhism and activism.

The title “Four Spiritual Inquiries: Finding Heart Wisdom in Painful Times” leapt out at me for some reason. And it was so powerful, I found myself jotting notes.

The episode explores how, when we are experiencing a strong stress response, we can use powerful questions to guide us towards wisdom and away from reactivity.

Between the personal, professional and pervasive geopolitical stressors I’m currently experiencing, it felt like she was speaking directly to me.

What is the stress response?

As humans, we experience stress when the demands of our environment are greater than our perceived ability to cope with them.

Under stress, our bodies and minds often go into a survival response, commonly known as the fight, flight, freeze or fawn state:

• Fight: facing any perceived threat aggressively

• Flight: running away from danger

• Freeze: feeling unable to move or act against a threat

• Fawn: trying to please to avoid conflict

The underlying goal of this response is to decrease, end, or evade the danger and return to a state of calm and control. However, these responses don’t always lead us to healthy choices and behaviors — sometimes, far from it.

Tara refers to this kind of stress response as being in ‘limbic hijack’, referring to the part of our brain that is activated when we experience stress. Ideally, we instead want to activate the pre-frontal cortex, the part of the brain that enables calm reasoning. As Tara outlines, when we can engage the prefrontal cortex we tend to access a more evolved, considered and beneficial response.

How can we go about this? Tara’s suggestion: Use these four questions to steer your body, mind and emotions towards calm, compassionate wisdom.

4 questions for optimal decision-making

Tip: These questions for great decision-making are best asked while in a quiet environment when you have some time to reflect deeply and honestly. Ideally, you can do some breathing or a body scan, too, as this helps activate the parasympathetic nervous system and calm your physical body.

Question One: What really matters?

Remind yourself deeply that what you are experiencing is by definition temporary. Then reflect: what is important to my heart in this situation? When I zoom out from the immediacy of what’s happening, what matters to me deeply about this situation?

Tara suggests we move beyond rational answers to identify, and feel, what truly resonates for us about this specific situation in our physical body.

Question Two: What is true here?

Having acknowledged what really matters to us about this situation, reflect. What is true about this situation? What’s happening inside me? And, what am I unwilling to feel?

As Tara outlines, suffering often arises from what we don’t acknowledge. It’s a call to pay attention to what we are overlooking or ignoring. Breathe, sit calmly, settle the mind and allow deep truth to arise.

Question Three: How can I meet this truth with kindness?

To sit with deep truth, which is often wildly uncomfortable, we need to be able to hold non-judging space. This ensures we do not contract away from the rawness of the truth. By bringing an intentional, present heart space, we can inquire and understand what this truth requires of us.

Tara suggests we call on a larger source of loving beyond ourselves, whatever that might mean for us. This can help us zoom out from our own situation and tap into a larger wisdom.

She also suggests placing our hands on heart, and saying ‘yes’ to what is there. It doesn’t mean we have to be happy about what’s happening — it simply means that we accept the truth as it is.

Question Four: How do I respond to what’s happening with heart wisdom?

Having held space for the deeper truth of what is happening, the final question is directed at uncovering the response of our heart’s wisdom. We might ask, What is love asking of me? How can I respond to this situation from heart wisdom? How can I contribute to healing for myself, others or the world more broadly?

During times of uncertainty and stress, I’ll be using these questions frequently.

With these wise questions, I hope to tap into my heart wisdom and guide decisions, behaviors and interactions that heal, connect and uplift.