If we want new answers to old self-defeating questions such as "Why me?" -- we're going to have to use our mind in a new way. If we want new answers, real answers, we need new questions.

First, we must realize that our stressful experiences are not caused by people or events. They are caused by our reactions to them.

I know this is different than most of us feel, and yet, we can see that we have changed the people and even the events in our life a thousand times and we still find ourselves in places we don't want to be, suffering pain we don't want, because we're still having the same reactions.

If we'll honestly examine the way that we question these moments when we feel this kind of defeat, here's what we see:

We are seeking answers that serve only to correct the exterior conditions. In other words, we're still blaming circumstances for what it feels like is crushing us. By their very nature, our old questions tend to keep us victims. Why? Because they imply that someone or something outside of us is responsible for the pain that we're in. But we must learn otherwise, beginning with this:

No human being is a victim of any punishment other than being identified with their own reaction. And that reaction actually acts as an interpreter of the condition that we're in, telling us -- by the way it makes us feel -- who and what's responsible for that unwanted feeling. This is why, if we want to let go and rise above ourselves -- discover what is truly our highest possibilities in these moments -- we must turn our questions into tools for developing self-wholeness instead of letting them lead us off again in the wrong direction.

With that in mind, following are Seven Questions for Self-Wholeness to help you awaken to the power that defeats what has been defeating you.

1. Instead of always asking yourself why these things always happen to you ("Why me?"), learn to ask the following:

What is it inside of me that keeps attracting these painful situations?

Can you see the difference, right away? I hope that you can. One places the fault outside of you. The other understands that freedom is won by awakening and an understanding that no longer makes the world around you responsible for what you're going through, but rather shows you it's all a part of an unseen level of consciousness creating the condition that it then blames in order to keep itself out of sight.

2. Instead of asking yourself why things had to go this way or that way -- we all know the drill, that innate resistance any time something challenges what we want -- instead of asking that kind of question, learn to ask the following:

Why is the way I feel always determined by an external condition?

Think about that for just a moment. Why is what I feel always a direct reflection of something going on outside of me? Because if I can understand the question, then I could recognize I will never know freedom as long as the conditions around me don't completely keep in place what I believe they have to be to be free. That's not the definition of freedom. That's the definition of unseen captivity.

3. Instead of always asking yourself, "How do I protect myself in this challenging situation?" -- and we know what that question is like: we have to meet with someone, we have to go do something, and we're very reluctant, if not just afraid of it. So, instead of letting our mind start asking us how we make ourselves safe, we ask a question that changes everything:

What is it in me that always needs to be defended?

Not, how do I protect myself from this challenging moment, but what is it in me that looks at those moments as something greater than I can ever deal with, and then looks for something to defend itself?

When you ask that question honestly, you will awaken a part of yourself that needs to never defend itself because it uses every condition to transcend itself.

4. Instead of always asking yourself what to do about tomorrow, learn to ask:

Is there any intelligence in anxiety or worry?

We don't have to think about that answer. We know that anxiety and worry -- though they are our constant friends -- can do nothing but make us complicit in fearful actions that wind up not protecting us but protecting that nature that's always afraid of tomorrow.

5. Instead of always asking yourself why does so-and-so act this or that way, in those moments where you're upset by the behavior of others around you, learn to ask this question:

What is going on inside of me that wants to hurt itself over how anyone else behaves?

When you understand that there is something living in our present level of consciousness that will throw you in a prison in order to prove that someone else is doing something they ought not, you will walk out of that prison. And you will let go of not just the wrong question, but you will enter into the real answer that is the freedom you seek... because it changes you.

6. Instead of always crying out, "Why me?", learn to ask:

Who is this me that always feels this way?

Don't we all know, and aren't we all tired of those familiar reactions that seem to rise up whenever the world turns left or right and we expected it to go in another direction? To what end always asking and essentially complaining about a condition outside of ourselves, when through a new kind of awareness inherent in this question, we can enter into and realize a level of consciousness that cannot be made the victim of anything?

7. Instead of always asking yourself how to get others to approve of you, learn to ask a question that changes everything. Here's the new question:

What do I really want? The applause of the crowds or to quietly have my own life?

We already know the answer. Sure, it's attractive to be approved. We all want the feeling of support, a feeling as if others see us the way we want to be seen, but as long as we live from that nature, everyone else on this planet owns us, and we don't own our own life.

The realization of that level of consciousness (in us) that would rather have the applause than to quietly have our own life is the beginning of letting go of that level of our self, and the realization of a kind of confirmation, a consolation of which there is nothing like it.

These seven questions ensure a new kind of total victory. Every time we can ask the right question in the moment of an inner ache, we will receive the new result on the spot of being released from the deception inherent in that false nature asking fake questions that ultimately lead us into a fight with life.

We're not going to fight with life anymore. We're going to welcome the light that shows us the nature that asks the wrong questions, and then how to defeat that nature and those questions by asking the real questions that change everything.