Today I\u2019m talking with Chana Mason, who coaches her clients in clarifying vision, shifting beliefs, and manifesting their dreams. Chana\u2019s work turns complex ideas into easy, accessible tools for transformation. She\u2019s an author, life coach, and businesswoman who challenges her students to question the beliefs that keep them locked in trauma.\xa0
Chana was born in Bogota, Colombia. As a young child, she was unaware of just how dangerous a place it was, until--at 5 years old--multiple men broke into her house, held her mother at gunpoint, and threatened to kidnap her and her sisters. Within 48 hours, her family had fled to Miami, Florida, where Chana would grow up.\xa0
What Chana didn\u2019t realize was just how much trauma had been inflicted on her and her family. Chana\u2019s trauma manifested in nightmares, hallucinations, and eventually anxiety and depression in her later years. It wasn\u2019t until her 30s that she started to see a change, after years of therapy missing the mark. Chana moved to Israel to connect with her religion, but soon discovered the emotional baggage flying with her: \u201cI\u2019m not enough, God doesn\u2019t love me enough.\u201d She had to unlearn these beliefs, first.
Chana discovered the power of inquiry from a friend. Byron Katie\u2019s book, \u201cLoving What Is\u201d, got passed from hand-to-hand of Chana\u2019s friends, and soon they had a tight-knit, therapeutic circle of women who met weekly to apply the lessons they learned. This was the beginning of Chana\u2019s coaching training--with her friends--and the beginning of a much happier life.\xa0
To inquire is to ask questions, and inquiry is asking questions that make you think about your thinking. Chana says that we think so much we often don\u2019t stop to consider our thoughts, and come to believe we are our thoughts. The faculty of thought, in Chana\u2019s words, is meant to process things strategically, to be used rather than to use us. Inquiry allows us to uncover our underlying beliefs and question them.\xa0
Chana\u2019s technique of inquiry works by challenging clients\u2019 thoughts with their opposite: rather than, \u2018They should love me,\u2019 for example, Chana suggests, \u2018I should love me.\u2019 This gives clients autonomy, as well as the ability to vocalize their needs. She teaches clients to replace belief with better beliefs, and in turn, get out of their own way.\xa0
Chana explains that we have no control over others, or the world, and imposing our own beliefs on how things should be is fighting a losing battle. It\u2019s a skill of accepting reality, in a way that allows students to unfreeze and meet life with curiosity and enjoyment, rather than with beliefs that underserve them and perpetuate their trauma.
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