The Seven Primal Questions: Take Control of the Hidden Forces That Drive You

by Mike Foster

Primal Question: One of a set of core questions that subconsciously drive your choices, actions, and triggers.

The emotional struggle that takes place when your Primal Question is answered with a no or a maybe.

During the scramble, you often choose compromising actions and behaviors to force the answer back to a yes.

The subtle, subconscious ways we try to prevent our Primal Question being answered with a no. It is self-protection that stunts growth and opportunities.

Emma Young in New Scientist magazine estimates that 95 percent of our lives are lived unconsciously.

Too many of us live our days out of habit, not intention.

Research shows that a child’s brain develops connections faster in the first five years than at any other time in their lives. It is in this early development that the foundations for identity, behavior, and beliefs about life are laid down.

Whether your caretakers knew it or not, they had an incredible influence on your concepts of love, safety, and belonging. The effect is so strong, it ends up defining the way you see and experience life as an adult.

Parenting and addiction specialist Dr. Gabor Mate says, “The parent-child bond is our most important relationship; through it we experience the world. The

parent-child attachment relationship gives us our concept of the world: Is this place hostile? Is it friendly? Is it nurturing? Is it indifferent? We also learn who we are: Are we good? Are we bad? Are we acceptable? Are we worthwhile? All of this depends not on what the parent thinks of us but on how the parent unconsciously acts toward us.”1

“If you’re not loved for who you are, you’ll tame the danger of not being loved by becoming charming. It happened with comedian Robin Williams.

He began to make jokes to make his mother laugh. Is it a weird thing to make your mother laugh? No, it’s not weird at all if that’s the only way you can get close to her. It’s absolutely the brilliant way. And

ever...

celeb...

him for this talent not realizing ...

blame becomes a poison to our healing. It’s

understanding our relationship to our caretakers is only an opportunity to understand the origins of our Primal Question.

Suppressed trauma will continue to reemerge in the form of your Primal Question. This

Your Primal Question is your hidden underwater track. It is the thing underneath the thing that drives everything!

is also important to note that severe childhood trauma can bring great intensity

to all

seven of these questions. They will all feel activat...

Primal Question is different because it is your command center for your life. It will radically influence

Primal Question is directly linked to your feelings and triggers. You will emotionally flood and become reactive when your Primal Question is answered with a no.

You will spend enormous amounts of emotional and psychological energy trying to get others to answer your Primal Question with a yes. When

Relationship with Yourself The Primal Question influences how you see yourself.

It is the mirror that reflects

The scramble is your chaotic reaction to your Primal Question being answered with a no or a maybe. It

These “solutions” were the strategies of a wounded child. We then use these same strategies (and additional ones) to get that core need met. However, living in the scramble makes your life feel unstable, anxious, and exhausting. Bottom line, we want to fix the scramble, not you.

Here’s a short list of things people do when operating in their scramble. People-pleasing Over-giving

Codependency Controlling people Letting others make your choices for you Perfectionism Transactional love Constantly checking your investments Extreme focus on how you look Workaholic tendencies Saying yes to everything Participating in promiscuous sex Buying crap you don’t need to impress people you don’t know

Primal Avoidance. This is the subtle, subconscious way we prevent our Primal Question from being answered with a no. It is our own self-protection.

When our Primal Question is answered in the negative, we use “kid logic” to guide our adult lives.

But the gift you can give that kid today is to release it from the responsibility of managing your life now.

Wounded kids have questions, but healthy adults have answers.

Living in your Primal Truth means that you no longer look to others to answer your question. You self-answer with your own yes. This is the ultimate type of self-leadership and puts you in control again.