How to Handle Unwanted Answers Like a True Professional

The Art of Phenomenological Receiving: Transforming Your Relationship to Answers That Challenge You

When working with Moving Questions, something fascinating occurs at the moment of asking. You release a question into the space between you and others, hoping to spark movement where things have become stuck. But what happens when the response you receive isn't what you expected—or perhaps more challenging, isn't what you wanted to hear?

This is a pivotal moment in the practice of Moving Questions, one that reveals whether we're truly willing to allow movement or are subtly trying to control direction.

The Four Layers of an Answer

Before we dive into handling unwanted answers, it's important to understand that when someone responds to your question, they're actually communicating on four different levels simultaneously:

1. Content – The actual words they say

2. Tonality – How they say it

3. Non-verbal signals – Their body language and expressions

4. Energy – The underlying feeling or intention

These layers exist in a hierarchy. If the content says one thing ("Yes, I'm fine with that") but the tonality suggests another, the tonality wins. If the body language contradicts both, the body language wins. And if the energy feels entirely different from all of these, the energy wins.

When there's alignment across all four layers, you experience congruence. When there's misalignment, you sense incongruence—and this is often where the most valuable information lies.

The Uninvited Guest: The Unwanted Answer

When you ask a Moving Question and receive an answer you didn't want or expect, your first reaction might be disappointment, resistance, or even frustration. This is where your quality of presence is truly tested.

Moving Questions invite this kind of movement. The question you ask is an invitation. The question itself does not give direction, has no content. You don't assume a particular discourse or model when you formulate a question.

Here's what to do when faced with unwanted answers:

1. Notice Your Bandwidth Contraction

The first reaction to an unwanted answer is often a contraction in your own bandwidth—your access to your full capacities and energy. You might feel your breathing become shallow, your shoulders tense, or your mind narrowing its focus.

This contraction is valuable information. Instead of pushing past it or ignoring it, acknowledge it: "I notice I'm contracting in response to this answer."

2. Remember: It's Not About The Answer

When using Moving Questions, it's not about the answer, you stell a question, there happens something. From the moment you ask the question, then comes an answer, that's not so important and that [what happens next] is also not so important. What happens here between [asking and answering] is what it's about. Because that is the piece in which you notice that the bandwidth increases again.

The power of Moving Questions lies in what happens in the space between asking and answering. The answer itself isn't the goal—the movement that occurs is.

When you receive an unwanted answer, shift your attention from the content of the answer to what's happening in the system. Is energy now moving where it was previously stuck? Are new connections becoming visible?

3. Recognize Your Attachment

If you're disappointed by an answer, it reveals that you had an attachment to a particular outcome. In the practice of Moving Questions, this attachment limits the possibility for genuine movement.

It helps enormously if you want to ask questions like these, that you think inside, well I'm curious what it will be. If I sit hoping for a yes or a no or whatever, then you make the space within which that bandwidth can increase, you put that already a bit under tension. That's a waste.

4. Practice Detachment

One of the most powerful stances when working with Moving Questions is what I call "onverschilligheid" in Dutch—a kind of healthy detachment. It's not indifference; it's freedom from preference.

What you do inside, is that you say, well, I'm curious about the answer, it actually doesn't matter much to me whether there even comes an answer, because then it wasn't about that. And then the answer can be the most powerful.

This detachment allows you to be truly present with whatever emerges, without filtering it through your expectations or preferences.

5. Look for the Gift

Every answer, especially the unwanted ones, contains valuable information. When someone responds in a way that surprises or challenges you, ask yourself:

• What is this answer telling me about the system?

• What connections are being revealed?

• What new perspective is being offered?

I once worked with a leadership team that had been stuck in conflict for months. I asked what seemed like a simple question about their vision for the organization. The answer I received was angry, defensive, and completely off-topic. Rather than redirecting or dismissing this "unwanted" answer, I stayed with it—and discovered that beneath the surface was deep fear about the organization's financial stability that no one had been willing to name.

The Paradox: "Unwanted" Answers Are Often the Most Valuable

Here's the beautiful paradox of Moving Questions: the answers you least want to hear are often the ones that contain the most valuable information. They point directly to what's stuck, what's hidden, or what's being avoided.

In the systemic logic you work with the connections. One way to do that is to zoom out. And where you use cognition here, you are drawing from another source here. And that source, that is called phenomenological observation.

Phenomenological observation means being present with what is, without judgment or agenda. It means receiving all answers with equal curiosity and openness.

Practical Tips for Working with Unwanted Answers

1. Breathe and expand: When you feel yourself contracting in response to an unwanted answer, take a deep breath and consciously expand your bandwidth again.

2. Acknowledge the answer without judgment: "Thank you for sharing that. That's interesting."

3. Get curious about your reaction: "I notice I'm having a strong reaction to this answer. I wonder what that tells me."

4. Ask a follow-up question that creates more space: "Can you tell me more about that?" or "How did you arrive at that perspective?"

5. Look for the pattern, not the problem: Ask yourself, "What pattern might this unwanted answer be revealing?"

6. Consider timing: Sometimes an unwanted answer indicates that your timing is off—the system may not be ready for the movement you're trying to create.

A Final Thought

In the practice of Moving Questions, there are no truly unwanted answers—only answers that challenge us to let go of our attachments and open ourselves to the movement that wants to happen.

As you work with Moving Questions, practice receiving all answers with equal curiosity and openness. The more you can detach from your preferences about how things "should" go, the more powerful your questions become.

Remember, you're not responsible for the answers you receive—only for the quality of your presence, the clarity of your intentions, and your willingness to be with whatever emerges.

What answers have you been resisting? What movement might become possible if you welcomed them fully?