From Answers to Wondering: Therapy as the Art of Not Knowing

People come to therapy wanting to know what’s happening. But the real shift begins when they’re willing to go from answers to wondering.

In both life and therapy, we often search for clarity: a diagnosis, a label, a fixed solution. But healing doesn’t unfold through certainty—it deepens through curiosity.

Clients often ask: What’s happening to me? Why do I feel this way? What should I do? These are valid questions, but they carry an implicit expectation: that someone else has the answer. That the therapist, the model, or the method will provide the certainty that the inner world lacks.

But therapy grounded in Presence—especially when informed by EMDR and nondual wisdom—asks something different: Can you stay with the not-knowing? Can you wonder instead of rush to know?

As I like to put it, it’s not about knowing what’s happening. It’s about wondering what you need to wonder about. That shift from answers to wondering is subtle, but radical. It invites the client to become the curious observer of their experience instead of a fixer of it.

This wondering is not passive. It’s active, alive. It says: I wonder what I might notice if I try this. I wonder how my body responds when I bring that memory up. I wonder if this emotion is holding a deeper message.

In this space, the therapist doesn’t impose an interpretation. They become a mirror, a co-wonderer, asking questions that don’t demand answers, but open doors. It’s in this space of inquiry that EMDR works best—activating neural networks not to solve a problem, but to allow what’s frozen to come back online and move again.

And in that movement, something changes. Not always visibly. Not always immediately. But the nervous system starts to trust that it doesn’t have to know to be okay. It can just be.

This is phase 4 of EMDR.  Asking, “What do you notice?” and giving the non-judgmental permission to “Go with that…”  

 

~ Jordan Shafer/nmm

 

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If this reflection resonated with you, you might also enjoy reading When Time Collapses and The Moment Time Was Born: How Trauma Shapes the Self, two other pieces that explore how trauma, time, and presence intersect in the healing process.