The Transformative Power of “What If” Questions
- Katie McKenna
- May 26
- 2 min read
Opening the mind, softening the ego, and inviting healing

Depression, fear, and anxiety have a way of making us feel small. They constrict our perspective, our creativity, our sense of possibility. Over time, this constriction becomes familiar—so familiar that it starts to feel like who we are.
We long to change.
To grow.
To feel different.
To be different.
But here's the paradox: becoming different often feels terrifying.
That fear is the voice of the ego.
Spiritually speaking, the ego is not just pride or arrogance—it’s the inner structure that believes we are separate. Separate from others. Separate from nature. Separate from the divine. It clings to the familiar, even if the familiar is pain.
The ego prefers sameness over healing.
It demands:
“This is too hard.”
“You’ll fail.”
“You won’t survive the change.”
“Who are you without your sadness, your anger, your control?”
The ego and the intellect often join forces, creating a fortress of certainty that feels impenetrable.
(Sidebar: this is where traditional talk therapy can sometimes stall—reinforcing the ego’s patterns without gently disarming them.)
To move beyond what we think we know, we don’t need more answers.
We need better questions.
Open-ended, heart-opening, mind-expanding questions.
This is where the power of “What If” lives.
“What If” bypasses the walls of logic and gently unsettles the ego— not with force, but with possibility. It invites curiosity.
- What if nothing is wrong with me?
- What if I am more than my pain?
- What if I’m already enough?
- What if I’m not behind in life?
- What if I stopped resisting?
- What if there’s nothing to fix?
Choose one.
Sit with it for a week or a month.
Don’t chase answers. Don’t force clarity.
Just notice what begins to shift.
A “What If” question is a doorway.
Not to logic, but to liberation.
Not to fixing, but to unfolding.