26/08/2026
THE PEOPLE WHO NEVER ENQUIRE ABOUT YOUR LIFE
Enquiry is an important, and possibly underestimated, part of a healer’s work. At the beginning of a session, I chat with my patients about improvements in their health - and we invariably also talk about other topics too. I find it helps to build an energetic link before the hands-on healing even begins.
Having done this for decades it has become a part of my personal life too - I like to find out about people: what they’ve done, and what makes them tick. However, I’m aware that many people never make any enquiry of others but are happy to endlessly talk about themselves!
There are many reasons for this, and it doesn’t always mean that the person is selfish. But when someone consistently talks about themselves without showing any curiosity about another person, it can reveal something about how they relate to others.
It may be that they haven’t learned conversational reciprocity and perhaps genuinely don’t recognise that good conversation involves both sharing and enquiring. Talking about themselves can be a way of reassuring themselves that they are interesting, important or valued.
Nervous people sometimes fill silence with what they know best - their own experiences. You tell them something that happened to you, and they immediately tell you about something similar that happened to them. They may intend this as empathy, although it can feel as though they’re taking the conversation away from you.
A more significant possibility is that some people simply lack curiosity about other people’s inner worlds. They don’t have a strong habit of wondering, “What does this person think? How are they feeling? What matters to them?” They are highly self-focused and, in some cases, the relationship is primarily experienced in terms of what attention, reassurance or usefulness the other person can provide.
What I find particularly interesting is that asking questions is itself a form of generosity. When we say, “And how are you?”, “What happened next?”, or “How did that make you feel?”, we’re temporarily moving ourselves out of the centre of the conversation and making room for someone else.
We probably all know someone who never enquires, but to be curious about another person is a quiet form of love. We step out of our own story for a moment and ask to hear theirs.
