Never mind why, ask yourself what!

I'll never forget the day I learned the real meaning of why we ask "why". I was having an individual session with the husband of a couple I had been working with and he kept asking me "why does my wife do that? Why does she react like that? Why does she think that way?" I then gently asked him "why do you want to know?" He looked at me, his face brightened up and with a great big smile he said "so I can use it as ammunition to hit her over the head with and show her she's wrong". We both laughed, but that was very insightful.

Sometimes we can get stuck in asking why, both about ourselves or others. "Why did this happen to me, why am I like that, why did they do this to me, why did God let this happen to me?" Often this question can serve as a weapon to beat ourselves up and confirm how stupid, bad, or unworthy we really are. On the other hand when we keep asking "why does he think like that?, why does she drink so much?" and so on, it can be information we want to gather to beat someone else in an argument or make them feel bad and unworthy.

What I want to propose today is that asking: "what do I need to learn from this and what do I need to do?" will be more productive in moving forward in your life.

One of the most important quotes that has guided my life is by a nun who said "The things that happen to us do not matter; what we become through them does."  Why things happen to us is not as important as who and what we become as a result. We must look forward in our life to what we aspire to become and what we want to create for our future.

We can view our life experiences as unfair and become bitter, discouraged, and self-pitying. Or we can see these experiences as happening for our own good, our own growth and learning and become stronger, wiser and better.  Whether we become bitter or better is entirely up to us.  We alone determine our reactions to the circumstances that life brings. 

 
We cannot, with our limited human understanding, fully comprehend the reasons why life happens the way it does. Just like it's hard to understand how a huge tree can come out of a tiny seed, the pursuit of why things happen the way they do can be a way out of our responsibility to grow up.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that we must never inquire into why? In fact, an important part of the work I do with clients is to help them understand how their past has shaped their thinking and the way they habitually react to things today. This process is very powerful in normalizing people's experience and helps them have more understanding and compassion for themselves. This process is actually designed to help people move on to who they want to become and can help them forgive and release the past.

My point is that knowing why things happen the way they do doesn't actually change anything for us in the present. It may offer solace but transformation requires first a vision of who we want to become and then the action to create this change. 

So when you think about all the tragedies and difficulties that have happened to you in life or the mistakes that you have made that make you feel ashamed, rather than becoming downcast and discouraged, try to think about how you can change and transform yourself to become proud of who you are as a person today. Be determined that you will learn from your mistakes and change yourself for the better. Only if you correct yourself today can you let go of the past. When you don't change yourself today and you keep behaving in the same unproductive ways, you keep the past alive.  We can only heal the past in the present. We keep the past alive when the present doesn't change.

And just remember.  All this takes time....years of persistence and commitment.

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