How to Ask Why? to Get to Your Goal
“You have to connect to your ‘Why’” – this is a common tenet in coaching…but one that is often misleading as “Why?” has become confused with “What?”
“What” is the connection that we really need to nurture – what motivates, drives, and inspires you; what brings you joy? If you are unable to connect with your “what,” it is damn near impossible to keep going when the going gets tough.
(and if you’ve ever done personal or “shadow” work, you know the going can get pretty rough.)
“Why?” is a double-edged sword because it can provide some insights into why you are the way you are or how circumstances became the way they are; but too often, diving into “Why?’ only yields conjecture and low quality information.
…But you can keep yourself from getting cut by “Why?”s double-edged sword when you learn how and when to use it to stay tuned in to your joy, intrinsic motivation and inspiration – making it damn near impossible to stop you, regardless of external influence or circumstance.
When and How to Ask "Why?”
When it comes to intrapersonal, shadow work, personal development, it is likely that you are aware of some brokenness. You feel lonely, not experiencing the success and connection that you seek. The ways in which you used to go about achieving and acquiring attention, affection, and results aren't working the way they used to. You are leaving interactions feeling misunderstood and more isolated than before. You know something needs to change.
So you begin. You start to recognize some places where you are operating from limiting beliefs. You see some emotional reactivity, cognitive distortion. You can also see patterns set from childhood—programming, trauma patterning.
But what often happens is that we can get lost in the shadows (especially if we insist on doing it all on our own). We go deeper and deeper…and we lose touch with the why we started—freedom, clarity, happiness, connection, joy, creativity—and we start seeking “just Why?”—explanations, characterizations, reasons for the way things are, the way we are.
it is actually more useful to use “Why?” to connect to YOU – to answer your what. In other words, ask “Why?” to remember and clarify why you started on this journey in the first place—i.e., what it was that you wished to experience, create, or share (that you are not currently having, expressing, or experiencing to the degree you’d like). Tapping into your motivation is key and using “Why?” in this way helps you focus on what lies on the other side of the “the work.” The reality you desire to create and the feeling that comes with having it is what you can tap into when you feel tapped out.
When and How to Not Ask “Why?”
When we are using “Why?” to explain and make things “make sense,” we are actually losing touch with our “Why (did I start)?”. Instead of connecting with our heart, we bow to our mind and end up with a tightly woven, complex narrative that incorporates lots of stories but does little to alleviate our pain or move us forward into something better. These narratives only describe the past and other people’s behaviors, but they don’t get us in touch with our feelings or our awareness of what we are holding on to that is keeping us stuck.
Using “Why?” to dig up explanations is common in conventional therapy, which tends to emphasize and value understanding in and of itself, as if understanding will create change. But, understanding is of no value if it is not applied and used to CORRECT and update inaccurate and outdated patterns of thinking. It is also worthless if it only circles back onto itself and leaves one with an insatiable hunger for more and deeper understanding, more “why” in order to “make things make sense.”
When Explanations Can Help
Explanations and understanding are only essential and helpful when used to “massage” the grip and help us to release our tight hold on identifications and stories that make us a victim to circumstance and powerless to change.
An example:
In recent reading I learned that the first two months of life (and brain development) are disproportionately influential and impactful on an individual’s life experience in the decades to follow. This is due to the fact of the rapid rate of proliferation and growth in neural synapses that are taking place. An infant is quickly putting together a working model that will guide how he/she interacts with and projects into the world. This is largely learned by and through early caregivers—the consistency, reliability, and attitude with which care is given in response to the calls of the baby.
This information struck me deeply, so I actually asked my mother about the first couple months of my life. Once we sifted through her defense that her intentions were good and that, indeed, everyone acted from love, I was able to get a clearer chronology of my early life experience.
To begin, I am an identical twin. We were incubated in fear as there was a hole in the amniotic sac, and for nearly 4 months prior to birth, our mother was on bedrest just to carry us to term and deliver us (alive). Then, in the last 7 days before our birth, we actually flipped—our birth order changed—so not only did my sister arrive first, I came out breech.
What I didn’t realize is that just like butterflies emerging from their chrysalis, a baby’s movement through the birth canal is functional and pushes fluid through to the lower body. That didn’t happen for me, so that my head was swollen—my eyes were swollen shut. So now I was in a very foreign environment of lights and sounds, without the soothing touch of my “womb-mate,” and I can’t see shit.
A day or so later we were placed in incubators as we both had jaundice and only brought to our mother several times a day.
Then, when all were ready to go home and settle in, our mom developed a life-threatening blood clot and had to go back to the hospital. We were left in the care of our father—a typical, proud Midwestern strong but silent type who refused help and insisted on caring for FOUR young girls (two newborns and two school age kids) on his own, without help. (And though this man has shown himself to be more loving and compassionate with infants, is also the same rage-aholic man who struggled with alcoholism while raising us).
To add insult to injury, while operating as a single-parent, my dad’s father died unexpectedly of a heart attack on the same day as our baptism. This emotionally unavailable man went into a tail spin. So that even though this led him to finally accept help in his parental responsibilities, the consistent, controllable, predictable care that is required for optimal brain development was not provided.
Through no fault of their own, the people who had intended to bring us up in love were unable to do so because of an inability to touch, rock, and soothe us because they were absent, in the hospital with medical complications; heart-broken with the loss of a broken parental relationship, unexpectedly closed without resolution; and two precious little babies struggling to make sense of the world, unable to experience the touch of one another because the medical community (actually almost no one) understood the needs of twins or the impacts of early sensitization of the nervous system through unregulated stress responses.
The Point of the Example
The usefulness of this information is not just in explaining how and why you may have or are struggling with certain patterns. And it does not absolve you or anyone from correcting inaccurate beliefs, insecurities, and poor communication patterns, boundary issues, or abusive behaviors.
What this information can do, though, is offer an explanation that will allow you to remove the judgment of you—any doubt (or belief) that there is something inherently wrong with you; questioning of your worthiness to have or create the goodness you see others enjoy; the necessity for ongoing struggle, etc.
This information is to get you OUT of judgment, out of bullshit narratives that actually highlight and guess about other people’s motives and behaviors, out of old, negative thought habits, out of trauma patterning and IN to your life, your creativity, your bliss.
…and knowing when and how the pattern was set can help with connecting to the modality and training sequencing that will correct and heal the fastest!
There is no life sentence. No matter how long you’ve struggled with any given circumstance or belief, you can enjoy confidence and freedom. The key is to know that this confidence and freedom are on the other side of the pain. It is your willingness to release your grip on your story or identification with that pain or role or circumstance. Your curiosity in what freedom and confidence feel like is the “Why?” that will motivate you to keep going when the work of detachment gets tough.
Bottom line: Use “Why?” to connect to YOU. When you are using it to “make sense” of someone or something, it won’t work and will only create more of that which originally led you to seek change (because it wasn’t working).
You aren’t broken. You came into a broken system. Even if you feel like you’re broken, everything that you need to heal is available to you now.
You can start with POWER HOUR. Or, if you’re ready to fast-track your progress toward your “Why?” you can click the button below to book a Call for Clarity to find out what HAPPINESS clinic program is best suited for you.