Sometimes asking “Why?” makes things worse
“Why?” is a brain thing.
Brain things don’t solve body things.
Back when I was stuck feeling dead inside (depressed, despaired, hopeless, [insert your word here], I didn't know why. It made no sense.
I had a good life to point to, and no big trauma to point to. What was wrong with me?
Of course, if you know why something is the way it is, you can wrap your brain around it, and it's easier to move forward toward a fix. I had been in therapy for years, I purchased and skimmed a gazillion books, and frankly speaking, I slept and ate a lot to cope. I needed to get to the bottom of it.
Sometimes the "Why?" question came up with my therapist, who explained that you don't actually need to know why to work through it. I believed him, really I did, but within approximately 11.5 footsteps outside his office door, I did not like it one bit and went back to searching for why.
It must have been one of those books that suggested asking five “Whys” to get to the bottom of something. I tried it, which turned out to be a bad idea.
A simple example: out-of-proportion anger about a single piece of dog hair in my coffee.
Why am I mad? Because there's dog hair in my coffee.
Why? Because there's dog hair everywhere. Everywhere.
Why? Because I have too much to do, and I don't have time to clean. Plus, I hate cleaning.
Why? Because I'm a typical human plugged into a typical life.
Why? blank
What the hell am I supposed to do with that? Blow up my life and family and move to a cabin in the woods to escape my typical life?
Asking "Why?" usually resulted in one of these not-so-useful places:
"I'm stuck in a life that sucks."
"I suck."
"I will never know why." (best option)
You know what? My therapist was right. Insightful, comforting, and a tad bit annoying. The truth is often like that.
I didn't need to know why I felt dead inside.
Here's what I did need to know: I could feel non-dead by being in my body.
I needed to experience what being in my body felt like, which was sometimes horrible and sometimes lovely and sometimes just plain normal and neutral. It was only then that I could experience what feeling alive was like—which makes sense, as a fix for feeling dead.
Searching for and knowing "Why" keeps us up in our brains.
Searching for and knowing life is experienced by dropping into our bodies.
Complement with A Body.