‘Why do you think he lied to me?’ she asked yet again, as though we hadn’t covered it a hundred times this week. My eyes wanted to roll as far back into my head as they could, I didn’t let them.
I’d been here so many times in my life, with my mum, my exes, friends. Listening to someone ask a ‘why’ question over and over as though it were a brick wall they beat themselves against. It took me countless hours of going through this frustration to realise… it’s not just run of the mill hormonal weirdness talking. It’s much more than that.
After it all clicked into place for me I’ve had a much more productive and helpful understanding of ‘why’. I now navigate that tricky space with ease, seeing clearly the parts that used to be invisible. I’d like to help you do the same, for yourself and others.
To turn you into a bit of a detective for invisible things.
If you’ve been warned about the danger of asking ‘why’ in emotional support settings but don’t quite get it, this article is for you (on the other hand if you’re more the one receiving emotional support, this article is for those you open up with, so let them know about it and you’ll have some shared language to better connect).
As you read you’ll learn in atomic detail the potential harm of using ‘why’ questions, how it comes about, who it affects and what you can do to change it.
I’ve written this as basically an attempt to advocate for people like my mum, my ex and others who’ve been let down countless times by inexperience from their professional supports. If it feels harsh at times, that’s because I have big feelings and I hope it adds to the point.
This article is not written to be consumed passively or scanned quickly. It’s an entire meal, not just dessert. Take your time, bookmark it, savour each course and really apply stuff.
- How can Why be a bad thing?
- Why is the key to unlocking self knowledge.
- Use Explanatory Style to understand a harmful fixation on causality.
- Foundations of listening – the anatomy of a message.
- Here’s how your whylighting hurts others.
- Uncover and embrace your true intention, denial only makes it worse.
- Knowing yourself takes listening.
- Questions for reflecting on your own whylighting.
- Conclusion
- TL;DR
How can Why be a bad thing?
‘Why’ contains immense power in philosophy, leadership and personal development yet it’s often used for self flagellation. Maybe you can relate to using it – or hearing it used – to express;
- Fixation
- Confusion
- Defeat
Fixating on causality, combined with dysregulated feelings makes Why awful.
Back to the story from earlier.
Someone very close to me used to fixate on why, asking why her lover said one thing and did another. Her constant questions of ‘why’ served to maintain the patterns of thinking which reinforced powerlessness and defeat. The combo of causal fixation and dysregulated emotions first create and then maintain the downward spiral.
‘Why do you think he lied to me?’ ‘Why did he not show up on my birthday?’ ‘Why did he go through my phone?’ ‘Why wasn’t he there at the airport?’ You get the idea.
Used in this way, we can see the harm of a poorly targeted why by observing its subtext – the actual meaning hidden beneath the words.
In this case the subtext said; ‘Why would he [cause me hurt]? Am I just not good enough?’
- Side note: Of course the only ‘why’ I wanted to hear was ‘Why am I still putting up with this when I’ve got this amazing guy right in front of me?!’ Alas, I put aside my feelings and listened with non-judgement because I knew I could afford to support her emotional processing. Now, years later when the roles are reversed, she offers me space to process my own pain at the pace of my self awareness. Rather than rush me to destinations of her understanding without taking time to help me develop mine. She’s become incredibly good at it actually, better than me in many ways. For those of you curious about how our friendship went I’ll update you at the end!
These defeat driven ‘why’ questions – looking to explain adversity – often happen beneath the conscious awareness of those who can’t regulate emotion. They’ve been triggered and until the emotions have been dealt with, rationality and logic are simply offline.
If you don’t relate personally to obsessing with why in a destructive way then listen up. This is even more important for you to understand so you don’t accidentally give people another chance to hurt themselves!
Spotlighting causality, also known as Whylighting.
In this article I’ll refer to asking why as whylighting. Think of it like a using a high powered spotlight to blind someone by asking them the question why. When people do it to themselves it’s usually a sign their trauma is ringing alarm bells and making it very difficult to connect. It’s almost like we gaslight ourselves by saying ‘this line of questioning will help me, even though it feels like my self-esteem is getting beaten into a bloody pulp’.
One trouble here is that traumas aren’t visible like other wounds: broken bones for example. The better you can learn to become a trauma detector, the better you’ll be able to recognise and provide appropriate support for someone in that headspace.
To be clear, the damaging use of ‘why’ shall be referred to as ‘whylighting’. Obviously ‘why’ isn’t all bad, in fact it’s critical to personal and social development.
Why is the key to unlocking self knowledge.
Western civilization is basically built on why. Every modern luxury we have (for better or worse) such as: industry, capitalism, democracy etc. was built on the foundation laid by a philosophy that constantly asked why.
Used well, it’s a great way to open us to ourselves, to better see into our own mind and make sense of life.
Just like any powerful tool, it can be weaponised as well.
Why can be dangerous too.
Whylighting has intense power to harm. Not just because of how it can be used against someone (any question can be levelled to imbalance the power in a relationship), but rather.. because of how it can be used against ourselves.
The subtext of our emotional questions reveal the parts of our inner landscape we haven’t mapped out (all the stuff about our own choices that confuses us). Since maps are key to connection these questions have the power to reveal plenty about us. Try to read into the subtext of the following questions.
It’s an exercise in imagination and before you object… Permit me to be bold to the point of arrogant when I say the following.
We can never truly understand how someone feels, but we can and do imagine it. So cast your imagination out and ask yourself, what emotional subtext is behind these questions?
- ‘Why am I like this?’
- ‘Why does this always happen to me?’
- ‘Why does everything I touch turn to ash?’
- ‘Why do I have to get picked on all the time?’
- ‘Why are all women like my mother?’
- ‘Why doesn’t he keep his word?’
- ‘Why do I always attract liars?’
Hopefully your creative juices are flowing and you can imagine the reality that creates some of these statements. Imagine the obstacles faced, what sense of power or hope is present (or absent!) and particularly how: implicit feelings inform perspective.
To explore the whylighting above let’s dive into Explanatory Styles outlined in Martin Seligman’s book Learned Optimism (book summary coming soon!).
Use Explanatory Style to understand a harmful fixation on causality.
Causal explanations can be examined from three metrics; personal, pervasive and permanent. When good events happen, they can be explained as:
- Due to our influence (personal)
- Across multiple areas (pervasive)
- Always going to be this way (permanent)
These explanations can also be flipped upside down to explain good things pessimistically as:
- Not due to our influence
- Only happening in isolation
- Only temporary
As you can imagine, explanatory style has a high correlation with depression, whether the chicken or the egg comes first is up to debate (guess it depends on your perspective!).
When bad events happen, same thing. They can be explained pessimistically as:
- It’s my fault (personal)
- It’s all my fault (pervasive)
- It’s always my fault (permanent)
And opposite, optimistically as:
- It’s not my fault, it’s situational
- Just because it happened there doesn’t mean it’ll happen here
- This too shall pass
As you can imagine, explanatory style has a massive impact on how we interpret and therefore respond to life. If you want to apply what you’ve just learned, try reread the whylighting above and look for three aspects of explanatory style in each one; personal, pervasive and permanent.
- Side note = if you don’t want to apply what you’ve just learned… Are you lost?
What makes causality fixation so harmful, really?
It’s a black and white sign you’re relying on rationalisation.
Yep, the psychological defence that protects you from actually feeling how you feel.
By rationalising your way through your understanding of your parents, your childhood, your relationships, your children, your boss, your patients, your colleagues, your life, you’ve basically managed to keep away from facing the intensely discomforting experience of being present with how you feel.
It’s super common in psychologists and mental health workers all over the place, so if this feels like a really personal attack, then please finish reading before you cancel me. I’m writing from experience, after all. Because I regularly have to overcome my instinct to dive into problem solving, intellectualising, rationalising and a million other things that helped survive childhood but don’t help now that I’m all, you know, bigger.
By writing this I’m not only trying to help you, I’m also hoping to process it deeper myself.
Your imagination fuels your connection – so apply it!
Treat explanatory style like a prince might treat a glass slipper. Imagine the person it belongs to. The better you can imagine them, the better you can understand them, the better you can find and support their true self.
- Side note = that’s not the only reason I’m asking you to do this, just trust me – apply now and I’ll explain later.
In other words, use their whylighting as clues to build your map of their internal reality.
I’m not talking about armchair diagnosis! It can be very easy to bypass proper thinking with a cheap label ie. ‘That person is such a narcissist’. That may be the case however we can think in a much more detailed, specific and precise way. We don’t mistake the means for the end around here because we have the courage and focus to explore life with depth.
Delusions of grandeur, incapable of empathy, treat people like vending machines, blind to their impact on others, obsessed with how they appear to outsiders… Narcissus had all of that and more.
Do you simply mean you find them selfish? You can do better than accepting a shallow interpretation by going deeper into your true feelings and thoughts.
- Side note = this whole ‘going deeper’ thing is actually incredibly complex work but regardless whether you’re well on the journey, thinking about getting started or somewhere in between, you’re in the right place!
Permit yourself to imagine their reality.
Back to the glass slipper whylighting above. What kind of self worth do these statements indicate? What sense of hope or helplessness? How does the speaker feel when they express themselves?
Again, resist the temptation to stay in the kiddy pool and make shallow meanings.
‘Codependent’ doesn’t tell you anything meaningful on it’s own. ‘Intense feelings of reliance on their partner’ paints a much more meaningful image as it also reveals motivation. ‘Self-worth derived from their partners acceptance’ is showing precise detail, now we have context. The ‘Map’ you’re building of your counterpart is getting dimensions. ‘Terrified of partner leaving because haven’t heard back for 8 hours’ congratulations, you’ve now painted a detailed, complex image of this person’s present reality. You have meaning, motivation, context and even somatic experience. You see what their ‘need’ means to them in the context of the present moment, related to the conflict they currently have.
So if you haven’t already, scroll back up, give yourself permission and try to cast your imagination into the lives behind the whylighting examples from earlier. Imagination is a skill like any other, it takes practice.
Ok, so far there’s been lots of focus on how people can whylight for self flagellation, those of you reading this who don’t relate are saying ‘that’s all good but it has nothing to do with me’, I hear you.
You don’t gaslight yourself.
You have emotional regulation.
Your attention doesn’t fixate on causality in a way that spirals you into a state of learned helplessness.
That’s the reason you didn’t get it when your teacher / professor warned you about why questions. Now, for the sake of everybody else, those of us who live with trauma, please pay attention. The better these lessons sink in, the better you’ll be able to hold space for us when we can’t regulate ourselves.
Still with me? Nice!
Quick recap:
- Why is often used for self flagellation, particularly by those of us who have unhealed psychological pain (aka trauma)
- Listening to explanatory styles can help you understand the subtext of what your counterpart is saying
- Empathy is an act of applying your imagination to paint a picture of your counterpart’s internal reality (thoughts, feelings, values, beliefs, threats, resources etc)
If you can’t relate to getting triggered hopefully you’re starting to see the big picture behind the danger of whylighting. Two more detours and then we’ll arrive at the final destination. Your patience will pay off big time!
If someone’s distressed, what questions shit all over ‘why’?
There’s a purpose beneath asking questions which rarely gets talked about.
Yes, on one hand it’s great to gather information, this helps you build a more accurate map and make a better connection with someone. But, even better than that, your questions stir up the dust in their mind.
When you ask a question, the person receiving it has to process things and draw lines between the dots in order to answer. This might seem obvious but if you’re someone who loves whylighting all over people you’re 100% the person who doesn’t get this and if you pay attention this will reveal an enormous area for your practice to grow.
Think through this question: what kind of information is someone not processing if they’re in conflict?
- Emotional information.
- Sensory perception.
- Somatic experience.
Let me illustrate.
Have you ever asked someone how they’re feeling and then gotten a completely different answer other than how they’re feeling? Perhaps they answer by saying ‘it’s unfair!’ or ‘I’m such a loser!’ or ‘I don’t know why he does this to us…’
What would an accurate emotion focused answer sound like? ‘It feels unfair, I feel hurt and powerless’ ‘I feel outcast, rejected. Like there’s something wrong with me.’ ‘I feel… confused, I can’t make sense of this.’
These are the valuable types of information you can help people process by asking the right kinds of questions. Questions that are probably very uncomfortable to ask, especially for someone fixated on why ie. causality ie. overly reliant on rationalisation as a defence protecting you from how you feel.
Yes, I went there.
It’s you.
If you ask people ‘why’, you’re the one who rationalises your way past your own emotional experience.
Let’s take this back to basics and reduce things down to their bare atoms. We’ll then reconstruct it all so you get excellent ways to genuinely empower people while also searching for deeper somatic understanding.
Foundations of listening – the anatomy of a message.
Any message (spoken, written, floating above a Chinese city in skynet drone army QR code format, whatever) can be broken into three parts. The part sent, the part received and whatever happens in between. That in between bit… I’ll leave that for people with way more letters in front of their name as it’s super complex.
The point is: the message you send isn’t necessarily the message they receive.
The message you send.
Perhaps you’ve been misunderstood before. Maybe you opened your mouth, spoke and straight away thought ‘Uh oh I’ve stepped in it’. You didn’t mean to piss them off or trigger them, but hey, it happened.
The message you sent was built inside the engine of your mind by lots of machinery beneath the surface. Stuff you don’t have access to. Your patterns of thinking, frame of reference, education, values, beliefs, assumptions, attitudes, narratives etc. Lots of different input produced the output.
- Side note = All this input is the noise that gets in the way of connection in modern support settings. Listening beyond this ‘noise’ to what your counterpart is actually saying makes up ‘non-judgement’.
The better your understanding of your counterparts internal experience of life, complete with all of its own complex machinery too (assumptions, emotions, values etc.), the better impact your listening will have.
This is because what you say has to wash through the lens of their frame of reference before they can make meaning of it.
This is the real reason I asked you to exercise your imagination and think of the owner of the glass slipper earlier.
The message they receive.
What they receive is not what you send.
Don’t take this personally, it’s just the way it is. Really smart people like Wittgenstein and so many others have gone super deep if you wanna learn more (the basics of semantics, negotiation and game theory are good places to start).
Now let’s put it all together.
Here’s how your whylighting hurts others.
Whylighting doesn’t take much. It’s a small word to ask and takes zero thought on your behalf.
The message you send is simple.
The message they receive is complex.
Adversity reinforces their beliefs.
After a lifetime of reinforcing / transforming / creating the belief system which led to their current lifestyle AND helped them survive up ‘til this point, they’re highly adept at explaining events in a sometimes disempowering way. Confusion, defeat and fixation have so commonly lit up the neural linguistic network attached to the word ‘why’ that they’ve created an information superhighway enabling them to jump to ingrained, often repeated conclusions about themselves. These explanations reinforce their results in life.
- I must be unloveable
- Bad things always happen to me
- I deserve to be treated this way
- Nobody can be trusted
- All _____ are _____
Their belief system has the same structure as yours.
If the following sounds like a deeply uncomfortable space to settle into, that’s ok, we all start somewhere.
Listening without judgement requires leaning into discomfort.
Imagine, for example, listening to a 14 year old tell her story about the strict household she lives in, the extreme level of invalidation she receives daily and the starvation and punishment she puts herself through. Now picture how you feel when she tells you she deserves to starve and the world is better off without her.
Your tension is immediate.
You want to reassure her she’s worthy of love, she’s wrong about how talentless she is, she’s a beautiful person who deserves parents who love her and friends who don’t bully her, she shouldn’t feel ashamed of herself.
See how adversity has reinforced your beliefs?
After a lifetime of reinforcing / transforming / creating the belief system which led you to your current lifestyle AND helped you survive up ‘til this point, you’re highly adept at explaining events in a sometimes empowering way. Struggle, difficulty and challenge have so commonly lit up the neural linguistic network attached to the word ‘deserve’ that they’ve created an information superhighway enabling you to jump to ingrained, often repeated conclusions about yourself. These explanations reinforce the results in your life.
- It’s my job to make sure they know they’re supported
- I can’t just let people suffer
- I help those in need – nobody should live in shame
- They need to know their family and friends are wrong (whose need is this really?)
- All _____ deserve _____
If you’re not careful about how you carry all these beliefs of yours, you’ll very likely refute and shut down your companion without even noticing.
If you really want to develop non-judgement, try to make sense of the beliefs you hold beneath the behaviour of whylighting or problem solving or advice giving or rescuing or whatever empathic blocks get in the way of simply accepting and validating people where they are.
- Side note = do you want to know how I responded to people’s denial of my emotions and invalidation of my guilt and shame? I pretended to agree with them. After they told me I had nothing to feel guilty about, I sensed their distress and fell immediately into trauma response – looking after their implicit needs by making myself seem like I felt better.
Why should you allow disempowered beliefs to remain unchallenged?
As people in non-judgement it is not up to us to change beliefs. That’s for therapists, hypnotists, mentors, shamans, holistic healers and everybody else with the training, culture and also the culpability to responsibly help people change.
Often times your own desire to ‘help’ someone will reveal to you the noise preventing true listening to what they are going through. In a somewhat ironic twist of human design the better you can let go of your intention to help people, the better off others are for it.
Uncover and embrace your true intention, denial only makes it worse.
Whylighting happens because we haven’t noticed our own triggers. The map we’ve developed of our counterpart’s internal reality is missing a critical part of the territory (the ‘heart’ of their story). As you can read about right here, this missing information often correlates to a gap in the map we have of ourselves.
So find your intention behind asking why.
To illustrate this please excuse me as I lay on the anatomy table and slice my own learnings open for your benefit. Notice how each leads to the next.
- I used to ask why because I wanted to ‘understand the situation’.
- I wanted to understand the situation because I wanted to see where I could ‘help them notice options’.
- I wanted to help them notice options because I wanted to ‘help them overcome obstacles’.
- I wanted to help them overcome obstacles because I felt a compelling need to help people.
- I felt a compelling need to help people because it’s just who I am, always been that way.
- It’s just who I am, always been that way because I couldn’t help my parents when I was a child, an unmet need that still triggers a ‘caregiver’ archetype in me today.
- Side note = please observe how at any of the numbered points above I could have gotten off the train of thought and stopped seeking to understand. I chose to stay on that train instead, to follow it down beyond each stage to the next until I uncovered a core narrative implanted in my childhood. Attending to this narrative is a continuous process of ‘doing the work’.
How do you guess that went down for people I tried to help, driven by this unmet and unconscious need to feel like I’ve helped my parents?
Now that I’ve had so much experience applying and reflecting upon non-judgement, I’m much better at three things;
- Holding space for people without judgement
- Noticing when judgement has slipped in and letting go of it
- Making up for it after the fact and repairing connection
I needed to integrate and accept my intentions.
I couldn’t have the capacity to listen to my close friend talk about her horrible relationship – until I integrated the feelings triggered when people share their troubles.
Notice use of present tense. Those feelings still come up.
I can label the feelings, trace them very far back and I know what they mean to me.
If the purpose of your asking ‘why’ isn’t clear to you, look for the gap.
I’m not suggesting that every motivation of every microscopic utterance should be traced back to childhood trauma! How exhausting.
I am suggesting it’s your responsibility to notice and take ownership for understanding your motivations, assumptions and belief systems so you can provide better support for others, become a better person in general and live a life more aligned with your values.
Knowing yourself takes listening.
When you can hold awareness for your own emotional beliefs being triggered, you will then be able to hold awareness for other people’s.
This isn’t some yogi jedi thing. It doesn’t take a deck of tarot cards. It’s literally the way your brain is wired to read into behaviour.
We have these things called mirror neurons and they reveal how the ability to make sense of, copy and reflect others is a deeply neurological, basic function baked into our biology.
Watch as my neuroscience hero Dan J Seigel describes this in plain english.
- Side note, here’s my YouTube playlist for growing courage.
Seek to understand yourself first.
It starts with how you explain events personally in your own life, the identity you tell yourself is important and ‘you’ and loads of other things beyond the scope of this article (I’ll get to it though, so join my mailing list to keep up to date!).
Any time you sense you’ve gone off-road while offering non-judgement to someone, have a look inward however works for you and try to practice leaning into your own discomfort.
Here are some reflective examples to get your creativity flowing.
Questions for reflecting on your own whylighting.
- What was my underlying intention for asking why?
- What emotional dysregulation were they going through that I needed to address first?
- What simple reframe could I have used rather than asking the question ‘why’?
- What feelings and sensations came up for me physically right before I asked ‘why’?
- In the absolute absence of feelings and sensations, how deep is my understanding of rationalisation as a psychological defense?
- How do I want to approach causality when I’m supporting people in the future?
- What professional supervision opportunities do I have to really explore this in more detail?
- How do I reach out and start a convo with Said to have a deep and meaningful? (click here! 🤪)
Find alternatives to gather information.
Asking why is short and simple, for those of you who are attached to the power of it (I’m one of you! I get it.), try create your own alternative phrasings to further explore situations. As you do so remember this, we’re trying to remove blame and accusation, while also encouraging critical thinking.
I highly suggest you create your own ones. Hopefully you find these helpful to get your creativity flowing.
Alternatives to asking why – sentence stems.
- What makes you say xyz?
- I’m curious what led to xyz happening.
- I’d like to hear what thoughts you’ve had about xyz.
- It sounds like there’s maybe a sense of blame regarding xyz, where does that come from?
- You mentioned earlier how xyz and implied it’s your fault, help me understand this a bit better?
Of course, these are all only as powerful as the connection within which they’re delivered. For this reason, it’s ALWAYS IMPORTANT TO VALIDATE.
Validating alternatives to why – sentence stems.
- It sounds like anybody would feel that way, what makes you say xyz?
- I can hardly imagine what it’s been like for you, what led to xyz happening?
- It seems like you’ve been feeling so desperate. I’d like to hear what thoughts have you had about xyz.
- I imagine everything would be so tough as it is, let alone with the deep sense of blame on top of it all, where does that sense of blame for xyz come from?
- Given what you’ve been through, many people in your situation actually turn blame inwards as well, it’s a natural response to a very painful situation. Help me understand what that blame has been like to live with?
Can you see the validation at play here? It’s a big topic that deserves a huge post of it’s own so, once again, join my email list and I’ll let you know when I get to it!
Ways to find somatic and sensory information – sentence stems.
- It seems you’ve really struggled with xyz, I’m curious what that struggle has looked like today.
- I can hear [the feeling] behind zyx, how does it show up right now in your body?
- I can see what an intense challenge it’s been trying to understand how they could xyz to you, tell me how it’s impacted your day to day life this week.
- It sounds like you’ve been through such a brutal time, between xyz and abc. I’d like to ask how you’re doing right now, whether there’s anxiety there.. or maybe numbness even…?
- Given how difficult it’s been to come to terms with the betrayal, what kind of feelings have been coming up for you the past few hours?
These sentence stems represent the distilled wisdom of a thousand jedi masters, so be careful!
I kid, they’re stuff I came up with on the fly just now but I really, really want to impress upon you the importance of EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING. If you have any respect for your clients, your loved ones, your help seekers, whoever it is you ask why to, then please write your own sentence stems.
For the love of god it will change the entire game if you give it your best shot, spend even as little as five minutes a day editing and thinking critically.
To help you I’ve shared my own story of how in my early days as a suicide prevention worker I created a Sentence Stem Workshop to develop my practice and continuously reinforce a growth mindset.
Lowkey I also hope you do this and take action to refine your thinking because it means there will be more people out there advocating for courage, nuance and sophistication which it’s absolutely my agenda to spread.
Conclusion
Whylighting is super natural.
Not supernatural, unfortunately, but super duper natural and normal and standard and common.
It’s something I picked up from my parents and my loved ones picked it up from theirs. Because feelings are icky.
But that’s where the treasure is! In the feelings…
If you want to develop your emotional intuition and help people heal their way through invisible traumas, you’re absolutely in the right place and reading the right thing. I’m obsessed with this topic so have a look around the blog and please do let me know what what else you’d like to see, leave a comment below!
Holding space for others will require you hold space for yourself, it’s a discomforting journey and that’s what I’m here for, to make it easier for you. To give you encouragement, support, maybe a bit of tough love now and then and to use the word ‘and’ too many times in one sentence.
THANK YOU for reading this. My goodness it might be the biggest one on this website yet. I’d LOVE to hear your feedback.
I have a roadmap of what’s coming if you want to check it out, updated regularly-ish. I also publish weekly notes on courage building via email, they’re pretty personal sometimes, and pretty informative other times. Sign up and I will love you forever. You know, appropriately.
Now, before I go I promised a follow up about that story. The person who I knew could fit the glass slipper in my mind but… Needed to learn that for herself.
Relationship Update
My friend who used to be balls-to-the-wall suicidal-level-obsessed with a guy she was trauma bonded to… The whylighting herself, the drama cycles, the secrets they were keeping, the whole situation was an absolute dumpster fire of trauma responses.
Heard of Stellar Collision? It was basically that playing out emotionally.
When I say I put my agenda aside, I mean it. I was real about how I felt about her, from before we were even living together I was upfront about how she made me feel.
I put that aside. Helped her process her trauma, make sense of her pain and attachment, and even helped her make her wounded relationship work, offering the strategies she didn’t have the clarity of vision to come up with.
Why would I do that, because I have a martyr complex? Because I saw myself as someone who didn’t deserve the life he wanted? No. It wasn’t some self serving fantasy of a noble sacrifice, it was a self serving reality of a basic principle: life is better when lived through values.
I want Marissa to win, it’s that simple.
By balancing my energy between her needs and my own, constantly looking after both of us, she eventually began to do the same. We have created a positive feedback loop where we both nourish one another to the point of overflow, this light then spills out of our relationship into our friends, family, colleagues and everyone we bump into.
I call this generating reciprocity and it’s the result of doing all the ‘hard work’ I keep alluding to up above. If you’d really like to see how it’s going now, check out my life update from 2022.
TL;DR
Asking why of ourselves (or others) does more harm than good when emotions are flying. Dysregulated emotions along with a fixation on causality actually helps to deepen emotional wounding and even risk retraumatisation.
If you want to learn more, read the damn article!