Letting Go of Why

Dear Self,

Letting go of why takes steadfast courage. As human beings, we are wired for understanding. We want to know why things happen. We want to understand and create patterns for people and situations. We want every experience to fit into a compartmentalized box. When these desires are not fulfilled, we often go on a wild goose chase for the why. Let me give you some examples of the goose chase.

Why did my mom and dad do that? Why did they say that to me? Why did this happen to me? Why didn’t I get the job when I worked way harder than him? Why do I have to go through this? Why is this happening to me? Why do they treat me like this after everything I have done for them? Why are they like this? Why am I like this? Why do I keep acting this way?

Can anyone relate? When hard things happen, our thinking mind searches for an answer to this why question, but oftentimes, the answer is not found in the why, but rather the how.

How can I heal from what mom and dad did? How can I let go of what they said to me? How can I heal from what happened to me? How can I let go of the pain from being denied the job? How can I best support myself as I go through this? How can I accept this is happening to me and work through it? How can I let go of my expectations? How can I love people when they are like this? How can I love myself? How can I keep loving myself?

I don’t know about you all, but the how voice does not come naturally for me, and when it does, that why voice rushes in like a wrecking ball. After years of agony and frustration, I realized trying to understand and searching for the why was protecting me from feeling. I am not feeling the pain of the situation if I am focused on reason-finding and problem-solving. I have gratitude for my thinking mind because it shielded me from emotional pain in many circumstances where emotions would have been overwhelming, however, perpetuating this pattern of rationalization limits our ability to heal, let go, and move forward. We cannot let go without acknowledging the pain, and to acknowledge the pain, we must get out of our thoughts and into our emotions.

Next time we start to question, why does my mom keep getting mad at me? We can try, it feels like I can’t do anything right to my mom sometimes. It hurts when she is constantly mad at me.

Or how about when we are out in public, and someone does something we perceive to be rather stupid. Instead of, why would he do that? I mean, why on God’s green earth would someone do something like that?? We could try, wow, that’s super frustrating he just did that. I do not understand. And then we let go. We carry on with the rest of our day instead of spending countless hours spiraling in our heads grappling with a why that remains mysterious.

It is okay to give yourself permission to stop trying to figure it out. You can give yourself permission to not understand. We don’t have to fully understand to live a meaningful life. There are some things in life we will never understand. And that is okay. When you are ready, it is okay to set down the endless thought spirals and anxiety loops. Let’s acknowledge gratitude for our protective thinking mind and make peace with not knowing the why. Let’s let go. Together.

xoxo,

Self