Knowing the Why Is Only Step Two on My Healing Journey

Six months ago, I told Jeremy Prajer that I was done digging for the why. Most of the most recent phase of my healing journey focused on understanding a fuller story of where I came from and how those pieces formed and informed the life I live today. There exists no thank you big enough to encompass how appreciative I am to have had partners in doing that work.

However, along my path towards wholeness, the bones for the why have been exposed. I know they’re not fully excavated, cleaned up, or even ready for a museum - those tasks take lifetimes, and I only have part of one left. So, to live it, I’ve got to stop making the dig the focus of my work and shift my attention to making the changes that steer me towards the life I want.

At the end of the day, changing your life requires changing how you show up for your life, and knowing the why isn’t enough by itself to lead to change. To change, you must do something different than how you’ve always done it. This change-making place tests my ability to sit and be uncomfortable on a daily - sometimes hourly - basis. The comfort of doing what I’ve always done and settling for what I’ve always had calls loudly and with the intensity of a soccer dad who will get kicked off the sidelines.

When you combine the draw of comfort with the fear of the unknown, that any of us can make steps forward - even the small ones we can’t see - becomes one of the daily things that amaze me.

Because we’re humans, growing doesn’t look like the graph of a positive linear equation. Growth encompasses stops and starts, double backs, and redos. None of these make for a clean graphical representation. Especially given that we’re constantly encountering people and situations that don’t go the way we’d expected (or hoped), which throws all kinds of noise into the graph.

In these moments, where we get stuck or backslide, the work of knowing the how and why surrounding how we got here, with these agreements, habits, and approaches, helps the change-making process. Our ability to robustly understand the how and why of our stories provides context. When we take a step back, that context often creates room for self-compassion and grace.

I was wrong. I ducked up. I know why. I look at my story and realize I responded with passive aggression because I felt unseen and resentful. I agreed to do things I didn’t have the energy to do. That sucks. I’ll apologize. I’ll recommit to the practice of saying no when I don’t have the spoons._

When I look at the above self-talk, I don’t see shame. I see a statement of reality. I see using my knowledge of my history to understand why I did what I did. I see acknowledgment that I’m unhappy with my behavior. I see a path forward that addresses the relationship and what I need to do moving forward to hopefully limit how many times I get to do this again in the future.

In the above example, knowing the how and why informed my response. Imagine, for a moment, that the example ended there. How often would I be back here again? Yeah, just stopping at the how and why doesn’t create opportunities to practice change.

How promising is it to know the why and then add the plan forward? Adding the commitment to apologize and say no more often clears the path to do things differently the next time.

Steps of Personal Change

1. I don’t like it here. I want something to be different in the future.

2. How and why did I get here? (aka Knowing the Why)

3. What do I want about here to be different?

4. What’s my part in each of those things?

5. What changes need to happen?

6. Start changing things. Mess up. Grant grace. Try again.

7. Repeat from Step 3 as needed (aka, all the dang time.)

Changing how we walk in the world takes effort. Way more effort than we realize because we often attempt to change patterns and habits we first developed as young children.

I don’t recommend doing this work alone. Our innate drive for self-preservation reduces our ability to see clearly or always provide the encouragement necessary for what is hard. It’s not a moral failing to need help.

If you’re somewhere in the process, in the early stages, or working through the cycles of steps 3, 4, and 5 and need a partner and a witness with training and an outside perspective, please drop me a line at kmurbach@secularshepherdess.life so we can set up a time to talk about Reclamation Coaching.

Travel Safely, -Kelli