by Lisa Kentgen
Karen’s shame and embarrassment lessened and she sought out trusted colleagues to help her explore the lessons to be gained from this experience. This process, while difficult at times, validated her perception that her ideas for the company were solid and had real potential. Karen was surprised and moved by how highly her colleagues regarded her. In the process of reaching out to them, she got multiple offers to join other companies. Karen took time to assess whether to stay in the tech start-up arena, given the intensity of the work and the long hours. She considered the conditions under which she would join another company or start her own.
Ultimately, she decided to start another company with her partner from the prior start-up. They added a third partner who was skilled at presenting big picture ideas to potential investors. They used the contacts they made in the first start-up, including investors who liked the initial idea but, for various reasons, were not ready to commit resources. Karen and her partners honed their message to several audiences early in the process in order to test interest in their product, which was directly related to the product developed by the defunct company. The new venture secured generous funding prior to a heavy investment of time and effort, a condition Karen had decided was essential in order to move forward with her own company.
Moving through depression and navigating a painful experience, Karen came out of it stronger and wiser. The demise of her initial start-up did not define her. She learned to differentiate unhelpful self-doubt from helpful self-questioning, the latter offering the real lessons. With time she got distance from the painful experience by asking relevant questions, pausing and reflecting, and then answering. For example, every time she told a story about her incompetence, she directly asked herself, “Is this really true?” She could now more clearly investigate past mistakes or gaps in knowledge without building a case against herself. Karen came to a more factually accurate and intuitively resonant understanding of what happened. She then used this information to forge the best path forward. This time around she was clearer, more seasoned, and better able to engage investors to support the new company.
Karen enjoyed the financial windfall from the sale of her company and she felt rewarded by the recognition and doors now open to her. Still, her greatest enjoyment comes from her belief in herself, and her knowledge that she has the capacity to be OK, more than OK, no matter what the outcome of her actions and endeavors. She was at a difficult crossroads and found in it an opportunity to discover new ways to practice embodying her values. Karen remembers her first start-up with tenderness and appreciation. She views that chapter in her life as having had provided her the seeds of growth that bore fruit three years later.
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An intentional practice in asking helpful questions at the right time helps you become a clearer, deeper thinker. Asking these questions in the spirit of open inquiry enables you to more comfortably take risks that are in line with your aspirations.
Chapter 8
The Empty Search for the
Whys of Discomfort
Obsessed by a fairy tale, we spend our lives searching for a magic
door and a lost kingdom of peace.
Eugene O’Neill
Searching for reasons, for the why of our discomfort and conflict, is one of the single biggest misallocations of human effort. Searching for causality is a problematic leap that our brains often make. Correlative associations are the best we can accurately arrive at in most situations. Uncertainty is inherent in life and things happen which are often outside of our control. Yet most of us spend a tremendous amount of mental and emotional energy searching for clear causes that are inherently elusive and usually nonexistent.
Searching for causes that can’t be known gives external circumstances too much power over your well-being.
Why Why is Often Not the Best Question
When used sparingly, consciously, and in a context where the question can deepen thought, why is a useful question. But the habits of the mind that search for reasons that cannot be known as a means of trying to get control over uncertainty is an empty sort of reflection.
Curiously, you are more motivated to pursue theories of why when an experience is unpleasant or you would like it to be other than it is. You are less likely to search for the whys when things are going smoothly and you are at ease. When things are going as you’d like, do you wonder why they are going well? Most of us do not. If searching for causality was driven by rationality, and the pursuit of why was helpful, it would be more productive to create theories of why around life situations that are going well or internal states that you want to perpetuate.
When you are uncertain, upset, or uncomfortable, your ability to observe what is happening is challenged. You are naturally motivated to end discomfort and pain so your mind has a tendency to turn away from the current experience. When this happens, you can jump off the what is happening to the imagined why of it. The switch to a not-helpful pursuit of why happens so quickly that the strategy of turning away from direct observation is not even noticed. The brain mixes up helpful reflection with unhelpful storytelling which impedes your ability to see things as they are. And, importantly, this causes you more discomfort and makes it difficult to move on. The brain’s attempts to end discomfort keeps it alive!
Here is an example. Imagine being out of work and waiting to hear whether you get a second interview for a new job. The first interview went well and you are hopeful that you will be called in for the next round of interviews. You are told by human resources that they will contact applicants within a week or two. To remain calm and enjoy your week, you try not to think too much about it. On the morning of day seven, when you still haven’t heard, your discomfort increases. Though you try not to dwell on it, little whys manage to encroach on your awareness. “Many people are on vacation this month.” “This if often how it goes, these things always take longer.” Soon the front line innocuous whys give way to more nervous-making whys as the uncertainty drags on. “The third person I interviewed with looked preoccupied. I wonder if her mind was already set on someone else.” “Oh no, I bet they looked at my college grades (from over a decade ago) and saw the “C” I got in biology sophomore year! I knew that was going to be held against me.” Or, “I shouldn’t have so readily talked about my children. They might think I’m not really interested in my career.”
Exercise: Shift from Why to What
Think of a time when you thought a lot about a situation and you conjured up stories, or whys. It might be helpful to choose a situation where you were disappointed or upset at the outcome and it was difficult to let go. For example, you didn’t get an opportunity that you wanted or someone you cared about didn’t return your feelings in the same way. Write one such situation down. It might help to choose one circumstance that you remember clearly but is not painfully present for you right now. Then write attributions or causes that sound like something you may have come up with at the time. Now, reflect upon the same incident with the question “What was happening?”, staying only on what could be known. (e.g., “My confidence took a real hit.” or “I just couldn’t understand it.”)
How can you move from unhelpful thinking to fruitful reflection? First comes Awareness. Learn to notice the way your mind tells stories as it is happening. Easier said than done. These kinds of stories are in the form of thinking about— thinking, thinking, thinking. Once you recognize that you are scanning and searching for causes that cannot be known, you are in a position to reflect differently, in a way that will become helpful to you in these situations. This is a great place to be, but it is not a comfortable place. At these moments, it might not be helpful to give yourself a directive like, “just sit with it.” If it were easy to sit with it, you wouldn’t be so uncomfortable in the first place.
One way I create space for myself in moments of discomfort is to remind myself how little control I have over most things. When I initially say this to clients they often look
at me strangely. Once I, myself, recognized how frequently my mind searched for ways to grasp control over what I had no control over, I could finally begin to lay down my burden. What a relief!
Your brain doesn’t, deep down, believe that your made-up stories are reality and that is one reason why thoughts keep cycling around and around. Once you recognize how little control you have over most things in life, you are better able to assume responsibility for the often neglected areas where you really do have control. This is incredibly liberating. The very act of direct reflection on what can be known is doing just that: shaping your thoughts and, ultimately, your life.
Letting go of all attempts to exert mind-control over what can’t be controlled, you are now skilled at quieting your mind from chasing its tail. You become more curious about what can be known and bring clear-eyed and helpful reflection to it.
Focus Your Reflection on What Can Be Known
For wise investigation, a good place to start is to notice and verbalize only what can be known right now. “I am hopeful and excited.” “Excitement is tipping over into doubt!” “She didn’t respond in the way I had hoped.” “I feel gratitude.” “I feel rejected.” “I am taking a risk with these unknowns.”
Paradoxically, stating the overlooked obvious is often the most challenging.
Naming what is happening right now can bring comfort because you are speaking a truth that you do know. You don’t have to search for deeper reasons. “Can I make room for this pain without forcing myself to stay here?” “Can I recognize that I feel overly responsible for others without needing to take action on it, which is my habit?” “What, if anything, can help me get out of this rabbit hole of self-doubt?” These kinds of questions allow for a middle ground between running from the experience and harsh directives to stick it out, neither of which are helpful. Your ability to skillfully reflect is aided by gentle and persistent encouragement to find ways to be more at ease with what is happening right now.
With practice and skillful reflection, discomfort with uncertainty is lessened because it is not layered with your struggle against it and attempts to avoid it. Trusting that you will be OK, no matter what, nurtures a willingness to stay engaged with what is happening without jumping to theories of why—theories you probably don’t actually believe.
It is not realistic to set a goal of stopping the unhelpful pursuit of why. You cannot stop your brain from doing what it does automatically. Instead, try to notice when you have moved away from the experience and are now searching for causes. Notice the first moment when the thought arises (e.g., “If I were more x, y, z he would have asked me out on another date.”) Can you bring yourself back at these times, not for the purpose of submerging yourself in bad feelings, but to gain trust in your ability to create space for all experience? (e.g., “We seemed to get on so well and then he stopped calling. That is so discouraging.”) The shift from storytelling to skillful reflection has the potential to free you from personalizing painful experiences.
When you slow down and first begin noticing what your mind does with discomfort, you can become impatient that there is nothing to be done about the experience. A common feeling or response is something like, “OK, I’m not jumping off to distraction (or self-repercussion or whatever). Now what?!” Continue to notice and see what happens, and also, bring a spirit of gentleness and compassion to the experience. When I first offer this suggestion to clients I sometimes get puzzled looks or a response akin to, “Is that the best thing you have to offer me?” When clients are struggling, therapists too can be tempted to jump in with interpretations that are a version of a theory of why, which ultimately is not helpful.
Keep pausing and noticing. Notice when the discomfort is less acute. Notice when you feel something other than discomfort. Notice what happens when you catch yourself asking why. Notice what happens when you bring yourself back to what is happening now. You might ask yourself, “Is there something that might help me in this moment?” Place your awareness on the fruits of this practice, even if they don’t initially seem bountiful. This helps you gradually build your capacity to pause before automatically creating unsubstantiated stories; laying the groundwork for more helpful, direct reflection.
With time these very moments that are uncomfortable or painful become opportunities to transform your life. These experiences are your best teachers. This is not cliché. Learning how to allow what is happening without making up why stories helps you move through the discomfort better because you are not adding struggle to what is already challenging. This initially seems counterintuitive—just like getting a bad cramp in your foot and being told to walk on it. Actively accepting when why can’t be known, you become much clearer about the what of your experience. This is the path to actually discovering more about the whys.
By staying on your direct experience of what can be known, there is no need to look for some deeper cause of your experience. The path to deeper exploration is direct inquiry of what is before you in the present moment.
Understanding Why Comes From Reflecting on the What
Jordan walked into my office visibly upset at how angry he had gotten at his five-year-old son, Thomas, during one of his son’s meltdowns. After several unsuccessful attempts to defuse his son’s escalating upset, he grabbed Thomas roughly by the wrist and brought him to his room for a time-out. Jordan was still shaken the following day when I saw him. He felt it was important to understand more about what happened that led to this degree of anger.
Jordan began to explore familiar themes of struggle with which he was very familiar. He spoke of his differences with his wife in parenting styles and how he didn’t always feel aligned with her. He spoke about his relationship with his father, and how his father’s judgmental style he now, at times, saw in himself. While these explorations were valid, they were primarily intellectual and were not accessing the visceral experience that had left Jordan shaken. As he continued, his felt experience with Thomas was becoming dimmed in the exploration of it now. If we continued down this path, an opportunity of gaining deeper understanding would be missed.
I asked Jordan if he thought it might be helpful to take a few minutes in hypnosis (a way of pausing) and invite yesterday’s experience with Thomas here now. He was familiar with working with me in hypnosis to deepen experience and he readily agreed. I invited Jordan to revisit the experience of Thomas’s temper tantrum. I asked him to talk to me about what he was experiencing while in this state.
Jordan began recounting his impatience with Thomas. While recalling it in the room with me, there still were no palpable physical or emotional correlates to the anger that Jordan believed left him shaken. There was no evidence in the present moment that he had had a level of anger that was experienced as out of control, or that was out of the ordinary for a parent who was exhausted from being tested. It could have been that the anger was so unacceptable that Jordan was now cut off from it. But my experience of him up until now was that he had the ability to access difficult emotions, including anger.
Because something clearly was upsetting Jordan, and anger was not present experientially in the room earlier or in trance now, I invited him to explore the physical sensations happening in his body right then. He quickly noticed a tingling in his neck. I asked if we could move away from the exploration of anger, letting him know we would return later if it was helpful. I asked him to stay with the experience of the tingling which was physical and immediate. Often visceral experiences are a guide, leading to images, memories, and important insights.
No images arose for Jordan around the tingling so I asked him if he could simply stay here and welcome whatever arose next. I asked that we keep hanging out with how the experience unfolded without asking anything more of it. This gave Jordan permission to stay in this relaxed state without needing to intellectually understand what was happening. Spending time in this open way, for as little as a minute or less, without trying to think his way out of
an uncomfortable state, can lead to a deeper understanding. This was an invitation to expend no effort—and allow the physical sensations to lead the way.
The tingling in Jordan’s neck gave way to a pervasive and powerful physical experience of being filled up. This sensation spread from the center of his chest out across and down into his stomach. Now Jordan welled up with tears and identified the physical sensation as being love, love for his son. He experienced this degree of love as overwhelming and wondered out loud whether he had ever loved like this before. Alongside this powerful experience of love, Jordan also had an awareness of tremendous fear of losing Thomas. He quietly cried as he stayed present to this newfound awareness of how vulnerable he felt in relation to his son and to this experience of deep love. He had an emotional awareness that if he lost his son his life would never be the same.
Jordan had never felt this vulnerable before. His son’s out of control behavior, and Jordan’s inability to soothe Thomas or set helpful limits with him, led to Jordan’s awareness of how little control he had over others, including his son. By staying with the what (and here the whats were physical sensations), rather than the why, Jordan felt a sense that led to a profound awareness of his core vulnerability around deeply loving another person.
This vulnerability around deep love is the truth for all of us if we allow our hearts to open fully. The more we love, the more there is to lose. Allowing this vulnerability is the only way to be authentic and live fully. Jordan’s experience of powerful vulnerability in the face of love, not his anger, was what had shaken him. This insight came to him when he paused and stepped away from thinking about what happened; when he stopped looking for the whys of his experience.