What If You Don’t Actually Need To Figure It All Out?

“I just need to figure out why…”

Coaching clients often dive into our sessions with this phrase. 

Which makes sense given that our logical mind convinces us that if we could just figure out why something is happening or “what it means” we'll be able to relax.

The (unconscious) assumption is that figuring out why will settle us into a state of peace and contentment.

But have you noticed that often the more you try to figure out something sticky in your head, the more ensnared you get?

There's certainly a useful place for logically sorting through things. And yes, sometimes mentally getting to the root of why something happened can settle our minds a bit. 

But I'm guessing that actually happens far less than your mind has you believing it does.

These human brains love certainty. Certainty feels safe from a survival perspective, and "figuring things out" is one way our brain grasps after that certainty. 

So it takes some intentionality to pause, zoom out and ask:

“Is figuring out why this is happening the most useful way to use my focus and energy right now?”

I'd like to propose that there's a much more powerful inquiry you can explore when you're bonking against the upper limit of the mind's capacity to figure something out.

This is the shift from: “Why is this happening?" 

To: “What's happening right now?"

More specifically: “What's happening in my body right now?"

These minds will hook us into the same exact narrative loop a million times if we let our attention reflexively be drawn there again and again. 

The shift from Why? to What? disrupts those habitual mental loops so you can start to get curious about whether old familiar narratives are actually a) true and b) useful in your present moment reality.

Dropping beneath the surface level cognitive analysis and tuning into what’s happening in as close to objective reality as possible — felt through your senses, in your body — can help you connect to what feels most deeply true and important for you in this moment.

Maybe you'll even discover that you don’t actually need to know the answer to nearly as many “Why’s” as your mind has been trying to have you figure out.

What if the most deeply aligned, truer-for-you solutions make themselves more effortlessly and abundantly clear the more you get in the habit of dropping out of your head and into the felt sense of what you notice through your body and in the energy coursing through your being in any given moment?

Even in this very moment, right here, right now — what are you noticing?

Lots of Love,

Melissa

PS - If you’re curious about exploring these themes in a sweetly personalized way, be in touch about 1:1 coaching possibilities.