How many of you have found yourselves in a situation where you are like I can’t believe I’m here again? Or how many times do I have to bump my head on the same roadblock in order to get past it? Some of us have even become super familiar with the phrase “I should have known better by now”… well why do we keep on repeating the same mistakes and stumbling over the same obstacles?!? Perhaps the answer could lie in not taking time out for self-reflection. Instead we are all ready for instant correction. But what if there is no quick fix, no easy solution. That is when we need to hit the reset button, pause a minute, take a deep breath and just sit in silence…….
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… And I mean for a while!
So often we don’t have a chance to reflect on why we made certain decisions or how we ended up in a certain predicament because we are too busy running on the hamster wheel, trying to quickly fix our most recent error. When we do this we’re not allowing ourselves to take a step back and look at the big picture or reflect on the whole of us. There’s an interesting exercise that is as simple as can be and it’s called a WHY exercise. In this exercise, all you were doing for yourself is asking the question of why until you get down to the bottom of the rabbit hole. This can be applied to simple issues or major life conflicts.
The WHY exercise can take a simple exercise and turn it into a great therapy session that you didn’t even know you needed. For example if you just received a setback start by asking why did this happen, follow that with a series of only saying why and see where it leads you. You may be very surprised where your road of why leads you! It is a very simple and direct path to answering questions that you yourself may not have been aware to ask, think or believe.
Trust me you may think this exercise can’t work, but try it out on the very basic question of something like what is your favorite color. Why? Uhhhhh, because I like the cool color….ummmm WHY, well I like the way it makes me feel. Okay, okay now we’re getting somewhere, WHY ? I feel vibrant and alive when I’m wearing it. Why? I feel like I am underneath the sky.? Why ? because the blue makes me feel like I am a part of something larger and I feel free underneath this large blue sky? Why?……. Get the picture..
Pretend you are a child on a mission with a one track mind searching for the ultimate answer.
The Why exercise works for everything trust me! Why do I work here? Why do I like this musician? Why did I make that bad decision? Why did I make that good one…. Etc.
This is a basic exercise that can help get to the bottom of some major or not so big issues or roadblocks in our lives and can aid in the ultimate battle and journey of understanding ourselves and how we relate to the Universe as a whole.
