‘If only I knew why I am doing this, everything would be different!’ people often tell me.
And it makes total sense, looking for the cause of a habit or unhelpful automated response in order to fix it, but it is also a HUGE misunderstanding.
Knowing why you smoke, or drink, or get angry, or why you feel ashamed or shy or depressed or frustrated or anxious or lost on a daily basis, doesn’t magically solve the problem.
You don’t just change by intellectual understanding.
It’s not like finding the hole in a flat tire.
Real, profound, lasting change requires a shift in consciousness rather than the acquisition of more knowledge.
Having the answer is not really the answer -although it most certainly can be helpful, as a starting point.
I guess this might not sound like a great ad for coaching (if you think coaching is about getting answers), but it actually is.
Because it’s when we stop jumping from answer to answer, from knowing to knowing, from book to book, it’s when we quit searching for ‘Why?!’ all the time, that we finally relax.
Being okay with not knowing is a super power.
It creates a wonderful lightness that will steadily seep into everything you do.
Now to be very clear: there’s nothing wrong with asking questions (I’ve been doing it my whole life and still do), as long as we don’t wait for the answers to finally start living.
Living a conscious, liberated life changes tough questions into interesting riddles.
You might solve them, or you might not, but your wellbeing no longer depends on it.
And THAT might just be the ultimate answer.