Why?

We ask ourselves this question so often. Also in the family context. Why does my child act the way he does? Why do I get so angry? Why is my partner not friendly to me? Why do we have financial problems? Why do I want a different everyday life? Why is everything so stressful?

Family life can challenge us to the hilt. Let's not forget that we have chosen a mammoth task:

We want to build a life together with people we see every day, whose quirks we know and have to endure, whose habits clash with ours, whose ideas and desires have to somehow be squeezed into a 24-hour day with ours.

With every new person in the family, a completely new world comes into the existing one. And that for years.

How on earth are we going to do this?

And why is everything always so difficult?

The problem with why

From several points of view, why is a word full of tricks and stumbling blocks. On the one hand, there is a certain hopelessness. The feeling arises that things have to be the way they are and that it's more about enduring than about enjoying.

Mistrust can arise. “Why is this happening to me?” we ask life and feel powerless and abandoned. The why may keep us in a loop with no prospect of solutions.

Behind our why lies our longing to avoid pain, but the opposite happens: we continue to fuel the pain and our emotional body is happy to receive further food to consolidate the circumstances that hurt us.

So the root of the question of why does not produce the fruits that we actually want in our family life. How can things get moving? Is there a way to get off the beaten path to bring what we want to see into our closest relationships and our everyday lives?

The answer is: yes! We can even keep our beloved tool of asking questions. It's all about changing the question to get different results.

Here's a new way to ask, "What's the point?"

The magic word

Why is my child being so stubborn, what does he want to achieve? Why should I be offended and withdraw from my partner, avoid conflicts, avoid being fully present when meeting my children? Why are my children torpedoing joint activities?

The why asks the question about the goal of human actions. Accordingly, there is always something that drives us internally. We are not guided by reasons, but by goals. A goal to be achieved brings us into action, into action.

If we experience that our actions are moving us closer to our goal, whether consciously or unconsciously, we will repeat that action and perhaps even increase our efforts toward it. Patterns within the family constellation become hardened and can make life difficult for us.

By clarifying our why, an exciting dynamic arises: we can become curious about going into the process together. Maybe everything doesn't have to stay the way it is?

We can learn to listen to and understand each other better. The question of guilt, which has kept us passive in why, is transformed into a certain curiosity about our own inner world and that of others. Family life can become a field of research, a joint expedition, a space full of goodwill. Because one thing is clear:

The human “What for?” is always aimed at giving the individual value, strengthening their self-image and making them feel loved and accepted. When we get to know each other by seeing and perceiving this deep desire in the other person, we are much more open and look more at the need than at the action. This is how we can find ourselves in the midst of everyday chaos and create a whole new connection.

Sure, of course. This is all a fine theory. How is this supposed to work practically? More on this in the second part of this article !

If you would like to find out more about the topics of family, pregnancy, mindfulness, nutrition or sustainability, take a look here .