What Did I Do to Allow This to Happen?

“What did I do to allow this to happen,” is one of the oldest questions I know.

It’s about taking ownership in every area of our life and figuring out the causes we put into effect to continually get results we don’t want (except for certain things that are never on us, like abuse, systemic violence and oppression, or the like).

It’s one of the first things I learned to ask when I began the work of uncovering who I was here to be and what I really wanted.

I’ve found myself pondering this a lot over the last week. How do I keep recreating different versions of the same thing in my life, relationships, and work? How can I keep rapidly leveling up yet still haven’t broken free of these old patterns and outcomes? Why do the things I want still feel impossible despite becoming more of the person I need to be to have them?

These are challenging questions to ask because we often resist feeling blame.

But it’s not about blame at all.

It’s about gathering insight and information to help ourselves learn new beliefs and ways of being while letting go of what no longer serves us or supports what we want.

This question has never led me astray. Not a decade ago, and certainly not this week. This week it’s brought in powerful new awarenesses around how I’m still locked into old subconscious strategies or where I’m not setting clear enough boundaries (let alone honoring them immediately). Where I’m not fully aligned or fully expressed in ways that create gaps for the wrong things to come in or manifest around me.

It’s heavy and freeing and wildly uncomfortable to ask these questions and do this level of work. To sit in the raw truth of what we’re doing and what needs to shift for us to create what we desire.

But it always worth it.