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Healing Journey: Rethinking the Root Cause of Your Current Relationship Problems
One thing we love doing is pinpointing the root of all our problems. Throughout my training as a therapist, I’ve learned from other wonderful therapists that the root cause of all problems doesn’t have to be childhood trauma or inner child wounds. We often assume that the reason we’re stuck with toxic partners is because we were raised in a household where our needs were not met, or we were traumatized when we were young, and we conclude that is the root cause of our problems.
I am not invalidating the possibility that those could actually be the real root causes shaping our current relationship dynamics, but I am saying that those conclusions often exclude the ‘outliers’. Let’s consider outliers as those people who never experienced a traumatic childhood but still found themselves in toxic relationships. I often interact with clients who tell me that they were raised in wonderful households with supportive parents, yet they still attracted toxic relationships.
So, what often happens is that when you engage in therapy or address your current problems by delving into your past experiences, you might inadvertently be addressing a problem that isn’t the root cause of your current issues. I love using the analogy of a house with a foul stench to explain why we might be focusing on the wrong root cause, and that’s why we get stuck in our healing journey.
Analogy: Imagine your house has a foul stench, and you’re trying to figure out the source of the stench. So, instead of starting from the smell then narrow it to the source, you conclude that the source (root cause) is the fridge. You start cleaning up and emptying your fridge which is a tedious process and after all that the foul stench remains. You keep doing the same thing over and over, which we normally call spinning around the wrong ‘probable’ root cause. You cannot see beyond the fridge as the source of the smell because you’ve been convinced by experts (who don’t even know about your house) that it has to be that. You end up doing all this and the source of that foul stench all along was the trash under your chair which your forgot to remove some time back.
That’s how we get stuck investigating the wrong problem, and we may even get stuck in our healing journey. The best approach would be to investigate from the smell (what we can perceive) without jumping to any conclusions, just like how a hunting dog sniffs its way to the source of a certain scent.
If there’s one thing you can take from this, it is not to jump to conclusions about the root cause of your problems. Instead, investigate your problems by starting where you are, not from a preconceived source. The root cause can be multifaceted. Sometimes, we attract toxic relationships due to various factors, including practical considerations like being in the ‘wrong neighborhood,’ the law of large numbers, self-esteem, cultural factors, beliefs, and more.
The Problem with Association
When we view everything happening in our present life through the lens of the inner child or trauma, we may inadvertently create more problems because, as I mentioned in a previous article, the mind tends to link a current problem to something unrelated. You might conclude that you can’t do something because of a past experience, but more often than not, it’s an incorrect conclusion. This conclusion doesn’t stem from your authentic self but rather from your false identity, which is shaped by an accumulation of all your life experiences. One key aspect of this false identity is that it consistently seeks self-preservation.
Conclusion
In conclusion, not all the root causes of your relationship problems are childhood trauma or inner child wounds. It can be something else, and the best place to start is to avoid jumping to conclusions or attempting to make associations with incorrect conclusions. The more you do that, the deeper the hole you dig in your life.
The most effective kind of therapy is one that begins by investigating where you are, not by assuming where the problem comes from. It’s like following the trail of a foul stench by prematurely concluding that the source of the smell is the fridge and getting stuck there.
Don’t become fixated on why you found yourself in a toxic relationship; sometimes it’s a matter of being unlucky. Instead of feeling like an outlier, focus on the present, on what you can do, and refrain from trying to force a conclusion to ‘fit in.’
Concentrate on the current feelings of discomfort and work on processing them without creating additional problems in your life by aligning with everyone else’s conclusions about the source of your problems. We all have different life experiences, and our root causes vary. You are the expert of your own life, seeking help so that someone else can help you identify your own biases and intervene, not to provide you with a ready-made conclusion. Your mind is both the source of your problems and the key to resolving them; all the resources you need are deep within you.
Note from the Author
If you’re ready and you’d like my help with healing, finding peace in life and breaking free from these toxic patterns, then you can book a FREE BREAKTHROUGH CALL with me HERE. Happy healing 💙💙. Feel free to share and comment! Use this information with caution, it comes from my own thoughts & bias, experiences and research😊.
