Maybe we’ve been asking the wrong question.

I’ve been thinking...

What if we’ve got a bit too used to asking “What’s wrong with me?”

You know how it goes.

You forget something.

For goodness’ sake, my memory is terrible.

You’ve been meaning to do something for three days and somehow still haven’t done it.

Why can’t I just get my act together?

Something affects you more than you think it “should”.

Why do I let things get to me so much?

You can’t make a decision, your brain has apparently left the building, you’ve walked into a room and forgotten why you’re there...

Seriously, why am I like this? 😂

And I wonder...

What if that’s the wrong question?

Because we humans are actually pretty good at taking something we’ve done, struggled with or reacted to and turning it into a description of ourselves.

One minute you’ve forgotten to reply to a WhatsApp message and the next you’ve apparently produced a full character assessment.

Bit harsh. 😂

So that’s what I want to have a little rummage around in here.

Not to diagnose anything.

Not to give you another ten things to work on.

Just to wonder...

What if there’s more going on underneath the things we give ourselves a hard time about?

Fancy a little experiment first?

If you haven’t tried my What’s Behind Your Pattern? quiz yet, give it a go.

It’s only seven questions and there are no scores, personality types or dramatic announcements that you’re 82% emotionally complicated with a rising sign in Overthinking. 😂

It takes a few everyday situations and gets you curious about what might be sitting underneath some of your own patterns.

EXPLORE WHAT’S BEHIND YOUR PATTERN →      What’s Behind Your Pattern?

Already done it?

Excellent. Grab a cuppa. Let’s carry on. ☕️

This actually started with neurodivergence

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about neurodivergence lately.

About how differently our brains can work.

About the relief people sometimes feel when they finally understand something about themselves that they’ve spent years judging.

That moment of:

Ohhhh... THAT might explain a few things.

And somewhere amongst all of that, another thought wandered in.

How much of what we struggle with is the actual difficulty... and how much is the story we’ve built around it?

Because understanding neurodivergence can be a massive lightbulb moment.

Something you thought was a personal failing might suddenly make a lot more sense when you understand how your brain works.

But then my brain wandered off down another little path, as it does. 😂

I started wondering whether this goes much wider than neurodivergence.

Because whether you’re diagnosed, self-identify, wondering if you might be neurodivergent, pretty sure you’re not, or have absolutely no interest in putting yourself in any particular box...

you’re still an individual human being trying to navigate life with the particular brain, body, experiences and personality you happen to have.

And none of us gets an instruction manual.

Bit of an oversight, really.

We’re all different

Two autistic people aren’t the same.

Two people with ADHD aren’t the same.

Two anxious people aren’t the same.

And two people with no diagnosis whatsoever aren’t going to wander through life reacting to everything in exactly the same way either.

We all have things that come easily and things that seem to require seventeen times more effort than they apparently should.

Things that energise us.

Things that drain us.

Things other people struggle with that we find easy.

And things that leave us looking at someone else thinking:

How are you just... DOING that?! 😂

Being neurotypical doesn’t come with the Easy Life Expansion Pack.

We all have challenges.

Different brains, personalities, experiences, relationships, environments, stresses, strengths, sensitivities, habits...

Basically, we’re all our own slightly complicated recipe.

And I wonder whether life might feel a little different if we became more interested in our own version of being human rather than constantly comparing it with somebody else’s.

What works for me?

What drains me?

What comes naturally?

What takes more effort?

What genuinely causes me problems?

What have I learned to do along the way?

And what have I decided I should be able to do simply because somebody else can?

I wonder...

There’s that little phrase.

Sometimes the thing that tips you over isn’t really THE thing

You’ve had one of those days.

Didn’t sleep brilliantly.

You’ve answered messages, dealt with work, made decisions, sorted something out for somebody else, sat in traffic and had something niggling away in the back of your mind all day.

But you’re fine.

Fine.

FINE.

Then you get home and discover you’ve bought the wrong bin bags.

And suddenly...

THE BIN BAGS ARE UNACCEPTABLE.

😂

Now you’re standing in the kitchen disproportionately annoyed by something whose entire purpose in life is to hold rubbish.

And that's when the internal commentary starts.

Oh, get a grip. They’re bin bags.

But...

I wonder if the bin bags are innocent?

Maybe they’ve just wandered into the final five minutes of a day where you had absolutely nothing left in the tank.

Maybe you’re tired.

Maybe you’re overloaded.

Maybe you’ve spent all day holding it together.

Maybe something else is bothering you.

Maybe it’s a mixture of things.

The bin bags just happened to draw the short straw.

Suddenly:

“Why am I being ridiculous?”

can become:

“I wonder why THAT was the thing that tipped me over?”

Same kitchen.

Same bin bags.

Very different conversation.

Sometimes we make absolutely no sense 😂

You can spend hours at a rave surrounded by hundreds of people, music thumping, lights flashing, absolutely loving life...

then want to launch somebody into aisle seven because they’ve parked their trolley sideways while staring at beans as though the fate of civilisation rests on their decision.

Bean Person.

We meet again. 😂

You can look forward to plans all week and then, two hours before you’re supposed to leave the house, suddenly decide:

Actually, I would quite like everybody to forget I exist tonight.

You can deal brilliantly with a genuine crisis and then nearly lose the plot because you can’t find your keys.

You can love adventure but also really want to know what’s happening.

You can adore people and occasionally want every single one of them to go away.

Are we contradictory?

Maybe.

But...

I wonder if context matters more than we realise?

The rave was your choice.

Bean Person was inflicted upon you.

You might have loads of energy one day and absolutely none the next.

You might feel completely yourself with one person and strangely uncomfortable with another.

You might cope brilliantly with something when you’re rested and wonder who stole all your life skills when you’re exhausted.

None of that automatically tells us why.

It just gives us information.

And information is much more useful than giving ourselves a hard time.

There could be all sorts going on underneath

How your brain naturally works.

What you’ve been through.

What you’ve learned to do over the years.

How stressed you are.

How much sleep you’ve had.

Who you’re with.

What else is happening in your life.

Whether something matters to you.

Whether you feel comfortable.

Whether you’ve eaten.

Whether somebody has been tapping a pen repeatedly for eleven minutes and you’re now reconsidering your commitment to being a peaceful human.

😂

It all counts.

Sometimes there might be an old pattern underneath something.

Maybe checking whether someone is annoyed with you once helped you avoid conflict.

Maybe saying sorry before anybody was actually upset became second nature.

Maybe keeping everyone else happy felt easier than dealing with what happened when they weren’t.

Maybe.

But we don’t have to decide before we’ve even looked.

Not every Tuesday needs an origin story

I work with trauma. I know how much our past can affect what happens now.

But I also don’t think every little thing we do needs us grabbing a metaphorical shovel and digging around in childhood.

Sometimes it is old stuff.

Sometimes it’s how your brain works.

Sometimes you’re stressed.

Sometimes you’re overwhelmed.

Sometimes somebody genuinely annoyed you.

Sometimes you’ve been ignoring what you need for three days.

And sometimes you’re just knackered and someone has asked you one question too many.

Not every Tuesday needs an origin story. 😂

And we don’t always need an answer.

Sometimes:

“Hmm... I do that. I wonder what’s going on there?”

is enough to start with.

Let’s steal “What if?” back from anxiety

If you’re an anxious thinker, you’ll probably know that “what if?” can be an absolute menace.

What if it goes wrong?

What if I can’t cope?

What if they think badly of me?

What if I make a fool of myself?

What if something happens?

Two tiny words and suddenly your brain has produced, directed and starred in an entire disaster movie before you’ve finished your coffee. 😂

But here’s a thought.

Anxiety doesn’t own “what if?”

If our brains are allowed to imagine everything that might go wrong, surely we’re allowed to wonder about a few other possibilities too.

What if I handle it better than I expect?

What if they’re not thinking about me at all?

What if I don’t have to get it perfect?

What if this feels different after I’ve rested?

What if there’s a reason I find this harder?

What if I could do it differently instead of just trying harder?

And perhaps...

What if the thing I keep criticising myself for actually makes more sense than I realise?

We’re not forcing ourselves into positive thinking.

No need to stand in front of the mirror announcing:

“I AM A MAGNIFICENT RADIANT BEING!”

while another part of your brain is going:

Are we though? 😂

We’re just allowing another possibility into the room.

What if we got curious before we got critical?

Next time you catch yourself thinking:

I’m hopeless.

I’m such a nightmare.

Why do I always make things so complicated?

Everyone else seems to manage this.

I need to get a grip.

I’m doing my own head in.

Or the old favourite...

Why am I like this?

I wonder what would happen if you didn't immediately answer yourself with another criticism.

Instead:

What actually happened?

Maybe:

“I forgot to reply.”

“I couldn’t get myself going.”

“That really got to me.”

“I changed my mind.”

“I needed some reassurance.”

“I got overwhelmed and left.”

Okay.

Now we have something to work with.

And then perhaps:

“I wonder what was going on for me there?”

Maybe you know.

Maybe you have a theory.

Maybe there are five possible explanations.

Maybe you haven’t got a bloody clue.

Also fine. 😂

You don’t have to solve yourself.

You’re not a Rubik’s Cube.

Think about how differently we treat the little stuff

You walk upstairs to get something.

You reach the top.

Nothing.

Your brain has apparently closed the file without saving it.

For goodness’ sake... what did I come up here for?

So you walk downstairs.

And naturally remember approximately three seconds after reaching the bottom.

Because that’s the law. 😂

You probably don't spend the rest of the evening wondering what this says about you as a person.

It's more:

FFS, brain.

And life continues.

But when something happens repeatedly, hurts, embarrasses us or touches something we already feel unsure about, we’re much quicker to make it mean something.

Not:

“I found that difficult.”

but:

“Why can everybody else do this except me?”

Not:

“That affected me.”

but:

“I really need to toughen up.”

Not:

“I got that wrong.”

but:

“Typical me.”

And somewhere between what happened and what we decided it says about us, a story got written.

Tell yourself the same story often enough and eventually you can forget that it ever was a story.

This doesn’t mean everything is fine

Some things really do make life difficult.

Some things need support.

Some need healing.

Some need doing differently.

Some might need professional help.

Some might need medication.

Some might need accommodation rather than yet another attempt at forcing yourself to function in a way that doesn’t suit you.

And some things might simply need understanding.

That’s why I keep coming back to:

“I wonder...”

Because it leaves room.

Room for neurodivergence.

Room for life experience.

Room for old patterns.

Room for what’s happening right now.

Room for individuality.

Room for the possibility that something might need changing.

And room for the possibility that it might not.

So... what if there IS nothing wrong with you?

Not:

“Everything is fine.”

Not:

“Nothing needs to change.”

Not:

“Just think positively.”

And definitely not:

Three deep breaths, a walk in the woods and all your problems will disappear.

I love a tree, but even I’m not giving it that much responsibility. 🌳😂

I just wonder...

What if struggling with something doesn’t automatically mean there’s something wrong with you?

What if some things need healing?

Some need changing?

Some need support?

Some need accommodating?

And some are simply part of your own particular way of being in the world?

Maybe you've spent years thinking you need to sort yourself out.

What if you don't?

What if there are things you can work on without making yourself the problem?

What if you can change something because it isn't helping you, rather than because you think it makes you a bad version of a human?

What if you could understand yourself a little better instead of constantly trying to correct yourself?

And what if some of the things you've been wrestling with don't need fixing at all?

Maybe next time your brain starts with:

“What if something goes wrong?”

you can let it finish.

Then give it another one:

“Okay... but what if it doesn't?”

And when that familiar:

“What's wrong with me?”

shows up...

maybe don't rush to answer that either.

Try:

“I wonder what's going on with me?”

Or perhaps...

What if there’s nothing wrong with me?

You don't have to believe it.

You don't need to convince yourself of anything.

Just leave the door open a crack.

What if?

I wonder...

Sometimes that's enough to start a completely different conversation. ❤️

If some of this has got you thinking about your own patterns, the things you struggle with, or the stories you’ve been carrying about yourself, you don’t have to have all the answers before you explore them.

That’s a big part of what I do through Emotional Healing Therapy. We get curious about what’s underneath, what might need healing or support, what might need doing differently, and what perhaps never needed fixing in the first place.

If you’d like to explore what that could look like for you, you can find out more about working with me here.

👉 GET IN TOUCH → https://emotionalhealingtherapy.co.uk/#contact