A DIY strategy for emotional excavation to support mental health and gain insight
Untangling emotions on your own can feel like trying to find stable footing on a gloppy lake bottom covered in algae: Hopeless and overwhelming. Insight feels out of the question.
It can seem like what’s called for is something massive and complex – like erecting a cantilever bridge – to get yourself out of the muck. It’s true that sometimes a heavy lift is needed – like lots of therapy or a massive life change. But first, it’s worth seeing whether something simpler can help lift you out of the depths of confusion so you can access a touch more clarity and perspective.
I’m talking super simple. In fact, while I first encountered the approach I’m about to describe years ago when it had a moment in start-up culture (my husband works in tech), it’s my 2.5-year-old who recently reminded me of its power.
In a classic toddler move, my little dude loves to ask why. As his mother, it can be maddening. But it’s also a brilliant, time-tested way to uncover what’s really going on. While my kid loves to freestyle his questioning, for adults, I recommend a more structured approach to asking why, known as the Five Whys.
The Five Whys concept reportedly originated in the last century with Japanese inventor Sakichi Toyoda, founder of Toyota Industries Corporation. The idea is that you can get to the root cause of a complex problem – and find a solution – by asking why five times.
Using The Five Whys
How do the Five Whys work for mental health?
When you notice that an interaction or a decision is stuck on a loop in your head or that the plot points of an event are out of sync with your emotional experience, you might want to try using the Five Whys to develop self-knowledge and gain insight.
Your first why may sound like, “Why can’t I get that interaction out of my head?” or “Why am I having such a big reaction to something that seems so small?”
Perhaps you already ask yourself questions like these. The trick is not to stop here. Your first answer is only the beginning. The magic lies in continuing to ask why and building off your answers.
If your answer to the first question is “Because I felt disrespected,” you might next ask, “Why does feeling disrespected hurt so much?” Or, perhaps your answer is something like “Because this experience reminds me of something from my past,” your next why might be “Why does it remind me of that experience?”
Getting To The Core
It’s been a tender-hearted, contemplative season for me, so I’ve used the Five Whys often. This is the part where I should share a true-life example. But I’m not going to. All the real ones are just too raw and vulnerable for the public internet.
Here’s what I can tell you. In my experience applying the Five Whys to emotional well-being, I’ve found that the fifth why generally falls into one of two buckets. When you encounter one of these categories, you know you’ve landed on something meaningful.
- Core Wound. Core wounds are core beliefs or deep hurts from your past that tend to come up repeatedly. They might be thoughts like “I’m not safe,” “I don’t belong,” or “I’m worthless.” Sometimes, they relate to a particular memory. Over time, they end up connected to a web of many memories.
- Core Value. Core values or personal values are deep beliefs about what’s important in life. Values include principles and virtues like compassion, caring, learning, and wisdom. I created a list of common values here for you to look at. I’ve found that it can be helpful to have an idea of the top three to five most important to you right now. While goals are analogous to a destination you can arrive at, values are akin to directions on a compass and can help orient your action across many situations.
How To Work With Core Wounds
If the Five Whys have brought you to a core wound, first, breathe. It can be an intense experience. Your work is first to feel what you feel. Is your chest tight? Is your stomach cramping? How about your jaw? Your task is to feel your feelings, however difficult it might be. Cry. Groan. Shake.
Then ask: What does this feeling need? Sometimes, if the memory is old, I picture myself as the mother I am now or the elder I will be someday, comforting my child self. What would I say to a scared or hurting little one? Then I say it over and over again. I reprogram the memory. Of course, one session is unlikely to dissolve a core wound completely, but it would be a mistake to think that means it has no purpose. Many small moments of compassion like this can wear away at a hurt, creating massive changes over time, like water eroding rock.
This approach draws inspiration from many sources, particularly mindfulness teacher and psychologist Tara Brach, PhD, and her articulation of a practice called RAIN. RAIN is a mindfulness exercise that stands for recognize, allow, investigate, and nurture. RAIN is a compassionate way to work with painful feelings. For more on using compassion to heal emotional hurts, I recommend her book Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of RAIN.
For more on how to use the mindfulness practice of RAIN to deal with anxiety during difficult times, read These 4 Steps Can Help You Manage Your Anxiety During The Pandemic
How To Work With Core Values
If you arrive at a core value at the end of a series of whys, your direction is a little different. Your task is to move toward your value, take action, and connect to what’s important to you.
Perhaps you find an interaction triggers you because, ultimately, you value connection, and what happened created a sense of separation. In that case, take a concrete step in line with your core values, like calling a loved one or planning to spend time with a friend. Acting in line with your values often leads to feeling more regulated and at peace.
The idea to take action comes from something psychologist Steven C. Hayes, PhD, told me in an interview for an Everyday Health article on sadness. He noted that sadness arises when you lose something important to you. So, feeling sad can help you understand better what matters to you. One healthy way of coping with sadness can be to take action that affirms what’s important to you, an approach related to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a treatment modality Hayes developed. If that piques your interest, I recommend his book Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
Transformational Insight
When emotions are overwhelming, outside support can be a lifeline, but it’s not always available when you need it. The Five Whys are a portable, solo strategy for reaching higher ground.
As Tara Brach writes in Radical Compassion, “The deepest transformations in our lives come down to something very simple: We learn to respond, not react, to what is going on inside us.”
A version of this story also appeared on Medium.
My Latest Writing
Hey, check-in time: How are your New Year’s resolutions holding up?
If they’ve faded away, you’re not alone. Habits drive our behavior, and taking the wheel takes skill. It can be a bit easier if you know what the science says about forming and keeping healthy habits.
That’s why I’m thrilled to share my first project for the American Psychological Association. I contributed the chapter on healthy habits to the e-booklet Helping Ourselves: Self-Care for Psychologists.
Whether you’re a psychologist or not, I hope you’ll download the free e-booklet here today to read my piece called “Making Healthy Habits Life-Proof” (starts on p. 14) and all the other illuminating articles inside.
I’m grateful to psychologists Wendy Wood, PhD; Martin Hagger, PhD; and Ian Anderson, PhD, whose insights have already helped me make my own healthy habits a little more life-proof.
Book Recommendations
Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure by fellow National Association of Science Writers (NASW) member Maggie Jackson applies a long-form journalistic approach to the topic of uncertainty. In an increasingly polarized world, where social media encourages black-and-white thinking and hot takes, it’s a breath of fresh air to spend hours considering the benefits of living in the gray.
Thank you to Prometheus Books for the review copy. See my disclosure statement for my policy on accepting books for review.
While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence by Meg Kissinger has the feel of the work of a lifetime. Kissinger, a reporter who has covered mental health issues for years, turns the lens inward to reveal what went on in her own family. Recommended for fans of The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions by Jonathan Rosen.
Honestly, I loved the journey of Do You Remember Being Born: A Novel by Sean Michaels. It’s about an esteemed poet, a woman nearing the end of her career, who is commissioned by a tech company to co-author a poem with AI. It’s reflective — exploring questions both human-scale (How can one woman make sense of her choices as a mother and creative?) and humanity-scale (Is art-making a fundamentally human endeavor?). But when I finished the book and read that part of it actually was written with AI, I got so frustrated that, at first, I didn’t want to include it here. It’s been a few months and I’ve cooled off and have to admit it’s a compelling book worth reading and talking about. So, please do it and tell me what you think!
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