Why does it always happen to me?
Hey love,
Have you ever had something keep showing up in your life and found yourself asking, Why does this keep happening to me?
Maybe the details change, but somehow you keep ending up with a version of the same problem. You deal with it, clean it up, move on, and then a few months later there it is again wearing a slightly different outfit.
I was thinking about this recently and remembered something that happened years ago when I owned my hair salon in Los Angeles.
It was a bustling, high-end salon with a very neighborhood feel. Our tagline was “Where community meets couture,” which really did capture what we had created. We had celebrity clients and people coming in for beautiful hair, but we were also tucked into this sweet, walkable neighborhood on the east side of Los Angeles where people knew each other and it still felt personal.
The salon was on the ground floor of a building with apartments above us.
One day, I noticed a water spot on the ceiling.
Nothing terribly dramatic. Just one of those things that makes you go, Hmm, that probably shouldn’t be there.
So I called the landlord. He sent maintenance out while we were closed, and when I came back, the spot was gone.
Great.
Handled.
Except… eventually another one showed up.
So I called again. Maintenance came again. They fixed whatever was visible, and I went back to running my salon.
Then it happened again.
And again.
At some point I remember having that very familiar human reaction of, Why do I keep having to deal with this? What is going on with this ceiling?
But every time I asked for help, someone came out and seemingly handled it, so I assumed the problem had been addressed.
Until Thanksgiving.
I had literally just filled my plate, sat down, and was about to take a bite of turkey when my phone rang.
I looked at the caller ID.
Los Angeles Fire Department.
Which is generally not who you hope is calling your cell phone on Thanksgiving.
I answered, and they asked for permission to break into my salon.
A neighbor had reported flooding.
The ceiling had collapsed.
Happy Thanksgiving.
The damage was huge. We were out of business for weeks, there were insurance claims to deal with, repairs to make, and suddenly this little water spot I had been dealing with over and over had become something we could no longer patch and move past.
Eventually we discovered what had actually been happening.
The apartment directly above my salon was occupied by a man who really needed more support than he had living independently. He had been putting things like household trash and clothing down his toilet, creating plumbing problems that kept showing up downstairs in my ceiling.
And suddenly all those water spots made sense.
The problem was never actually the water spot.
The water spot was information.
Every time maintenance came out, they dealt with the evidence of the problem. They cleaned it up, repaired what they could see, and even tried to prepare for the possibility of more water coming through.
But nobody went far enough upstream to uncover the source.
And eventually the source became impossible to ignore.
I keep thinking about how often we do exactly the same thing in our own lives.
Something happens that disappoints us or frustrates us, and we focus almost exclusively on the outcome. We ask why the relationship keeps going this way, why money keeps getting tight at the same point, or why we continue ending up in some version of the same situation.
Then we try to fix the water spot.
But what if the thing that keeps showing up isn’t actually the problem?
What if it’s information pointing toward something underneath that we haven’t been willing, or simply haven’t known how, to uncover yet?
This is where I’ve been looking lately at projections, expectations, separations, judgments, and rejections.
Not because I think we need another list of things to fix about ourselves, but because uncovering what’s underneath an outcome gives us access to something incredibly valuable:
Source is where you find the choice for change.
If I’m only staring at the water stain, I can keep repainting the ceiling forever.
When I become curious enough to go upstairs and find out where it’s actually coming from, now I have somewhere new to choose.
And that feels like a much more interesting question than Why does this keep happening to me?
🌟 Your Add Wonder Tools
If something has been repeating in your life lately, here are a few questions to play with:
- Instead of asking, “Why does this keep happening to me?”, ask: “what am I being invited to uncover here?”
- What projection, expectation, separation, judgment, or rejection might be underneath the outcome I keep trying to change?
- What is this situation hinting at that, if I got curious instead of frustrated, could show me where I actually have a choice?
- Am I trying to repair what I can see instead of becoming curious about where it began?
- If I uncovered the source, what choice might become available that I haven’t seen before?
And I’m going to do something I don’t normally do in Add Wonder.
I usually keep these letters as my little weekly share with you rather than turning them into a place where I sell you something. But after telling you this story, I would feel like a pretty lousy friend and facilitator if I didn’t mention what I’m creating right now.
I’m hosting a free 5-Day Challenge: Uncovering the Projections, Expectations, Separations, Judgments & Rejections Keeping You Stuck.
We’re going to spend five days in the practice of noticing what may be quietly sitting underneath some of the outcomes you’ve been trying so hard to change. If this conversation is pinging something for you, come join me here.
Until next time, maybe don’t spend all your time asking why the ceiling keeps leaking. Get curious enough to go upstairs. 😉
With lots of wonder,
Responses