The part of you that asked “why”

In some houses, “why?” was disobedience.

Not a question. A challenge. Answering back. Being difficult. A child who asked why was a child who needed to be put right, and the putting-right came with enough force that the child learned, fast, to stop asking.

So the part of you that asked why went somewhere safe. And you built a life around the word yes.

I know this one from the inside. Any kind of questioning, where I grew up, was treated as naughtiness — rudeness, insolence, misbehaviour. Just why? And so a part of me concluded, without ever deciding it, that questioning wasn’t safe. We don’t go there. That door’s closed. What was left was a boy for whom the word why didn’t exist. Only yes. Yes to everything, agreeably, for decades.

Here’s what happens to a part that gets sent away. It doesn’t die. It doesn’t grow up either. It goes behind a wall and waits, exactly as it was, with an unspoken agreement: this is dangerous, we’re never going there again. And the rest of you carries on without it — a bit more compliant, a bit less curious, a bit less able to push back when something’s wrong.

You’ll have your own part. Maybe it’s the one who asked why. Maybe it’s the one who was loud, or who cried, or who wanted things, or who got angry, or who had strange interests, or who was, by the standards of the room, simply too much. Whatever got a reaction it couldn’t survive went behind the wall.

And here’s the cost in adult life, which you’ll recognise. You can’t push back. You find yourself in situations you never chose — jobs, relationships, arrangements — because at the moment of choosing, the part that would have said wait, why? wasn’t in the room. You agree first and wonder later. Something in you knows it’s wrong and can’t find the words, because the words belonged to a part that’s been away since you were seven.

One thing to know before you go looking: the part won’t come back because you decide it should. It comes back when it’s safe. That means the work is slower and kinder than a decision — breath, stillness, a body that’s learning it can stand down — until one day a question comes out of you before the old fear had time to stop it.

I’ll tell you what I’ve come to believe about those parts. Going back for them is the whole work. It’s where the name of my process comes from — integration is going and collecting the parts that split off, and bringing them home. Not fixing them. Retrieving them.

And when the one who asked why comes back, you feel it. A question comes out of your mouth that you’d have swallowed for thirty years. Why are we doing it this way? Why is that my job? Why should I? It’s a small revolution, and it’s yours, and it’s the sound of a door opening.

If you’ve been the agreeable one your whole life and quietly wondered where your spine went — it didn’t go anywhere. It’s behind the wall with the child who was told that asking was rude. It’s not your fault. You were young, and yes was the only safe word. But you’re the adult now, and the adult can go and get him.

Every Tuesday I run a live guided session online. Some weeks it’s exactly this — going back for the part that went quiet, and asking it what it needs. Come and try a session, and see who turns up.

— Adam