Find the Root!!

  
This weekend my sister’s house witnessed a minor flooding to her living room and dining area. Coming down those flight of stairs you will never notice what was waiting for you downstairs. It took a couple of falls (thankfully no injuries) for us to actually realise that the we were getting flooded and as we tried to determine the next cause of action for clearing out the water that was already in the ground floor it occurred to us that if we don’t find the source of this flooding then our efforts will be wasted because the water will continue to come through. We went round the building and in a few minutes we were able to identify that the root of our problem was a plumbing issue in the restroom of her home office. The whole home office was already flooded and through an adjoining door water was coming through to the main house. If we didn’t tackle our root/source we will continue to clear the water in the main house only to continue to recycle our experience.

This hit home for me, some of us saw through the branches of our issues instead of attacking the roots of the issues. We’ll rather take a look at the surface and deal with a few causal factors than take the time to do a full scan through using a root cause analysis approach. I guess cutting branches is often faster, cheaper, non-invasive and less time consuming and it affords me the opportunity to get on with life really quickly. 

I mean no need for drilling down to find the root of my problem since I pulled out a branch and I feel really relieved already. I already stopped the bleeding which is what was scary so if the bleeding has stopped why should I find the cause of the bleeding??? The truth is sometimes the bleeding has stopped on the surface and you seem fine but if you don’t know what’s causing you to bleed you stand a chance of facing the same recurring situation in the future.

So I’ll use relationships as an example but it’s not only limited to relationship issues. You are angry because someone hurt you bad in a previous relationship, you dealt with it by breaking up and moved right along without dealing with your anger. You meet a “new person” and somehow you ruined things for yourself because you couldn’t let go of your past. Truth is your anger may not even be against the people you were in a relationship with your anger may be way more rooted in several other issues such as a parents divorce or maltreatment that you witnessed growing up that has left you broken. But you have not dealt with it but what you’ve done is to acquire a thinking pattern that tells you that a relationship with a “new person” will fix your brokenness. You need to fix the root cause before you bleed out on another perso and you stand the chance of recycling your experiences all over again. Sometimes others are not the cause of our problems but we are the ones who refuse to do the work and find healing for ourselves.

It’s ok to stuff the face with all of the ice cream in the world and get the pyjama party going to cheer ourselves on while we get over a heartbreak but until you look yourself in the face and ask yourself some truths that bring you face to face with nobody but yourself and call for a change until then you will always recycle your experiences. 

I know they say broken people break people, hurting people hurt people but they forget to tell us that healed people also heal people. Don’t watch your brokenness cause you to bleed out on others because you are too afraid to deal with the root of your situation. You can change your narrative if you want it bad enough. 

You are never alone 

Love and Light 

Tosin