The Stories We Believe
And How They Keep Us From Seeing the Whole Picture
Originally published on JodiCarlton.com. You can read the original article here:
I was that child. The one who drove adults crazy asking “Why?” One answer was never enough. My curiosity usually led to another “Why?” and then another.
Not much has changed. Today, I still spend my days asking why.
Over the years, I have worked with thousands of people carrying deep hurt. Couples trapped in painful cycles of rupture and reunion without true repair. Parents desperate to correct a child’s behavior. Adults trying to heal from the wounds of childhood.
In decades of helping people, I’ve noticed something fascinating. The people who seemed the most stuck were rarely the ones asking “Why?” More often than not, they came with an answer and a goal of getting help to change someone else’s behavior.
“My husband doesn’t care.”
“My wife is controlling.”
“My son is lazy.”
“My mother is so critical.”
Sometimes they were right, sometimes they weren’t. But almost always, they were certain - and with that certainty often came hopelessness and a feeling of powerlessness. Certainty has a way of closing doors. Once we’ve decided we know why someone behaves the way they do, we stop asking questions that might lead us somewhere new.
I usually start by asking a simple question.
“Why do you think that?”
Usually, people have an answer. Then I ask another question.
“And why is that?”
By the third or fourth “why,” something interesting begins to happen. The certainty starts to unravel. Not because their pain isn’t real - it absolutely is - but because they begin to realize they don’t actually know why the other person behaved the way they did. They’ve filled in the gaps with the explanation that makes the most sense to them.
Our brains are remarkably good at that.
Curiosity Changes the Story
I remember one husband who described his wife as controlling. The conversation went something like this.
“She wants me and the kids to do everything her way,” he told me.
“Why do you think that is?” I asked.
He paused.
“I don’t know. I guess it’s her personality. She’s just always been that way.”
“What happens if things aren’t done her way?”
“She says none of us care about her - but that’s just not true! She just takes everything personally.”
“Why do you think it feels personal to her? What has she said?”
“I guess because sometimes things don’t get done or we forget things. We’re all busy or distracted.”
“And what happens then? Particularly for your wife,” I explored.
“She says she’s the only one who gets things done.”
“Why might she believe this? Can you think of some examples that have been upsetting to her?”
“Last week our 16-year-old forgot to take the garbage to the curb, so the garage was overflowing and stunk something awful in the heat. It didn’t really bother me much, but my wife said it made her gag every time she went into the garage, so she put on a mask and loaded it up in the truck to take to the dump. She was so mad, and I think she’s being a little dramatic about all that.
Yesterday our daughter’s soccer jersey wasn’t clean for her game. I wasn’t home for that, but my wife said she managed to get most of the stains out somehow. She said our daughter was hysterical and crying, and my wife was furious with our daughter for forgetting to wash it. It was a big fight.
Oh, and here’s one about me. We were supposed to go to an open house at the school a couple of weeks ago, and we missed it. She asked me to put it on the calendar when we got the email, and I forgot. I got in big trouble for that one. She said I didn’t care enough to do just one simple thing. I just forgot - I’m human. She could’ve just put it on the calendar herself if it was that important to her. But, yeah, it’s always something.”
“So does your wife have time to take on all of these tasks herself? Or to pick up the slack when others forget?”
“She’s pretty busy. I wouldn’t say she has time to do it all, and I don’t think she should have to. It’s not that. We all definitely need to do our part. She just gets pretty stressed out and overwhelmed. She’s always saying she’s exhausted, and I’m walking on eggshells constantly because I never know when she’s going to get mad again.”
“It sounds like she’s stretched far beyond what she can reasonably manage,” I responded, offering an alternative explanation that did not require him to dismiss his own experience.
“Yeah. I guess you’re probably right about that.”
I let the silence sit for a moment before asking, “Let’s go back to where we started. You said your wife is controlling. Why is that?”
He thought for a moment before answering.
“Maybe controlling isn’t the right word. I think my wife is really overwhelmed and has way too much on her plate.”
There it was. Clarity.
His experience hadn’t changed. He still felt controlled. But his understanding of why his wife behaved that way had begun to shift. He was no longer viewing her behavior as a character flaw. He was beginning to see it as an attempt, however imperfect, to manage a household that often felt on the verge of falling apart.
Curiosity brought clarity, and once he understood the situation more accurately, we could begin exploring what actually needed to change.
We All Live by Invisible Rulebooks
Sometimes the stories we tell ourselves are rooted in beliefs and expectations we’ve carried for so long that we no longer recognize them as beliefs. They simply feel like the truth. We inherit them from our families, our culture, and our past experiences, and they quietly shape what we believe love, respect, responsibility, or caring are supposed to look like. Without realizing it, we begin measuring other people’s behavior against rules they may not even know exist.
I remember working with one couple whose biggest conflict centered around a question the wife asked almost every session. “Why don’t you ever ask about my day?” To her, asking questions was how you showed love. Interest. Emotional connection. She had grown up in a family where conversations were long, detailed, and deeply personal. If someone cared about you, they asked.
Her husband was equally confused. In his mind, asking questions felt intrusive, like an interrogation. He believed that if something important had happened, she would tell him. Giving someone space to share what they chose to share was how he showed respect and trust.
Neither of them was trying to hurt the other. Neither of them was uncaring. They were living inside two completely different stories about what love looked like.
When Behavior Doesn’t Mean What We Think It Means
I have seen the same thing with parents who believed their teenager was becoming disrespectful or pulling away from the family because they disappeared into their bedroom after school every day. They stopped joining family dinners. They forgot to do their chores. Their backpack, shoes, and half-finished projects seemed to collect in every room of the house. They needed constant reminders to pick up after themselves. Some parents worried their child was becoming depressed. Others feared they were falling in with the wrong crowd or experimenting with alcohol or drugs. Still others concluded they were simply becoming lazy, selfish, or disrespectful.
Sometimes those concerns were warranted, but often, they weren’t.
Time and again, when we’ve explored why teenagers retreat to their rooms, especially neurodivergent teens, we discover they have spent hours at school navigating social expectations, fluorescent lights, constant noise, executive functioning demands, sensory overload, and the exhausting work of masking or simply trying to keep up. Being alone in their rooms allowed their nervous systems to finally feel safe.
What looked like withdrawal was recovery.
What looked like laziness was cognitive exhaustion.
What looked like disrespect was a brain that had nothing left to give.
I’ve seen the same thing play out in the workplace.
An employee requests to keep their camera off during virtual meetings. Their manager begins to wonder if they’re really paying attention. Maybe they’re trying to get away with doing less work. Maybe they’re answering emails instead of participating. Maybe they’re not even sitting at their desk.
A coworker eats lunch alone in their car every day instead of joining everyone else in the breakroom. Before long, people begin to describe them as aloof, unfriendly, or simply uninterested in being part of the team.
Sometimes those interpretations are accurate, but sometimes curiosity tells a different story.
The employee isn’t avoiding work at all. They’ve discovered that monitoring facial expressions on camera while trying to listen makes it much harder to concentrate. Turning the camera off allows them to be more present, not less.
The coworker isn’t rejecting their colleagues. They’re trying to recover from the constant demands of the morning. The quiet of their car gives their nervous system a chance to reset before heading back into another afternoon of meetings, conversations, and sensory input.
The behavior hasn’t changed.
Our understanding of it has.
Curiosity Is One of the Most Important Tools We Have
Curiosity is not about denying reality. It is about making sure we are responding to reality rather than to our assumptions about it.
Some people truly are disrespectful, disinterested, uncaring, manipulative, controlling, or even dangerous. Asking “why” does not make them care more, become safer, or act more kindly. It simply reveals what is actually true.
I learned that lesson personally.
A couple of weeks ago, I shared the story of a former relationship where I repeatedly explained away the behavior of the man I was dating. I told myself stories that fit my understanding of autism, social communication differences, and emotional processing because I wanted those explanations to be true.
They weren’t.
The more I asked “Why?”, the clearer it became that his behavior was not rooted in misunderstanding at all. It was intentional, exploitative, and harmful.
For me, the purpose of asking “Why?” has never been about feeling better about someone else’s behavior. It is to see reality more clearly. We cannot repair a relationship, establish healthy boundaries, forgive, grieve, or make wise decisions until we understand what is actually true.
Curiosity did not save my relationship with the toxic man. It gave me the clarity I needed to end it.
Clarity Changes Everything
Both professionally and personally, I’ve come to realize that most of us stop asking “Why?” too soon. Or we never ask it at all. Instead, we fill in the gaps with a story that makes sense to us, then begin responding to that story as though it were reality.
To be clear, this is not a character flaw. It’s a very human trait. Our brains are prediction machines, designed to make rapid judgments because, throughout most of human history, doing so helped us survive. We cannot stop to investigate every situation we encounter, but in the relationships that matter most, where we have the time and opportunity to be curious, those same shortcuts can become obstacles that can lead to painful misunderstandings and errors in judgment.
Curiosity is not the goal. It is the path to the goal: clarity.
Sometimes clarity transforms a relationship because we discover we have misunderstood one another.
Sometimes it transforms our understanding of a relationship by confirming that our instincts were right all along.
Other times, it gives us permission to stop trying to force a healthier explanation onto an unhealthy reality.
The Question That Changed My Life
It turns out that asking “Why?” is more than a habit for me. It has become my framework for understanding myself, others, and relationships. It is the foundation of my communication course because every interaction and every conflict begins with a story we tell ourselves. Before we can solve the conflict, we have to understand the story.
Over the years, I realized that this same question was shaping everything else I was writing and teaching. Eventually, it became the starting point for an entire book. Preorders open soon for The Misunderstood Mind: What We Got Wrong About Autism, ADHD, and Neurodivergence. I can’t wait to tell you more about it.
In the meantime, if this essay left you thinking differently about a relationship in your own life, perhaps the next question to ask isn’t “How do I change this situation?” but “What might I not understand yet?” And if you’d like help exploring that question, I’d be honored to help you find clarity.
All courses are “Pay What You Can Afford.”
Originally published on JodiCarlton.com. Read the original article here:
Tell me about your own experiences.