I was thinking this morning how it’s been a while since I sent a nudge, and I thought what might be helpful to share in the current times.
I was looking though some previous nudges, and came across the following one on ‘what makes a problem a problem?’ I shared it back in 2018, and yet it feels more pertinent than ever today.
If I had a postscript it would be that I’ve put what I share below to the test again, and again and again, and, for me, it just rings even more true.
But please don’t take my word for it, test it out for yourself and see what occurs to you!
Problem solving can make things worse
For someone who has spent a lifetime believing that it helps to problem solve, that was a huge realisation when I realised that it often just caused me to get way more caught up in my thinking and further away from coming up with solutions.
I used to see it as an important part of my work, helping people to consider the issues and problems they were having, and then come up with a plan or strategy to help get them unstuck.
And sometimes it worked – or at least worked for a while, until another problem would present itself and the conversation to problem solve would start again!
Living less in your thoughts = less stress
Since coming across the understanding of how we create our experience, I now see problems very differently. I see that there’s the event, circumstance or situation that occurs, and then there’s all my thinking and speculating about them.
The more I’ve learned to live less in my thoughts, the easier it’s been to drop all that thinking. And in doing so, find that the answers inevitably present themselves. Often something I couldn’t possibly have imagined, or problem solved, occurs, and whatever seemed like a major problem at the time worked out in hindsight. It makes for a much less stressful way to live.
Newsflash…
So, my sister just happened to call while I was writing this, and we chatted through the idea that problems are illusory. In her inimitable way, she paused and said “Tam, that’s all well and good and I kind of get it, but I’ve been learning about this understanding about thought for a good while now, and even I don’t see that one…of course a problem is a problem!!” She went on to give this example. “If I’ve got to find money by the end of the week that I don’t have, that’s a fact it’s not something I made up. Any one of us will have experienced all kinds of problems today, and reading that they are illusory would quite frankly p*** me off so it could be the people who read this might feel the same way!” Needless to say, we chatted some more, the essence of which I hope I’ve now captured below.
Just seeing the transitory nature of thought is enough
For me, the fact that I’ve come to understand the transitory nature of thought, and that how much of a problem I make something is down to my own thinking, has completely changed how I approach all ‘problems’. Just seeing that it is my own thoughts that first create what is and isn’t a problem, and then all the next level of thinking about how I’m going to respond to that – which is also only more thought – is usually enough to give me a buffer before the ifs, buts and maybes take me in an unhelpful direction! These days, that gives me just the nudge I need to more easily catch myself before generating more perceived problems about the illusory problem!
All that said, of course I’m only human so does this always work? No, far from it! But just seeing that both the problem and my thoughts about it can only ever come from my own thinking, gives me a chance to pause. And it’s in that space between the busy thoughts that more creative thinking naturally flows in if I let it. Seeing that’s how we work is what has caused me to have more confidence, and trust that something will come to mind, that fresh thought will come in and provide answers I can’t yet see!
I’d love to know what this brings up for you. And if you have any examples of where you’ve seen that life has a habit of working out in retrospect, would be great to hear them.
That’s your nudge for today! Have a great rest of your day/evening.
All the best
Tamsin
PS This is the type of conversation I’m having with people in my work now. Moving away from helping people to problem solve to pointing them in a different direction of how our experience is created in the first place. It makes for some wonderful conversations and insights that no amount of problem solving ever did! So if you’re experiencing ‘problems’ in life at the minute, I nudge you to consider having a different conversation, and just see what new perspectives might occur for you as a result.