The Problem with Problems, or Learning to Deal With Problems
Problems!
Everyone has problems. If you don’t have any problems, you are most likely dead or delusional.
Problems are like loose change. You find them ‘around’ you. You find it in your sofa or chair, on the floor of your car, on the dressing table. There is usually not enough value yet to really pay attention to unless it really starts building up. (This is also how most people look at problems. They are ignored until they get big enough.) After you accumulate enough in one place, you need to do something with it.
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Bank…
I have had banks want to charge me for recounting, even weigh-counting my change before they change it, or even deposit it. I have signed release forms for coins I have packaged prior to taking them in. I have had stores refuse payment for goods if I was attempting to clear my change by buying my groceries with it. (The most amusing excuse given was the checkout attendant was not going to spend time counting it, even though I was the only person in the store.) And I was taught that “money IS money”. I guess ‘change’ is no longer considered money.
The reason I am telling you such a silly, but true, story is to show you how problems can be created around you without you even being aware of them. And yes, we attract our problems to us. So, what was my lesson from this? Don’t let my change build up; spend it when I get it. Not frivolously, just give the teller close to the right amount as you can. Look at it as a small mental exercise each time you do it. WOW! Problem solved!
What about the problems that are created right in front of you? What you need is the equivalent to the “Get Out of Jail FREE” Card. You need Solutions. Sometimes you can even buy a solution, but that may cause other problems.
SOLUTIONS
So now you have decided what you really want are solutions. So how do you know the solution you have is the right solution for you? Yes, quite often you will find that your problem has grown legs and chest hair, and is running on its’ own steam, while you were finding a solution. Your solution will no longer work. You took too long to find it, or whatever. Funny, that solution worked for everyone else, why didn’t it work for you? To put it simply, you looked for it in the wrong place.
Most people find solutions by asking others. Maybe you even Google how to solve your problem. Maybe the problem is embarrassing, so you don’t give all the details to the ‘Problem Solver’. Now you have caused another problem, by wasting time and energy in the wrong direction. And you still don’t have the correct solution for your problem.
There is another way, a perfect way, to find the best solution for you. No, I did not say to “Let your Fingers do the Walking in the Yellow Pages”. What I am talking about is letting your mind work out the solution for you.
There are many methods to do this. I will give you the three most common methods:
Sleep on it.
This is proven to be the easiest way to solve problems. When you get ready to go to sleep, you tell your mind to give you the solution to your problem. When you wake up, you know the answer.
Meditate on it.
Meditation has been around for thousands of years. It is a great way to gain access to your mind to help you accomplish things in your daily life. Since there are different ways that people meditate, some methods may not be geared into problem solving. Use a method that is.
Pray for it.
Prayer is akin to meditation. It too has been around for thousands of years helping people gain a sacred connection to help them find their way through life and their problems.
The reason why we use these methods, is we are able to connect with our mind, our higher self, our soul, our truth, our God, the either, the Universe, or whatever else you prefer to call it. This becomes the sacred trusted vehicle that gives us our perfect solution in the face of adversity and problems. We can trust it to be the best answer. Guess what? It IS the best answer.
So why is it the best solution? By turning it over to a higher power beyond our everyday self, we are giving “something else” the ability to look at the problem objectively, without our emotionally biased interference. We truly cannot see the forest for the trees!
You have your SOLUTION!
Some solutions are easy to install and solve the problem. But what happens if the solution you have received seems strange, stupid, or outlandish. You must show FAITH. Faith, that your higher power has provided your unique solution. Sometimes you need to demonstrate the ‘Leap of Faith’ to gain your solution. The problem can even be there just to test your faith.
What if your solution has PAIN associated with it. Pain can be felt in many ways; physical, emotional, financial, etc. You will notice that more often than not, there will be pain associated with solutions. Why? Whenever you experience pain, you remember that you don’t want to experience that pain again. Thus you learn that you should not cause or attract problems that end in creating pain for you by solving them.
If all problems felt really good to solve, you would most likely attract even more problems. But that doesn’t make sense, does it? Yes, it does. Here is why: Start with your problem. The problem makes you feel uncomfortable enough for you to take action. You gain your solution as mentioned previously, but you find that by performing your solution will expose you to pain of some sort.
So you set the solution in motion, you experience the pain, and your solution solves the problem. It also leaves you with the sensation of the pain you experienced to get there. Now you will associate pain with that problem. This will inhibit, not prevent, you creating the same problem again. If you did not have the pain, then you would not associate pain with the problem. There would not be anything to inhibit you from recreating the problem.
Did you know that most people never realize that PAIN is our greatest teacher in Life’s Lessons? Most people run away from pain, hide from pain, deny pain, and try to push pain away. You don’t hear a lot about people embracing pain, or familiarizing themselves with pain. Pain is something that you just cannot escape. It is a part of life. To reject it, you are literally rejecting a part of yourself.
Here is an enigma. What if the problem is pain? What would you do then? For many people, pain is their problem. Well, what did we just say what most people do when they experience pain? They run away from it, hide from it, deny it, and try to push it away. Does it solve the problem that the pain is there? NO!
Since you know those actions will not result in freeing yourself from pain, what if you were to go completely in the opposite direction? What if you went through your solution finding by turning it over to the higher power and the solution you received was for you to embrace your pain instead? For many, this is THE solution. “Fact is Stranger than Truth”.
So PROBLEMS need SOLUTIONS. Solutions are best found by looking to your higher power to give you your solution. And most, if not all solutions come with pain of some sort so that we learn by our experience. We also may want to take steps to prevent us from repeating the same problem.
Is it as simple as that? Probably not. Your human existence is full of opportunity to make mistakes along the way. None of us are the same. We are individuals. How you experience your solutions can lead you in many different directions. That is where your ability to make choices come into this.
The next time you are faced with a problem, you can look back at what you learned here today. This may just give you a confirmation of how you are already dealing with problems and finding solutions, or it may give you a different way of approaching finding solutions to your problems from this point on. Good luck out there. It’s a big world with just as many solutions as there are people.