A problem deserves your attention.
It does not deserve permanent residence in your mind.
Face it, work it, then make enough room for the answer to find you.
This little simple statement plagues mankind constantly:
FIXATING ON PROBLEMS EMPOWERS THEM.
Here is how it usually begins.
We encounter a problem that looks epic in proportion.
Maybe it is shocking.
Unexpected.
Painful.
Financial.
Personal.
Professional.
Relational.
Something happens and for a moment it seems to fill the entire sky.
That first reaction is normal.
We are human.
It takes time to move from REACTION to RESPONSE.
And that time is different for everybody.
First comes impact.
Then emotion.
Then questions.
Then eventually, if handled properly, we begin getting a handle on what happened.
That is where awareness becomes very important.
SELF-HYPNOSIS
This is also where we can accidentally make the situation worse.
At some point, we have to be careful not to fixate on the problem.
There is a difference between examining something and staring at it all day.
Repeated exposure has power.
You tell yourself the same story again.
Then again.
Then again.
You replay the conversation.
You imagine what might happen.
You review every possible disaster.
You tell five friends.
Then tell the first friend again because you remembered another detail.
LOL.
Eventually the problem begins growing inside the mind whether or not it is growing outside of it.
That is what I call a form of self-hypnosis.
You keep presenting the same suggestion to yourself:
“This is terrible.”
“This will never end.”
“I am trapped.”
“There is no answer.”
Be careful what you repeatedly feed your own mind.
You are listening.
THE PROBLEM IS REAL — BUT SO ARE YOU
Now let us not get silly here.
I am not saying problems are imaginary.
Some are very real.
Bills are real.
Loss is real.
Illness is real.
Betrayal is real.
Business problems are real.
Family problems are real.
Consequences are real.
But YOU are real too.
Your intelligence.
Your experience.
Your relationships.
Your faith.
Your skills.
Your ability to ask for help.
Your ability to learn.
Your ability to adjust.
Do not make the mistake of magnifying the problem while shrinking the person who has to deal with it.
GIVE IT TIME — EVERYTHING ANSWERS TO TIME
Time has a very interesting way of working on things.
After you have done what you reasonably can do, there often comes a moment where the correct next move is:
PAUSE.
Not quit.
Not surrender.
Pause.
You made the call.
You sent the email.
You apologized.
You gathered information.
You hired the professional.
You filled out the paperwork.
You had the conversation.
Now some things require time.
The suffering may still be there.
The uncertainty may still be there.
But the fact that you have acted is also at work.
Processes are moving that you cannot yet see.
And if you can stay out of your own way long enough, another answer may appear.
Sometimes the next solution does not arrive because you forced it.
It arrives because you finally became quiet enough to notice it.
I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO REACH YOU
That makes me think of something.
Sometimes life may almost be saying:
“I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO REACH YOU.”
LOL.
But the line is busy.
Busy with worry.
Busy with replaying.
Busy with fear.
Busy telling the same story.
Busy imagining ten endings, nine of which will never happen.
If you take refuge completely inside the problem, you become harder to reach.
New information has difficulty getting in.
Advice gets rejected.
Possibilities get overlooked.
Help arrives and you do not recognize it because it does not look like the answer you already decided you needed.
That can keep a problem alive much longer than necessary.
All life lessons seem to come in phases.
The beginning.
The impact.
The confusion.
The response.
The adjustment.
The lesson.
The resolution.
Learning how to travel through those phases without building a house in one of them is paramount to a good life journey.
FIND YOUR CENTER
Everything seems to have a way of pulling or pushing us away from our center.
Maybe that is proof that the center remains the GO-TO place.
Think about it.
When life becomes chaotic, what do we usually say?
“I need to get myself together.”
“I need to clear my head.”
“I need a minute.”
“I need to think.”
Exactly.
You are looking for your center.
Your neutral ground.
Your objectivity.
That place where emotion is present but does not own the steering wheel.
We will have woes and blows as we travel.
They are what they are.
But there is also a force within us that can use difficulties for growth.
The trouble can teach.
The disappointment can refine.
The mistake can educate.
The setback can redirect.
But only if we do not spend all our energy worshiping the problem.
STOP FEEDING IT
You would never deliberately feed something you were trying to make smaller.
Yet that is what we sometimes do with problems.
We feed them attention.
Fear.
Conversation.
Prediction.
Imagination.
Memory.
Over and over.
Then we wonder why they feel so large.
Sometimes you need to stop feeding the thing.
Not ignore it.
Not deny it.
Simply stop giving it every available inch of your mental real estate.
Do something else.
Go outside.
Work.
Exercise.
Read.
Pray.
Help somebody.
Take a walk.
Eat something.
Laugh if you can.
Sleep.
Give the nervous system a chance to remember that the problem is PART of your life.
It is not the whole life.
THE ANSWER WILL COME
From your center, you can recover from the impact.
Then assess.
Ask necessary questions.
Activate your skills.
Use your talents.
Call on your abilities.
Bring in your experience.
Ask for assistance.
Stay humble.
Then wait intelligently.
There is a difference between waiting and doing nothing.
Intelligent waiting means you are ready.
Watching.
Listening.
Available.
The channel remains open.
And answers have a strange habit of arriving through channels we did not expect.
A person.
A phone call.
A new thought.
A delay.
A closed door.
A different opportunity.
A realization that the answer was not fixing what happened but changing what happens next.
RICHIE SPEAKS
Here is the Richie version:
Do not put the problem on a throne.
LOL.
Yes, it showed up.
Yes, deal with it.
Yes, respect the seriousness when seriousness is required.
But do not bow to it morning, noon, and night.
Give the problem its proper portion of attention.
Then get back to LIFE.
PEARLS INSIGHT
Fixating on problems can increase stress, narrow perspective, and make solutions harder to recognize. Healthy problem-solving means acknowledging reality, taking reasonable action, allowing time to work, maintaining perspective, and returning to a calmer mental center where better decisions can be made.
PEARLS CONNECTION
This Pearl connects naturally with hindsight, common sense, belief, and resisting retaliation.
Hindsight says:
Learn without living backward.
Common sense says:
Pause before making things worse.
Belief says:
Be careful what you continually tell yourself.
And this Pearl says:
Do not give the problem more power than the situation itself requires.
FINAL THOUGHT
Problems need attention.
Solutions need space.
Give both what they require.
Do what you can.
Then loosen your grip.
Stay in the moment.
Keep your channels clear.
Return to your center.
The answer may already be trying to reach you.
And when it does…
be available.
Resolution will visit.
It usually does.
— Richie
Pearls for the Soul
when you feed the soul, you feed everything.
https://pearlsforthesoul.com
Been expecting you