May 27


Problems are messages.

Shakti Gawain

  

Today's Meditation:

Boy, do I have a lot of problems in my life.  I don't ask for any of them, and I don't try to make them happen, but they do come up, sometimes through my own doing.  Actually, often through my own doing.  I'll make what I see as a small mistake, and all of a sudden I have to deal with repercussions of that mistake.  Or something large will happen, like being laid off a few years back, and then I'll have to deal with tons of problems caused by that-- and those problems don't seem to want to go away. 

While I seem to be good at creating problems in my life, I don't seem to be very good at listening to the messages that those problems bring, or learning the lessons that are in the messages.  If I were good at this, then I don't think that the same problems would continue to emerge, yet somehow they do.  But how can I recognize the messages, understand them, and apply the lessons learned to my life?  It seems to be a very difficult task, and one that nobody ever has taught me how to do.

I suppose the first thing to do is to look at the problem itself and figure out its dynamics-- where it comes from, what it involves, how I contributed to it, how others have contributed to it.  Then it's important for me to figure out just how my contribution to it came about-- did I act out of negligence, ignorance, silliness, uncaring?  And what have I learned about other people through their contributions to the problem, or their involvement or lack of involvement in it?

Many messages in our lives go unrecognized.  That's a reflection of our lack of awareness, our busyness, the distractions that make up our lives.  We can make our lives much more positive, though, if we learn to recognize the messages and learn the lessons that they bring us. . . and that does take effort.

Questions to consider:

What kinds of messages about yourself might you find in your current problems?

How might we learn how to recognize messages more effectively?

Why are so few of us able to look at problems as if they might be bringing us special knowledge that's important to us?

For further thought:

Welcome problems, reach out for them, charge into them and convert them in your mind immediately to challenges.  The negative way to look at a problem is to think of it as a problem.  Search it out, isolate it as a problem, then in your mind convert it to a challenge, determine the steps that you will need to surmount it just as the pole vaulter needs to first determine steps and then work at it.  Only in this way do you develop the skill, the coordination, the mind, the muscle and the confidence to really get it done.

Joe D. Batten and Leonard C. Hudson

more thoughts and ideas on problems

  

   

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