How do you deal with problems?
“The sage does not treasure what is difficult to attain” Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
In Dr Wayne Dyer’s “Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life”, Dyer breaks down each verse of the Tao Te Ching to give us practical guidance on living the wisdom of the Tao. The Tao is the Way or the Truth, both are purposely capitalised to highlight the significance of these words.
His chapter on the 64th verse of the Tao Te Ching ‘Living By Being Here Now’ resonated with me in such a big way, I feel I am still reeling from the deepening levels of awareness it continues to bring to me. It is about how changing the way you think about your problems, changes your perspective and reduces the scale of the problem.
Dyer breaks it down into 3 steps to enlightenment that most people walk:
Step 1: Through suffering
This is when your problems become so big and overwhelming it seems you feel you have no other choice but to make some changes. You find yourself in a difficult situation that is causing you deep pain, be it physical, emotional or otherwise. Contrary to the opening quote, this happens because you “treasure what is difficult to attain.” In hindsight you may be able to look back and be grateful for the experience and the lessons it brought but living like this can be extremely painful and there are other ways.
Step 2: By being in the present moment
This is when in the midst of a problem you are able to take a step back and find the gift or learning/healing opportunity in the situation by staying present and not being carried away by your emotions. This step is a step in the right direction but it’s still not the sage’s way.
Step 3: Getting out in front of big problems
This is when you take action before issues erupt. “You prevent difficulties rather than solve them” Wayne Dyer. All problems start out as small problems and grow into big problems over time when ignored or not dealt with. According to Dyer, this way is the Tao-centered way, the sage’s way. You sense problems, arguments etc before they come up and neutralise them while still small knowing that they are a lot easier to deal with as small problems than as big ones. You do “not treasure what is difficult to attain”, you love yourself enough to not put yourself through unnecessary pain and discomfort so face issue head on while small and easily manageable.
Too many of us are motivated by the 1st step of suffering, when “you treasure what is difficult to attain” you tend to miss all the easier options and your world is being powered by socially accepted beliefs like “no pain no gain”, “you’ve got to suffer for success”, “nothing worth having is easy” etc.
If you recognise yourself in step 1 you would benefit by looking at the beliefs you hold around suffering and achievement/success. See what your current beliefs are bringing you and seriously allow yourself to dream about how you really want things to be. Note that to change these beliefs means going against the society’s grain so let go of any need for external approval and trust yourself.
The 2nd step, being present allows you to tap into the bigger picture of what’s going on but you are still fire fighting. The 3rd step, getting in front of your problems is a way that isn’t even on many of our radars and why would it be since we are spending all of our energy solving our problems, we haven’t anything left to see what’s coming and diffuse it beforehand.
How do you see what’s coming?
“The more you do of what you’re doing the more you get of what you’re getting.” Just by the process of momentum you can see where something’s heading, if you want to. If your weight is increasing at the rate of 1lb each month, you will put on 12lbs in one year unless you do something different. Also, start to use and trust your intuition more, the more you use it the sharper it will become.
I’m in between step 1 and 2 and now aiming for 3, which step are you at? Leave a comment below.
In peace, love and success x x x
* * *
Want a new relationship with food this new year?
Register here for my FREE preview call for my new teleclass series ‘Healing Your Relationship with Food’ on December 16 2008 7.30pm (GMT).
It will be recorded so register even if you cannot make it live and take back the control that food has over you.
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my newsletter.
You can follow me on Twitter too.
Thanks for visiting!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Amber:
I feel I am definitely working on being present. That has proven to be challenging enough. As for seeing into the future..I’m not quite there yet! Catching the problems when they are small is of course ideal, but I don’t know how effective that would be. You can’t always defuse a problem beforehand and have to figure out how to deal with it in the moment. In my experience the more aware you are in the moment the better off you are. When you can improv and make split decisions on the fly you know you can handle anything while staying calm and collected.
Posted on December 3rd, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Lola:
Hey Amber
Being present is a lifelong practise but I believe it gets easier, or at least your awareness of whether you are present or not, raises over time.
I love the idea of diffusing a problem before it’s huge however that doesn’t mean you have to do it all the time, for me it’s nice to know it’s an option.
If we are totally honest with ourselves I think most of us can look back at situations we found ourselves in and see where we could have nipped them in the bud. But you would have to be present to see it in the first place.
In love, light and abundance x x x
Posted on December 3rd, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Andrea|Empowered Soul:
I love this post! I had a spiritual teacher once that I left because there was this huge emphasis on suffering - almost like we could only grow through pain. I don’t believe that. To me, the essence of suffering is really the resistance of the ego … when we flow within the path of our highest good, we may have to step out of our comfort zone, but we do not have to suffer.
I was floating along happily between steps two and three for a while, then apparently I needed to get bopped over the head by life and went right back to one, but have no recovered and am back to moving towards step three! I don’t really think it’s always a linear process …
Blessings,
Andrea
Posted on December 3rd, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Lola:
Hey Andrea
No it’s definitely not linear! I chuckled to myself when you read how you were somewhere between 2 and 3 and then went back to 1.
The suffering thing is something that has come up for me a lot and you’re right, it is just ego’s resistance to flowing. We really are the only thing that makes life hard for ourselves.
In love, light and abundance x x x
Posted on December 4th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
axel g:
The present moment is soothing and full of life +_+
Nice post Lola!
Posted on December 8th, 2008 at 6:41 am