Problems
When I planted my summer garden in May, I was most excited about the sunflowers. I had finally solved the problem of our ground squirrels. My bedroom window looks out over the garden, and now the sunflowers are a good five feet tall, with buds forming. When I wake up in the morning, they are the first thing I look for.
Except, smack in the middle of my view is the construction workers’ porta potty.
Many mornings I look out there, hoping to see a sunflower, and instead I see an electrician exiting, pulling up his fly.
Such is our experience in life. Just as soon as we solve one problem, another one is blocking our way, interrupting our happiness.
Before I go on, consider this:
What are the sunflowers in your life right now?
What is the porta-potty?
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Problems are like ground squirrels, and construction workers–they keep coming back and you don’t get to decide when. So, what should we do when they do? Here’s five things to consider, based on ACT, and thousands of hours of listening to people’s problems (plus thousands of hours complaining about mine).
Beneath every problem is a value.
It wouldn’t be a problem if it didn’t matter to you in some deeper way. Try ranting about your problem for one minute (yes set at timer) then ask yourself: What does this reveal that I care about?
Now you have something more useful than a complaint. You have a direction.
Your problem is working for you in some way.
Strange loops, vicious cycles, negative reinforcement, experiential avoidance, secondary gain–whatever psychological term you want to use, some problems stick around because they are solving other problems. How is your problem working for you? That construction worker is fixing my house, afterall–and that fight you pick with your husband on Sunday night? Might just be serving you in some roundabout way too.
What is your struggle helping you avoid or what are you getting out of it?
Once you understand what the problem is doing for you, you have more freedom to choose another way.
You may need to adjust your focus.
Sometimes your problems keep coming back, because you are a problem search engine–you are only looking for things that are going wrong. Attention is like a spotlight. You can narrow it down to one tiny thing, or you can widen the lens and let it illuminate the whole picture. In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, we call these processes flexible perspective-taking and flexible attention. When you can move your focus around—out and in, right and left, narrow and wide—how you see your problem will likely shift. Often it shifts toward something more balanced or compassionate.
Our minds love to create and solve problems.
The brain seeks stimulation, control, and something to do. And if there isn’t a problem available, it may create one. Life hands us problems, sure. But is it really a problem that the plane is late? Haven’t you been wanting, more than anything, a little time to do nothing? Is it really a problem that your teen is aloof? Aren’t you going to miss them when they are gone? Sometimes what is wrong is simply that your mind is looking for what is wrong.
Some problems can be solved. Some cannot.
The word “acceptance” is in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for a reason. Often the pathway to commitment and change is acceptance. Acceptance means allowing what is already here to be part of your experience so you can stop spending all your energy arguing with reality. It means making room for the full experience: irritation and gratitude, beauty and inconvenience, sunflowers and porta pottys.
And sometimes, when you accept, move toward, and allow the very thing you fear or hate, you end up back at the beginning.
Beneath every problem is a value.
As Pema Chödrön writes that “things come together and they fall apart.” Then they come together again. Then they fall apart again.
Beneath every problem is a value
Your problem is working for you in some way
You may need to adjust your focus
Some problems cannot be solved
Practice for the week
This week, choose one problem that has been taking up a lot of your energy
Then ask:
What value is underneath this problem?
How is this problem working for me?
Can I see it differently?
What story am I adding?
Can I make room for it?
Your task is to become more skillful with the problems you have, so they can become gateways to your values, so you can keep tending your little garden patch with care.