Inner Research – How to deal with problems

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Inner Research — How to deal with problems

(Estimated Reading Time: 3 min, 6 sec)

How to deal with problems? Inner research shows us the reality of the environment or the level in which we live. Seasons alternate and follow each other, changing and bringing with them plants, animals, and even us human beings. We are all immersed in a river that flows without ever stopping. Why do we often not want to consider this reality?

It’s unfair!

Frequently, we almost have the impression that certain realities, with their brutal way of being, are in our way, create limits and offend us: they are there even if we don’t want them. Why, for example, if I have an idea, a project, a desire, do I have to wait so long to see it realized? Why, if I like something, can’t I have it?

I too, In a few years, could get older. And, if I’m fine with that, it’s because it’s not sure if I will live to an old age.

Okay, that’s how it’s going and there’s nothing we can do about it.

We have found a way out from this problem — which is beyond our control: we act without considering reality.

I can’t live with this sword of Damocles hanging over my head!

We don’t want to know about inner research and don’t want to work on ourselves. We move to a level of non-consciousness, more superficial and are full of frantic activity, nervousness, and agitation.

How do we start this process?

Victim to the difficulty

If something does not please me or cause me pain or make me unhappy, I feel a victim to the difficulty. This results from the rational feeling, which then becomes certainty, that I am suffering injustice. I have to protect myself from reality! But how, if reality is all around us?

I escape into the reverie and create a bespoke reality that I like best.

At school

For example: I get a poor grade at school, and the teacher says I don’t study enough? It’s because he’s biased. He dislikes and rejects me.

How many of us didn’t complain about a teacher in our high school days? All you had to do was convince yourself of it, and you didn’t have to work harder and study, but it was the teacher who had to change!

We were just poor victims of human injustice.

In the office.

One more example: I am working on a project with my colleague in the office, and we disagree on a detail. She accuses me of not understanding. I tell her that her ideas are outdated. We sulk and keep position. We stuck.

The real problem

In dealing with problems, what is the real problem, the one worth considering and solving, the goal on which we should keep our attention?

Is it to get the project done or to go on bickering?

It is often humbling to step back instead of showing the other person they can’t afford to fight us, and that we are right. If we give in to the temptation, our focus shifts and the actual issue remains unresolved.

The fictitious problem

When we feel victims, we create fictitious issues. We react to alleged offenses — and give vent to some of our emotions; we focus on secondary or supposed issues, to disperse energy in power games, to dramatize.

All that takes us away from our original goal.

Childbirth

On the occasion of the most violent labor pains, — when she was about to give birth — Alike reacted to the pain by stretching herself like a rubber band and screaming. In this way, though, she stiffened her muscles and contrasted the process of childbirth.

The midwife called her back to herself. “This is not helping your baby to be born!”

Alike was trying to escape the pain and that had become the most urgent issue, the only one. It was a fictitious problem, one that she couldn’t solve until the baby was born. The actual concern was to facilitate the delivery of her child, and then the pain would cease.

How can one avoid falling into this trap?

I ask myself, in front of an ambiguous situation, “What is the actual concern, the goal I want to achieve?” This let me stay more on point and in touch with reality.

Often it’s difficult, and I follow the emotion of the moment, but as soon as I realize it, I can get back into myself. I redirect my attention and focus it on the actual concern.

Aurora Mazzoldi