A Problem or A Gift?
So many times, life gives us messages to help us learn and grow. It’s not always obvious what those messages are about while we’re in the middle of trying to solve our problems.
I’d like to share an example from my own life and how what I thought was a problem turned out to be a wonderful learning.
For about two weeks, my computer had been doing some very strange things.
When I was working with emails, I’d click the reply button and, instead of bringing the message onto the screen, it would send it down into drafts. When I deleted one message, it sometimes deleted three or four. And when I tried to copy and paste something, the computer simply wouldn’t do it.
It was getting pretty aggravating. What was wrong with my computer?
Someone suggested that maybe the battery in my mouse needed to be changed. So, I changed the battery. Problem solved? Nope.
The computer eventually went in to be serviced…and they found the problem. The clicker in the mouse was worn out. After all those years of using the same mouse, I needed a new one.
Something I thought was the problem wasn’t the problem at all. And something I thought might cost me a lot of money to fix ended up costing me less than $80.
But there was something else I received from the experience. A gift.
How can a problem become a gift?
When we’re experiencing problems, it can be difficult to see them as opportunities to learn and grow. We don’t have to like what’s happening….and we don’t have to pretend everything’s okay.
In the beginning, our thoughts and emotions can take over. We react.
And when we’re reacting…our perception can become clouded. We can become so focused on what we think is happening that we don’t see what might actually be happening.
Yet there’s something valuable about our reactions.
They can show us that there’s unrest within us. Until we react, we may not even realize that the unrest is there.
Our reactions aren’t meant to be used to beat ourselves up or to tell us that we’ve done something wrong. They can simply be information…helping us become curious about what’s happening within us.
What are we thinking? What are we feeling? What physical body sensations are we experiencing? What are we reacting to?
Curiosity can take us in a different direction, helping us to see things differently. Awareness is a part of this…guiding us to gain greater clarity.
And sometimes, curiosity…along with awareness…is what turns a problem into a gift.
Let’s go back to my computer.
I knew my computer wasn’t working properly, so I did what I could to resolve the problem. When changing the mouse battery didn’t work, I became aggravated.
As I became more aware of my aggravation, I noticed there was something underneath it.
For me, it had a lot to do with feeling disempowered.
I couldn’t fix the problem myself, I thought about all the money this would cost me, and that feeling was clouding my perception.
Once I took action and had the computer looked at by someone who knew what they were doing, the actual source of the problem was identified and resolved.
And something shifted inside me.
Within days of getting my computer home, I could look back at the whole experience differently.
I saw the gift.
The computer and the mouse had given me a couple of wonderful messages.
First…is the problem really the problem?
I was focused on the computer. But the problem wasn’t actually with the computer. It was the mouse that was influencing what was happening.
How often do we do something similar in our own lives?
We focus on what we perceive to be the problem, believing that’s what needs to be fixed, when there may be something else influencing what we’re experiencing.
Think about some of these examples:
We have back pain, so we focus on our back as the problem.
Our hips hurt, and we assume they’re giving out because we’re getting older.
We can’t lose weight, so we look for another diet to try.
Our parents make us angry, so we want them to change.
We’re feeling depressed, so we wonder whether our medication is working.
These are just a few examples of how easily we can become focused on what we think is the problem.
And it happens innocently. We’re simply trying to find an answer. But what if there’s more for us to see?
What thoughts, emotions and physical body sensations might be influencing what we’re experiencing?
What’s happening within us as we experience the problem?
What if the thing we’re focused on isn’t the whole story?
Secondly…our thoughts, emotions and physical body sensations matter.
What we think and feel influences our relationships, our choices and how we experience life.
When something changes within us…when our thoughts shift, our emotions settle or we experience a change in our energy…we may also experience a change in how our body feels.
My computer experience was a timely reminder for me to pay attention to my thoughts and to how those thoughts influence the running of my own inner “computer.”
It reminded me that what we see first isn’t always what’s really going on.
Life is always teaching us something.
Every experience gives us an opportunity to learn and grow. We learn what we like and what we don’t like. We learn what works and what doesn’t. We learn what we react to and what brings us peace.
And sometimes, we even learn that what we thought was the problem wasn’t actually the problem at all.
We can’t always know what an experience is here to teach us while we’re going through it.
Sometimes, we only see the learning…the gift…after we’ve moved through the experience and our perception has shifted.
So, what kinds of problems are we experiencing these days?
What if, instead of only asking, “How do we fix this?”, we also asked:
“What is this experience here to show us?”
Perhaps that’s where the gift begins.
Wherever you are on your journey, may you find what works for you…find your own truth…and you will always be guided to feel at peace inside.
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