Have you ever noticed that as soon as you solve one problem, another one seems to appear?
You finally sort out that issue at work, and something happens at home. You get your finances organized, and suddenly the car needs repairing. You finish dealing with one difficult situation, and before you know it, there’s something else demanding your attention.
Sometimes it feels like life is just one problem after another!
I used to be really good at solving problems. As a medical doctor, that was practically my job description. People came to me with symptoms and concerns, and I was expected to figure out what was wrong and what to do about it.
And I carried that problem-solving approach into the rest of my life, too. I was always working on something, trying to fix something, or figuring out what needed to happen next.
But eventually I started noticing something funny. Every time I solved one problem, another one would pop up to replace it. Sometimes I wondered whether I was actually creating problems just so I’d have something to solve… and what if I was?
Do You Love Your Problems?
Strange question, right? Of course you don’t love your problems. You want them gone!
But think about how much time you spend talking about them, thinking about them, worrying about them, and trying to figure them out.
Maybe you’ve noticed that some conversations seem to revolve around the same problems over and over. The difficult boss. The partner who never listens. The bills that keep coming. The family member who drives you crazy.
And even when something changes, the story doesn’t necessarily change with it. Because sometimes you can get so used to having a certain problem that it starts to feel like part of who you are.
Maybe you’re the person who always has too much to do. Or the one who has to take care of everybody else. Or the person who can never seem to catch a break.
I began to recognize how much significance I was giving my own problems. Solving them made me feel productive and capable. There was even a sense of accomplishment when I finally figured something out.
But was I actually creating the life I wanted, or was I just getting better at managing the things I didn’t want?
What If You Didn’t Have to Fix Everything?
Another thing I’ve noticed is how easily you can start taking responsibility for other people’s problems.
Maybe your partner is unhappy at work, so you spend hours trying to figure out what they could do differently. Your friend is having trouble in a relationship, and you keep offering advice they don’t seem interested in following. Your adult child makes a choice you disagree with, and you can’t stop thinking about how to fix the situation.
Sound familiar?
You may genuinely want to help, but how much energy are you putting into trying to change something that isn’t yours to change? One of the things I love about Access Consciousness® is that it invites you to ask questions rather than immediately jumping in with answers.
What if you could care about someone without taking responsibility for solving their problems? What if you could be a contribution to them while still allowing them to make their own choices?
And what might you be able to create in your own life with all that energy you’ve been using to manage everybody else’s?
Is It Actually a Problem?
Here’s something else to consider. How often do you decide something is a problem before you really know what’s happening?
Someone doesn’t return your call, and you start wondering if you’ve upset them. A plan changes unexpectedly, and you’re already thinking about everything that’s going to go wrong. Something doesn’t happen the way you expected, and you immediately decide it’s bad news.
But what if it isn’t?
What if that cancelled plan opens up time for something else? What if the opportunity that didn’t work out wasn’t the one that would have created the most for you anyway?
I have experienced so many things in my life that looked like problems at the time but eventually led me somewhere I never would have considered going.
That doesn’t mean every difficult experience is a gift, or that you have to pretend you’re happy when something goes wrong. But how often do you make a situation even heavier by deciding what it means before you’ve explored what else is possible?
With Access Consciousness®, there are some simple questions I love to use: What is this? Can I change it? If so, how? What else is possible?®
You don’t need to come up with the answers immediately. The idea is to become curious instead of deciding you’ve already figured out what the situation is and how it’s going to turn out.
What If Life Could Be More Fun?
I love watching animals because they don’t seem nearly as interested in making everything into a problem.
My cat Bella is a wonderful example. She started life as a street kitten in Chicago, but one day she walked into my daughter’s world and apparently decided, “These are my people now!” And that was that. She chose a different life.
I’m having a little fun with this example, but there is something about the way animals live that I find fascinating. They don’t spend hours worrying about whether yesterday worked out the way they expected. They’re much more interested in what’s happening right now.
What if you could bring a little more of that into your own life? Instead of waking up and immediately thinking about everything you need to fix, what if you asked, What would be fun for me today?
Maybe you’d like to go for a walk, start something creative, meet a friend, or spend some time doing absolutely nothing. You can still deal with the practical things that need your attention. But your life doesn’t have to revolve around them.
And sometimes, when you stop focusing so intensely on a problem, you become aware of possibilities you couldn’t see before.
What Else Could You Choose?
The next time you find yourself caught up in a problem, I’d like to invite you to try something different.
Before you jump into figuring out how to fix it, ask yourself whether you’ve already decided what the problem is. Have you made assumptions about what’s going to happen? Are you trying to solve something that actually belongs to somebody else? Or have you become so focused on finding a solution that you’ve forgotten to consider what you’d really like to create?
One of my favourite questions is simply: What if this isn’t a problem at all?
You might discover that something still needs your attention. You might need to make a choice, have a conversation, or take action. But you can do those things without making the situation the centre of your entire universe. And maybe you can even have some fun along the way!
What if life could be less about fixing what’s wrong and more about discovering what else is possible?
If this opens something for you, I invite you to explore my Access Consciousness® classes, Akashic Records classes, private sessions, and resources. These are some of the tools I use to help people become more aware of the judgments, conclusions, and points of view that may be limiting what they can choose and create.