Fascinating Ways to Solve Life’s Problems By Going Within

How do you solve life’s problems? I’m happy to have Georgina Mavor sharing her experiences on LEA. She is a psychologist who uses journaling, metaphor therapy, and other spiritual and mindful techniques to help people find solutions. She’s got several exercises here you can try. I found them fascinating. I think you will too.

by Georgina Mavor

I suspect that years of bullying in secondary school and my own isolation was behind my decision to study psychology.

Because of that bullying, I left school when I was 15, attended Business College for a year, completed the final two years of secondary schooling in one year through the vocational education system and then entered university.

As I wasn’t in a secondary school at the time of making an application for University, I wasn’t privy to the range of career education speakers and information sessions students receive. Instead we were given a small handful of pamphlets to read.

None of them really caught my eye until I read the psychology one. And there we have it.

I suspect I just wanted to understand “me” better, I’m not really sure I saw myself as sitting in a room helping others with their problems. That seemed like a big stretch for the person I thought I was at the time.

To Solve Life’s Problems: We All Have a Stream of Intelligence Running Through Us That Is “Home”

I know that we all have a stream of intelligence running through us that is “home.” We can learn to recognize it; know when we are “muddying it up” with our thinking; know that if we just get on with life and wait for our minds to calm, that seeing situations more clearly and deeply will surface; that we can trust it.

Our society conditions us to pay attention to the uncomfortable feelings that come when we innocently “muddy up” our deeper vitality. I’d like to at least balance that out by bringing to people’s awareness the manifestation of natural intelligence or psychological health operating in us all.

For example, the psychology field pays enormous attention to the thoughts behind anxiety, depression, OCD, etc. It uses techniques and strategies to bring the role that thinking plays to feeling (and therefore behavior) very well. It brings attention to how some thoughts create our distress.

But what about the fact that thoughts also spontaneously surface that lead us back into vitality? We teach people to recognize the feelings that come with distressing thoughts so why not teach them to recognize the feelings that come with uplifting thoughts?

People Have Uplifting Thoughts All the Time, But Don’t Recognize Them for What They Are

We need to help people see the totality of how we function psychologically, the intrinsic health of it and not just one aspect of its manifestations. We don’t have to teach people how to have uplifting thoughts, they have them all the time, but don’t recognize them for what they are – the “immune response” part of our psychological health system.

My use of mindfulness is in the moment awareness of the quality of thought we are experiencing, of the need to just quieten down if we have become discombobulated, and of recognizing the intelligence or wisdom that surfaces regularly in the stream of thinking we are all doing, all day.

We act on the wrong thoughts. We need to simply quieten when distress surfaces.

Consciousness, or what is sometimes referred to as mindfulness, allows us to see our inside-out creation of experience, to recognize and act on deeper intelligence, and to observe the patterns of its operation.

Innocently, we have learned to focus our attention in the wrong direction.

When Solving Life’s Problems: How Journaling is Like Water Divining

Journalling is like water divining. I can start anywhere, trust the process (and stay out of my intellect about what I think I should be writing or writing about) and it will always take me to the source of deeper understanding flowing through me.

Playing with various prompts also provides experience of the creative nature of thought and broaden our range of thought. The more familiar and flexible we become with thinking, the less serious we take the content of what it creates.

Any prompts provided by mainstream authors provide an opportunity to “play.” I am not the only one who sees the creative nature of our thoughts. If we give ourselves permission to respond to any prompt that we come across, we will either experience a greater breadth and flexibility in thinking, or we will travel deeper and tap something beyond our conscious mind.

When Journaling, Start with What You Know

I have found that one of the most powerful journaling techniques when we are caught up in something uncomfortable is to start with what we know.

For those of us conditioned to not voice our discontent, we may need to give ourselves permission to be honest on the page. For many, saying what sits in our gut is often a new experience.

Just imagine I am in a friendship in which I find myself continuously frustrated. That discontent is a signal I need to take time out to reflect within.

I start with what I know: I feel frustrated. A question comes to mind: Why is that? What’s going on that’s leading to these feelings?

I write down what I see (am conscious of). Other questions may surface and I respond to those.

Or an image of another situation comes to mind, I write, and write, and write. As my mind slows, thought takes me deeper and something fresh, a new perspective, a deeper consciousness, hits the page. I may arrive at the conclusion that I need to withdraw my engagement with this friendship for a while, or I may see that my friend is struggling psychologically and I need to reach out, or I may see that I have a choice about whether I remain available or not.

Or I may see that I need to expand my network of friends.

I trust that whatever hits the page is right for me right at that moment. What’s really amazing though, is that those questions and thoughts surfaced, spontaneously, on their own with no deliberate work from myself. Why do we not get gobsmacked at that and turn to it more?

To Solve Life’s Problems, Go Beyond Waking Consciousness

Another journaling technique I use is to record what resonates with me during the day and write into it.

I have a view that part of the psychological system within us all includes sensing what is relevant to each one of us. Waking consciousness only touches the surface of all that we are aware of.

We can sense the feeling in a room without any information beforehand. We can sense the stability or otherwise of people around us, without knowing anything about them (if our minds are quiet). We can sense we have forgotten something. We can sense when we should be paying attention to something happening right now, instead of staying absorbed in what is running through our heads.

We can also sense when something touches us or we need to pay attention. Writing about what touches me slows down the mind and I tap deeper consciousness. If I read something that resonates, or hear someone’s words, or see an incident that maybe even disturbs me, or hear deeper wisdom within me, I write them in my journal and will later take time to write “into them.”

I do not know where the writing will take me, but I stay out of my head telling me what I should or shouldn’t write and just follow the train of thought as it comes. I am usually deeply rewarded.

Free Association Writing Always Yields Deeper Understanding, If We Allow It

Of course, free association writing always yields deeper understanding, if we allow it.

When running journaling groups, I have found it useful to have each person slow down their minds and open up to whatever comes by first just writing a few words about the day, time, who is the room, what they can hear/see/smell and then as they turn their attention to the page, this is what they want to say. (I think I first came across the approach in work from Christina Baldwin.)

For example, the date yesterday carried my mind to a relationship that ended some decades ago. I felt sad and started to tell myself this isn’t what I wanted to be thinking about. But I stayed with it and was rewarded with deeper insight into the dynamics of relationships and the challenges one of my client faces.

Interestingly, relationships appeared again in a group I organized later that day and so much more came to me. It was a very fruitful day and I certainly feel more grounded in my understanding of relationships and relating than what I did at the beginning of the day.

The depth I harvested through the journaling and later conversations has changed me. I am richer and fuller because of it. This is a truth I know from experience with journaling – through the act of listening and communicating with all my depth (and not just what I am aware of in my mind) I become more “me’.” I experience more freedom to be me. I trust me, know me and am also more open to future changes to what “me” knows.

Shy away from  the depths of our consciousness and we’re a bit hamstrung.

Solve Life’s Problems Technique: What Is Metaphor Therapy and Why Should I Try It?

Metaphor therapy is really about listening to the language used by clients to describe their situation and then you use a story about how others have overcome that problem to elicit ideas about what the client could do to change their situation.

It includes conversation that unpacks the client’s experience and what they might want to be moving towards. We write the story of our life from the inside out, from the language we are familiar with and the language that is fresh to us.

Metaphor therapy is a pathway to turning attention to the latter using conversation and other stories. Someone once said to me that they had never seen a person change their behaviors because of another person’s story. My experience says they are wrong.

Just this weekend, I was reading Marilyn and Irving Yalom’s book about her final months and his first few months on his own. I was having a bit of a hard time with my own state of mind, but in reading their story and his words to a client about how his experience in grief might be useful to others, I had a realization, a fresh thought, that completely changed my mood. Words from their story resonated with my state at the time and shifted it.

Everyone can read stories or watch films or listen to people and audio books, and they will feel words resonating – if their minds aren’t distracted elsewhere. If people wanted to explore the power of this, then I would suggest that the next time they are reading anything (or watching a movie, etc.) and words resonate, write them down and write into them.

How do those words have relevance to your life? Are you living them? What do you know about what those words are pointing to?

Start with whatever small amount you know and keep writing, more will surface. Think about your favorite fairy tale as a child. What was it about that story that grabbed you? What were the feelings it created? How might those feelings be relevant today?

Your Solutions to Life’s Problems Come from Within

Whether solutions [to life’s problems] come from the mouths of others, or surface within our own minds, they have a feeling to them.

Do we ever pause to wonder that thousands of words cross our minds and pass through our ear drums each day, most of which just walk on by and yet there are others that literally change the quality of our minds in a blink?

We know solutions via a feeling – that aha moment, or the moment someone finally sees what was previously taught intellectually, or … the train of thought that will come to mind when we stop wrangling with a busy head.

If a person truly lets go of their subjective thinking, it’s impossible for another train of thought not to flow in. And it will always be positive. It will have a better feeling than what we create subjectively.

Maybe the first step to realizing that solutions come from within is to debunk the thinking that we solve problems by worrying. Let go of focusing on the wrong thing and we unclutter our minds for solutions to surface.  We all worry, and we keep worrying, thinking that the worrying will solve our problem. But it never does.

Play with this idea. Identify a time when you were really worried, or annoyed, with a situation or a person. Then identify a time when you felt the exact opposite with exactly the same situation. Because the health in our bodies brings all thoughts alive as feelings, the feelings are real – but they are not true. If they were true, how could we experience the complete opposite at a different time?

Worrying isn’t where we find solutions. So could we just drop it? What would happen if we did? How would we feel about ourselves if we gave ourselves permission to just drop our worry or anger? To be different? If you are anything like me, resistance appears. That’s interesting.

Am I up for feeling righteously annoyed in one moment, and being objectively observant or warmly engaged in the next? Not many people are up for experiencing the truth of our subjective thinking and how much it wastes precious time. If people wanted to play with this via journal writing, they could write the rant going on in their heads and then write deliberately “I am making this up,” repeatedly perhaps, until they can see it, truly see what I am saying here, and then open up to what comes.

Because if what they are ranting about really is a problem, then (a) they won’t find a solution in the ranting, and (b) solutions only come when our minds have calmed. Calm them down quicker and solutions come quicker. 

Once You Start Having a Clearer Relationship With Your Mind, You Develop the Superpower of Awareness

I particularly find it useful to progress my life direction via “thoughts that feel right” writing. I never, ever find solutions in all the thinking I do ABOUT my life. So I stop that thinking, get on with my life, do my best to have a healthy routine and know that thoughts and ideas will come.

Sometimes they come after a good night’s sleep or whilst walking the dog or some other unexpected place, and at other times they seem to come in a circular motion with big periods of inactivity in between.

This is always interesting. I keep living and listen out for fresh thoughts that I know will come.

Observe your thinking. Reflect and write about when you get your clearest thinking, or inspirations on possibility. Or periods when you had nothing on your mind, or when your mind was in overdrive.

Once you start to have a clearer relationship with your mind, you stop getting so caught up in its entanglements. You develop the human superpower of awareness.

Solve Life’s Problems Technique: What Is Disentangling?

Whatever we are experiencing in the moment is simply a mix of Consciousness (Awareness) and the thoughts we are entertaining in the mixing bowl of our minds. Most of the time, those thoughts come together perfectly and our feelings are as smooth as the perfect cake mix, but at other times an “ingredient” doesn’t integrate well, contaminating the mix and we feel the disharmony.

Sometimes, if I turn my attention inward, I can become aware or conscious of the disharmonious thoughts I have crossing my mind, but at other times it is like a niggle in the background. In other words, the contaminating thought sits somewhere just outside my conscious awareness. (In any moment, we are not conscious of all the thoughts flowing through our minds – thankfully.)

For example, someone may wish to have an open friendly relationship with another, but at the same time subconsciously (just out of awareness) have thoughts about a need to be liked. Those subconscious thoughts get in the way of what they want. They change the free secure flow of thought. They change how we are in the moment.

When a person sees (becomes aware of) the contamination of that thinking (its feeling) and consciously drops it, they are truly free to interact without fear. They are much more likely to create the type of friendship they are after. They listen more. They get out of their own heads and listen to the other person’s. They have no need for validation and yet end up with more of it. Their relating is unconditional because they have no vested interest in whether they are liked or not.

To Life Harmoniously, We Must Move Between the Inner and Outer World

Listening is a powerful activity for seeing what I am pointing to here. I don’t subscribe to a view that we can just journal all our challenges (or negative patterns) away. It must be married with action in the outer world.

To live life harmoniously and consciously, I believe we need to move between the outer world and the inner world (like a current moving through the infinity symbol). In fact, I suspect that the natural rhythms and equilibrium of our being is built around these two movements and will demand them if we over rely on one.

Get too busy and we become overwhelmed emotionally and/or physically, and eventually we heed the wisdom of withdrawing. Spend too much time inwardly and something within prompts us to get out. It’s all built in.

We have to learn to listen to others, and ourselves, without judgement. Develop your ability to journal without judgement, to allow your thoughts to flow, and to write them. Give yourself permission to write what hits the page and keep going. Action, either in the form of not entertaining certain thoughts seriously or doing something different in the outer world will surface.

Or experiment with listening without judgement to others, of letting go of the need to assert your point of view and instead attempt to deeply understand that of the other person. Then write about the experience in your journal. We can feel our entanglement with thoughts that “curdle.”

Notice, drop judgement and allow a more unconditional way of being (behavior) to express itself. Being aware of how our experience is created from the inside out allows freer expression of ourselves and in the process our negative patterns drop away – because we are no longer living them, we are living something fresh.

Top 3 Mistakes People Make in Life That Creates Negative Outcomes

First up, I am not sure we should be too hung up on avoiding negative outcomes. It puts us in the mode of needing to be vigilant with ourselves and that feels harsh.

It’s interesting, because the most painful experience I ever had was getting involved with an emotionally abusive man. At the time of meeting him my intuition was sending huge warning bells, but I didn’t listen. (a) Because I didn’t know what that part of me was, and so I ignored it. And, (b) because I had no experience of what I was about to experience and therefore I didn’t KNOW what was coming. I only KNEW after the experience. I find that fact interesting.

Intuition can guide us, but the intellect doesn’t know what intuition knows – it needs experience in order to KNOW. If I heeded my intuition all the time, then perhaps I wouldn’t spend so much time “fossicking around in the wilderness of experience.” But what would I know? It’s an interesting question.

And yet, my first “mistake” I would like people to change is trusting their intuition or deeper wisdom.

We need to stop ignoring it. Maybe then the answer to my previous question will reveal itself – we get to experience and know what it is like to live supported by the current of Life that runs through us all. We get to know, to have a much more lived experience, of the intelligence and wisdom that resides in that current.

Maybe we would learn that nothing is to be feared (even if it is abhorrent) because the current of Life will provide a way through whatever comes our way. Get to know what that current feels like. It is Thought, forming into words, images, senses in our bodies. Create time and a practice to become conscious of it. Form a relationship with it.

My second word of advice would be to lighten up your relationship with uneasy thoughts and feelings.

We take them too seriously. They are passing states of mind, not traits of our awareness.

We can, and do, get on with life, even when uneasy moods are present. Just like the wind, rain, and heat, they are passing states in our world, but not the world.

Notice them and turn within to the current of Life for insights and realizations on how to harmonize yourself again. Just as humanity needs to do this if it is to harmonize the world back from climate change, so too do we need to do it for ourselves.

And in the meantime, we do our best to get on with life, even as the storms rage.

Lastly, don’t believe the lie of things we think will make us feel better – drugs, alcohol, medications, a diagnosis, a great body, sex, porn, etc. etc.

Those things trick us into believing that they are the answer. Listen to the niggle that says don’t. They are a loooong experience and whilst I have considerable respect for the value of experience, these ones are tough, in many cases, too tough.

If we follow their illusory promise, we end up spending decades locked into something that never yields its promise, which at its simplest level is usually a good feeling. In these cases, we end up having very, very long experiences just to know that the feeling we were after isn’t to be found via those avenues.

The feeling we are after is in the current of Life that flows through us. The current of Life has vitality and it has intelligence. It is within, not in the things around us. The moment breath began in our bodies we felt it. We’ve just forgotten what it feels like.

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Georgina Mavor works part time as a Psychologist in private practice and part time working with the aged, doing her best to improve their quality of life.

She has always enjoyed journal writing, people’s stories and exploring the deeper nature of being human.

She is a late in life mother of a beautiful 18 year old daughter, loves to swim in the crystal clear turquoise water of the ocean not far from her home, covets books and all things stationery, and regularly camps out with her very Australian Red Cloud Kelpie and women’s groups.

Find more about Georgina and her work on her website and blog, and connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.