Healing Personal Problems

What is a problem? The word “problem”, “pro-emblema” in Latin, means “pro”, or putting forward an emblem or “symbol”. All problems are symbols or ex­pressions of thoughts.

In the Personal View our problems are always the thought about wanting or not wanting something to happen. This thought can be hidden. We often do not recognize the thought that is being expressed, as we tend to identify problems as what we see happening in our experience.

While all problems exist in the Personal View, they can be healed with the Spiritual View.

In the Spiritual View problems are opportunities to identify, understand and clarify our thoughts, and be receptive to good ideas that replace them.

The experience of suffering from problems can lead us to the Spiritual View. With the Spiritual View problems bring to our attention issues that need to be addressed with clarity, peace, goodwill and intelligence. We leave behind the anger and conflict of the Personal View.

So how can we heal our personal problems with the Spiritual View and learn to go beyond wanting what we want? 

We can consider these three steps:

First we need to recognize our thoughts that are ex­pressing themselves as a problem. What is it that we want or don’t want? What value does wanting what we want bring into our lives?

If we see these thoughts do not bring value to our lives, we regret them. Finally we turn our attention to what can replace these thoughts with values and ideas that bring peace and wholeness into our lives.

We can begin by asking “what spiritual quality would I like to see in my life right now?” It might be peace, love, gratitude or another spiritual quality. Once the spiritual quality is identified, we endeavor to be here for that quality every moment – not thinking others around us should express this quality. This moment of awareness is for us to appreciate and express.

This is the healing of personal problems with the Spir­itual View.

What a great relief it is to discover there are good ideas that are an alternative to the problems of our “wanting” thoughts, as we can’t really give up wanting until we see that there is something better to replace it with.

An example is when we are in a relationship and have a problem with our partner. We may be experiencing re­sentment, expectation and disappointment. 

The first step to healing is to recognize that we want our partner to change. This thought is the problem, not our partner. This may be difficult to see. We need to recognize that all the resentments, expectations and disappointments come from thoughts about what we want, and about what we think should and should not be. Consider that these thoughts have been hurtful, not helpful. Once we see this we can regret having these thoughts. This regret makes it possible to shift our attention as we see things in a new light. Instead of being concerned about getting what we want in the relationship, we can see that being sincerely interested in goodwill and peace in the relationship heals the problem of wanting.

Then we can be attentive, intelligent, compassionate, and responsive to what is needed, whether the relationship continues or not. 

How about when one has been fired from a job? What is the problem? Can this problem just be a thought? Yes. The problem, the source of our suffering, is the thought that “I don’t want to be fired” and “I want security and self-esteem.”

Then we may experience embarrassment, anger and frustration, and perhaps blame and resentment.

These thoughts do not solve the problem. What can be helpful is to ask the question: “What is this experience of being fired expressing?” and be receptive to the answer. We may need a moment or two, or even days of peaceful contemplation. If we ask the question with humility we may recognize and regret that we may have not done a good job, or taken the wrong job. In any event, it is time to be receptive to how we can be beneficial and useful in the workplace, at home and in the world.

This recognition will liberate us from the burden of thinking that something bad has happened to us, and it will open the door to new opportunities with the mental freedom of clarity, intelligence, usefulness, peace, assurance, love and gratitude.

The Spiritual View can be helpful in relieving our suffering even if we have experienced a complete loss of our home from a natural disaster.

Though we have lost a lot – and it is a loss – we suffer when we think this physical loss is essential to our life and  well-being.  But is it? What is essential to our life and well-being?

The answer is peace, assurance and goodwill, and we can find and express these qualities in our life at any time and place, even in the midst of the loss of our home. This releases us from the prison of our thoughts about what we want and what we think should be, and heals our suffering. We have not lost the source of our well-being.

We can see that the qualities of peace, assurance, gratitude and love expressed in good ideas are available to comfort and guide us in the next chapter of our lives. 

When we see suffering in world events, we are watching groups of people wanting their way, trying to exert power over others to get it. We often become upset and react with what we think should be, what we want. The whole world is suffering from thoughts about what is wanted, who is right and who is wrong. While we may not be able to immediately impact the world’s problems we can heal the suffering of our own problems now.

If we commit ourselves to being here for peace and goodwill rather than for what we want, we can discover how the Spiritual View heals our personal problems.