Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Solving Problems

Tags

Bifurcation, Chaos, entropy, Problems, Solving Problems, Spiritual, Systems, Transformation

There is nothing wrong with asking for help, but we must remember that our purpose for being on earth is to learn how to arrive at the correct solution to our own problems. We have to write the script and—as well as we can—figure out how to untangle the plot.

Harold Klemp, ECK Wisdom on Solving Problems, p. 2.

Imagine yourself in a boat. You’re enjoying the breeze coming off of the water. You see the sun dance across the surface. Everything is sublime.

You look down and see water coming into the boat through a hole. “Oh, my.”, you say to yourself. Troubles come into our lives unexpectedly. We’re floating along without a care in the world, and then a hole appears, and the water comes flowing in.

Problems in our lives arise this way. Some we can see coming. Others are unexpected. They blindside us.

Sometimes when we solve a problem, we try to bail out the water coming into our boat, hoping we can get rid of the water more quickly than it comes in. This is an example of our “system” trying to rid itself of entropy by getting rid of the excess energy coming into a system. This will work for a while, but we soon conclude that we have put a bandaid on the problem, but not solved the underlying cause behind the problem–the hole in the boat is still there.

Another solution to our leaking boat is to block the hole. This is like blocking out the entropy coming into our system. Here, we pull off our shirt or grab some item we brought with us and block up the hole. Is the hole still there? Yep. This didn’t solve the problem either. The underlying cause is still plaguing us.

Then we finally arrive upon our answer. We let the boat sink and swim to shore. We transform the system by throwing out the faulty boat and learn to swim in the water without a boat.

In the abstract, a problem is entropy throwing our system into chaos. The boat is our system. The hole is the problem. The water is the entropy overloading the system because of the weakness (hole) in it. Subsequently, the chaos overcomes the current system, and it transforms the system to a new and stable one that can withstand the water.

This is how problems transform us. When our lives are calm, we are satisfied and ride the wave of life. When a problem arises, sometimes we can block the problem, run away from the problem, or transform. Blocking or running away are temporary solutions. Transformation is the key. We have to rewrite the code that caused the problem in the first place.

Many of our problems are a disconnect with what is and how we want things to be. It isn’t the situation that is problematic; it is the way we “see” the situation. The problem is internal. Change the way you view a problem, and the problem typically ceases to exist.

I hope each of you has a terrific Saturday!

Until next time…

Dave

 

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Minding Our Own Gardens

Tags

Autonomy, Cause and Effect, Independence, Law of Non-Interference, Learning from mistakes, Problems, Solving Problems

Most of our problems are self-made. When things go wrong, if we take responsibility and do something that gives us greater understanding, life becomes easier.

This is how it should be, rather than having someone always giving us spiritual, emotional, or physical healings.

The idea is not to hide from life: It is to live life, but without making the same mistakes we did before.

—Harold Klemp
The Language of Soul

This is a great quote. This quote applies to all of us. What I would like to talk about today is staying out of other people’s way.

All of us run across challenges in our lives. How do we deal with them? We just do. Our solutions may not be the best solution to a problem, but we solve the problem. Sometimes we learn something; sometimes we are just glad to fix the problem and get a breather. It is nice when someone comes along and helps us solve a problem, but what do we learn? Do we go back to that person each time this particular problem arises? No, we would run out of benefactors quickly if this is what we did. Even our families would get sick of hearing about the same problem repeatedly. It’s nice to get a helping hand from time to time, but it doesn’t help us solve a problem and avoid it again in the future.

When we get hit with a problem, we gain much more by solving the problem ourselves and learning what caused the problem in the first place. When we learn what caused a problem, we know how to avoid it. Hence, the problem and its precursor are no longer capable of causing us problems. When other people pitch in and bail us out, we fail to learn as much as we could have.

If you see your child struggling with something, what’s your first response? Dive in and help right? Your child is happy that their frustration is ended, but what did they learn? Sometimes you need to help. The child may be having a problem with something that is way over their head. Think about the day your child learned how to tie their shoes. Wasn’t it terrific? It was probably painful to watch them struggle with it, but when they finally get it, it’s such a rewarding experience for them. They feel great and you get to pile on the accolades. What if you keep jumping in to help them? They never learn how to tie their shoes and you have to continue to help them. Not a great solution right?

This is what I am talking about. We always want to jump in, but we have to hold back. We have to let other people learn from their mistakes. They can’t learn from them if we always solve their problems. Just like your kid learning to tie her shoes, they’ll be dependent on you forever, unless they learn how to solve the problem for themselves.

It’s alright to pitch in if someone asks for help. They’re a friend or colleague and we want to help when asked. It’s another thing to stick our noses where they don’t belong. What Harold Klemp is talking about is the Law of Non-interference. This law dictates that we do not interfere with other people’s lives unless we are asked. We allow our friends and family to figure things out for themselves. At least we should.

The same thing follows for us. Ask for help when you need it, but give a real effort to solving your own problems, particularly the puzzle of how you caused the problem to begin with. Most of our problems have roots in our own actions and decisions. We cause them. Learn what caused the problem and you’ll know how to avoid it forever.

I hope each of you has a great Wednesday!

Until next time…

Dave

 

 

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Adjusting to a New Home

Tags

Adjusting, change, Improvising, Learning, Overcoming, Solving Problems, wisdom

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay 

Today’s image is a great segue into my topic for today. Sometimes we wake up and realize the tools we are using to negotiate our lives are no longer effective. We are literally trying to fix our watch with a crescent wrench. This is a sign that something has changed internally.

Have you ever woken up feeling like you are in a different place, confused, and disoriented? I have been in this state for a good few weeks. It’s like the feeling you have when you move to a new city or state. You new surroundings excite you, but you still feel you are in limbo. You have yet to make new friends and still depending on your phone to get you to the grocer, the gas station, the post office, and many places commonplace in your previous home.

When these changes occur internally, they can be disconcerting. You feel you need to do something different or more. You feel out of place in your own home, neighborhood, and town. It’s hard to describe.

I was doing some research on this and found my answer. The answer is to just be. Changes occur around us all the time. We get nudged to change our routine, change our diet, change our workouts. We get nudged to change jobs, change locales, and change our associations. This is all about the mission you have in this lifetime.

My religion discusses this phenomenon in great detail. Soul, the real you, decides what it wants to learn in this lifetime before it arrives here and takes a human body. It decides what experiences it will have in this lifetime. Sometimes soul needs to experience poverty or riches, health and sickness, ecstasy and horror. These make up the fabric of the life it chooses.

The best solution to the feelings I have been having is to reexamine my goals, set up new ones, get a good plan together to accomplish these things, and execute. By doing this, you can adjust to the internal changes that have taken place and help the physical catch up with the spiritual. This happens all the time.

There is a quote from Jewish scripture that is appropriate here. The quote is: “As above, so below.” This suggests that we have an internal or spiritual life with a physical life in the human body. When soul makes a gain spiritually, the physical or human body has to play catch up. The way to do this is to reexamine how you are doing things and make adjustments to them to be in alignment with the new home soul has found for itself.

I realize that today’s post may be a little “out there”, but my spiritual path has never steered me wrong, just like your religion of Christianity, Buddhism, or Islam has never steered you wrong. Each of us is in the religious path we need to achieve what we need to achieve in this lifetime.

For now, I need to be patient, remain cognizant of any inner nudges that come my way, and be patient. Everything is in its rightful place in the worlds of God and God never gives us a problem we cannot solve.

To summarize. If you ever get the “feeling” like your out of place or something is not right, realize that Soul has found a new home or place to explore in the inner worlds. This feeling is a sign that you are growing. Rejoice. This is a good thing. We need to grow and experience and learn. The process of improvement and getting better never ceases. You may rest awhile here and there but the drive to improve our circumstances never stops.

I hope each of you has a terrific Wednesday! I’m off to do some chores around the house and get in a workout later today.

Until next time…

Dave