Here’s how you can tell if you have an actual problem or if you just have some kind of ego resistance (because you’re afraid to change or accept reality at some level because of your unresolved shame, guilt, and/or trauma).
Working with people in mental health and coaching people over the years (just coaching these days as I left the mental health sector) has taught me that a lot of people out there often have ‘problems’ that linger way longer than they need to.
Is this because the ‘problems’ in question are just so insurmountable that they can’t be solved?
No, not if you look at it in a REAL way.
If you genuinely can’t do something about a problem then it often means you don’t actually have a problem ‘outside’ yourself: it means that you’re struggling to ACCEPT something that can’t be changed.
And…If all you can do with something is accept it, then it can never be a problem, it’s just the way life or reality works.
In these cases, you need to ask yourself exactly what it is that’s preventing you from doing what needs to be done to ACCEPT this reality.
In my experience, it’s usually a cocktail of shame, guilt, and/or trauma that’s caused us to CHOOSE a belief system for ourselves that’s aligned with what we WANT to believe about life, not reality itself (and, to go full circle, we usually WANT to believe something other than the truth so we don’t have to face our shame, guilt, and / or trauma).
Another FACT about human life is this:
If you understood the cause of your problem, then it would be in your NATURE to do something about it.
I.e. to find a SOLUTION and to act on this solution.
Then you wouldn’t ‘have’ a problem anymore (“have” in scare quotes because actually what’s going on in a lot of cases is we’re BEING a problem for ourselves).
That’s just common sense in a way: if you have a problem and then you discover a solution then you only have two options:
- You’ll take the actions that lead to the solution. Problem solved (assuming you were right about the problem and the solution that goes with it).
- You won’t take the action leading to the solution, either because you have IDENTIFIED with having the problem, because it’s not a REAL problem, or because you’re scared that the problem will lead to bigger problems (for example, maybe you’re scared of success because of the extra pressure or work you’ll bring yourself).
The ‘short-version’ of this then is simple:
1) You either have to accept a ‘problem’ as part of life, in which case it isn’t a problem.
or:
2) You understand what can be done about your problem and so you do it, in which case you no longer have a problem.
or:
3) You have some kind of ‘problem’ in your life that keeps lingering, either because you don’t ACT on it, or because you can’t find a solution (which means the problem is unreal).
In the first two cases, the solution to your problem is always being real:
Increasing your AWARENESS, ACCEPTING what has to be accepted about life, and then ACTING accordingly.
In the 3rd case, the only thing stopping you from moving forward is your own relationship with yourself that is BLOCKING you because you either:
- Lack AWARENESS – in other words, you think a certain thing is a problem but it isn’t or you’re dealing with a SYMPTOM and not the fundamental cause.
- Refuse to ACCEPT – in other words, you WANT to believe that yourself, the world, or reality work in a certain way, rather than accepting the truth about them (for example, this is the same as having a problem with the fact that the sky is blue because you feel better about the colour green).
- Have a barrier to ACTION – in other words, you’re not DOING the things you need to DO in order to move yourself towards becoming aware of a solution or implementing one.
In all of these cases, the problem isn’t the ‘problem’ – the problem is that you are being RESISTANT to reality for some (usually emotional, like we said) reason that is blocking your view or reality (almost always because of your relationship with yourself).
Here are the most common causes of this kind of ego resistance (or whatever you wanna call it):
AWARENESS: You’re dealing with a symptom, not the fundamental problem.
A lot of the things that you might mistakenly believe to be your problems are actually just SYMPTOMS of a deeper problem. Normally, the deeper, fundamental problem has something to do with your relationship with yourself.
As a hypothetical example, maybe you’re somebody who suffers from headaches. You might believe that these headaches are the main problem and so you spend all your time trying out new medication, fancy new diets, etc. etc.
The mistake you’re making is not realising that these hypothetical headaches are just SYMPTOMATIC of something deeper:
-Maybe you’re STRESSED because you have shame that’s causing you to push yourself to be ‘better’ than everybody else.
-Maybe you’re not SLEEPING ENOUGH because you’re feeling guilty about all of the terrible things you did (as an example).
-Maybe you have unresolved trauma that’s caused you to become dissociated from yourself and so you have a lot of inner tension leading to the headaches.
These are just hypothetical but the POINT is that if you don’t dig deep enough then you’ll only be ‘rearranging the furniture on the Titanic’ and the ship will still sink when it doesn’t need to.
A lot of the time when I’m coaching people I’m just working with people to help them understand whether the problems they’re trying to solve are the FUNDAMENTAL problem.
Once they make the shift, they can put their energy into something that will actually make a difference.
ACCEPTANCE: You want reality to be something other than what it is (normally because of the way you want to see yourself).
When it comes to the way that life is and the way that human beings operate in reality, there are all kinds of models and ideas about how to live a ‘good life’ and to get results.
There are all kinds of religious texts, philosophies, ideologies, etc. that are TOOLS to help us make sense of life but – at the end of the day – life operates in the same way for ALL of us, regardless of which model we decide to follow.
Some of these unifying LIFE PRINCIPLES can be hard to swallow:
-We’re going to die one day
-We’re not special in the scheme of things as a whole
-We have to put in hard work and effort to get what we want from life
-We all fail
-We all have questions that can’t be answered
-Etc.
All of this stuff applies to all of us.
Sometimes, people find themselves having problems they don’t seem to be able to find a solution for. In my experience, this is because the problem ONLY EXISTS IN THEIR HEADS because they’re trying to deny something fundamentally true about life.
This is because they WANT life to be different to how it is (because of their underlying emotional ‘stuff’):
-They want to live forever because they can’t imagine life without their identity.
-They want to be seen as special and different to everybody else.
-They want to get things as soon as they want them without doing the work.
-They want to never fail (because failure triggers shame).
-They want to know everything (so they can control life and keep their ego where it is as the main thing that threatens ego is LEARNING).
-Etc.
The point here is that when you don’t ACCEPT life you just give yourself a bunch of problems that exist in your head alone.
You’ll be trying to solve your emotional pain or existential anguish or whatever else is going on by trying to change life (which is impossible).
What you need to do is ACCEPT and grow with life.
ACTION: You don’t want to do the actions that will help you move forward to a solution.
When people aren’t AWARE of life and they don’t ACCEPT life they don’t ACT on life – they either don’t act at all or they act on some BS that exists in their heads alone (so never get results).
If you think you know the solution to your problem but you don’t act then:
1) You either have ego resistance (i.e. you know the action will show you that your self-image is BS because you might fail or you’ll have to grow through your comfort zone or something).
2) You don’t want to solve the problem because there is some kind of ‘payoff’ that comes with it (for example, maybe people will feel sorry for you, you have an excuse not to try, etc.)
In both cases, this comes down to you avoiding yourself and trying to uphold some false version of yourself you became invested in.
If you have a problem that lingers, then probably some of this stuff is going on for you.
The solution is to:
Become AWARE of the actual problem, so you’re not running around like a headless chicken chasing phantoms.
ACCEPT what can’t be changed about life and whatever is inside you that is causing you to resist it.
To ACT on the solutions that you do have without letting your ideas about yourself talk you out of it.
When you live like this you realise that actually there are NO problems once you take your identity out of the equation:
You’re either ACCEPTING reality or you’re trying to DENY it.
That’s the biggest mistake any of us can make when it comes to our ‘problems’ as a whole.
If this story inspired or helped you then please share it with others! 🙂
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