April 15, 2025 • 36 mins
Are you up against a problem in your life that you don’t know how to solve? Have you tried everything you know to try in order to solve it? Maybe strategies that worked in the past are feeling insufficient this time around?
Whether it’s a personal problem or a political, global or corporate one — in this episode i’ll offer a suggestion that may surprise you—and may trigger you (it triggered me).
Yet it may be the only thing powerful enough to solve the current problems we are facing.
Take a minute to think about what would happen if you gave up trying to solve your impossible problem and instead let the problem teach you what it came here to teach you.
I am anxious to hear your thoughts.
Host: Ally Fallon // @allyfallon // allisonfallon.com
Follow Ally on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allyfallon/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Pick up the pieces of your life, put them back
together with the words you write. All the beauty and
peace and the magic that you'll start too fun when
you write your story. You got the words and said,
don't you think it's down to let them out and
write them down and cold it's all about and write
(00:24):
your story. Write, write your story. Hi, and welcome back
to the Write Your Story Podcast. I'm Alie Fallon, I'm
your host, and on today's episode, I want to tackle
a pretty big topic that I don't know how you're
going to receive it. I don't want to. I don't
want to say you're going to receive it one way
or the other. I will say, as this lesson has
(00:46):
come into my life, I have received it with quite
a bit of resistance at several different points, and it's
been really tricky and challenging for me to try this
on and to allow it to integrate into my personal life.
And then also I think what I'm going to talk
about today really applies to what we're facing corporately, especially
in the US. If you're listening to this podcast from abroad,
(01:09):
I'm sure that you are in the loop about what's
happening in US politics. And it's really complicated and messy
right now. And I think that what I'm going to
talk about today also applies to what's happening for us
politically and what our responsibility and our role is to
show up moving forward. I've avoided talking about this because
I've been really afraid of being misunderstood, and so I
would just ask that you hear me out through the
(01:31):
whole episode. I think if you listen to the whole episode,
you're not going to say, well, that was extremely controversial.
You know, I disagree with her completely. There are definitely
moments where you might feel like, Ooh, I'm not sure
about that. I need to hear more, I need to
know more. That's at least how this lesson has come
through for me. That it's come through very clearly at
different points. And then I've wrestled with it and really
(01:52):
struggled with allowing this to be true or allowing it
to be a lesson that I need to learn, because
it just kind of bummed up against my earlier paradigm
as this is how stories evolve and unfold in our life,
right we have one paradigm that has worked for us
for a very long time. Then we move into a
new season of our life where this paradigm no longer
fits for us. It's no longer working, it's no longer
(02:15):
getting us the results that we want. It's making us
feel frustrated and unsettled and disgruntled. We're feeling kind of
like we're wearing someone else's pants, that feeling where you're
just kind of crawling out of your own skin. You're like,
this doesn't fit for me. And so then a new
paradigm tries to come in. And when the new paradigm
comes in, it pushes us out of our comfort zone
(02:35):
into a brand new world where we're having to navigate
challenges that we've never seen before, and we don't know,
we don't have the tools to navigate these challenges. And
that process is all the process of the shifting paradigm.
We move from one old paradigm to a brand new paradigm.
And our paradigms in our life and in our world
are always shifting and changing, and that process of shifting
(02:57):
from one paradigm to a new paradigm can be extremely
uncomfortab And I think that's what I'm saying, is that
moving to this new paradigm, which is not the entire
picture of everything in the world, but it is an
important lesson to be integrated. Moving into this new paradigm
has felt uncomfortable for me, and if it feels uncomfortable
for you today, while you're listening, I just want to
(03:18):
encourage you and challenge you to listen all the way
to the end and really to understand what I'm saying
and then just see about it. See if this is
something that could maybe bring your experiences into a new light,
or bring even maybe it's not your personal experiences, but
maybe it's your understanding of what's happening in the world
right now, bring that into a new light. Okay, so
(03:40):
enough Dilly Dolly is my mom would say, enough stalling
and disclaiming, because I'm afraid to get into the meat
of this topic. What I want to talk about today
is this idea that there are some problems in our
life that are unsolvable. And I know on the surface
that sounds obvious. There are certain problems that you simply
(04:03):
are not equipped to solve. But I think for a
couple of reasons when this concept has come through for
me intuitively, there are a few reasons why I've really
resisted it or why it's felt like that's not true.
You know, I'm going to pull myself upon my bootstraps
and solve the problem that you've just told me is unsolvable.
And one of the reasons that I have had to
come to terms with is just simply my own privilege.
(04:24):
I mean, I've grown up, for the most part, upper
middle class. I guess my family struggled financially quite a
bit when I was younger because of some debt that
my parents took on, not too dissimilar from what Matt
and I've been going through personally. You know, my parents
took on some debt, they had trouble getting out of debt.
They worked really hard and struggled through that and were
able to come out on top. And my dad was
(04:45):
a therapist when he was alive and worked up until
the very day he died, and was really successful as
a therapist, and you know, made decent money. And so
my mom also works part time, and so their combined
income together for our family of five was sufficient to
provide for all of our needs. You know, my sister
and brother and I, we did sports, we did activities,
We had the clothes that we needed. We had always
(05:07):
had food on the table. We never wondered if our
power was going to go out. We went to college,
I went to grad school. I paid for my own
grad school, but my parents paid for most of my
undergrad And so it's not lost on me that a
lot of those privileges of just moving through life with
the resources to do the things that are necessary to do.
Like I had a car when I turned sixteen. You know,
(05:28):
that was my car. It wasn't a nice car, it
was a you know, like a fifteen year old car,
but it was a car that I could drive to
and from school. My sister and I shared that car
for a bit. Anyways, all of that to say, although
we struggled some financially, we always had the things that
we needed. And I never wondered, you know, if we
were going to be able to eat tomorrow, or where
my next meal was going to come from, or anything
(05:49):
like that. And I went to college, I got a degree,
I got a master's degree. And I'm white, and I
know what it's like to move through the world as
a white person where most of the time there are
doors that open for me. And so because of that,
because of all of those things, I think I have
for the most part, moved through the world with the
sense that every problem I face is a solvable problem.
(06:11):
That if I bring my skill set, I bring my intellect,
I bring my talents, I bring my resources, I bring
my friends, I bring my network, I bring what I
have to the table, that I can almost always, if
not always, solve the problems that are in front of me.
And so when Matt and I took the risk on
this business venture several years ago, I entered into the
(06:33):
risk with the understanding that it was a big risk,
but I think also with this firm, sturdy foundation of
feeling internally that no matter what came at us, we
were going to be able to face it no problem.
And actually I think I came to it with a
bit of an arrogance that no matter what happened, we
were going to be able to make this happen. I
(06:54):
know that sounds like extremely arrogant at this point after
everything that unfolded, it does sound that way, but at
the time it didn't feel that way. At the time,
it just felt optimistic. It felt like, you know, you
take a risk, in the universe rises to meet you,
that I'm fully supported in the world. I can do
whatever I set my mind to, that my imagination is
so powerful and I can create this. You know, whatever
(07:16):
I want to create, I can create. And I came
to that business venture with that attitude and was reminded
over and over again just how many things are out
of my control. And a second reason why this intuition,
this insight that has come through has really rubbed me
the wrong way is because I think there's a part
of me that feels like, if I admit to myself
(07:39):
that there are some problems that are unsolvable, that there's
a little bit of like a victim mentality in that.
And that's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying that
because some problems are unsolvable, that we should stop working
to solve them. So that's a big, like a misunderstanding
that I want to just get over right away here
in the beginning. I'm not saying that if you face
(08:00):
a problem that is quote unsolvable in your life, that
you should just quit trying to solve the problem. I
am saying that sometimes when you face a problem that's unsolvable,
you're throwing a bunch of tools at the problem that
are not only not solving the problem, but that are
also blocking you from experiencing what the problem is trying
(08:22):
to teach you. So let me say that again. If
I'm facing a problem and I'm busy throwing a bunch
of things at the problem, like you know this tool,
that I have, this skill, that I have, this resource
that I have, you know, whatever it is, I'm busy
trying to fix the problem with whatever I can bring
to the problem. I actually miss what the problem is
(08:44):
trying to show me or trying to teach me. And
I think this happens a lot in the first world.
So without knowing exactly what your background is or where
you come from, we do live in a country. If
you live in the US, you live in a country
that's a first world country where we enjoy a lot
of privileges, a lot of benefits, a lot of stability,
a lot of certainty, a lot of financial opportunities that
(09:07):
people in other parts of the world may not have
access to. And I think there's an element of that
that teaches us that we can pretty much solve anything.
It's like I have a cold, I drive to the
drug store, I spend ten bucks, I get a medication,
I take the medication in my cold feels better. You know,
we move through the world like this. We just move
through the world thinking like there's always a fix to
that problem. I can always spend ten dollars, or spend
(09:30):
ten thousand dollars, or spend you know whatever, one hundred
thousand dollars, whatever it is. And maybe the more resources
that you have access to financially and otherwise, the more
capable that you feel to come up against any problem
and quote unquote solve it. And yet sometimes we face
problems in our lives that are unsolvable. And one of
the things that I've realized is that we're in this
(09:52):
massive paradigm shift as a global community because of COVID. Right,
we experience this time period together called COVID. Everything is shifting.
Are the world as we knew it is changing dramatically
and really really rapidly. And so you're starting to see
how the old paradigm of I can solve anything that
(10:13):
comes my way is falling apart. It's crumbling. Like I
don't know if you've had this experience, but for me,
when I listen to teachers, leaders, people on Instagram, influencers,
whoever it is, if I'm listening to someone who says
that they have the solution to the problem ten years ago,
(10:33):
or even five years ago, even pre COVID, Like, you know,
let's say a little more than five years ago, so
February of twenty twenty I might have really respected that person.
And now in April of twenty twenty five, I hear
someone say they have the solution to the problem, and
it kind of makes me tilt my head sideways. I'm
kind of like, do you really though, because the problems
(10:57):
that we're up against now are much more complicated than
they were five years ago. The problems that we're up
against right now are unprecedented, as you hear everyone say, so,
for you to think that you have the solution to
the problem that we're facing, the problems that we're facing
as a country, the problems that we're facing in our
(11:17):
small communities, the problems that we're facing personally, the problems
that we're facing as a global community, sounds kind of
absurd now, whereas five years ago it may not have
sounded absurd. And that's how much the paradigm has shifted.
And so I've had to coax myself into this new
paradigm where I realized that some problems I face will
be unsolvable. And again I'm not saying that because the
(11:37):
problem is unsolvable it means that we shouldn't try to
solve it. I think what I'm saying is that because
some problems are unsolvable with the current tools that we have,
that we need to slow way down, like way way
way way down, slow way down, and listen more deeply
(11:58):
and ask ourselves, what is this problem trying to show me?
What is this problem trying to teach me? What new
paradigm is this problem trying to usher in? And So
this is something that I've been practicing in my life,
and practicing is the right word for it. Because I
have been faltering and failing at every single turn to
(12:18):
do this, I default back to my habit, to my
long ingrained pattern of I can fix this. I can
solve it if we just sort of pull ourselves out
by our bootstraps, if we just throw enough money at it,
if we just do this, do this, do this, If
we just walk through this three step process, if we
just listen to this teacher, if we just hire this
life coach, if we just go to this therapist. I
(12:38):
can just call the best doctors, I can just do
this and I can fix this thing, and life keeps
showing me sometimes you face problems that are not meant
to be solved by you right this minute, And maybe
saying the problem is unsolvable is a little bit overstating
the issue. But I hope that you get where I'm
coming from with this, that there are some problems that
(13:00):
we face in life that if we try to bring
our old tools to the table, those old tools will
not only not work, but they will also block us
from the experience that this problem is asking us to have.
And if you'll remember, I've talked about this a lot
as it relates to narrative storytelling, that the problem in
the story is what creates the tension that changes the hero.
(13:22):
So there's no such thing as short circuiting the problem.
And I think a lot of times I get stuck
on this trap where I face a problem and I'm like, Oh,
all we got to do is just pay fifty bucks
to this person, and you know they're going to tell
us the fix of the problem, and then we just
go through the three step process and then it's fixed.
It's all cleared up, no problem, Instead of really receiving
what this problem is here to show me, instead of
(13:44):
accepting that this problem is here to introduce tension to
my life, and the tension is here to change who
I am. It's here to make me somebody new. And
entering into this new paradigm, or accepting this new paradigm
(14:06):
into my life, has allowed me to see how much
arrogance there was, how much sort of like sitting on
my high horse, arrogance judgment almost of others. Even that's
embarrassing to say, but that's really true. Judgment of others
who were struggling or suffering, I guess, judgment of myself
for struggling and suffering. How much of that there was
(14:27):
in the old paradigm where I thought I was being optimistic.
I thought I was being optimistic by saying, you know,
every problem is solvable. We can all just bring our
best skills to the table, and we can overcome any
challenge together. And there is some truth in that. So
don't hear me saying that I'm throwing that out completely.
I think there is some value to optimism. There is
(14:47):
some truth in saying, let's bring our skills to the table,
let's come together and huddle up and figure out how
to fix this thing. I'm not throwing that out completely.
I'm just also bringing in this idea. What if the
problem that you're facing is not asking to be solved
by you right now. What if the problem that you're
facing is too big for the current tools and paradigm
that you hold. What if the problem is here to
(15:10):
transform you into someone new who has a new paradigm,
who will have the tools and skills to solve the problem,
or or the problem will completely disappear in the new
paradigm because you realize it wasn't even a problem anyway.
Here's an example that I've used before. You might have
heard me say this, and I just feel like it
drives the point home. If I have celluli on the
back of my thighs. I know this sounds very like,
(15:32):
you know, surface level, but go with me for a minute.
If I have cellulate on the back of my thighs
and I've decided this is a huge problem. I need
to fix this. Here's a great example of how, given privilege,
given resources, living in a first world country, there are
lots of solves for this problem. I could get on
Instagram and I could immediately be served up three to
(15:54):
four ads of products that are going to promise to
solve my cellulate. I might pay to twenty bucks for
one product, fifty bucks for another product, let's say one
hundred dollars for a third product. And let's say I
try all of those products and none of the products
work well, then I start doing my research. All I
got to do is get on the computer and I
find someone in town who you know. I pay them
a thousand dollars and they can promise to get rid
(16:16):
of the cellulate on the back of my thighs. And
so I drive to the clinic. I have the procedure done,
I remove the cellulite from the back of my thighs.
See problem solved. No problem here, I solved the problem.
I brought my skills, my talents, my resources to the table.
I brought my optimism, and we just hopped right over
that challenge. Or I choose not to solve the problem
(16:40):
because some problems are not meant to be solved by
me right now. And I learned to receive what this
problem is trying to teach me, what it's trying to
show me. I learned to accept and integrate the tension
that this problem is inviting me into the tension it's
inviting me into. So there's cellulate light on the back
(17:00):
of my thighs. What is this making me feel? What
does it make me think about myself? What stories am
I telling myself about myself? Because of this cellulite? This
quote unquote problem is inviting me into an experience that
I want to avoid. I do not want to have it.
I do not want to feel the ways that this
(17:21):
problem is making me feel about myself. It's making me
feel ugly, it's making me feel insignificant, it's making me
feel unlovable. Whatever it's making me feel, I don't want
to feel those things, and so instead I just go
solve the problem with my optimism. But what if I
don't go solve the problem with my optimism? What if
instead I accept, receive, integrate the experience the problem is
(17:46):
asking me to have. Perhaps I can be ushered into
a new paradigm where cellulite is no longer a problem,
where I can feel lovable, I can feel beautiful, I
can feel empowered, I can feel like a goddess with
cellulate on the back of my legs, and I also
get to keep my thousand bucks plus the extra one
(18:08):
hundred and seventy or whatever else I spent trying to
solve the problem that didn't actually fix it. So just
take this in for a minute. Is there a problem
in your life that you are facing that you're trying
to solve with the current tools and skills and resources
you have, and are you feeling frustrated because your resources
are falling short? Oh my god, this is like exactly
(18:33):
what I have been living through, and it so feels
so good. I can't even tell you to put this
into words. It's like, we tried to do this thing,
it didn't work out the way that we wanted it to.
I lost a bunch of my financial security, which is
part of what I was leaning on to solve these unsolvable,
quot unquote unslvable problems in my life. And now I'm
(18:54):
being forced, asked, invited, encouraged to in the problems without
the ability to go out and immediately solve them. It's
asking me to go deeper. It's asking me not to
throw the quick fix at it. It's asking me to
really sit with what this problem wants to show me.
(19:16):
And maybe I was solving a hundred cellulite level problems,
spending all of my resources on that, and this invitation
that life is giving me is to go through this
kind of dark underworld, go through this narrative arc, to
move toward this problem of lack of resources where I
(19:39):
can't just go fix every problem with a hundred bucks
or a thousand bucks, and to really receive what these
problems are inviting me to see. And I can tell you,
I mean, it's been five years. It's been a whole process,
So it's not every day of the five years is
the same. Some of them have been harder than others,
and some of them have been easier than others. But
(20:00):
five years of moving through this time, and I can
tell you that the depth of empathy, compassion, understanding, humanity,
you know, the bigness of my heart has expanded. I'm
just a different person today than I was five years ago.
And I'm a more trustworthy person. I'm a more helpful person.
(20:25):
I am a more understanding person, a more compassionate person.
I have more space for what people are going through.
I can hold more space for what someone is going through.
I think I in my previous life, part of what
you know invited me to be a coach is. I
had this ability to listen to someone's problems and come
(20:45):
up with helpful solutions, and that was how I approached
my own life too. It was like, I have this optimism,
I have these tools. I'm a learner, I'm always sort
of collecting new tools, and if someone explains their problem
to me, I also don't know what this is. But
my brain has the ability to kind of untangle the
knots and to find the thread that holds the whole
thing together. This is what makes me a good book coach.
(21:08):
I can sit with someone and hear their whole story
and tell you the narrative thread that holds the whole
thing together. I can untangle very complicated knots. And yet
that skill set has stopped working for me in this
new paradigm. It's not that it's not useful at all
or not helpful at all. It's just, Hey, in this paradigm,
(21:29):
you're going to be asked to learn a new way
to approach the things that are in front of you,
and this optimism, this ability to quick fix all of
the problems, is just not the thing anymore. It's not
working the way that it used to work. And so
you can just set that down for now, and I'm
going to ask you to learn something brand new. And
the brand new thing is can you sit with the problem?
(21:51):
Can you sit with this problem that is unsolvable in
your life? Can you just sit with it and sit
with how it makes you feel? So think about that
for a second. Think about the problem that you're facing
in your life that feels unsolvable, and ask yourself, can
you sit with it? And can you name how it
makes you feel? Do you have a name for how
(22:12):
it makes you feel? Does it make you feel rejected?
Does it make you feel unlovable? Does it make you
feel powerless? What is it that it makes you feel?
Can you sit with that feeling? Can you have enough
space and enough compassion for yourself to allow yourself to
fully experience that feeling? Because that feeling is inviting you
(22:33):
into a new paradigm. It is transforming you from the
inside out. And it may seem like right now, there's
no way that this problem will ever be solved, and
maybe it won't. Maybe the problem doesn't need to be
solved because maybe when you change, you'll realize your problem
with cellulate and you don't want to spend fifteen hundred
dollars fixing your cellulite, because your cellulite is part of
who you are and it's part of what makes you beautiful.
(22:57):
So applying this problem to or facing right now globally,
I'll say globally because you know, the US politics does
affect the whole globe, and especially choices that our current
administration is making are affecting the whole globe. And so
i will say that as a global community, we're facing
what feels like a pretty big crisis to me. And
I know that there are different political vantage points and views,
(23:19):
and I will also add that many, many political experts
from all sides, both sides of the Aisle, Republican and Democrat,
are all raising the red flag and saying that what's
happening right now is not normal, it's extremely dangerous, that
we're playing with fire, that the political choices and the
political moves that are being made right now are reckless
(23:43):
and arrogant and extremely frustrating for many of us. So
I'm just going to speak from my own perspective and say,
regardless of how you see the choices of the current administration,
it can feel pretty chaotic and confusing and complicated right now,
and so I want to apply this topic to what
we're facing politically in the US and how it's affecting
everybody in the world. And I'll just start by saying this,
(24:07):
some problems are not asking to be solved right now
by you. Some problems are inviting us into a deeper
understanding of ourselves, a deeper understanding of the world around us,
a deeper understanding of others, a deeper understanding of what matters,
a deeper understanding of what it means to be a
(24:29):
human being. And I want to be really careful. This
is the part where I was worried about being misunderstood,
because I don't want to come across as a victim.
I don't want to come This is my big fear
in abandoning temporarily at least my overwhelming optimism, is the
fear of being looked at as someone who has just like, well,
this is just how life is. I'm just gonna sort
(24:51):
of like submit to my fate. I don't see life
like that at all. And I think that human beings
have incredible power and potential, and i'm I'm I do
believe in bringing that power and potential to the table.
But this new insight. This new paradigm is teaching me
that sometimes bringing our power and potential to the table
(25:12):
means slowing way way down. It means waiting. It means
not fixing the problem right this second. It means not
doom scrolling for hours on Instagram thinking that understanding more
information about politics is going to help you figure out
how to fix this problem. No, No, you know, I'm
(25:38):
all for I support wholeheartedly going out on the streets
to protest, showing up to protest, emailing your senators and
congress men and women, you know, making the phone calls.
Whatever you can do to raise your voice and to
join the conversation and to become a part of the solution.
Please keep doing that. And I'm not saying you know,
(25:59):
I mean this applies to our personal lives too. When
I say that there are some problems that are not
for you to solve right now, that doesn't mean that
you stop paying your bills. It doesn't mean that you
give up on your life. It just means that you
find a way to slow down and sit with the
feeling that this problem brings up in you. Because imagine
that the feeling that the problem brings up in you
is actually a bigger problem than the problem itself. The
(26:25):
cellulate is a great example of this. Okay, the cellulite
brings up feelings of unlovableness in me or in you whatever.
If that's the feeling that the cellulite brings up, which
is a bigger problem the cellulite or the feelings of
being unlovable, and same is true for politics or a
politician that you wish wasn't in office, or you wish
(26:45):
it was making different decisions or whatever. The problems that
that brings up in the world are big problems. I'm
not saying they're not. I'm not comparing it directly to cellulate.
The problems that that brings up are real problems. But
an even bigger problem is the feelings that that brings
up in us corporately. Because I'm not the only one
(27:07):
feeling scared or upset or frustrated. There are hundreds of
thousands of us feeling that way, And that corporate feeling
of fear makes us very easy to control. It makes
us more likely to sit down and shut up and
not make a contribution and not you know, show up
to the protests and whatever else. So I'm not saying
(27:29):
don't do anything about the problems. What I'm saying is
make sure that first before you do anything about the problem,
that you take a moment to slow way down, to pause,
to be patient, and to ask yourself, what is the
feeling that this problem brings up in me? Because if
it's fear, let's just say it's fear. Okay, there's all
(27:50):
this stuff going on, you know, last week, I was
saying on Instagram, I was like, got plugged into Instagram
for the first time last week in a while, and
was watching everything happen with the tariffs and the stock market,
and like, I'm not even invested in the stock market,
but watching the up and down of the stock market,
watching what everyone had to say about it. I mean,
I consumed more information about politics last week than I
have in months. And consuming that information you would think
(28:14):
would make me feel equipped and empowered to call my
you know, representatives, and to raise a complaint and to
go to a protest. It did not do that. It
actually brought up in me extreme fear, almost like phobia
level fear of what's going to happen in the future.
And I was able to for the first time, go, oh,
(28:34):
this is actually the problem. The fear I'm feeling in
my body is the problem. And if I go react
out of my fear and go do a bunch of
stuff to sort of fix quote unquote fix the fear,
calling you know, senators whatever, calling Congress people making those
choices from the fear, then I am actually creating more fear.
(29:00):
I might think I'm doing something productive, buying a product
or going to do a thing, or going to a
protest or whatever. I might think I'm doing something productive,
but I'm actually creating more fear. And so I have
to find a way to be able to come from
love over fear. And that is much easier said than done.
(29:21):
But I have to find a way to come back
to love, and that might take me a while, and
it might mean that I'm not on Instagram, and it
might mean that I don't know what's going on with
politics for a little bit. And I would argue, and
this is the part that may be controversial, I would argue,
that is more productive than showing up to a march.
(29:41):
Go ahead and show up to a march. Please, if
you feel inspired to go to a march or to
whatever it is that you feel inspired to do politically,
to fight the good fight, Please do it. All I'm
saying is that if we're reacting from a place of fear,
we're just adding more fear to the pot instead of
allowing those inspired ideas to be born from a place
(30:02):
of love. And oftentimes, when things are happening in the
external world, they bring up feelings in us, and the
feeling that they bring up in us is actually the
bigger problem than the problem itself. So some problems are
not meant to be solved right now by you, because
the problem is here to show you something that's in
you that is meant to be solved. And the only
(30:24):
way to be to solve those problems is to sit
with them peacefully. The only way to solve the problem
of feeling unlovable is to sit with it peacefully, to
allow it to be there, to give it compassion, to
send it your love. The only way to solve a
problem of extreme fear of the future is to give
it compassion, to sit with it, to give it space
to breathe, to let it be there, to send it love.
(30:47):
And if we're so busy running around like chickens with
our heads cut off, going to buy the medication, and
you know, go to the march and do what you
need to do, but also don't forget to allow the
feeling to be there, to sit with it peacefully, to
sit with it and give it compassion, to send it
your love, and to allow the problem that you're facing
(31:10):
to show you what it's trying to show you, to
allow it to usher you into the new paradigm I
always say when I'm teaching storytelling workshop is that problems
are the essential ingredient of storytelling. Without a problem, you
have no story. Problems introduce the tension to the story
that makes the story interesting, that transforms the hero of
the story, that takes the reader on an exciting journey,
(31:33):
that takes the hero on the exciting journey. Without a problem,
there is no story. And yet in our lives, when
we face problems, we think like, oh gosh, I can't
ever get over these problems. Give me a break. When
will I ever have a day with no problems? And
what I want to do is maybe introduce this idea
that when you face the problem in your life, we
could come to it with a level of optimism that
(31:55):
doesn't have anything to do with the solving the problem.
So let me tell you what that has been looking
like for me, it's like, ooh, interesting, a problem. This
is opening a story loop. It's you know, taking me
on a journey to a new world, to a brand
new paradigm. This is an exciting journey that I'm about
to go on. What do you think is going to happen?
And yet, for some reason, when we face problems in
(32:17):
our lives, we're like, oh God, not this again. I'm
always up against these problems. When will I ever catch
a day with no problems? And what I've been trying
to do recently that I would invite you to do too,
is to come to the problems in my life, both
my personal life and also corporate and global life. Come
to those problems with a sense of optimism that doesn't
(32:39):
have to do with solving the problem. It's like, we're
going to be okay because we can solve this problem.
We're going to be okay because we're going to fix this. Instead,
optimism can look like this, ooh, a problem. What is
this problem here to teach us? What is this problem
here for me to learn? What does what does this
problem have for me to learn? What does this problem
(32:59):
want to sh show me? What is the new paradigm
that this problem is ushering me into. How much better
is that paradigm going to be? How much better is
it going to feel? How much stronger am I going
to be in the new paradigm? Who do you think
I'm going to become because of this problem? And you
can have this conversation with yourself about small problems too,
you know, like getting stuck in traffic or having to
(33:19):
wait an extra five minutes in line at the post
office or whatever. It's like, ooh, what's this problem trying
to teach me? What's this problem trying to show me?
And don't get so stuck in your optimism that you
can't also see what the problem is trying to show you,
which might not feel super optimistic. It might feel like, ooh,
this problem makes me feel unlovable. You know. Maybe you
(33:40):
say to yourself like, oh, my partner, you know, was
kind of short with me this morning or whatever, and
you're like, what's this problem trying to show me? What's
this problem trying to teach me? What's this problem trying
to invite me into? Maybe it's trying to invite me
into a paradigm where I don't put so much weight
on how this other person treats me, or I'm able
to kind of move about my day with stability and ease,
(34:00):
even if someone is frustrated with me, or even if
I don't know how they feel, where I'm able to
separate like, oh, that's just them being in a bad
mood that has nothing to do with me. Maybe this
problem is trying to usher me into that new paradigm
instead of you know, calling them or texting them immediately
like you are short with me, you owe me an apology,
or what was going on with you this morning? You
got to tell me whatever it is. What I'm suggesting
(34:23):
is that we begin to look at our problems as
opportunities in our lives to grow, to change, to become
better people, to feel more grounded, to become stronger, to
grow into the next version of ourselves, to be ushered
into the next paradigm. I think as a global community,
we are being ushered into a new paradigm. And this
is the optimistic lens through which I want to see
the problems that we're facing. Because there is a part
(34:44):
of me, and you heard it come through in today's episode,
there's a part of me that feels very doomsday about
what's happening in our world right now, and that's not
the part of me that I want to follow. This
problem is here to introduce me to this new version
of myself who says we're being ushered into a new
paradigm and it's going to be better than the last one.
(35:04):
It's going to be freakin phenomenal. We're going to feel
so good, we're going to be more connected than we've
ever been. We're going to just really sing our teeth
into what really matters in life. Thank God for that,
Thank God for these problems that we're facing, because it's
taking us somewhere really beautiful. And yes, it's painful in
the meantime, and yes it's confusing and chaotic, and yes,
(35:24):
I'm in a new world that I don't know how
that world operates, and I don't know what to do next,
and I feel really powerless and out of control. But
that's a temporary feeling because it's ushering me into something
brand new. I don't know what problem you're facing in
your personal life right now, but I'm inviting you to
try this with me, and just try it on and
see how it works for you, consider how it might
(35:46):
help you to grow. To see your problems this week
as not something to be solved by you right now,
but as an invitation to feel more deeply, to become
more human, and to grow into someone here. All right,
happy writing everyone, I'll see you next week on the
Write Your Story podcast
Pick up the pieces of your life, put them back
together with the words you write. All the beauty and
peace and the magic that you'll start too fun when
you write your story. You got the words and said,
don't you think it's down to let them out and
write them down and cold it's all about and write
(00:24):
your story. Write, write your story. Hi, and welcome back
to the Write Your Story Podcast. I'm Alie Fallon, I'm
your host, and on today's episode, I want to tackle
a pretty big topic that I don't know how you're
going to receive it. I don't want to. I don't
want to say you're going to receive it one way
or the other. I will say, as this lesson has
(00:46):
come into my life, I have received it with quite
a bit of resistance at several different points, and it's
been really tricky and challenging for me to try this
on and to allow it to integrate into my personal life.
And then also I think what I'm going to talk
about today really applies to what we're facing corporately, especially
in the US. If you're listening to this podcast from abroad,
(01:09):
I'm sure that you are in the loop about what's
happening in US politics. And it's really complicated and messy
right now. And I think that what I'm going to
talk about today also applies to what's happening for us
politically and what our responsibility and our role is to
show up moving forward. I've avoided talking about this because
I've been really afraid of being misunderstood, and so I
would just ask that you hear me out through the
(01:31):
whole episode. I think if you listen to the whole episode,
you're not going to say, well, that was extremely controversial.
You know, I disagree with her completely. There are definitely
moments where you might feel like, Ooh, I'm not sure
about that. I need to hear more, I need to
know more. That's at least how this lesson has come
through for me. That it's come through very clearly at
different points. And then I've wrestled with it and really
(01:52):
struggled with allowing this to be true or allowing it
to be a lesson that I need to learn, because
it just kind of bummed up against my earlier paradigm
as this is how stories evolve and unfold in our life,
right we have one paradigm that has worked for us
for a very long time. Then we move into a
new season of our life where this paradigm no longer
fits for us. It's no longer working, it's no longer
(02:15):
getting us the results that we want. It's making us
feel frustrated and unsettled and disgruntled. We're feeling kind of
like we're wearing someone else's pants, that feeling where you're
just kind of crawling out of your own skin. You're like,
this doesn't fit for me. And so then a new
paradigm tries to come in. And when the new paradigm
comes in, it pushes us out of our comfort zone
(02:35):
into a brand new world where we're having to navigate
challenges that we've never seen before, and we don't know,
we don't have the tools to navigate these challenges. And
that process is all the process of the shifting paradigm.
We move from one old paradigm to a brand new paradigm.
And our paradigms in our life and in our world
are always shifting and changing, and that process of shifting
(02:57):
from one paradigm to a new paradigm can be extremely
uncomfortab And I think that's what I'm saying, is that
moving to this new paradigm, which is not the entire
picture of everything in the world, but it is an
important lesson to be integrated. Moving into this new paradigm
has felt uncomfortable for me, and if it feels uncomfortable
for you today, while you're listening, I just want to
(03:18):
encourage you and challenge you to listen all the way
to the end and really to understand what I'm saying
and then just see about it. See if this is
something that could maybe bring your experiences into a new light,
or bring even maybe it's not your personal experiences, but
maybe it's your understanding of what's happening in the world
right now, bring that into a new light. Okay, so
(03:40):
enough Dilly Dolly is my mom would say, enough stalling
and disclaiming, because I'm afraid to get into the meat
of this topic. What I want to talk about today
is this idea that there are some problems in our
life that are unsolvable. And I know on the surface
that sounds obvious. There are certain problems that you simply
(04:03):
are not equipped to solve. But I think for a
couple of reasons when this concept has come through for
me intuitively, there are a few reasons why I've really
resisted it or why it's felt like that's not true.
You know, I'm going to pull myself upon my bootstraps
and solve the problem that you've just told me is unsolvable.
And one of the reasons that I have had to
come to terms with is just simply my own privilege.
(04:24):
I mean, I've grown up, for the most part, upper
middle class. I guess my family struggled financially quite a
bit when I was younger because of some debt that
my parents took on, not too dissimilar from what Matt
and I've been going through personally. You know, my parents
took on some debt, they had trouble getting out of debt.
They worked really hard and struggled through that and were
able to come out on top. And my dad was
(04:45):
a therapist when he was alive and worked up until
the very day he died, and was really successful as
a therapist, and you know, made decent money. And so
my mom also works part time, and so their combined
income together for our family of five was sufficient to
provide for all of our needs. You know, my sister
and brother and I, we did sports, we did activities,
We had the clothes that we needed. We had always
(05:07):
had food on the table. We never wondered if our
power was going to go out. We went to college,
I went to grad school. I paid for my own
grad school, but my parents paid for most of my
undergrad And so it's not lost on me that a
lot of those privileges of just moving through life with
the resources to do the things that are necessary to do.
Like I had a car when I turned sixteen. You know,
(05:28):
that was my car. It wasn't a nice car, it
was a you know, like a fifteen year old car,
but it was a car that I could drive to
and from school. My sister and I shared that car
for a bit. Anyways, all of that to say, although
we struggled some financially, we always had the things that
we needed. And I never wondered, you know, if we
were going to be able to eat tomorrow, or where
my next meal was going to come from, or anything
(05:49):
like that. And I went to college, I got a degree,
I got a master's degree. And I'm white, and I
know what it's like to move through the world as
a white person where most of the time there are
doors that open for me. And so because of that,
because of all of those things, I think I have
for the most part, moved through the world with the
sense that every problem I face is a solvable problem.
(06:11):
That if I bring my skill set, I bring my intellect,
I bring my talents, I bring my resources, I bring
my friends, I bring my network, I bring what I
have to the table, that I can almost always, if
not always, solve the problems that are in front of me.
And so when Matt and I took the risk on
this business venture several years ago, I entered into the
(06:33):
risk with the understanding that it was a big risk,
but I think also with this firm, sturdy foundation of
feeling internally that no matter what came at us, we
were going to be able to face it no problem.
And actually I think I came to it with a
bit of an arrogance that no matter what happened, we
were going to be able to make this happen. I
(06:54):
know that sounds like extremely arrogant at this point after
everything that unfolded, it does sound that way, but at
the time it didn't feel that way. At the time,
it just felt optimistic. It felt like, you know, you
take a risk, in the universe rises to meet you,
that I'm fully supported in the world. I can do
whatever I set my mind to, that my imagination is
so powerful and I can create this. You know, whatever
(07:16):
I want to create, I can create. And I came
to that business venture with that attitude and was reminded
over and over again just how many things are out
of my control. And a second reason why this intuition,
this insight that has come through has really rubbed me
the wrong way is because I think there's a part
of me that feels like, if I admit to myself
(07:39):
that there are some problems that are unsolvable, that there's
a little bit of like a victim mentality in that.
And that's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying that
because some problems are unsolvable, that we should stop working
to solve them. So that's a big, like a misunderstanding
that I want to just get over right away here
in the beginning. I'm not saying that if you face
(08:00):
a problem that is quote unsolvable in your life, that
you should just quit trying to solve the problem. I
am saying that sometimes when you face a problem that's unsolvable,
you're throwing a bunch of tools at the problem that
are not only not solving the problem, but that are
also blocking you from experiencing what the problem is trying
(08:22):
to teach you. So let me say that again. If
I'm facing a problem and I'm busy throwing a bunch
of things at the problem, like you know this tool,
that I have, this skill, that I have, this resource
that I have, you know, whatever it is, I'm busy
trying to fix the problem with whatever I can bring
to the problem. I actually miss what the problem is
(08:44):
trying to show me or trying to teach me. And
I think this happens a lot in the first world.
So without knowing exactly what your background is or where
you come from, we do live in a country. If
you live in the US, you live in a country
that's a first world country where we enjoy a lot
of privileges, a lot of benefits, a lot of stability,
a lot of certainty, a lot of financial opportunities that
(09:07):
people in other parts of the world may not have
access to. And I think there's an element of that
that teaches us that we can pretty much solve anything.
It's like I have a cold, I drive to the
drug store, I spend ten bucks, I get a medication,
I take the medication in my cold feels better. You know,
we move through the world like this. We just move
through the world thinking like there's always a fix to
that problem. I can always spend ten dollars, or spend
(09:30):
ten thousand dollars, or spend you know whatever, one hundred
thousand dollars, whatever it is. And maybe the more resources
that you have access to financially and otherwise, the more
capable that you feel to come up against any problem
and quote unquote solve it. And yet sometimes we face
problems in our lives that are unsolvable. And one of
the things that I've realized is that we're in this
(09:52):
massive paradigm shift as a global community because of COVID. Right,
we experience this time period together called COVID. Everything is shifting.
Are the world as we knew it is changing dramatically
and really really rapidly. And so you're starting to see
how the old paradigm of I can solve anything that
(10:13):
comes my way is falling apart. It's crumbling. Like I
don't know if you've had this experience, but for me,
when I listen to teachers, leaders, people on Instagram, influencers,
whoever it is, if I'm listening to someone who says
that they have the solution to the problem ten years ago,
(10:33):
or even five years ago, even pre COVID, Like, you know,
let's say a little more than five years ago, so
February of twenty twenty I might have really respected that person.
And now in April of twenty twenty five, I hear
someone say they have the solution to the problem, and
it kind of makes me tilt my head sideways. I'm
kind of like, do you really though, because the problems
(10:57):
that we're up against now are much more complicated than
they were five years ago. The problems that we're up
against right now are unprecedented, as you hear everyone say, so,
for you to think that you have the solution to
the problem that we're facing, the problems that we're facing
as a country, the problems that we're facing in our
(11:17):
small communities, the problems that we're facing personally, the problems
that we're facing as a global community, sounds kind of
absurd now, whereas five years ago it may not have
sounded absurd. And that's how much the paradigm has shifted.
And so I've had to coax myself into this new
paradigm where I realized that some problems I face will
be unsolvable. And again I'm not saying that because the
(11:37):
problem is unsolvable it means that we shouldn't try to
solve it. I think what I'm saying is that because
some problems are unsolvable with the current tools that we have,
that we need to slow way down, like way way
way way down, slow way down, and listen more deeply
(11:58):
and ask ourselves, what is this problem trying to show me?
What is this problem trying to teach me? What new
paradigm is this problem trying to usher in? And So
this is something that I've been practicing in my life,
and practicing is the right word for it. Because I
have been faltering and failing at every single turn to
(12:18):
do this, I default back to my habit, to my
long ingrained pattern of I can fix this. I can
solve it if we just sort of pull ourselves out
by our bootstraps, if we just throw enough money at it,
if we just do this, do this, do this, If
we just walk through this three step process, if we
just listen to this teacher, if we just hire this
life coach, if we just go to this therapist. I
(12:38):
can just call the best doctors, I can just do
this and I can fix this thing, and life keeps
showing me sometimes you face problems that are not meant
to be solved by you right this minute, And maybe
saying the problem is unsolvable is a little bit overstating
the issue. But I hope that you get where I'm
coming from with this, that there are some problems that
(13:00):
we face in life that if we try to bring
our old tools to the table, those old tools will
not only not work, but they will also block us
from the experience that this problem is asking us to have.
And if you'll remember, I've talked about this a lot
as it relates to narrative storytelling, that the problem in
the story is what creates the tension that changes the hero.
(13:22):
So there's no such thing as short circuiting the problem.
And I think a lot of times I get stuck
on this trap where I face a problem and I'm like, Oh,
all we got to do is just pay fifty bucks
to this person, and you know they're going to tell
us the fix of the problem, and then we just
go through the three step process and then it's fixed.
It's all cleared up, no problem, Instead of really receiving
what this problem is here to show me, instead of
(13:44):
accepting that this problem is here to introduce tension to
my life, and the tension is here to change who
I am. It's here to make me somebody new. And
entering into this new paradigm, or accepting this new paradigm
(14:06):
into my life, has allowed me to see how much
arrogance there was, how much sort of like sitting on
my high horse, arrogance judgment almost of others. Even that's
embarrassing to say, but that's really true. Judgment of others
who were struggling or suffering, I guess, judgment of myself
for struggling and suffering. How much of that there was
(14:27):
in the old paradigm where I thought I was being optimistic.
I thought I was being optimistic by saying, you know,
every problem is solvable. We can all just bring our
best skills to the table, and we can overcome any
challenge together. And there is some truth in that. So
don't hear me saying that I'm throwing that out completely.
I think there is some value to optimism. There is
(14:47):
some truth in saying, let's bring our skills to the table,
let's come together and huddle up and figure out how
to fix this thing. I'm not throwing that out completely.
I'm just also bringing in this idea. What if the
problem that you're facing is not asking to be solved
by you right now. What if the problem that you're
facing is too big for the current tools and paradigm
that you hold. What if the problem is here to
(15:10):
transform you into someone new who has a new paradigm,
who will have the tools and skills to solve the problem,
or or the problem will completely disappear in the new
paradigm because you realize it wasn't even a problem anyway.
Here's an example that I've used before. You might have
heard me say this, and I just feel like it
drives the point home. If I have celluli on the
back of my thighs. I know this sounds very like,
(15:32):
you know, surface level, but go with me for a minute.
If I have cellulate on the back of my thighs
and I've decided this is a huge problem. I need
to fix this. Here's a great example of how, given privilege,
given resources, living in a first world country, there are
lots of solves for this problem. I could get on
Instagram and I could immediately be served up three to
(15:54):
four ads of products that are going to promise to
solve my cellulate. I might pay to twenty bucks for
one product, fifty bucks for another product, let's say one
hundred dollars for a third product. And let's say I
try all of those products and none of the products
work well, then I start doing my research. All I
got to do is get on the computer and I
find someone in town who you know. I pay them
a thousand dollars and they can promise to get rid
(16:16):
of the cellulate on the back of my thighs. And
so I drive to the clinic. I have the procedure done,
I remove the cellulite from the back of my thighs.
See problem solved. No problem here, I solved the problem.
I brought my skills, my talents, my resources to the table.
I brought my optimism, and we just hopped right over
that challenge. Or I choose not to solve the problem
(16:40):
because some problems are not meant to be solved by
me right now. And I learned to receive what this
problem is trying to teach me, what it's trying to
show me. I learned to accept and integrate the tension
that this problem is inviting me into the tension it's
inviting me into. So there's cellulate light on the back
(17:00):
of my thighs. What is this making me feel? What
does it make me think about myself? What stories am
I telling myself about myself? Because of this cellulite? This
quote unquote problem is inviting me into an experience that
I want to avoid. I do not want to have it.
I do not want to feel the ways that this
(17:21):
problem is making me feel about myself. It's making me
feel ugly, it's making me feel insignificant, it's making me
feel unlovable. Whatever it's making me feel, I don't want
to feel those things, and so instead I just go
solve the problem with my optimism. But what if I
don't go solve the problem with my optimism? What if
instead I accept, receive, integrate the experience the problem is
(17:46):
asking me to have. Perhaps I can be ushered into
a new paradigm where cellulite is no longer a problem,
where I can feel lovable, I can feel beautiful, I
can feel empowered, I can feel like a goddess with
cellulate on the back of my legs, and I also
get to keep my thousand bucks plus the extra one
(18:08):
hundred and seventy or whatever else I spent trying to
solve the problem that didn't actually fix it. So just
take this in for a minute. Is there a problem
in your life that you are facing that you're trying
to solve with the current tools and skills and resources
you have, and are you feeling frustrated because your resources
are falling short? Oh my god, this is like exactly
(18:33):
what I have been living through, and it so feels
so good. I can't even tell you to put this
into words. It's like, we tried to do this thing,
it didn't work out the way that we wanted it to.
I lost a bunch of my financial security, which is
part of what I was leaning on to solve these unsolvable,
quot unquote unslvable problems in my life. And now I'm
(18:54):
being forced, asked, invited, encouraged to in the problems without
the ability to go out and immediately solve them. It's
asking me to go deeper. It's asking me not to
throw the quick fix at it. It's asking me to
really sit with what this problem wants to show me.
(19:16):
And maybe I was solving a hundred cellulite level problems,
spending all of my resources on that, and this invitation
that life is giving me is to go through this
kind of dark underworld, go through this narrative arc, to
move toward this problem of lack of resources where I
(19:39):
can't just go fix every problem with a hundred bucks
or a thousand bucks, and to really receive what these
problems are inviting me to see. And I can tell you,
I mean, it's been five years. It's been a whole process,
So it's not every day of the five years is
the same. Some of them have been harder than others,
and some of them have been easier than others. But
(20:00):
five years of moving through this time, and I can
tell you that the depth of empathy, compassion, understanding, humanity,
you know, the bigness of my heart has expanded. I'm
just a different person today than I was five years ago.
And I'm a more trustworthy person. I'm a more helpful person.
(20:25):
I am a more understanding person, a more compassionate person.
I have more space for what people are going through.
I can hold more space for what someone is going through.
I think I in my previous life, part of what
you know invited me to be a coach is. I
had this ability to listen to someone's problems and come
(20:45):
up with helpful solutions, and that was how I approached
my own life too. It was like, I have this optimism,
I have these tools. I'm a learner, I'm always sort
of collecting new tools, and if someone explains their problem
to me, I also don't know what this is. But
my brain has the ability to kind of untangle the
knots and to find the thread that holds the whole
thing together. This is what makes me a good book coach.
(21:08):
I can sit with someone and hear their whole story
and tell you the narrative thread that holds the whole
thing together. I can untangle very complicated knots. And yet
that skill set has stopped working for me in this
new paradigm. It's not that it's not useful at all
or not helpful at all. It's just, Hey, in this paradigm,
(21:29):
you're going to be asked to learn a new way
to approach the things that are in front of you,
and this optimism, this ability to quick fix all of
the problems, is just not the thing anymore. It's not
working the way that it used to work. And so
you can just set that down for now, and I'm
going to ask you to learn something brand new. And
the brand new thing is can you sit with the problem?
(21:51):
Can you sit with this problem that is unsolvable in
your life? Can you just sit with it and sit
with how it makes you feel? So think about that
for a second. Think about the problem that you're facing
in your life that feels unsolvable, and ask yourself, can
you sit with it? And can you name how it
makes you feel? Do you have a name for how
(22:12):
it makes you feel? Does it make you feel rejected?
Does it make you feel unlovable? Does it make you
feel powerless? What is it that it makes you feel?
Can you sit with that feeling? Can you have enough
space and enough compassion for yourself to allow yourself to
fully experience that feeling? Because that feeling is inviting you
(22:33):
into a new paradigm. It is transforming you from the
inside out. And it may seem like right now, there's
no way that this problem will ever be solved, and
maybe it won't. Maybe the problem doesn't need to be
solved because maybe when you change, you'll realize your problem
with cellulate and you don't want to spend fifteen hundred
dollars fixing your cellulite, because your cellulite is part of
who you are and it's part of what makes you beautiful.
(22:57):
So applying this problem to or facing right now globally,
I'll say globally because you know, the US politics does
affect the whole globe, and especially choices that our current
administration is making are affecting the whole globe. And so
i will say that as a global community, we're facing
what feels like a pretty big crisis to me. And
I know that there are different political vantage points and views,
(23:19):
and I will also add that many, many political experts
from all sides, both sides of the Aisle, Republican and Democrat,
are all raising the red flag and saying that what's
happening right now is not normal, it's extremely dangerous, that
we're playing with fire, that the political choices and the
political moves that are being made right now are reckless
(23:43):
and arrogant and extremely frustrating for many of us. So
I'm just going to speak from my own perspective and say,
regardless of how you see the choices of the current administration,
it can feel pretty chaotic and confusing and complicated right now,
and so I want to apply this topic to what
we're facing politically in the US and how it's affecting
everybody in the world. And I'll just start by saying this,
(24:07):
some problems are not asking to be solved right now
by you. Some problems are inviting us into a deeper
understanding of ourselves, a deeper understanding of the world around us,
a deeper understanding of others, a deeper understanding of what matters,
a deeper understanding of what it means to be a
(24:29):
human being. And I want to be really careful. This
is the part where I was worried about being misunderstood,
because I don't want to come across as a victim.
I don't want to come This is my big fear
in abandoning temporarily at least my overwhelming optimism, is the
fear of being looked at as someone who has just like, well,
this is just how life is. I'm just gonna sort
(24:51):
of like submit to my fate. I don't see life
like that at all. And I think that human beings
have incredible power and potential, and i'm I'm I do
believe in bringing that power and potential to the table.
But this new insight. This new paradigm is teaching me
that sometimes bringing our power and potential to the table
(25:12):
means slowing way way down. It means waiting. It means
not fixing the problem right this second. It means not
doom scrolling for hours on Instagram thinking that understanding more
information about politics is going to help you figure out
how to fix this problem. No, No, you know, I'm
(25:38):
all for I support wholeheartedly going out on the streets
to protest, showing up to protest, emailing your senators and
congress men and women, you know, making the phone calls.
Whatever you can do to raise your voice and to
join the conversation and to become a part of the solution.
Please keep doing that. And I'm not saying you know,
(25:59):
I mean this applies to our personal lives too. When
I say that there are some problems that are not
for you to solve right now, that doesn't mean that
you stop paying your bills. It doesn't mean that you
give up on your life. It just means that you
find a way to slow down and sit with the
feeling that this problem brings up in you. Because imagine
that the feeling that the problem brings up in you
is actually a bigger problem than the problem itself. The
(26:25):
cellulate is a great example of this. Okay, the cellulite
brings up feelings of unlovableness in me or in you whatever.
If that's the feeling that the cellulite brings up, which
is a bigger problem the cellulite or the feelings of
being unlovable, and same is true for politics or a
politician that you wish wasn't in office, or you wish
(26:45):
it was making different decisions or whatever. The problems that
that brings up in the world are big problems. I'm
not saying they're not. I'm not comparing it directly to cellulate.
The problems that that brings up are real problems. But
an even bigger problem is the feelings that that brings
up in us corporately. Because I'm not the only one
(27:07):
feeling scared or upset or frustrated. There are hundreds of
thousands of us feeling that way, And that corporate feeling
of fear makes us very easy to control. It makes
us more likely to sit down and shut up and
not make a contribution and not you know, show up
to the protests and whatever else. So I'm not saying
(27:29):
don't do anything about the problems. What I'm saying is
make sure that first before you do anything about the problem,
that you take a moment to slow way down, to pause,
to be patient, and to ask yourself, what is the
feeling that this problem brings up in me? Because if
it's fear, let's just say it's fear. Okay, there's all
(27:50):
this stuff going on, you know, last week, I was
saying on Instagram, I was like, got plugged into Instagram
for the first time last week in a while, and
was watching everything happen with the tariffs and the stock market,
and like, I'm not even invested in the stock market,
but watching the up and down of the stock market,
watching what everyone had to say about it. I mean,
I consumed more information about politics last week than I
have in months. And consuming that information you would think
(28:14):
would make me feel equipped and empowered to call my
you know, representatives, and to raise a complaint and to
go to a protest. It did not do that. It
actually brought up in me extreme fear, almost like phobia
level fear of what's going to happen in the future.
And I was able to for the first time, go, oh,
(28:34):
this is actually the problem. The fear I'm feeling in
my body is the problem. And if I go react
out of my fear and go do a bunch of
stuff to sort of fix quote unquote fix the fear,
calling you know, senators whatever, calling Congress people making those
choices from the fear, then I am actually creating more fear.
(29:00):
I might think I'm doing something productive, buying a product
or going to do a thing, or going to a
protest or whatever. I might think I'm doing something productive,
but I'm actually creating more fear. And so I have
to find a way to be able to come from
love over fear. And that is much easier said than done.
(29:21):
But I have to find a way to come back
to love, and that might take me a while, and
it might mean that I'm not on Instagram, and it
might mean that I don't know what's going on with
politics for a little bit. And I would argue, and
this is the part that may be controversial, I would argue,
that is more productive than showing up to a march.
(29:41):
Go ahead and show up to a march. Please, if
you feel inspired to go to a march or to
whatever it is that you feel inspired to do politically,
to fight the good fight, Please do it. All I'm
saying is that if we're reacting from a place of fear,
we're just adding more fear to the pot instead of
allowing those inspired ideas to be born from a place
(30:02):
of love. And oftentimes, when things are happening in the
external world, they bring up feelings in us, and the
feeling that they bring up in us is actually the
bigger problem than the problem itself. So some problems are
not meant to be solved right now by you, because
the problem is here to show you something that's in
you that is meant to be solved. And the only
(30:24):
way to be to solve those problems is to sit
with them peacefully. The only way to solve the problem
of feeling unlovable is to sit with it peacefully, to
allow it to be there, to give it compassion, to
send it your love. The only way to solve a
problem of extreme fear of the future is to give
it compassion, to sit with it, to give it space
to breathe, to let it be there, to send it love.
(30:47):
And if we're so busy running around like chickens with
our heads cut off, going to buy the medication, and
you know, go to the march and do what you
need to do, but also don't forget to allow the
feeling to be there, to sit with it peacefully, to
sit with it and give it compassion, to send it
your love, and to allow the problem that you're facing
(31:10):
to show you what it's trying to show you, to
allow it to usher you into the new paradigm I
always say when I'm teaching storytelling workshop is that problems
are the essential ingredient of storytelling. Without a problem, you
have no story. Problems introduce the tension to the story
that makes the story interesting, that transforms the hero of
the story, that takes the reader on an exciting journey,
(31:33):
that takes the hero on the exciting journey. Without a problem,
there is no story. And yet in our lives, when
we face problems, we think like, oh gosh, I can't
ever get over these problems. Give me a break. When
will I ever have a day with no problems? And
what I want to do is maybe introduce this idea
that when you face the problem in your life, we
could come to it with a level of optimism that
(31:55):
doesn't have anything to do with the solving the problem.
So let me tell you what that has been looking
like for me, it's like, ooh, interesting, a problem. This
is opening a story loop. It's you know, taking me
on a journey to a new world, to a brand
new paradigm. This is an exciting journey that I'm about
to go on. What do you think is going to happen?
And yet, for some reason, when we face problems in
(32:17):
our lives, we're like, oh God, not this again. I'm
always up against these problems. When will I ever catch
a day with no problems? And what I've been trying
to do recently that I would invite you to do too,
is to come to the problems in my life, both
my personal life and also corporate and global life. Come
to those problems with a sense of optimism that doesn't
(32:39):
have to do with solving the problem. It's like, we're
going to be okay because we can solve this problem.
We're going to be okay because we're going to fix this. Instead,
optimism can look like this, ooh, a problem. What is
this problem here to teach us? What is this problem
here for me to learn? What does what does this
problem have for me to learn? What does this problem
(32:59):
want to sh show me? What is the new paradigm
that this problem is ushering me into. How much better
is that paradigm going to be? How much better is
it going to feel? How much stronger am I going
to be in the new paradigm? Who do you think
I'm going to become because of this problem? And you
can have this conversation with yourself about small problems too,
you know, like getting stuck in traffic or having to
(33:19):
wait an extra five minutes in line at the post
office or whatever. It's like, ooh, what's this problem trying
to teach me? What's this problem trying to show me?
And don't get so stuck in your optimism that you
can't also see what the problem is trying to show you,
which might not feel super optimistic. It might feel like, ooh,
this problem makes me feel unlovable. You know. Maybe you
(33:40):
say to yourself like, oh, my partner, you know, was
kind of short with me this morning or whatever, and
you're like, what's this problem trying to show me? What's
this problem trying to teach me? What's this problem trying
to invite me into? Maybe it's trying to invite me
into a paradigm where I don't put so much weight
on how this other person treats me, or I'm able
to kind of move about my day with stability and ease,
(34:00):
even if someone is frustrated with me, or even if
I don't know how they feel, where I'm able to
separate like, oh, that's just them being in a bad
mood that has nothing to do with me. Maybe this
problem is trying to usher me into that new paradigm
instead of you know, calling them or texting them immediately
like you are short with me, you owe me an apology,
or what was going on with you this morning? You
got to tell me whatever it is. What I'm suggesting
(34:23):
is that we begin to look at our problems as
opportunities in our lives to grow, to change, to become
better people, to feel more grounded, to become stronger, to
grow into the next version of ourselves, to be ushered
into the next paradigm. I think as a global community,
we are being ushered into a new paradigm. And this
is the optimistic lens through which I want to see
the problems that we're facing. Because there is a part
(34:44):
of me, and you heard it come through in today's episode,
there's a part of me that feels very doomsday about
what's happening in our world right now, and that's not
the part of me that I want to follow. This
problem is here to introduce me to this new version
of myself who says we're being ushered into a new
paradigm and it's going to be better than the last one.
(35:04):
It's going to be freakin phenomenal. We're going to feel
so good, we're going to be more connected than we've
ever been. We're going to just really sing our teeth
into what really matters in life. Thank God for that,
Thank God for these problems that we're facing, because it's
taking us somewhere really beautiful. And yes, it's painful in
the meantime, and yes it's confusing and chaotic, and yes,
(35:24):
I'm in a new world that I don't know how
that world operates, and I don't know what to do next,
and I feel really powerless and out of control. But
that's a temporary feeling because it's ushering me into something
brand new. I don't know what problem you're facing in
your personal life right now, but I'm inviting you to
try this with me, and just try it on and
see how it works for you, consider how it might
(35:46):
help you to grow. To see your problems this week
as not something to be solved by you right now,
but as an invitation to feel more deeply, to become
more human, and to grow into someone here. All right,
happy writing everyone, I'll see you next week on the
Write Your Story podcast
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