All the solutions you seek are inside you

All the solutions you seek are inside you. It’s one of those pithy sayings floating around the Internet and popping up in annoying Facebook memes. A colleague used to call them “inconvenient.”

They’re inconvenient because they’re true: it’s easier to look for solutions ‘out there’—pointing the finger at someone else, asking them to change—than ‘in here’—to go through the painful process of internal metamorphosis. Yet the truth is that all the solutions you seek are inside you.

X-factor

I deliberately use the word ‘solutions’ rather than ‘answers’. ‘Answers’ feels rather vague. ‘Solutions’ is more technical, more mechanical. It has the whiff of chemistry, of mathematics, of algebra—finding the missing X-factor that solves a problem and improves our lives.

No matter how much we feel we’re facing an external problem, those X-factors lurk inside us. That’s because the healing journey teaches us emotional responsibility. If something someone else does bothers me, the responsibility for becoming unbothered (spellchecker hasn’t put a red squiggle under it, so I guess it’s a word) rests with me.

Emotional responsibility, in turn, teaches us about personal sovereignty. We are all sovereign over our own lives. If somebody else wants to behave like an idiot (and I’ve done my share of it) that’s their sovereign right. To seek resolution by forcing them to change is a violation of their sovereignty. If you want your sovereignty to be respected, you must respect that of others.

I’m speaking here about emotional issues. If someone’s doing something illegal or breaching some other recognised code, you’re entitled to protection. Even so, if you take responsibility for the emotional aspect of the issue, you’ll find the situation resolves much more easily.

Spiral staircase

To find the solutions to intransigent and painful problems we must abandon the moral high ground and consciously accept that we and we alone are responsible for our feelings. This sends us slithering down the spiral staircase of the unconscious into the mystery of our own DNA.

Somewhere down there is a piece of programming that’s triggered (activated) by whatever situation is upsetting us. Attached to that programming there is some unprocessed pain. By allowing ourselves to feel that pain (see 7 Steps to clear emotional blocks) we allow the programming to be flushed out and released.

Change the emotional dynamic of a situation and you change its physical dynamic. Insights happen. Breakthroughs occur. New light shines through old windows.

And that’s when the magic happens. Change the emotional dynamic of a situation and you change its physical dynamic. Insights happen. Breakthroughs occur. New light shines through old windows. By releasing painful programming, the need for a situation exposing that programming ceases to exist.

The axiom that ‘all the solutions you seek are inside you’ places the onus on us to resolve our difficulties. This may seem like a burden. Take heart: instead of being the helpless victims of exterior circumstances, we can become the masters of our own lives by assuming responsibility for how we feel.

Photo by Won Young Park on Unsplash