Opportunities in Disguise
Last night, in bed, I was restless. My mind was monkeying around and I couldn’t get comfortable. Like we do when we can’t sleep, we watch the snapshot of thoughts that flash in and out, seemingly random. We tell ourselves “this is stupid, just go to sleep”, yet we can’t.
It’s during sleep that we most effectively tap into our subconcious. It is here that our brains work out the kinks and challenges of our lives. It’s our greatest access to answers, our “genie in a bottle”. Thomas Edison claimed that he came up with the answers to his greatest challenges by going to bed with a set of keys in his hand. As he would fall asleep, he would drop the keys and the noise would wake him up. Apparently in doing so, he would access his subconscious and the solution to his challenges. He is quoted as having said
“Never go to sleep without making a request to your subconscious”.
So last night, I lay there in and out of sleep, irritated and uncomfortable. AND then this morning on my run to work, out of the blue, I came up with the answer to a work related challenge that I’ve been frustrated with for months. The solution came to me seemingly randomly, mid run. I’ve known for months that this frustration, this “problem” was my responsibility to decipher and nobody else's, I just had no idea what to do about it…which caused frustration. I have no doubt that my subconscious was working on this as I slept, it’s almost like labor and the birthing of an idea.
What if the language we choose to describe our experiences and perspectives sets us up for needless frustration? We label our challenges as “problems - stressful - annoying” But what if most of our problems are automatically coupled with solutions, what if in fact the problem in and of itself is the opportunity for growth in disguise? When something nags at us and won’t go away, it’s usually because we need to do something about it (and our genie in a bottle knows it), maybe just have to trust it…maybe we even have to be grateful for the opportunity to look at it?
The next question is “can this also apply to health problems?” I think so. I think that our bodies will nag us with annoying, irritating, life pausing symptoms when something is malfunctioning because it’s an opportunity to become aware that it needs to be addressed. Much like the “check engine” light in our cars nags at us until we take action, maybe our minds and our bodies are the same. Maybe problems aren’t actually problems, but opportunities for awareness and growth.
It seems reasonable to see that when the problems don’t go away, it’s because we haven’t found the answer “YET”. When we’re feeling like we’re beating our heads against the wall, maybe that’s part of the laboring of a solution. I believe there’s hope in the concept that the problem is still there because the solution is around the corner, because we haven’t found it yet.
Give your subconcious, your body, yourself a break. We are innately intelligent beyond our wildest dreams. Trust yourself enough to look at your current situation and ask, where’s the opportunity here?