Stop running away. No, this is not what I say to our pet cockapoo Wilma when on walks, because she is wonderfully well behaved. I’m talking about people who run away from their problems or other aspects of life….
“Don’t run away from challenges, run over them.” – Joan Benoit Samuelson.
We all have problems. No one is immune. Some problems are more serious than others. Some problems persist and others are remedied quickly.
One thing every problem has in common, is that each problem is an indicator that something needs to change or action needs to be taken.
While we can share similar problems, what we need to change may vary. This is why it is important to listen to what your problems are telling you.
While there are countless areas we can experience problems, there are a few common areas and examples of what these problems could be saying needs to change.
Before getting into those areas, take a moment and think back to a problem you once had that you thought was a big problem at the time. Now when you face that situation, you probably handle it better. What was once a big problem is now handled automatically. What is the difference? The answer is that you have grown. You have worked through the struggle, found a solution, and deal with it now, likely on auto-pilot.
The same can be said about any current or future problem you encounter. Any big problem you face; is a clear indication you need to grow. The more you grow, the smaller the problems become.
“If you have a positive attitude and constantly strive to give your best effort, eventually you will overcome your immediate problems and find you are ready for greater challenges.” – Pat Riley.
Life might already be solving your problems:
We typically tend to regress to the mean in many aspects of our lives. Life has a way of your problems being worked out very naturally. As you’ll read later on, I recommend taking positive action and learning to relish problems, but facing them instead of running away often starts the resolution …
Your emotional reactions may be fearful responses to a problem that life is already delivering you out of, so why bother with the fearful reaction?
Your fearful reaction may well be based on the illusion, on the false belief, that you have to do something to get out of the danger, but this is not how life tends to work. Your fearful reaction simply adds to the problem, expands it, often painfully, within you. It has no real basis in reality. It is a mechanical, habitual response to an unexpected condition and that is all.
The sooner and more consistently you live in peace, the more you see those disturbing instances as nothing but mere chimera. You can live in the peaceful, happy assurance that nothing really shakes up the perennially, perfectly balanced, harmonious order of life itself, of reality. All is really well when you stop imagining the worst. When you stop running away, the problem resolving process begins.
Life throws curve balls at all of us:
Don’t be a passive recipient of life. Don’t indulge in too much of a victim mentality. There is a saying “every minute you spent complaining are 60 valuable seconds wasted that you should use toward fixing a problem”. Being a victim does not fix problems and once you finish kicking and whining, the problem will still be sitting out there waiting for action so you better off facing the problem immediately. If you don’t stop running away, you’ll never normalise problems and recognise that they are a part of life.
Don’t stare at your problems, they will just get bigger:
Every second count sand when it comes to fix a problem it is important that you don’t let a problem to be bigger than you. Seize the situation and put a plan together as soon as possible to fix it. Fixing it while it still under control in a must. Problem tend to get bigger and creates more problem if actions are not taken timely.
One of my heroes, Emile Coué wrote about this in relation to the Law of Concentrated Attention. He stated that ideas upon which attention becomes focused become correspondingly magnified in their effect.
Take ownership and get it done:
There is no such thing as “other people problems” when they affect you directly. Take ownership of the aspects that affect you in one way or another. If this might affect you later fix it while is not still a problem for you, plan around it and learn from the experience.
In therapy, we often encounter something called negative reinforcement, whereby someone avoids or escapes a scenario and as a result of escaping, they are ‘rewarded’ for escaping or avoiding and thus it reinforces the avoidance and maintains the issue. Research suggests that avoidance often exacerbates the problem and doesn’t provide any lasting relief. Avoiding your problem will continue to create a cycle of stress for you as it will carry on weighing on the back of your mind.
I have written on this topic before and highly recommend you read this article where I show how (stop running away and..) to Learn To Enjoy Life’s Problems.
A healthy attitude toward the problem:
When problems arrive, a positive attitude might be your only initial help. How many times have we being scare of a short deadline or a big project? Do you remember how everything fell into place and you got it done? Keep those positive thoughts with you all the time. Believe in yourself. No matter how big the problem looks just look at it like the perfect moment to show other what are you made of. Big issues become opportunities when you have a good attitude to handle them. Believe in yourself and you’ll stop running away. If you need help with this, read these articles:
a) Believe in Yourself!
b) How To Believe In You – 9 and a bit Ways To Advance Self-Belief.
You can’t plan to avoid all your challenges but you can plan to mitigate the impact:
Learn from your experiences. Reflect effectively and use it as experiential learning. It is important to log your experiences. Focus in “what happened and why” then focus and how avoid this for happening again but never forget to create a plan B just in case you have to face it again. Recognise what you did, what your thoughts were, your feelings and how you behaved, be objective and you’ll learn more from the experience. Stop running away and reflect effectively instead.
You need to let go of negative thought:
You do not need to hold onto disturbing thoughts. To hold onto disturbing thoughts is to hold onto the painful emotional disturbance that comes with them. It is like the lake reliving the dropping pebble and thus maintaining its state of disturbance continuously.
Here is some further reading to help you let go of unwanted thoughts:
a) Throwing Rocks To Let Go Of Stress? Using Self-Hypnosis To Let Go Of Stuff You Don’t Need.
b) Torching, Flames, Burning and Getting Fired Up Using Hypnosis.
There you have it, a series of ideas to help you face the problems, turn them into challenges, and stop running away from them.
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Have some of these themes here resonated with you? Then have a read of these pages:
1. Do you need help or support to stop comparing yourself or in another particular area of your life?
Coaching with Adam Eason Or Hypnotherapy with Adam Eason
2. Would you like a satisfying and meaningful career as a hypnotherapist helping others? Are you a hypnotherapist looking for stimulating and career enhancing continued professional development and advanced studies?
Adam Eason’s Anglo European training college.
3. Are you a hypnotherapist who is looking to fulfil your ambitions or advance your career?
Hypnotherapist Mentoring with Adam Eason.
Likewise, if you’d like to learn more about self-hypnosis, understand the evidence based principles of it from a scientific perspective and learn how to apply it to many areas of your life while having fun and in a safe environment and have the opportunity to test everything you learn, then come and join me for my one day seminar which does all that and more, have a read here: The Science of Self-Hypnosis Seminar. Alternatively, go grab a copy of my Science of self-hypnosis book, it’ll help you stop running away!
