When You Need To Fix The Problem RIGHT NOW

I was up in the middle of the night trying to figure out how to fix a problem we’re having with our kids. It has been going on for 6 years, yet I still have the thought that it needs to be fixed RIGHT NOW. After awhile, I realized I was coming from desperation to get it fixed. Immediately I started trying to fix my thoughts so I could come from a better emotion to fix it. I was desperate to feel better so I could THEN fix the problem. It was interesting to see how I went from desperately trying to change the circumstance, to desperately trying to change my thoughts.

There’s nothing that needs fixed right now. How do you feel when you think it needs to be fixed right now, and it’s not? What kind of action does it give you? For me, it makes me feel desperate. This closes down all of my creativity, and I tend to do extreme things, like empty all of our cupboards and fill them with completely different foods to change our diet, or get rid of all of our screens, or donate half of our toys. Or I do nothing at all; I freeze. Desperation is not a helpful emotion, ever.

There is NOTHING that needs to be taken care of RIGHT NOW, unless it’s a life-or-death situation, which hardly anything is. The problem is almost everything FEELS like a life-or-death situation because that’s how our brains are wired. So just remind yourself that this can take as long as it needs to. Because guess what… it’s going to. It’s like finding something you’ve lost in the last place you look. Of course, because you stop looking once you find it.

What feels urgent to you right now? What will happen if it doesn’t “get taken care of”? And then what? And then what? And then what?