One of my all-time favorite quotes is from good old Albert Einstein:
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
Why I love this quote and find it to be absolutely true, is that I’ve never been able to really solve a big problem in my life, without either calling on help from others and/or from God. The former and the latter are in some ways one of the same, because I believe that God speaks to us through other people. When I speak of God, I’m not necessarily referring to a Christian God (although that is a beautiful thing too), but to a Power that is greater than ourselves. My experience of this “power” is that it’s intelligent and a force of Love.
Einstien’s quote implies that some of my problems could be of my own making. This is something that I never like to admit, however, if I’m willing to be brutally honest with myself and diligently look for what part I might have had (however small,) in the problem, I am then much better able to move to a different level of consciousness in order to solve it.
I’ve found that the most powerful way to solve my problems by moving to a different level of consciousness, is to do one or both of the following:
1. Call us a trusted friend to discuss. The key is to be very judicial about who I choose. My best friend, mother, or my co-workers are often too close to the problem to be able to get a good perspective on it. Fortunately, I have one or two women in my life, one of whom is a life coach, who always seem to be able to help me to get to the root of the problem. These women are not “enablers” – they don’t support me in moaning or being mad at other people. We’ve all got friends who’ll willingly listen to all that nonsense, and other friends who love a good drama, but these kind women are not in that category. It’s not to say that they can necessarily solve my problems for me, but by talking it out with someone who won’t force their opinion down my throat, I often get to the solution. These friends help me to move me to a different level of the consciousness.
2. Meditate: This is the most important step when problem-solving. It totally goes against the grain for me, because when I have a honking great problem in my life, my immediate instinct is to operate out of fear. My stress-response kicks in and all I can hear is the same old record playing over and over. If I can stop in these moments, and remind myself of Mr.Einstein’s quote, I quickly realize that I need to take some time out to become still.
It’s only by quieting my mind through meditation, that I can reach through the clutter of my mind to a new level of consciousness. I never try to force an answer to my problem, because if I do, it’s just Sophie talking to Sophie again. Instead, I try to become still enought – to “be” in the space between my thoughts, so that a wisdom, that often seems to come from deep within, arises.
By the way, when I talk about mediation, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I take the time out to do a full-on mediation. Sometimes I’ll simply take out 5 minutes to go and sit in a quiet room and listen breathe. If you haven’t already, it’s useful to learn a simple yoga breathing technique, which will help to slow your mind.
Finally, there is one more Einstein quote that is fitting for this blog:
“There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.”
I love this quote because sometimes the “answer” comes to us when we least expect it. We all have different methods of changing our level of consciousness – for some it may be running or dancing, for others it may be painting or even knitting. These moments of realization or or “higher” knowledge, however, never come to me when I’m bombarding a problem with fear. The key is to get out of the way and allow the light to shine through.
