The problem is everyone thinks there’s a problem

Sometimes getting what we want doesn’t feel as good as we hoped.

My sister‘s friend won a Grammy and stayed under the covers for a week. Sometimes getting what you want feels overwhelming, disregulating, or terrifying. Sometimes the glory, triumph, and victories we’ve longed for don’t feel as calm or satisfying as we thought they would.

It’s wise to remember that dismantling oppression is not a gentle act. We are currently in the death throes of oppression where the old paradigm flails and fights to stay alive, because it is dying.

“This is what it looks like to get what you want. I’m so sorry. You thought it would look different than this, but this is what it looks like.”

Over the last five years of my Liberatory Biomimicry practice, I have said those words to myself countless times. You can’t tell in writing, but I say this with deep love, sympathy, and sincerity. It is disappointing and confusing when getting what you want feels different than you expected. What a bummer.

My favorite Permaculture design principle is that “the problem is the solution.” I led a very popular webinar on this topic back in 2022. (I was 2 years into having a shaved head and thought I would never go back to hair again.)

When you adopt the perspective that the problem is the solution, you instinctively move closer to the problem to try to figure out how on earth it could possibly be the solution.

Curiosity increases proximity.

Proximity increases awareness.

There are an infinite number of solutions to any perceived problem in our infinite universe. Proximity increases intimacy and the more intimately you can know “the problem,” the quicker your awareness discerns how to leverage what you have (the problem) to get what you want (the solution).

This is why individualism is ineffective. Individualism creates separateness and isolation which decreases awareness/wisdom.

So today, consent to be changed by what you perceive.

Get closer to what you observe, especially if it seems like a “problem.”

The closer you get, the more you’ll perceive.

The more you perceive the more you can be transformed by your newfound awareness.

This transformation will feel like a “solution” to your “problem.”

Have fun being more effective in the chaos, Brave Ones!