What if there are no problems to fix?
What if there are no problems to fix?
This question was posed to me either through something I read and/or watched recently and I am not sure who to attribute it to in this blog post. It feels profound and hits me on a deep level. It feels profound in the way it shifts perspective from feeling like something is wrong and really question the root of this belief. Being able to shift our experiences doesn’t happen all the time within our lives, the therapy space, or even within conversations with friends/family. The following post will explore a few perspectives contained within this question.
What if…..
What would it feel like to not have to fix or solve a problem? So much work seems to happen when we are fixing, changing, solving or trying to change experiences, people, feelings and thoughts. While solving problems can be helpful (I think of all the medical, technology and other advancements), it might not need to apply to people. What if there isn’t really anything wrong with us?
What if we allowed people to be who they are extending love to them and accepting them while still be with them. It strikes me (based on my life experience and clinical experience), the root of much of the pain and suffering we experience might come from our need to make us feel comfortable or to avoid our own pain/discomfort. I tend to believe we all have the internal wisdom and knowledge to help guide us to make our own decisions and create our own solutions. Sometimes the world tells us something much different.
How do we view problems as a social worker and person…..
As a social worker, we are taught to be problems solvers. We solve a “problem” through a diagnosis, treatment plan, goal setting, and safety planning. We tend to see most things as a nail and we are a hammer. We tend to get focused on problem solving at the expense of our clients and even ourselves. At times I wonder if some of the burnout and secondary trauma we experience is more about not being able to solve a perceived problem that isn’t really something that can be solved. It can be like trying to stop a leak from our pipe with our finger. It often doesn’t work. Also, we can miss acknowledging and being with ourselves in a compassionate and kind way.
I know it can be hard to separate who we are as a social worker from who we are as a person. We often bring over skills, tools, perspectives, and approaches with us into our personal lives. Being a social worker is not easy to turn off. Our inability to turn off our social work perspectives and problem solving skills is hard. They are brought with us into our relationships with others and at times we can see the things happening in our lives as problems to solve.
Again, this problem solving perspective can have us overlooking the uniqueness of the people we love or we can fail to see our interconnectedness to others. Could being with others, loving them, showing compassion be the other way we can see people and not as problems?
A missing piece
I see that many of us are missing the impact of various systems that shape us. There are a number of systems of oppression and marginalization that impact us. The can happen directly (especially being part of black/brown groups, female identifying, in an able body, part of LGBTQI+ community or other ways of identifying) and indirectly. Many of us can point to direct examples of how people are impacted by various systems in our culture. This can show up in denial of voting rights, lack of access to housing, education, employment, and even basic needs. In an indirect way it can show up in how we feel about ourselves, how our bodies look, how we show up in the world and even how others view us.
We become so indoctrinated by the implicit and explicit messages from external sources it can cause us to lose our center. We are reeling, feeling discombobulated, and disoriented to a level where we believe the messages from these systems. It seems our center of gravity has moved or shifted by tidal wave of messagings about our worthlessness, failures, lack of or short comings. While systems are a major contributor, they are not the only cause because we are part of these systems. We contribute in some ways to our own suffering often through really subtle and covert ways.
Final Thoughts:
Asking ourselves what if we are not a problem can lead to a deep look into how we view ourselves and our specific struggles. We often struggle thinking something is wrong with us, or we need to work harder, be someone different, change/adjust or fix ourselves. What if we are okay exactly how we are and our reactions are just normal given the deep traumas in the our community, the ways systems are restricting our power, restricting our choices and shaping our we see ourselves. What if we shift to a focus on transforming and healing the systems impacting us?
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