Pick up the pieces of your life, put them back together with the words you write, all the beauty and piece and the magic that you'll start too fun when you write your story. You got the words and said, don't you think it's down to let them out and write them down and cold. It's all about and write your story. Write, write your story. Hi, and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast. I'm Ali Fallon. I'm your host, and on today's episode, I want to talk about this idea of resolving or problem too soon. That sounds like a weird thing to say, but I came up with this idea while I was helping my group of authors to edit the first draft of their manuscripts. So, if you're new here, I have a group of authors who I've helped over the course of the last six months to write the first draft of their book manuscripts. And one of the things that I promised them I would do is as they finish their manuscripts, they could submit a chapter to me and I would do what's called a live edit, which is basically I'm editing their chapter in front of the rest of the group to show them if I were their editor at a publisher or if an editor that they had hired, this is how I would give them feedback on their piece. And I'm doing that directly to the author, but I'm doing it in front of the entire group, so that way they're not the only ones who are learning from the edits, but everyone else gets to learn from them as well. And you'd be shocked at the stuff that's just universal. The type of things that I'm going to say while I'm editing one manuscript is the same thing I'm going to say when I'm editing another manuscript. And one of those common themes that has been coming up is this idea of resolving a problem too soon. This is something that's challenging to learn as you write a manuscript because even though we all somewhat intuitively know how to build a narrative arc in a story, we're used to doing it in a much shorter context than a book manuscript. Think about this, So you're used to writing an email, You're used to writing a Instagram caption, You're used to telling a story out loud to a friend who sits in the desk next to you at work, But you're not used to telling a story across fifty five thousand words of material or you know, two hundred and fifty pages, three hundred pages, whatever it ends up to be. And so to to like extend the narrative arc over that much space is not something that we're very used to, and we have to learn. We have to kind of like get that muscle memory and learn how to do that. So we've been talking a lot about this in the group, about how do we extend that narrative arc across three hundred pages of material. One of the ways that you do it is by making sure that you're not resolving the problem too soon. Now, in the many ways that life and writing kind of go hand in hand and represent one another, this is one of those times where like a lesson that we learn from the act of putting our stories on paper is also a lesson that we can take into our lives. And so I've been both saying this over and over again on these calls with my authors, saying, you know, make sure you don't resolve this problem too soon. What it does is it brings the narrative arc to a screeching halt and makes the reader feel like they should disengage and you know, move on with their regular lives essentially, and I've been saying that to these authors and then also experiencing something in my life which I'll talk about, reminding me that when we jump to solve a problem too soon, we miss what the problem is there to teach us. So that's what I want to talk about today. It's not really about editing a manuscript, although I'm using that as a metaphor, but it's about what it looks like in our lives when we face a problem that we feel we cannot solve, or actually, maybe you face a problem that you feel you can solve. But what does it look like to solve the problem too soon and to not take in what the problem is here to show you or teach you. Now, just to extend the metaphor in storytelling, when you resolve a problem too soon, your reader loses interest, your reader loses engagement. It would be like if you were sitting in a movie theater watching a romantic comedy and twenty minutes into the film, the couple gets together and they go shopping at the mall. That is an example that I learned from one of my mentors, Donald Miller, who uses that example a lot of times when he's teaching brands how to develop their narrative works. So if you were in a theater and you were watching a romantic comedy and the couple gets together and then they go shopping at the mall, you'd be like boring, Okay, moving on, I'm going to leave the theater and go on about my regular life. The beauty of stories is that they suck us in to the tension of a problem and we go on this crazy roller coaster ride with the character. We live vicariously through the hero of the story, the main character of the story, and we experience the tension with them, and we also experience the resolution with them, and we don't want that resolution to come too quickly, mostly because and I write about this and write your story, mostly because the tension is where all of the transformation comes from. And that's really what we're in it for in a story. We're in it for the transformation. We want to experience the transformation of the main character with the main character. That's why we pick up fiction books and read them. That's why we pick up I mean nonfiction too. It's why we go to the movie theater, It's why we engage with a great reel on Instagram. It's how any brand who catches you with a beautiful ad or really compelling at a funny ad. It's how any brand gets your attention and keeps you engaged from the beginning of the ad to the end of the ad. It's how great brands get you to make a purchase. It is the way of the human brain, the way of the human being. We are drawn in by stories. We want to experience that tension and resolution, and yet in our lives, for some reason, we have this sense that when a problem pops up. Maybe we don't all maybe I have this sense. I think a lot of us do, But for sure I do have this sense that when a problem pops up, my job is to figure out a way to resolve it immediately. And I just started seeing this connection in the past couple of weeks and thinking about what storytelling might have to teach us about resolving problems too soon in our lives. If you're new here and you haven't listened to any other episodes, let's say this is the first episode that you're ever listening to, you could go back and catch up on a few of the old episodes that share way more about this story that I'm going to just zip past really quickly. But if you've been around for a while, you know that my husband and I made a big business investment. We felt like, absolutely and utterly compelled to do this thing that we were so excited about, and everything crashed and burned. It didn't go the way that we thought it were going it was going to go. We lost everything, and we've been kind of picking up the pieces of that loss over the course of the last several months. Everything really fell apart last May, and so it was like four years of work and then a big crash and burn, and we've been trying to figure out how to pick up and move forward from here. Now, this is one of those times in my life where I have faced a problem that I don't know how to solve. I feel like because of my privilege, because of my background, my education, my feeling fairly well resourced in my life, most of the time, in most aspects of my life, I have been able to resolve problems fairly, easily and quickly. I think this is true for a lot of us who live in the first world, and especially if you have white skin, especially if you are a male, as little as we want to talk about it. Having those privileges gives us the sense that we have control and power over our lives, and that when a problem presents itself, we can just go and solve it fairly quickly. And so I've moved through the world with that type of confidence. I mean, I have faced a handful of problems I couldn't solve in my life. I went through a divorce and that was a time of great helplessness in my life. It was not the way that I saw things going, and it was extremely painful and frustrating. But you know, even that problem, I feel like I kind of put my mind to it and my heart to it, and I moved through it and I was able to find my way on the other side. And now my life is so much better for having had that experience. And this this season that I've been living through, where I'm facing a physical, tangible problem that I do not know how to solve, has been really confronting for me and incredibly depressing. And I actually I've talked about this to my therapist and to a few close friends as what I have called my second deconstruction. It's almost like I had my first deconstruction where I left the Christian Church and had to sort of rethink, like what's my worldview. This was happening when I was going through my divorce because I was married to a pastor and we planted a church together, and then when that all fell apart, I was like, Oh, the world is not how I thought it was. It doesn't work the way that I thought it did. These beliefs and ideas that I've had about the world are no longer congruent to how I want to live my life, and so I had to rethink and rebuild my world from the ground up. And this season that I'm living through, I've been calling it my second deconstruction because it feels like the worldview that I put back together was you know, same same but different. You know, it was different in a lot of ways and more open in many ways and more accepting, and also like it had some similarities to the old way, which I think is kind of normal. I think if you've been through an experience like this where you've like you know, left either your small hometown or maybe not a small hometown, but you've left sort of like you're moved away from your nuclear family and gone out into the world to have new experiences and discover new things about yourself. You've also had what I would consider a deconstruction. Maybe you're not calling it that, but you have gone like, Okay, I have to figure out for myself the way the world works and what I believe about people and our people you know, mostly good, and how does the world operate? And who am I inside of the world. And you're answering all those questions for yourself, and we have to re answer those questions a handful of times throughout our life. Well, I've been going through this period of time where I feel like I'm re answering those questions for myself again. And one of the things that I've been bumping up against is every other time in my life when I have come up against an issue or a problem, I've always felt pretty resourced to solve it. Almost always, in almost every issue of my life, I have felt like, Okay, yeah, there's this problem in front of me, but listen, I've got support, I have family who loves me, I have good friends. I feel really connected. I feel, you know, materially resourced, Like I've got skills and I'm creative and I can go get a job, and I've worked every job under the sun, you know, I've worked like service jobs. I'm not saying like I've always had these like great high paying white collar jobs or something. But I've always felt like, even if the ground fell out from underneath of me, like i could go bartend or something, and I'm going to be able to take care of myself. And this period of time that I've been walking through has really challenged that feeling that no matter what happens, I'm going to be able to resolve the problem that's in front of me. Because I've been faced with this problem that feels unresolvable. It's the first time in my life, I think, I think I can say that confidently, the first time that I have faced a physical problem that feels unresolvable. It's nothing that you do ali is going to fix this problem. So now what and what I'm finding is that leaning into the problem. I mean, I've done a fair my own fair share of panicking around the problem and just kind of like throwing everything that I could at it, you know, the old analogy of like throwing the spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. I have done so much of that, and my husband and I together we've like like run around like chickens with our heads cut off, trying to figure out how to resolve the problem. And one of the gifts of this time is that as none of those solutions have worked, we've been forced to do something that we never had to do before. It's almost like our privilege was blocking us from this deep work like this deep almost like spiritual transformation work. The juice of the story, like the richness of the story, is in the tension. It's in the part of the story before the problem gets resolved, because as soon as the problem gets resolved, everybody checks out and goes about business as usual. And so in the part of the story where the problem is not solved, this is where all the good, juicy transformation happens. And we have been forced in a way that we've never been forced before, to go deeper into the problem and to let the problem teach us what it is here to teach us. And I'm telling you this is uncomfortable, it's horrible, it's scary, it's deeply unsettling. It's vulnerable in a way that I've never experienced vulnerability before. And it has made me think so many times about that passage from scripture that I learned growing up, about how it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven, get into the kingdom of Heaven. And what I've realized is, I think what that ancient text is trying to say is that when you are resourced enough to quote unquote solve problems quickly and easily, when you're privileged enough that you live in a way world, you live in a like a universe where you think, any problem that comes my way, I'm resourced to solve it. When you live in that way, you never have to come face to face with your own vulnerability. And all of these stories, all of these people are coming into my path right now who are also mirroring this back to me, showing me that you know, sometimes you're diagnosed with disease, or with with cancer, or with something an illness that no matter what you do, you don't know how to resolve this problem. And I think I have been drawn in my life, over various points in my life to different spiritual teachers who talk about, you know, how human beings are so powerful and more powerful than we know that we can access that power, that we can manifest our realities that we can And this is all kind of Second Deconstruction stuff. But if you go back to my Christian days, it's the same, same but different. It's you know, like, pray to Jesus and Jesus will come and save you, and you're in dwelled with the Holy Spirit and you have as much power as Jesus had, and same ideas. It's like, no matter what is in front of you, you have the power to resolve the problem. So what happens when we bump into a problem that we actually don't have the power to resolve, Then we're forced to go deeper into the human condition. Then we're forced to surrender to the problem. Then we're forced to sit in the tension and to wait for a problem that may never be resolved, for a problem that may stay in perpetuity. And I think that's a terrifying concept for so many of us. And I also think it's such an important concept inside of this world that we're living in because since twenty twenty, things have gotten progressively more chaotic, progressively messier, progressively more confusing, and in the chaos and the confusion of all of that. I think that we're using an old operating system as human beings, where we're like, well, and maybe only in the Western world, I don't know if this extends beyond that, but for sure, in the world that I'm familiar with, we're using an operating system that says like, oh, we are resourced to solve this problem. We can figure this out. All we have to do is X, Y, and Z. Let me come up with a plan, let me have a strategy, let me put a program in place, let me get more organized, let me be more productive, let me be more efficient. And we're using old programming to come at a new situation that's totally new. It's never existed before. It's extremely chaotic and confusing and messy, and the old programming is in direct contradiction. It's like, yeah, no, your productivity and efficiency is not going to work here. Your strategy, your three part system is not going to apply here. And I think for those of us who are paying attention, it's all coming unraveled. We're realizing like, oh my god, we are facing we are up against problems that we do not know how to solve. We do not have the resources to solve these problems. Now, I want to make sure that I'm really clear that I'm not saying that we shouldn't solve problems we do know how to solve. If there's a problem in front of you that you are resourced to solve by all means, please solve it. And if there are collectively problems that are in front of us that we do know how to solve by all means, we should for sure solve them. But I think if we're honest with ourselves, many of us are beginning to face problems that are out of our control, that are out of our scope of capability. And for us to pretend like we're resourced enough to solve those problems when we are absolutely not is just blasphemy. It's just complete denialism. And my eyes are being open to this, and so I'm watching it happen not only in my own life but all around me, and so many spiritual teachers kind of like bump up against this, and so many the way that we talk about, you know, whether it's like Christian spirituality or whether it's manifestation or whatever kind of spiritual practices you're into, just start to notice if there are ways. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with any of these spiritual practices or with solving a problem when it's solvable. All I'm saying is, notice the ways in which your current framework of spirituality puts you in control of a situation that, in reality, you are not in control of. And for us to pretend that we are in control when we are absolutely not in control as just utter delusion. And I think that there's like a thin line between what many of us are calling spirituality and delusion. And I'm not saying that to be spiritualist to be delusional at all. I think that there just is a crossover. And you know, again, like bringing that old programming to the new world gets a little tricky. You realize, like, oh, my programming needs an upgrade. I can no longer operate under that old programming before. And if I continue to attach myself to that old programming so tightly that I'm unwilling to let it go, then I inevitably become delusional in this new world. And I have one hundred percent, for sure and guilty of carrying that delusion with me, because it is easier to be delusional than it is to be honest in a time like this, at least in my little world. I don't know if it feels that way to you, but it feels that way to me in my little world. Sometimes facing the truth of what's really going on for me in my own little world is too painful, and so the choice that I make at certain points is to instead be delusional, is to instead say a miracle is coming. You know, maybe a miracle is coming. I'm not saying that it's not. But notice the difference between believing a miracle is coming to anesticize you from the pain of facing your present moment, or believing a miracle is coming because you truly understand what a miracle is. A miracle, Marian Williamson says, is sometimes a shift in circumstance, but more often it's a shift in perspective. And this is what's happening for us right now. I believe as a collective, our entire consciousness is being upgraded. And it's by that I just mean the old programming that doesn't work anymore is falling apart underneath of our feet, and we're being required to upgrade the software system to a new type of program to something that's going to work on the computer that we have in front of us. You know, the old programming is not working anymore, and for us to attach ourselves to that old programming and refuse to let it go is delusional. So this shift in perspective that Marian Williamson talks about that is the miracle, is happening right now. But you know what this is, This goes right back to what I was saying before. That shift in perspective only happens when we stay in the tension of the story and don't resolve the problem too soon. So as a collective and as individuals, the problems that are in our lives, when we're just like, oh, no problem, I can solve this problem. I'll throw one hundred bucks at it. Or I can sell this. I know someone who can fix it. I'll give them a call. When we don't stay in the tension of the problem, or when we too quickly come up with like a the only word I can think of is like a thin solution. It's like not really a rich solution with depth. It's like a thin band aid kind of a solution band aid on cancer. It's like I'm going to slap this on, because then I'll feel like the problem is solved and I don't have to really face it or deal with it anymore. And when we do that, we miss out on what the tension of the story was trying to show us and teach us. The character, the main character of the story only transforms because of the tension, and they have to stay in the tension to the end of the story, or the viewer, the reader, the person paying attention, loses interest. So carry that metaphor all the way into your personal life, your personal world right now, think of a problem that you're facing that feels unsolvable. If you don't feel like you have an unsolvable problem in your life right now, I would say it's likely because you're living in an environment in a culture. I am too. Many of us are too. So this is no shade or shame at all. But we are living in an environment, in a culture where we get to be very insulated from the truth of what is taking place around us, so many of us are not paying very close attention. That might sound a little confrontational. I'm not saying it at you. I'm saying it as a culture as a whole. In the Western World, in the first World, in the United States of America, at the very least, I'll throw us under the bus. In the United States of America, we have such resource, such privilege, We are so well resourced that we aren't forced in a way to face the unsolvable problems of the world around us. And so you know, to open your eyes and pay attention, and you'll see there's a war happening in the Middle East where people are dying every day, and you maybe you have a strong opinion about that on kind of one side or the other. There are two sides of the issue that have really strong opinions about how that problem should be solved. Again, the transformation happens when we don't jump immediately to a solution, but when we lean into the tension of the problem. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't like find solutions where we can find them. I'm not saying we shouldn't enact solutions. I'm saying it's a problem that we can't quickly jump to a solution, that the solution quote unquote solution is actually found in leaning into the tension of the problem and experiencing the transformation that is available for us there, but most of us are just not doing that because it's too painful, it's too vulnerable, and we don't have to to be honest. Like you know, we just live in our own private little realities over here where most of the problems we face on a daily basis can just be solved with a credit card. And again, so going back to that ancient text that says it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. I think a big piece of that is that when you are rich, quote unquote rich, and you may not think of yourself as rich. I definitely don't feel rich right now in my life, but I am in so many ways rich. And when you can pull out a credit card and solve a problem, you aren't forced to go deeper into the tension of the problem. I know that's a lot. Here is what I want you to get from this episode. What would it look like for you to go deeper into the tension of a problem in your life right now? I want you to take a minute and think about a problem that is in front of you that feels unsolvable, and maybe it's a personal problem. Maybe you have a relationship in your life that feels like there's just no way that this relationship could ever you know, be peaceful, or there's just no way that I could ever get what I need out of this relationship. Maybe you have a job that you think like, or maybe it's with your purpose, your career for example, maybe you think like, yeah, there's just no way that I could ever ever live out my purpose and make money doing it, or whatever whatever it is for you, or maybe it's money. Maybe you're you know, this is what it has been for us. It feels like, you know, we made this set of choices that were our choices, and we are not victims in this, but now we're up against this impossible block that feels like we'll never get past it. Whatever it is for you, just take it. And maybe it's not a personal problem for you. Maybe for you, maybe it is the war in the Middle East. Maybe you watch what's taking place there and something about it just kind of tugs at your heart, and your heart is like crying out for the human suffering that's happening on the other side of the world. Maybe it's the fires in La for you, maybe it's another social issue altogether. Maybe it's global warming, maybe it's I don't know, whatever it is for you, Or maybe you're hiding a secret and you think, yeah, there's just never a world where I could be honest about who I am to the people who love me and that they would still love me. Maybe you're just holding that back, thinking that's just an impot possible problem that could never in a million years be solved. There's nothing that we could do that would fix that problem. So take a minute to think about just one problem for you that feels unsolvable and ask yourself what would it look like to live into the tension of the problem, to let the problem exist, Like, maybe just start for a minute with being really honest with yourself about the problem and the bigness of it, the depth of it, the pain that it's caused you, the reality of what has taken place. This would be an amazing writing assignment, by the way, and a great start to a story because stories always start with problems. We enter into the story at the point of highest tension. So if that calls to you, maybe turn this into a piece of writing. Maybe pull out a piece of paper or pull out your computer and write about a problem in your life that feels unsolvable, that feels too big for you to solve, and it would take an absolute miracle. And I'm not saying I don't believe in miracles. I think that we are radically wrong in our culture about what a miracle looks like. We think the miracle is the immediate solving of the problem, and I think sometimes the miracle is in the problem. There are so many other stories that I would love to share. They're not mine to share, but I do want to say all of these people have been coming across my path who are in a place where they're facing a problem that they cannot solve. And I will tell you that the most inspiring people the people who I am choosing inside of this reconstruction that I'm in. My therapist has said to me, like, I think you need to find new role models. You know, people who you really admire. And I'll tell you these people are not necessarily names that you would recognize, but they're just everyday people who you'd love if you met them, who are going through unsolvable problems in their lives, are up against an unsolvable problem and who have chosen to live into the tension of the problem, and have chosen to let the problem humble them, and let the problem rip them apart, and let the problem show them their own humanity, and let the problem reveal their depth, and let the problem teach them, and let their problem, yeah, be their greatest teacher. These people are heroes in my book, and their heroes because of their ability to let the miracle unfold in the way miracles do. I do believe in miracles. I just think that we're radically wrong in our culture about what a miracle looks like. And when you're wrong about what a miracle looks like, what ends up happening is your faith falls apart because you think, oh, I waited on a miracle and the miracle never came. Well, what if the miracle did come and you just missed it. What if we just missed it. What if we're all missing the miracle that's right in front of us because we were wrong about what miracles really looked like. So consider the problem in your life that is unsolvable. Ask yourself what it would look like to lean into the tension of that problem, to let the tension of the problem teach you and show you everything that it has to show you. There's a quote that I put in my book called Indestructible by David Foster Wallace. He says, the truth will set you free, but not until it's done with you, which is a great example of this kind of system upgrade that I'm talking about that I went through in twenty fifteen when I went through my divorce. That I you know, I had always believe the truth will set you free. That's in scripture, and it was something I was taught my whole life, and so I had always believed that. And then when my marriage fell apart, and when I really started to see the truth of what had been going on, it felt like the truth was so confronting and upsetting that how could it possibly be truth? That the truth will set you free. Well, then I saw this quote, the truth will set you free, but not until it's done with you, and it was like, oh, system upgrade, Okay, the truth is having its way with me right now, which is extremely uncomfortable but is part of the process. And so we're going through a similar system upgrade right now. I really believe that, and system upgrades are always incredibly uncomfortable and extremely confronting. And so if you're feeling that, then I I believe you. I'm here with you, I'm in it too. This is not for the faint of heart. And we have two choices. You can either live in delusion, and you know, the delusion can look very spiritual. The delusion can be like a miracle is coming, Jesus is in control. While those things are true. You know, God is in control, a miracle is coming, while those things I do actually believe both of those things are very true. And also they can serve as a tool for a nesticizing the pain instead of inviting us to confront the truth, inviting us to confront what is right in front of us, to really live in the tension of the problem, and to really let the problem show us what it's trying to show us. So, if you're not feeling any of this, if you're just like, what's this lady talking about and you're still listening, then wow, I'm impressed that you're still listening. But if you're just kind of feeling like, no, life's pretty good, I'm happy things are going great, then ignore me, move along, you know, move on, No need to like force an awakening or an evolution that is not ready to happen yet. I believe it all happens, and it's right time, and it invites us when it is the time. But if you are in it, if you're in it and you're feeling the pain right now, then just know that you're not alone, you're not crazy, you are not making this up. You are a truth teller and you're a seeker and that's why you're seeing clearly right now. And I'm in it with you. I believe in you, and I believe in the strength that you are going to gain from living in this tension. And I'll see you next week on the Right Story podcast

Pick up the pieces of your life, put them back together with the words you write, all the beauty and piece and the magic that you'll start too fun when you write your story. You got the words and said, don't you think it's down to let them out and write them down and cold. It's all about and write your story. Write, write your story. Hi, and welcome back to the Write Your Story Podcast. I'm Ali Fallon. I'm your host, and on today's episode, I want to talk about this idea of resolving or problem too soon. That sounds like a weird thing to say, but I came up with this idea while I was helping my group of authors to edit the first draft of their manuscripts. So, if you're new here, I have a group of authors who I've helped over the course of the last six months to write the first draft of their book manuscripts. And one of the things that I promised them I would do is as they finish their manuscripts, they could submit a chapter to me and I would do what's called a live edit, which is basically I'm editing their chapter in front of the rest of the group to show them if I were their editor at a publisher or if an editor that they had hired, this is how I would give them feedback on their piece. And I'm doing that directly to the author, but I'm doing it in front of the entire group, so that way they're not the only ones who are learning from the edits, but everyone else gets to learn from them as well. And you'd be shocked at the stuff that's just universal. The type of things that I'm going to say while I'm editing one manuscript is the same thing I'm going to say when I'm editing another manuscript. And one of those common themes that has been coming up is this idea of resolving a problem too soon. This is something that's challenging to learn as you write a manuscript because even though we all somewhat intuitively know how to build a narrative arc in a story, we're used to doing it in a much shorter context than a book manuscript. Think about this, So you're used to writing an email, You're used to writing a Instagram caption, You're used to telling a story out loud to a friend who sits in the desk next to you at work, But you're not used to telling a story across fifty five thousand words of material or you know, two hundred and fifty pages, three hundred pages, whatever it ends up to be. And so to to like extend the narrative arc over that much space is not something that we're very used to, and we have to learn. We have to kind of like get that muscle memory and learn how to do that. So we've been talking a lot about this in the group, about how do we extend that narrative arc across three hundred pages of material. One of the ways that you do it is by making sure that you're not resolving the problem too soon. Now, in the many ways that life and writing kind of go hand in hand and represent one another, this is one of those times where like a lesson that we learn from the act of putting our stories on paper is also a lesson that we can take into our lives. And so I've been both saying this over and over again on these calls with my authors, saying, you know, make sure you don't resolve this problem too soon. What it does is it brings the narrative arc to a screeching halt and makes the reader feel like they should disengage and you know, move on with their regular lives essentially, and I've been saying that to these authors and then also experiencing something in my life which I'll talk about, reminding me that when we jump to solve a problem too soon, we miss what the problem is there to teach us. So that's what I want to talk about today. It's not really about editing a manuscript, although I'm using that as a metaphor, but it's about what it looks like in our lives when we face a problem that we feel we cannot solve, or actually, maybe you face a problem that you feel you can solve. But what does it look like to solve the problem too soon and to not take in what the problem is here to show you or teach you. Now, just to extend the metaphor in storytelling, when you resolve a problem too soon, your reader loses interest, your reader loses engagement. It would be like if you were sitting in a movie theater watching a romantic comedy and twenty minutes into the film, the couple gets together and they go shopping at the mall. That is an example that I learned from one of my mentors, Donald Miller, who uses that example a lot of times when he's teaching brands how to develop their narrative works. So if you were in a theater and you were watching a romantic comedy and the couple gets together and then they go shopping at the mall, you'd be like boring, Okay, moving on, I'm going to leave the theater and go on about my regular life. The beauty of stories is that they suck us in to the tension of a problem and we go on this crazy roller coaster ride with the character. We live vicariously through the hero of the story, the main character of the story, and we experience the tension with them, and we also experience the resolution with them, and we don't want that resolution to come too quickly, mostly because and I write about this and write your story, mostly because the tension is where all of the transformation comes from. And that's really what we're in it for in a story. We're in it for the transformation. We want to experience the transformation of the main character with the main character. That's why we pick up fiction books and read them. That's why we pick up I mean nonfiction too. It's why we go to the movie theater, It's why we engage with a great reel on Instagram. It's how any brand who catches you with a beautiful ad or really compelling at a funny ad. It's how any brand gets your attention and keeps you engaged from the beginning of the ad to the end of the ad. It's how great brands get you to make a purchase. It is the way of the human brain, the way of the human being. We are drawn in by stories. We want to experience that tension and resolution, and yet in our lives, for some reason, we have this sense that when a problem pops up. Maybe we don't all maybe I have this sense. I think a lot of us do, But for sure I do have this sense that when a problem pops up, my job is to figure out a way to resolve it immediately. And I just started seeing this connection in the past couple of weeks and thinking about what storytelling might have to teach us about resolving problems too soon in our lives. If you're new here and you haven't listened to any other episodes, let's say this is the first episode that you're ever listening to, you could go back and catch up on a few of the old episodes that share way more about this story that I'm going to just zip past really quickly. But if you've been around for a while, you know that my husband and I made a big business investment. We felt like, absolutely and utterly compelled to do this thing that we were so excited about, and everything crashed and burned. It didn't go the way that we thought it were going it was going to go. We lost everything, and we've been kind of picking up the pieces of that loss over the course of the last several months. Everything really fell apart last May, and so it was like four years of work and then a big crash and burn, and we've been trying to figure out how to pick up and move forward from here. Now, this is one of those times in my life where I have faced a problem that I don't know how to solve. I feel like because of my privilege, because of my background, my education, my feeling fairly well resourced in my life, most of the time, in most aspects of my life, I have been able to resolve problems fairly, easily and quickly. I think this is true for a lot of us who live in the first world, and especially if you have white skin, especially if you are a male, as little as we want to talk about it. Having those privileges gives us the sense that we have control and power over our lives, and that when a problem presents itself, we can just go and solve it fairly quickly. And so I've moved through the world with that type of confidence. I mean, I have faced a handful of problems I couldn't solve in my life. I went through a divorce and that was a time of great helplessness in my life. It was not the way that I saw things going, and it was extremely painful and frustrating. But you know, even that problem, I feel like I kind of put my mind to it and my heart to it, and I moved through it and I was able to find my way on the other side. And now my life is so much better for having had that experience. And this this season that I've been living through, where I'm facing a physical, tangible problem that I do not know how to solve, has been really confronting for me and incredibly depressing. And I actually I've talked about this to my therapist and to a few close friends as what I have called my second deconstruction. It's almost like I had my first deconstruction where I left the Christian Church and had to sort of rethink, like what's my worldview. This was happening when I was going through my divorce because I was married to a pastor and we planted a church together, and then when that all fell apart, I was like, Oh, the world is not how I thought it was. It doesn't work the way that I thought it did. These beliefs and ideas that I've had about the world are no longer congruent to how I want to live my life, and so I had to rethink and rebuild my world from the ground up. And this season that I'm living through, I've been calling it my second deconstruction because it feels like the worldview that I put back together was you know, same same but different. You know, it was different in a lot of ways and more open in many ways and more accepting, and also like it had some similarities to the old way, which I think is kind of normal. I think if you've been through an experience like this where you've like you know, left either your small hometown or maybe not a small hometown, but you've left sort of like you're moved away from your nuclear family and gone out into the world to have new experiences and discover new things about yourself. You've also had what I would consider a deconstruction. Maybe you're not calling it that, but you have gone like, Okay, I have to figure out for myself the way the world works and what I believe about people and our people you know, mostly good, and how does the world operate? And who am I inside of the world. And you're answering all those questions for yourself, and we have to re answer those questions a handful of times throughout our life. Well, I've been going through this period of time where I feel like I'm re answering those questions for myself again. And one of the things that I've been bumping up against is every other time in my life when I have come up against an issue or a problem, I've always felt pretty resourced to solve it. Almost always, in almost every issue of my life, I have felt like, Okay, yeah, there's this problem in front of me, but listen, I've got support, I have family who loves me, I have good friends. I feel really connected. I feel, you know, materially resourced, Like I've got skills and I'm creative and I can go get a job, and I've worked every job under the sun, you know, I've worked like service jobs. I'm not saying like I've always had these like great high paying white collar jobs or something. But I've always felt like, even if the ground fell out from underneath of me, like i could go bartend or something, and I'm going to be able to take care of myself. And this period of time that I've been walking through has really challenged that feeling that no matter what happens, I'm going to be able to resolve the problem that's in front of me. Because I've been faced with this problem that feels unresolvable. It's the first time in my life, I think, I think I can say that confidently, the first time that I have faced a physical problem that feels unresolvable. It's nothing that you do ali is going to fix this problem. So now what and what I'm finding is that leaning into the problem. I mean, I've done a fair my own fair share of panicking around the problem and just kind of like throwing everything that I could at it, you know, the old analogy of like throwing the spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. I have done so much of that, and my husband and I together we've like like run around like chickens with our heads cut off, trying to figure out how to resolve the problem. And one of the gifts of this time is that as none of those solutions have worked, we've been forced to do something that we never had to do before. It's almost like our privilege was blocking us from this deep work like this deep almost like spiritual transformation work. The juice of the story, like the richness of the story, is in the tension. It's in the part of the story before the problem gets resolved, because as soon as the problem gets resolved, everybody checks out and goes about business as usual. And so in the part of the story where the problem is not solved, this is where all the good, juicy transformation happens. And we have been forced in a way that we've never been forced before, to go deeper into the problem and to let the problem teach us what it is here to teach us. And I'm telling you this is uncomfortable, it's horrible, it's scary, it's deeply unsettling. It's vulnerable in a way that I've never experienced vulnerability before. And it has made me think so many times about that passage from scripture that I learned growing up, about how it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven, get into the kingdom of Heaven. And what I've realized is, I think what that ancient text is trying to say is that when you are resourced enough to quote unquote solve problems quickly and easily, when you're privileged enough that you live in a way world, you live in a like a universe where you think, any problem that comes my way, I'm resourced to solve it. When you live in that way, you never have to come face to face with your own vulnerability. And all of these stories, all of these people are coming into my path right now who are also mirroring this back to me, showing me that you know, sometimes you're diagnosed with disease, or with with cancer, or with something an illness that no matter what you do, you don't know how to resolve this problem. And I think I have been drawn in my life, over various points in my life to different spiritual teachers who talk about, you know, how human beings are so powerful and more powerful than we know that we can access that power, that we can manifest our realities that we can And this is all kind of Second Deconstruction stuff. But if you go back to my Christian days, it's the same, same but different. It's you know, like, pray to Jesus and Jesus will come and save you, and you're in dwelled with the Holy Spirit and you have as much power as Jesus had, and same ideas. It's like, no matter what is in front of you, you have the power to resolve the problem. So what happens when we bump into a problem that we actually don't have the power to resolve, Then we're forced to go deeper into the human condition. Then we're forced to surrender to the problem. Then we're forced to sit in the tension and to wait for a problem that may never be resolved, for a problem that may stay in perpetuity. And I think that's a terrifying concept for so many of us. And I also think it's such an important concept inside of this world that we're living in because since twenty twenty, things have gotten progressively more chaotic, progressively messier, progressively more confusing, and in the chaos and the confusion of all of that. I think that we're using an old operating system as human beings, where we're like, well, and maybe only in the Western world, I don't know if this extends beyond that, but for sure, in the world that I'm familiar with, we're using an operating system that says like, oh, we are resourced to solve this problem. We can figure this out. All we have to do is X, Y, and Z. Let me come up with a plan, let me have a strategy, let me put a program in place, let me get more organized, let me be more productive, let me be more efficient. And we're using old programming to come at a new situation that's totally new. It's never existed before. It's extremely chaotic and confusing and messy, and the old programming is in direct contradiction. It's like, yeah, no, your productivity and efficiency is not going to work here. Your strategy, your three part system is not going to apply here. And I think for those of us who are paying attention, it's all coming unraveled. We're realizing like, oh my god, we are facing we are up against problems that we do not know how to solve. We do not have the resources to solve these problems. Now, I want to make sure that I'm really clear that I'm not saying that we shouldn't solve problems we do know how to solve. If there's a problem in front of you that you are resourced to solve by all means, please solve it. And if there are collectively problems that are in front of us that we do know how to solve by all means, we should for sure solve them. But I think if we're honest with ourselves, many of us are beginning to face problems that are out of our control, that are out of our scope of capability. And for us to pretend like we're resourced enough to solve those problems when we are absolutely not is just blasphemy. It's just complete denialism. And my eyes are being open to this, and so I'm watching it happen not only in my own life but all around me, and so many spiritual teachers kind of like bump up against this, and so many the way that we talk about, you know, whether it's like Christian spirituality or whether it's manifestation or whatever kind of spiritual practices you're into, just start to notice if there are ways. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with any of these spiritual practices or with solving a problem when it's solvable. All I'm saying is, notice the ways in which your current framework of spirituality puts you in control of a situation that, in reality, you are not in control of. And for us to pretend that we are in control when we are absolutely not in control as just utter delusion. And I think that there's like a thin line between what many of us are calling spirituality and delusion. And I'm not saying that to be spiritualist to be delusional at all. I think that there just is a crossover. And you know, again, like bringing that old programming to the new world gets a little tricky. You realize, like, oh, my programming needs an upgrade. I can no longer operate under that old programming before. And if I continue to attach myself to that old programming so tightly that I'm unwilling to let it go, then I inevitably become delusional in this new world. And I have one hundred percent, for sure and guilty of carrying that delusion with me, because it is easier to be delusional than it is to be honest in a time like this, at least in my little world. I don't know if it feels that way to you, but it feels that way to me in my little world. Sometimes facing the truth of what's really going on for me in my own little world is too painful, and so the choice that I make at certain points is to instead be delusional, is to instead say a miracle is coming. You know, maybe a miracle is coming. I'm not saying that it's not. But notice the difference between believing a miracle is coming to anesticize you from the pain of facing your present moment, or believing a miracle is coming because you truly understand what a miracle is. A miracle, Marian Williamson says, is sometimes a shift in circumstance, but more often it's a shift in perspective. And this is what's happening for us right now. I believe as a collective, our entire consciousness is being upgraded. And it's by that I just mean the old programming that doesn't work anymore is falling apart underneath of our feet, and we're being required to upgrade the software system to a new type of program to something that's going to work on the computer that we have in front of us. You know, the old programming is not working anymore, and for us to attach ourselves to that old programming and refuse to let it go is delusional. So this shift in perspective that Marian Williamson talks about that is the miracle, is happening right now. But you know what this is, This goes right back to what I was saying before. That shift in perspective only happens when we stay in the tension of the story and don't resolve the problem too soon. So as a collective and as individuals, the problems that are in our lives, when we're just like, oh, no problem, I can solve this problem. I'll throw one hundred bucks at it. Or I can sell this. I know someone who can fix it. I'll give them a call. When we don't stay in the tension of the problem, or when we too quickly come up with like a the only word I can think of is like a thin solution. It's like not really a rich solution with depth. It's like a thin band aid kind of a solution band aid on cancer. It's like I'm going to slap this on, because then I'll feel like the problem is solved and I don't have to really face it or deal with it anymore. And when we do that, we miss out on what the tension of the story was trying to show us and teach us. The character, the main character of the story only transforms because of the tension, and they have to stay in the tension to the end of the story, or the viewer, the reader, the person paying attention, loses interest. So carry that metaphor all the way into your personal life, your personal world right now, think of a problem that you're facing that feels unsolvable. If you don't feel like you have an unsolvable problem in your life right now, I would say it's likely because you're living in an environment in a culture. I am too. Many of us are too. So this is no shade or shame at all. But we are living in an environment, in a culture where we get to be very insulated from the truth of what is taking place around us, so many of us are not paying very close attention. That might sound a little confrontational. I'm not saying it at you. I'm saying it as a culture as a whole. In the Western World, in the first World, in the United States of America, at the very least, I'll throw us under the bus. In the United States of America, we have such resource, such privilege, We are so well resourced that we aren't forced in a way to face the unsolvable problems of the world around us. And so you know, to open your eyes and pay attention, and you'll see there's a war happening in the Middle East where people are dying every day, and you maybe you have a strong opinion about that on kind of one side or the other. There are two sides of the issue that have really strong opinions about how that problem should be solved. Again, the transformation happens when we don't jump immediately to a solution, but when we lean into the tension of the problem. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't like find solutions where we can find them. I'm not saying we shouldn't enact solutions. I'm saying it's a problem that we can't quickly jump to a solution, that the solution quote unquote solution is actually found in leaning into the tension of the problem and experiencing the transformation that is available for us there, but most of us are just not doing that because it's too painful, it's too vulnerable, and we don't have to to be honest. Like you know, we just live in our own private little realities over here where most of the problems we face on a daily basis can just be solved with a credit card. And again, so going back to that ancient text that says it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. I think a big piece of that is that when you are rich, quote unquote rich, and you may not think of yourself as rich. I definitely don't feel rich right now in my life, but I am in so many ways rich. And when you can pull out a credit card and solve a problem, you aren't forced to go deeper into the tension of the problem. I know that's a lot. Here is what I want you to get from this episode. What would it look like for you to go deeper into the tension of a problem in your life right now? I want you to take a minute and think about a problem that is in front of you that feels unsolvable, and maybe it's a personal problem. Maybe you have a relationship in your life that feels like there's just no way that this relationship could ever you know, be peaceful, or there's just no way that I could ever get what I need out of this relationship. Maybe you have a job that you think like, or maybe it's with your purpose, your career for example, maybe you think like, yeah, there's just no way that I could ever ever live out my purpose and make money doing it, or whatever whatever it is for you, or maybe it's money. Maybe you're you know, this is what it has been for us. It feels like, you know, we made this set of choices that were our choices, and we are not victims in this, but now we're up against this impossible block that feels like we'll never get past it. Whatever it is for you, just take it. And maybe it's not a personal problem for you. Maybe for you, maybe it is the war in the Middle East. Maybe you watch what's taking place there and something about it just kind of tugs at your heart, and your heart is like crying out for the human suffering that's happening on the other side of the world. Maybe it's the fires in La for you, maybe it's another social issue altogether. Maybe it's global warming, maybe it's I don't know, whatever it is for you, Or maybe you're hiding a secret and you think, yeah, there's just never a world where I could be honest about who I am to the people who love me and that they would still love me. Maybe you're just holding that back, thinking that's just an impot possible problem that could never in a million years be solved. There's nothing that we could do that would fix that problem. So take a minute to think about just one problem for you that feels unsolvable and ask yourself what would it look like to live into the tension of the problem, to let the problem exist, Like, maybe just start for a minute with being really honest with yourself about the problem and the bigness of it, the depth of it, the pain that it's caused you, the reality of what has taken place. This would be an amazing writing assignment, by the way, and a great start to a story because stories always start with problems. We enter into the story at the point of highest tension. So if that calls to you, maybe turn this into a piece of writing. Maybe pull out a piece of paper or pull out your computer and write about a problem in your life that feels unsolvable, that feels too big for you to solve, and it would take an absolute miracle. And I'm not saying I don't believe in miracles. I think that we are radically wrong in our culture about what a miracle looks like. We think the miracle is the immediate solving of the problem, and I think sometimes the miracle is in the problem. There are so many other stories that I would love to share. They're not mine to share, but I do want to say all of these people have been coming across my path who are in a place where they're facing a problem that they cannot solve. And I will tell you that the most inspiring people the people who I am choosing inside of this reconstruction that I'm in. My therapist has said to me, like, I think you need to find new role models. You know, people who you really admire. And I'll tell you these people are not necessarily names that you would recognize, but they're just everyday people who you'd love if you met them, who are going through unsolvable problems in their lives, are up against an unsolvable problem and who have chosen to live into the tension of the problem, and have chosen to let the problem humble them, and let the problem rip them apart, and let the problem show them their own humanity, and let the problem reveal their depth, and let the problem teach them, and let their problem, yeah, be their greatest teacher. These people are heroes in my book, and their heroes because of their ability to let the miracle unfold in the way miracles do. I do believe in miracles. I just think that we're radically wrong in our culture about what a miracle looks like. And when you're wrong about what a miracle looks like, what ends up happening is your faith falls apart because you think, oh, I waited on a miracle and the miracle never came. Well, what if the miracle did come and you just missed it. What if we just missed it. What if we're all missing the miracle that's right in front of us because we were wrong about what miracles really looked like. So consider the problem in your life that is unsolvable. Ask yourself what it would look like to lean into the tension of that problem, to let the tension of the problem teach you and show you everything that it has to show you. There's a quote that I put in my book called Indestructible by David Foster Wallace. He says, the truth will set you free, but not until it's done with you, which is a great example of this kind of system upgrade that I'm talking about that I went through in twenty fifteen when I went through my divorce. That I you know, I had always believe the truth will set you free. That's in scripture, and it was something I was taught my whole life, and so I had always believed that. And then when my marriage fell apart, and when I really started to see the truth of what had been going on, it felt like the truth was so confronting and upsetting that how could it possibly be truth? That the truth will set you free. Well, then I saw this quote, the truth will set you free, but not until it's done with you, and it was like, oh, system upgrade, Okay, the truth is having its way with me right now, which is extremely uncomfortable but is part of the process. And so we're going through a similar system upgrade right now. I really believe that, and system upgrades are always incredibly uncomfortable and extremely confronting. And so if you're feeling that, then I I believe you. I'm here with you, I'm in it too. This is not for the faint of heart. And we have two choices. You can either live in delusion, and you know, the delusion can look very spiritual. The delusion can be like a miracle is coming, Jesus is in control. While those things are true. You know, God is in control, a miracle is coming, while those things I do actually believe both of those things are very true. And also they can serve as a tool for a nesticizing the pain instead of inviting us to confront the truth, inviting us to confront what is right in front of us, to really live in the tension of the problem, and to really let the problem show us what it's trying to show us. So, if you're not feeling any of this, if you're just like, what's this lady talking about and you're still listening, then wow, I'm impressed that you're still listening. But if you're just kind of feeling like, no, life's pretty good, I'm happy things are going great, then ignore me, move along, you know, move on, No need to like force an awakening or an evolution that is not ready to happen yet. I believe it all happens, and it's right time, and it invites us when it is the time. But if you are in it, if you're in it and you're feeling the pain right now, then just know that you're not alone, you're not crazy, you are not making this up. You are a truth teller and you're a seeker and that's why you're seeing clearly right now. And I'm in it with you. I believe in you, and I believe in the strength that you are going to gain from living in this tension. And I'll see you next week on the Right Story podcast