Solving Life Problems with a Simple Exercise

Do you have something you keep tripping over in your life? Maybe issues about money, relationships, career, weight or family? While most of us seem to handle many of life's little problems quite functionally, there are usually one or two issues that we can't seem to get a grip on. What should we do? If we want to handle the situation as a shaman would, we would create an exercise that would show us where the real difficulty lies.

By the law of "as above, so below," it's possible to re-create our lives as a microcosm that we can easily see in the form of an exercise. Suppose you're chronically short of money, and suppose that the reason you are chronically short of money is because you keep buying things that you don't need – you can't seem to stop yourself. How do you develop an exercise for this? Here are the steps:

1) Identify the "theme" of the problem. For instance, in this example it's "What you don't need."

2) Identify the "theme" of the solution. In this case, it would be "Conserve." In other words, you want to stop putting out resources for what you don't need.

3) Choose an area of your life where you can practice the theme of the solution, AWAY from the area of problem. In this case, you want to conserve, but don't try to conserve with money – you've already tried it and it doesn't work. Instead, find somewhere else you can conserve.

For instance, you might look at whether you talk when you don't need to, act when you don't need to or think and worry excessively. If "what you don't need" manifests in the money department of your life, it will show up elsewhere, too. If you talk excessively, you might create an exercise like this: once a day, pick a conversation will you will conserve your breath and say only what is necessary. Each night, record the results of this exercise in conservation in a journal. Do this exercise for 40 days and see what happens.

You will find that you learn the law of conservation through talking less, and that it will begin to apply to your spending habits. The key is to work through the problem in a relatively benign exercise – something that's almost silly. And when you work it out in the exercise, you'll have worked it out in your life as well! Remember that the exercise is a microcosm of your life, and what works in the exercise applies everywhere else in life.

If you need help coming up with exercises for your life problems, check out the Everyday Magic Course – an email course that sends you helpful magical exercises, tips and tricks every single week.


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