We often treat a personal problem as if it were something solid — something we have to carry, push through, or eventually break.
And when we see it that way, something subtle happens.
The body tightens.
The breath shortens.
Attention narrows.
The problem starts to feel fixed.
But what if the problem isn’t fixed at all — only the way you’re looking at it?
Change, in practice, rarely comes from force.
It’s closer to what happens when you move from standing in a valley… to standing on higher ground.
Nothing out there has changed.
But everything looks different.
The same situation.
A different orientation.
The Construction of a Problem
In this way of working, a problem isn’t a thing.
It’s something that gets constructed.
To experience a problem, there has to be a sense of:
- where you are
- where you think you should be
- and the gap between the two
Most people try to change the content inside that gap.
They try to think differently.
Feel differently.
Act differently.
But if the structure stays the same, the experience returns.
It’s like rearranging furniture in a room that still feels too small.
The shift doesn’t come from changing what’s inside the room.
It comes from noticing the space around it.
Stepping Out of the Frame
The moment you describe yourself as “stuck,” something important happens.
You take a position inside the experience.
You become the one who is stuck.
And from that position, everything starts to organise around it.
Change begins when that position loosens.
Not by forcing it —
but by widening the frame.
When attention expands, the “problem” often changes shape.
What felt solid starts to feel like movement.
What felt fixed starts to feel temporary.
Not because you forced it to change —
but because you’re no longer standing inside it in the same way.
Small Shifts That Change Everything
These shifts are usually subtle.
They don’t feel like breakthroughs.
They feel like adjustments.
You might notice:
- Instead of focusing on the tension, you notice the space around it
- Instead of looking straight at the problem, your attention softens or moves
- Instead of speeding up internally, things begin to slow down
And as that happens, the problem often loses its intensity.
Not because it disappeared —
but because it’s no longer being held in the same way.
The Signal Beneath the Noise
Most of what we react to isn’t the situation itself.
It’s the meaning we’ve already assigned to it.
Old patterns.
Old conclusions.
Old expectations.
They run quietly in the background and shape what we notice.
When that background noise settles, something else becomes visible.
Small openings.
New options.
Moments of clarity that were always there — just overlooked.
A Different Way Forward
Real change doesn’t come from forcing yourself forward.
It comes from seeing differently.
When the structure of how you’re looking at something shifts,
the experience often follows on its own.
And what once felt like something you had to push through…
Starts to feel like something you can move within.