While serving on the board of directors for the Association for Transpersonal Psychology, I found myself in the middle of a particularly difficult situation. The twelve of us were working hard to decide what next steps to recommend to the Executive Committee. I felt uneasy and pressured to find a solution. The process felt heavy, and I was uncomfortable being caught in the dilemma.
Trying to shift the energy, I chirped up brightly: “I know what we should do. Let’s break into three groups, each come up with an answer, and then reconvene to compare and decide which is best.” I was quite pleased with myself. My theory—that we could divide and conquer—felt both efficient and reasonable. I was eager to move us toward solutions, which, for me, felt far more uplifting than lingering in the muck and mire of the problem.
But I was overruled. A fellow board member responded with something I have never forgotten—words that fundamentally reshaped my understanding of creative problem solving. He said, “Justine, I appreciate your suggestion, but I’m not ready to start looking at solutions. I need to spend more time in the landscape of the difficulty before I can begin to consider solutions.”
At that time, I had little tolerance for staying with problems. My instinct was to move quickly toward resolution. Recognizing this tendency helped me see how I was not fully serving the organization. Over the years, however, I have come to find true value—even a kind of quiet excitement—in lingering within the landscape of difficulty.
It is like unraveling a tangled skein of thread. So many of life’s challenges are bound by invisible knots of energy. Through patient attention, as the snarled strands begin to loosen, the shape of the situation reveals itself—and often, the solution emerges from within that very process.
That board meeting marked a turning point for me. I began to understand that creative solutions are deeply connected to the very dynamics that give rise to the problem. By tracing the pathways that led to the knots—by staying present with what is constricted or unclear—a wealth of possibilities begins to unfold.
When we remain in the landscape of difficulty with curiosity and a measure of detachment, we create the conditions for genuine insight. Staying with the challenge until it is fully understood is not a delay in problem solving—it is the heart of it.
