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Forget a Problem to Solve a Problem

February 2025

Forget a Problem

What if I were to tell you that sometimes the best way to deal with a problem is to forget it for a while?

For me, that advice would clash with the ‘responsible’ hard-working part of myself who wants to tackle issues as they arise and focus on the problem until it’s solved. Any other approach could be seen as avoidance at best and potentially destructive at worst, allowing a problem to grow unattended until it’s unmanageable. “A stitch in time saves nine”, as the saying goes.

However, focusing on a problem when we’re feeling stuck or very disturbed about it can be counterproductive. Over the last couple of months especially, it’s become clear that there might be a better way to manage difficult situations when pure effort seems unable to resolve them. And that way is to simply forget.

Delivery Dilemma Revisited

While this problem-solving business may appear to have nothing to do with the delivery dilemma I’ve written about previously, on some level it is quite relevant.

To summarise, there was a phase when I kept ordering things online that would either be delivered to the wrong address, not delivered at all, or if brought to my correct address it would be the wrong item. It took me several months to see that what those bungled deliveries had in common was that I had conflicted feelings about what had been ordered. Some things I didn’t really want but thought it would be practical or necessary. I’d often come across issues in the ordering process before even getting to the delivery stage – a website would crash, for instance, or a page would freeze, and I’d push through anyway. It was as though little warning bells were coming through in advance, “Are you sure you want this? Really?” By contrast, for orders that I felt excitement and only positive emotions about, the delivery would always go ahead successfully without a hitch.

After I became aware of this, I got better at making sure my desires were clear before ordering an item (this is still a work in progress, and only two days ago I experienced a rather dramatic delivery debacle – but that’s another story for another time!). Nonetheless, it remained a mystery on some level. How was it possible that my ambivalence or conflicted feelings about a particular item could affect my outer circumstances to such an extent that the item would literally be unable to reach me?

Our Energy Affects What's Around Us

When we remember that we’re made up of constantly swirling, moving energy, and that everything around us is energy too, it makes more sense that our feelings and desires affect what’s around us.

It’s obvious that when people are happy and approachable, people are drawn to them like a magnet. When someone is angry, others can feel that hostility just by walking into the same room, and will most likely want to get out as soon as they can. If people can be repelled or attracted to a certain type of energy, it’s not too far a stretch to say it applies to other things in the universe too. Our energy can be a powerful attractor, as well as a repelling agent, for countless things – people, animals, circumstances, and yes even inanimate items ordered online :)

When 100 copies of You Crazy Vegan were sent out for delivery to my home soon after publication, I had mixed emotions about it. Despite being glad about having completed the book, I was uncomfortable at the idea of having to market the books, sell them, and store them in the meantime.

Is it any wonder then, that those books did not arrive when they were supposed to, or where they were supposed to? They got lost in transit. One box arrived at a random suburb where I didn’t live. A relative went to pick it up on my behalf but it had already been reshipped. Then two of five boxes turned up at my home. Where were the other three? No one knew. Australia’s postal service was unable to track them. The publisher was perplexed.

This all happened around the time that Sydneysiders were coming out of another covid lockdown. Eventually I took a break from waiting at home, went out to the city, met someone for lunch, and forgot all about the delivery. That day I got home to find all remaining books on my doorstep. Energetically, perhaps what happened was that my earlier conflicted, worrying energy was no match for a smooth efficient delivery. By forgetting the problem for only a little while, it allowed something in my energy to shift. I stopped repelling the books with my anxious energy and the books were allowed to arrive.

Forget a Problem to Solve a Problem

So, turning our attention away from a problem allows our energy to change, which then impacts the energy around us too. We can compare it to how animals respond to us. I was told by an animal lover that if you stare at an animal, it will feel threatened and begin to act aggressively towards you. The safest step to take is to relax your body language, appear to lose interest, and look elsewhere – the animal will usually calm down and walk away.

If you’ve been locking eyes with a particular problem, try relaxing your body and look elsewhere for a bit. It doesn’t necessarily mean doing nothing. If you can take action that helps you to stop thinking about it, then do that.

This can be particularly challenging when it comes to health and relationship issues. When something in the body is painful, uncomfortable or otherwise out of whack, how can we forget that? We carry our bodies wherever we go. And given that humans have evolved to be social creatures as a matter of survival, it’s not easy to forget a disturbing encounter or an argument with someone either.

Financial hardship and work-related problems are also tricky to forget. Feeling a lack of money can trigger a prolonged fight or flight response if we’re unsure if we have enough to meet our needs. If we spend lots of time at work, then a problem in that area can feel all-consuming as well.

Yet no matter what problem is being faced, we can choose to focus on something else, even for a few minutes. And that, ironically, might help to solve the problem without having to try so hard in the process.

For example, when it comes to health, there’s a wealth of evidence to suggest that worrying about illness can flood the body with stress hormones and reduce the effectiveness of our immune system. By contrast, engaging in a pleasurable activity can help in the healing process.

As far as relationship issues go, research has shown that people are less likely to resolve an argument or communicate effectively when they’re stressed or preoccupied with a particular problem. A great solution is to take some time out, forget the problem for a while, and come back to the conversation later (some scientists even recommend wearing a pulse oximeter – if the heart rate goes up too high, or if the oxygen saturation drops too low in the blood, then a ‘time out’ is recommended; look up the ‘Gottman method’ for more on this).

I’m sure it’s the same for issues around career, finances, or anything else. Forgetting the problem to solve the problem may just do the trick.

Hello Hawaii

Last month I had the opportunity to test this idea in an unexpected situation. My first overseas trip in over 5 years was scheduled to take place, and I was all set to go to Hawaii.

On the afternoon of my planned departure, I woke up from a short nap and felt a ping to double check whether I would need a visa. I’d already reviewed information provided by Flight Centre and Qantas, as well as checked visa requirements in a Lonely Planet Guide for Hawaii – everything confirmed that as an Australian I would not need a visa for my trip.

I decided to ask ChatGPT, which agreed that no visa was required, but that I would need to apply for a visa exemption at least 72 hours before departing the country. Uh-oh!

I called the travel agent to see if it were possible to remain at the airport after arrival in Hawaii until an exemption was approved. “No”, I was told. “You won’t be allowed to board your flight”. I asked if it would be worth applying for a visa exemption (ESTA) now, just in case? They said the exemption would take up to 72 hours to approve and advised strongly to reschedule the flight. After resigning to the situation, I asked what time and day was available to reschedule. I was told that I needed to choose what day and time I wanted before they could provide flight details. It seemed that a flight 72 hours away would seem reasonable, right? “We can’t give you that advice” was the answer. I could feel a mix of frustration, hope, disappointment, and confusion rising inside me. If we waited 72 hours, we’d only have a couple of days overseas before having to return home. I remembered that my energy affects everything else in my life, in which case nothing good could be expected out of the energetic state I was moving towards on that phone call. I explained that I would need to hang up and think about what day to reschedule my flight for.

At this point, I chose to see the situation as happening for me and not to me. Could I stay open and light-hearted, no matter what happened? No one had died, no one was injured. At worst, I’d enjoy a staycation at home.

From there I applied online for an ESTA and waited. I contacted my sister, as she and her friends had travelled many times to the USA. She wished me luck but explained that of everyone she knew, the fastest turnaround for approval of an exemption had been 5 hours, and that was on a weekday. Hoping for less on a weekend may be unrealistic.

Luckily, my husband’s exemption was approved. We then realised one of the questions had been accidentally answered incorrectly. Thinking that this would be simple to resolve, another exemption was applied for which then cancelled the approved one. We seemed back at square one.

I wondered how to stay positive about the situation and the answer was clear – I had to admit what I wanted (though previously ambivalent about taking my first overseas trip since pre-covid, I now realised I really, really wanted to go to Hawaii!), surrender and accept whatever the outcome may be, then stop thinking about it. Other than my sister, I told no one. I couldn’t risk anyone else becoming concerned on my behalf and feeding that worrying energy into the situation!

I went through the motions as though everything was going as planned. I finished packing, took out the rubbish, read a book. My priority was to stay in a positive state, consistent with being on a holiday, even if I didn’t get to where I had originally wanted.

About 10 minutes before we had to leave to get to the airport on time, the visa exemption was approved, two hours after applying, which seemed like a miracle. I appreciated that holiday so much more than if the ETSA problem had never occurred, and it left me with an important lesson about the importance of trying to relax into a good energetic state no matter what.

Since then, it’s been an ongoing process for me. There are times when I feel it’s all too hard, and I’m at the mercy of my circumstances. Other times I’m in awe of how forgetting a problem can work wonders in leading to a resolution, in various areas of life.

When all else fails, and forgetting a problem seems impossible, be open to receiving the gift in that problem. Trust that there’s a gift, even if it’s unknown. Don’t work so hard at digging in the dirt and mess of a situation to find the gift (as I have done many times previously), because trying too hard messes up the delivery of the gift.

Let go, try again to forget, and receive the gift.

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