Do you ever imagine that somehow, one day when you don't have your current problems, you'll be happy? I certainly did. That's how I developed the Applying Love Method - by trying to prevent and solve problems! But recently I've started to look at the whole thing from a different angle...

It's interesting to think about the definition of problems, for a start - what are they, anyway? I'd say, problems are situations we don't want, and don't feel confident that we can change to suit ourselves.

Because of this element of confidence, our definition of a problem may vary, day to day or even hour to hour! Depending on how we feel about ourselves at the time, something is a problem one moment, but not the next. We all know that if you're feeling down, or lacking in energy, making any choice or decision can be a problem - even deciding what to drink! It's a completely individual definition. So it might be more accurate to say that problems result from an attitude of mind - they don't exist outside of us at all!

For instance, one small problem on its own might not really worry us; we know we can deal with it pretty easily. In fact, on its own it might not merit the label of 'problem' at all! But when we get two or three of them all together, it can be very demoralising, even depressing. Why? It's not logical, because each one is manageable on its own - but this build-up effect happens to everyone I know!

It seems our egos have a bad habit of taking problems personally; we think "it's not fair" as if we're being punished! Next time you have two or three small things go wrong together, and you find yourself feeling a bit depressed, see if you can work out why. If you come up with anything interesting, let me know!.

The attitude that creates 'problems' is partly one of resistance. If we don't like something, but don't think we can fix it, we resist it, and feel tense and miserable. We can't take appropriate action when we're resisting something. We have to accept something as it is before we can deal with it successfully. So we get stressed by lack of confidence; we resist situations we don't think we can handle; and we call those situations, 'problems'.

Since resisting something wears us out, after a time we may suffer from stress - the headaches, knotted muscles, general tiredness and irritability. Being tired makes it difficult to access the higher frequencies of thought, like hope and enthusiasm, so we think ourselves downwards gradually towards depression and eventually hopelessness.

I think the Applying Love Method works on all problems because there is only one problem, actually - our inappropriate emotional responses to a mistaken perception of the world. This mistaken perception leads to a feeling of helplessness which leads to fear. If you accept that, you may decide to stop using the word 'problem' at all, because the word immediately triggers resistance and fear, not just in you and everyone else involved, too. If problems are a result of an attitude of Fear - the solution to all problems lies in adopting the opposite attitude, which is Love! Which is where the Applying Love Method comes in...