While meditating this morning, I noticed an inner conflict that got me curious. The subject of the debate was my chronic lower back pain, which has been more intense lately. One voice made a case for sensible actions – buying a firmer mattress, taking up daily Pilates, getting a deep tissue massage, and so on. But an opposing voice was impatient with these ideas. It wanted me to slow down, feel the pain more deeply, and unravel its meaning.
I have encountered the tension between these two drives many times before. When facing any dilemma in life, there is usually part of me that seeks a higher level of awareness and understanding. Simultaneously, another part of me hungers to resolve the problem through clear, logical, decisive action.
Western society is considerably one-sided in this matter – we collectively glorify action to the detriment of quiet reflection. This gives rise to unnecessary suffering. Granted, contemplation might need to take a backseat when survival is at stake. But thankfully, such acute life-or-death situations are few and far between for most of us. When it comes to the more complex and longstanding challenges in our lives, pausing to explore the subtleties of our reality can aid our healing and personal evolution.
Two types of problem
This dichotomy reminds me of something I read in the book A Guide for the Perplexed by the philosopher E.F. Schumacher. He suggested that there are two types of problem: convergent problems and divergent problems.
When we intelligently study convergent problems, a natural ‘narrowing down’ process occurs. The answers converge in accordance with the laws of nature. Therefore, we usually find convergent problems at the level of physical reality. Faced with a broken femur, for example, there isn’t much room for divergence. Experts might disagree on the nuances of a certain case, but broadly speaking, the solution will be to reduce and stabilise the fracture.
Divergent problems, in contrast, do not yield to ordinary, linear logic. An example would be the question ‘How should society help its citizens flourish?’ Pose this question to ten different people and you will probably get ten different answers, regardless of whether they are government officials or your next-door neighbours.
One person might make a case for the centrality of hard work, while another might invoke the importance of adequate leisure time. ‘Hard work’ and ‘leisure time’ are opposites and yet equally valid needs. Resolution can only emerge by holding the tension in this polarity; if one need dominates over the other, the problem isn’t solved, it is merely repressed.
Schumacher said that divergent problems require us to transcend apparent opposites, reaching a higher level of consciousness. He also argued that only convergent problems can truly be ‘solved’. Once I know how to fix a broken bone, there is no longer a problem. To treat a divergent problem the same way, however, is a fool’s errand. We can only learn to live with them, growing wiser in the process.
The gentle side of healing
When faced with the task of healing, are we dealing with a convergent or a divergent problem? I think it depends. As outlined above, if we’re talking about a mostly physical, mechanical problem in the body – a kidney stone, say – then the solution will usually converge on a specific treatment protocol.
Seeking convergence for psychological and spiritual disturbances, in contrast, could be more harming than healing. To state the obvious, an experience of intense depression is not the same as a kidney stone. Rather, it may represent a crisis of transformation, and such crises tend to come packaged with sensitive, thorny questions: Why am I suffering? Who am I? What is the purpose of my existence? These questions can feel dangerous, so it’s understandable that we might want to subdue them through illusory promises of cure.
To use a personal example, I often experienced social anxiety in my twenties. Perhaps influenced by my job working as a doctor at the time, I was caught up in the convergent ‘fix-it’ approach. I wanted a panacea that would end my struggle. Was it cognitive-behavioural therapy? Did I need psychotropic medication? Or maybe I just needed to sharpen my social skills?
It took years before I finally recognised this inner dynamic and allowed myself to tune into a deeper wisdom. It became clear that what I called ‘social anxiety’ was in fact a perpetual state of inner conflict between my authentic nature and the person I was presenting to my social milieu. Painful as it was, this revelation cracked open a new vista of freedom, possibility and choice.
Parallels with yin and yang
The distinction between convergent and divergent problems is another way of describing a polarity that has been understood throughout the ages. Perhaps there is a parallel with what the Daoists called yin and yang.
In relation to healing, yin energy invites stillness, yielding and receptivity. Whether tending to a psychosomatic symptom, like lower back pain, or an enduring pattern of emotional suffering, such as anxiety, we can always choose to cultivate a deep relationship with ourselves and listen to our intuition.
Yang energy reminds us to take action, expressing more and more of ourselves as we travel through life. Without surrendering to yin processes, including calm self-inquiry, ‘yang’ solutions may start to feel empty, frenzied and avoidant.
In the words of Rainer Maria Rilke: “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”