EP 107: 4 Types of Problems and 4 Solutions, pt. 1

In writing my new book How Truth Makes Us Free, as I worked to make clear what it means to truly be made free, I realized that there are 4 types of problems we face in life. Understanding these bring clarity to what is needed in order for us to overcome our challenges. 

In this part 1 of a two part series, I go over the 4 types of problems, sharing personal stories from my own life. I also explain how Jacques Lusseyran faced each of these types of problems as well. In fact, if you go back through the Mission Driven Stories on this podcast, you'll discover that every one of them also faced these 4 types of problems. 

The most important aspect of these 4 types of problems, though, is why they are problems for us, and how they actually bless our lives! 

Next week, in part 2 of the series, I'll go through 4 solutions to these 4 problems taught by M. Scott Peck and explain how my new book, The Mission Driven Life book, and the MDM Academy all play a vital role in understanding, facing, and overcoming the significant problems we face. 

If you're ready to face your own worries and anxieties, make sure to grab your FREE mini-training on Overcoming Your Worries and Turning Them Into Forward Momentum! https://www.themissiondrivenmom.com/

Resources and links from this episode:

Mission Driven Stories: Jacques Lusseyran: https://www.themissiondrivenmom.com/podcasts/the-mission-driven-mom-podcast/episodes/2148868524

What is Truth?: https://www.themissiondrivenmom.com/podcasts/the-mission-driven-mom-podcast/episodes/2149020280

Books referenced: How Truth Makes You Free by Audrey Rindlisbacher, releasing late 2025; The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck

Transcript:

 Today we get to do something really wonderful. I've got a two-part series for you called The Four Types of Problems and the Four Solutions. Today we get to talk about the four types of problems, and some of what I'm gonna share with you is from my upcoming book, How Truth Makes You Free.

In there I talk about the nature of truth as natural law, and in this section of the book, I'm talking about how truth makes us free. And in order to better understand that we need to understand the types of problems that we face and can be liberated from through truth. Before we get to that though, I want to ask you to please share this podcast along and leave a review if it's been beneficial for you and for others that you know, so that we can grow our audience and expose more people to the truth and how it can make them free.

Today when I share some of the book with you. It might be worth your while. You don't need to stop this podcast at all and go listen to it, but I do have a mission-driven story on Jacques Lusseyran and I talk about his story a little bit in the book, and I'll reference him in some of the things that I talk about.

You don't have to have read his book or even listened to that. Podcast to understand the kinds of things that I'm talking about. We're gonna reference the types of problems that he faced in his life and I'll give you some frame of reference for that as I go through them. And then I'll tell you some personal stories about ways that I have run into these four types of problems myself.

To start out though, I wanna read to you a little bit from the Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck. He has this to say.

“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we really see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult, once we truly understand and accepted, then life is no longer difficult because once it is accepted, the fact that it is difficult, no longer matters.

Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead, they moan more or less incessantly, noisily, or subtly about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties, as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief loudly or subtly that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be, and that was somehow been especially visited upon them or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race, or even their species and not upon others.”

I know this moaning because I have done my share and I am right there with M. Scott Peck and with all of you that. Life is difficult. Much more difficult than we want it to be many times. And we moan about it. We don't want life to be difficult. And yet he goes on to talk about the nature of problems and how they're tied into all of the things that we're gonna talk about today and that we talk about a lot in the MDM Academy.

He goes on,

“Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them? Do we want to teach our children to solve them? Okay. Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life's problems. And without discipline we can do nothing. But with some discipline we can solve some problems, and with total discipline, we can solve all of our problems.

What makes life so difficult is that the process of confronting and solving problems is a painful one. And yet it is in this whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning. So we all face problems. They present pain. We don't want that pain. We want that pain to go away. And the truth can liberate us.”

That is the promise. But how does that come about? And that's why I want to talk to you today. About the different types of problems that we face, the pain that they bring. And then next week we'll talk about the solutions. Many ways that we can work on solving those problems that we face.

So let's get into these four types of problems that will allow us to better evaluate ourselves and to begin to make some headway. I'm gonna give you a little assignment to do this week between the Part one and part two of this podcast so that you can begin to insert yourself in this process. So I'm going to go through some sections of the upcoming book now on these four types of problems.

Christ's promise is that there is objective truth and that it can make us free. By now we have a good sense of what truth is, and Jacques's story can help us understand what it means to be made free. He is a perfect example of the four kinds of problems we all struggle with, although usually not to the extremes that he experienced them.

What's so amazing about Jacques is that in every instance where he was presented with a new type of challenge, he chose truth and was made free. Throughout his book, he actually uses this phrase many times that he was free. Free in his blindness, free from his debilitating emotions and thoughts free under the crushing weight of running a resistance movement, free in the midst of the deepest sorrow and suffering of a concentration camp.

So that in a nutshell is what most of that other podcast is about. It's his mission-driven story and how he lived the 7 Laws of Life mission. But for the purposes of today, and talking about the four types of problems, we're gonna talk about these types of things that he went through, his blindness, his debilitating motions and thoughts, running a resistance movement in France during World War ii, and then being placed and suffering in a concentration camp.

Although you and I will probably never have a severe handicap or be placed in a concentration camp, we do experience pain, suffering, and sorrows that we don't know how to overcome. Jogs experiences can show us the way out of the troubles that keep us emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and sometimes physically stuck.

And how to choose the reason that can be ours through the power of the natural law and its principles and with the help of heaven. The first kind of problem we face in life are accidents of fate over which we have no control. Just like Jacques was blind. These include countless circumstances, which we neither choose, nor we can change like the family, race, religion, or culture.

We were born into. The level of political and economic freedom and prosperity that we experienced as children or that we live in today, injuries to our bodies, how we were raised, and many more. These are things entirely out of control that we can't change no matter how much we try. In fact, it includes the past as well.

The past is over and done. It's out of our control. They are therefore things we must accept. As Jacques accepted his blindness. Like Jacques, we must often resist. Like Jacques, we often resist these problems that. Have been handed to us by life and that we can't change. We complain about them or we try to pretend that they aren't reality, but complete acceptance is the only way forward.

For Jacques, one day he could see and the next he would never see again. This caused immense emotional pain and longing to enjoy the pleasures of sight, which he would never have again, rather than falling completely into despair and rejecting life. He chose to continue to engage in the world and through prayer and effort to try to find a new way to live, he was given a glimpse of light.

For Jacques, this glimpse of light was enough to help him start looking for the way to accept and work with his blindness rather than resisting and working against it. And even though he was a child, this was still completely his choice. He could have chosen to spend his time and emotional energy becoming a victim of his blindness, choosing dependence and negativity rather than independence of hope.

Of course, hope. Was the courageous choice, and in choosing hope, he opened himself up to learning and growing from this accident rather than shrinking because of it. Notice he did not get his sight back. This is not about being made.

Notice he did not get his sight back. That is not what being made free means. Instead, he used his blindness to make him a better man. He did not let himself get stuck. He did not resist reality. He did not pretend that the problem would not go away on its own. He accepted it and let it teach him. He literally became more than he would've been if he would have retained his sight because he let his blindness teach him.

Jacques could have been blind without accepting his blindness. Just as we have circumstances in our lives that we don't like, that we can't change, which we can live with, or that we can accept and learn from. Although I like you, went through many difficult experiences in my life that were out of my control, like moving every two years when I was growing up, like my father's sudden death when I was 16, like falling in the hospital after giving birth and permanently damaging my hip.

I learned this lesson most poignantly when I was struggling with my husband's pornography addiction. As I've mentioned previously in this podcast and we talk about in the academy, I knew about his problems almost from the beginning of our relationship, and we naively thought that marriage would fix it. Actually, it became much worse the first several years we were married, year after year. I either ignored it or told myself that he was going to overcome it, yet he didn't, and the pain persisted.

After over a decade of this, I was again blindsided with another betrayal. I yelled and wept and basically went through the course of emotions I always felt when he acted out. But then when I gained better control over myself, I began to really think. This time I didn't rush to find new solutions or make amends with Blaine.

This time, I sat with myself for several days and pondered the situation I was in. I finally realized that I should stop lying to myself about my reality. I saw that this problem had been around for most of Blaine's life, and I was kidding myself if I continued to believe that things were going to suddenly get better.

In fact, I finally, for the first time, face the truth that he might remain an addict his whole life. We might never find a solution. Amazingly, I did not say these things to myself out of discouragement or despair. I hadn't given up. I wouldn't stop trying to find answers. What I was finally doing was looking at my life more honestly and looking at my options more clearly.

I knew I could divorce my husband, but I also knew that divorce wouldn't change the fact that he was the father of my children, that we would still need to interact constantly, that they would still have an addict for a dad, and that many of the problems I would face was facing would not change because of divorce.

I also knew that Blaine loved me, that he was trying, and that I had made a marriage commitment to him for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. I also knew that despite his many struggles, he had many admirable qualities that I could respect and focus on. After all the pondering and introspection, I finally came to a moment where I fully accepted my reality and the things I couldn't change.

I chose to keep loving my husband. I chose to stay with him, and I chose to be married to an addict for the rest of my life. Then something happened that I didn't expect. I thought this acceptance might bring discouragement. But just the opposite happened. When I completely accepted my circumstances for the first time, I felt completely free for the first time.

Of course, there was still that hope inside of me that we could find the solution to his addiction and he could gain sobriety. But my staying with him did not hinge on his behavior. I was no longer a victim of my marriage. My newfound freedom empowered me to stop complaining and start looking for what was what in this solution could teach me.

I focused on the one thing over which I have control. Me and when I was honest, I knew that I had a lot of work to do in cleaning up my own character and learning to be a better mother and wife. I knew in order to manage this situation properly, I would have to get better at a lot of things like boundaries and forgiveness and communication.

Happily, I could finally see that the possibilities for my own growth in this trial were endless. Now, years later, like shock, I have become more than I would've been without this challenge in my life. The second type of struggle we experience is with problems we make for ourselves through our ignorance, poor choices, and lack of character.

For Jacques, this meant overcoming his propensity to anger, selfishness, impatience, and unkindness. And honestly, many of us would've been tempted to just put up with his bad behavior because he was blind. We would've given him a pass based on his handicap. But this would've done him no favors.

Luckily, he didn't take the easy path, but instead he chose to see through honest self-evaluation, meekness, and trial and error, he came to see how adherence to certain principles could liberate him from darkness and bring him to light. He made the conscious choice to learn from his tragedy, to let it sculpt his character and show him things he didn't know existed throughout his life.

It became more and more clear to him. That he had access to things that others did not. By virtue of the handicapped he experienced in this way, he chose to align himself with truth, to let it teach and train him, and to see the beauty it could bring into his life. Here again, the choice was his. While others may have made him an exception out of pity, he didn't need pity.

He needed to change what was vital to. His self-respect and confidence was the discipline to align himself with natural law principles that could change his nature and free him from his own defects and flaws. I've needed to level up my self-discipline many times. One powerful lesson came when my children became old enough to make choices I didn't like.

These choices caused me pain, and I began beating myself up over them. I was certain that I had done something wrong as a mother, otherwise they certainly would've chosen differently. I combed through my past, blamed myself constantly, and focused on the things about them and about the situation that didn't align.

With my expectations until one day through striving to see myself in this situation more honestly, I finally realized how selfish I was being. I was allowing my thoughts and perceptions to be hijacked by negativity through my dissatisfaction with short-term outcomes and my fears about the future. I had let myself entertain lies about myself and my family.

Not only had this distorted my perception. Perspective of my past, my present, myself and my children. It had crowded out the better, more worthy thoughts and attitudes that I should have been nurturing. I had made it all about me, and instead of focusing my intention on the good and putting my brilliant mind to work on problems in the world, I could do something about people I could help, and community service I could render.

I had wandered around complaining about things entirely out of my control, blowing them out of proportion and letting them wreck my peace of mind. Ever since then, I have put better mental practices in place in my life in addition to regular scripture reading and prayer, both of which I was doing before I began living.

Other principles of mental and emotional resilience, like daily gratitude, telling myself the truth, visualization, daily planning, goal setting, and so on. These principles have born beautiful fruit in my life. Not only do I have much more optimism and peace, I know exactly what to do when I begin getting mentally, emotionally, or spiritually off track.

The third type of problem we face is when we take on a big project or volunteer for something at church or work or in the community. This could be things like becoming a PTO member, helping on a political campaign or even starting a business. These are activities we don't have to engage in, but we see a need and we don't want.

We want to help or make a difference. The struggles here come for many different reasons, but sometimes the hardest part is learning to work with others. This can be made worse when we are in circumstances over which we have little or no control. The temptation with this kind of struggle is often to get negative and complain because I don't even have to be here.

I'm just doing this out of the goodness of my heart. For Jacques, this was the resistant move resistance movement. He started. In this work chosen freely by himself. He was a great example to us. When we are considering becoming involved or taking risks for the benefit of others, first he could see that something needed to be done and someone needed to do it, rather than telling himself that someone else would be better at it or that he wasn't qualified, or that it was too risky for him because he was blind.

He took all the potential excuses off the table. He didn't make it about him. He asked himself if it needed to be done and if the cause was just when he knew the answer was a resounding yes. He committed. Then he moved forward with absolute conviction and never wavered. Of course, there's no question that he suffered and suffered immensely.

For becoming involved. Yet there was intense joy as well, and deep purpose. Perhaps. Most importantly of all, there was the sure knowledge that he had done all he could, that he had given himself for the benefit of others, and the inner peace, confidence, and self-acceptance that knowledge brought was priceless.

He never had to wonder if he could have done more. He never had to question his integrity or his conscience. He was truly free. For me, the call to step out of my comfort zone and try to make the world a little bit better place has come many times. Perhaps the most important was when I was sitting in a women's class at church.

Before she started her lesson, the teacher had handed out roses to women at random. Then she stepped up behind the table at the front of the room and asked the women to whom she'd given a flower to please come up individually, place the rose in the vase she had provided and share with everyone one thing they were good at.

This could be anything she said that they did well. What happened next? Shocked and disheartened me one by one, these women filed up to the front, placed their rose in vase, stood there uncomfortably, and then said something self-deprecating I'm good at eating lots of chocolate. I'm good at sleeping in.

I'm good at yelling at my kids. I knew these women. They were my neighbors and friends. I knew they were talented and smart and loving. I knew the sacrifices they made for each other and their families. I could not believe that. They could not even say one nice thing about themselves. Had it been just one or two of them, I might have understood, but there were close to a dozen women who had been given a rose, and all of them except one said something negative about themselves.

Now I understood that these women hopefully didn't really believe there was nothing they were good at. But I also knew that if these wo women couldn't stand in front of their friends and say something good about themselves, there was something really wrong. They either didn't believe they were good at things or they didn't have the confidence to state those things.

Honestly, either way, there was a major problem. I thought about this for weeks. I couldn't get it out of my mind. The biggest shock to me was the realization that these women were suffering in ways that I had suffered years before with my negative self-talk, lack of self-knowledge, distorted self-image, and low self-confidence. When I couldn't find the answers through school therapy or coaches, I had gone on a search for answers.

Through the years I had found tools, including my understanding of the natural law, which had brought me self-acceptance and increased confidence. I wanted them to have the tools and skills I discovered to help them overcome their pain. I knew that writing curriculum was something I was naturally good at, so I went to work for the next year.

I and two other women made their way through books and resources, met early in the morning for discussion and finalized a program for women and mothers that. To my joy and satisfaction has blessed many lives for me, just like Jacques, the cost this.

For me, just like Jacques. The cost to launch this program and try to build an organization that would support these women on their journey was greater than I thought it would be in time and risk in money and personal hardship. Yet in the midst of the pain and sacrifice, there was a deep sense of purpose and so much joy.

I not only had the privilege of meeting some of the most incredible women I've ever known, I'm so grateful to have had a front seat to watch the liberating power of truth in their lives. I like Jacques. Know what it means to feel completely free while carrying great responsibility. The fourth type of trial we go through in life are those.

The fourth types of trials we go through in life are those created by the choices of others. Of course, Jacques experienced this many times, but especially in the concentration camp, seemingly the whole world had turned against him first taking over his country and then deporting him to a living hell.

He could have become bitter and resentful. He could have chosen hatred, but instead he chose love. Through leaning in once again to the truths he'd learned about himself and others. He was able to rise above his circumstances and not only grow as a person, but also radiate optimism and hope for all those who knew him.

As he said about this time in his life, the remarkable thing was that listening to the fears of others had ended by freeing me almost completely from anxiety. I had become cheerful and was cheerful almost all the time. End quote. It seems almost inconceivable that his cheerfulness was possible in that place, but truth had again freed him.

Even in a concentration camp, I like you have felt the pain of others' choices Many times. Sometimes these were people in my close circle who have made choices that hurt or disappointed me, or they have even betrayed me sometimes. It was those in my community. The person who called the cops because we were watering during the day, the backyard neighbor who stopped speaking to us because we wanted to build a fence.

The school administrator who wouldn't be fair about our child's behavior, or the boss who expected too much. There are even high level leaders, business owners and governments who escalate prices, make choices that create public outrage. Cause the 2020 pandemic, or even nine 11. In every case, there have been times when I didn't choose truth, but chose to let them spoil my fun and poison my attitude.

One such experience was when a person quite close to me once asked if she could come to my home and talk to me. She sat down in my living room and proceeded to lecture me on all the ways I had disappointed her and not show shown up for her as she wanted me to. Strangely, her complaints were not the normal kind of expectations, like calling or spending time together.

They were things like introducing her to important people I knew or somehow making her way easier to goals she had set for herself. I was speechless. I had no idea she'd wanted me to do anything.

I had no idea she wanted me to do any of the things she was upset about. I would've gladly done what I could, had I known, but more importantly, the more I listened to her, the more clear it became that she was blaming me for her failures. She had not accomplished. What she set out to do was obviously disappointed and upset about it and wanted it to be my fault.

Unfortunately, I didn't have some of the relationship tools and skills I have now, and I literally had no idea how to handle the situation. I listened, apologized and said I would try harder once she'd left. I felt the deep discomfort of not knowing what in the world to do next. Our children were close.

Our family spent time together regularly, but I did not want to see her. Weeks went by as I ignored the situation and struggled with my own anger and resentment. All sorts of negative thoughts swirled around in my head, like, how dare she blame me for her own choices, goals, and problems? Why would she just blindside me like that without ever saying anything before?

Is she right? Am I really a terrible friend? I walked around grumpy and upset a lot of the time. In the meantime, my children grew more and more insistent that they missed the family and wanted to play with them. Finally, after extensive journaling and talking to my husband and praying, I determined that the only way forward was to have a hard conversation with her.

I definitely didn't want to. I knew I could make more excuses and just disappear, but I knew these relationships meant a lot to my children, and there was simply no way to maintain these friendships without continued contact with their mother. Luckily, I took the time to write down what I wanted to say and I had the foresight to own the things that I thought I genuinely should have done better while laying the responsibility for her life, her choices, her failures and successes squarely back on her shoulders.

It was incredibly difficult. I. But when it was all over, I felt a tremendous sense of freedom. I knew I had done the right thing, I had preserved the relationships, and I had faced my fears. I felt more confident and courageous. I had not allowed the choices of others to dictate my choices. That is real freedom.

So those are the four types of problems. And as you can see, jock had them, I've had them, you've probably had all four of them multiple times throughout your life and. Part of the answers is to solve those problems. Definitely lies in understanding the natural law and principles and seeking out principles and the tools that we teach in the academy.

But next week I want to give you four clear solutions taught by M Scott Peck, that you'll see threads of those throughout the stories that I've shared this week. I want to read you a couple things that he said as we finish up here.

“Like I said earlier, the process of meeting and solving problems in life is where life has its meaning. Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom. Indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually.”

Isn't that profound to think that? The pain that we feel is because we have a problem and that problem is there because we're stuck in some way. And one of the things I like to remember when I'm facing problems that are causing me pain and I'm tempted to not move through them, is that this is a problem.

For me, it wouldn't necessarily be a problem for someone else. This particular problem is a problem for me because something about me is helping create the problem and I can find solutions only by changing. And next week, when we talk about the four types of solutions, you'll see more about what I mean about the tools we can use to move through them.

Scott Peck goes on,

“As Benjamin Franklin said, those things that hurt instruct. It is for this reason that wise people learn not to dread, but actually to welcome problems and actually to welcome the pain of problems.”

Wouldn't it be wonderful to always be that wise, to get to the point where we see that we've grown so much from the problems that we face, that the next time we have a problem, we really want to learn from it.

He goes on,

“This tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all mental illness that, but the substitute itself…Since most of us have this tendency to a greater or lesser degree, most of us are mentally ill to a greater or lesser degree, lacking complete mental health.”

In fact, he talks a lot about the process of maturation and we can't think that just because we've aged we've matured. Those are two entirely different experiences, and we can eradicate tendencies to mental illness by leaning heavily into these four solutions that he talks about that we'll go over next week.

Carl Young said, “Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering, but the substitute itself ultimately becomes more painful than the legitimate suffering it was meant to avoid.”

So what's important to remember most of all, as we finish up this first part in the four types of problems and the four solutions is something that Scott Peck says:

“When we teach ourselves and our children discipline, we are teaching them and ourselves how to suffer and also how to grow problems.”

Problems offer us the opportunity to discipline ourselves in key ways that we'll talk about next time.

And it's only in meeting these problems head on, recognizing that their problems for us, because something in us needs to change. Recognizing that they are the tool to personal growth and that discipline is always the answer to move us through. That is the way that life has its greatest meaning.

That is the way in which life holds its greatest meaning for us. And it's such a beautiful process that if we can have the courage to look honestly at these four types of problems that we face, problems that happen to us accidentally by life, that we have no control over, problems that we create through our own bad choices.

Problems that we lean into because we take on something bigger than ourselves and problems that we experience because other people cause us suffering and pain. We can begin with the tools that we'll talk about next time, and with really ex understanding and getting excited about the freedom that awaits us through understanding and embracing truth and principles.

We can overcome these problems. They will cause the growth and maturation that we long for, and they will bring deep lasting meaning into our lives. I'm super excited to dive into that with you next week. Thank you so much for joining me today, and next week we'll hear part two, the four solutions to the four types of problems and how we can move forward in solving them for ourselves.