We Don’t Start With Solutions. Why lived experience resists being rushed into outcomes.

Opening

We are often taught to arrive prepared — with answers, options, and a sense of direction. To be useful is to be decisive.

But lived experience has taught me that solutions, offered too early, can become a way of not listening.

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The Moment

I’ve sat in rooms where the problem was named quickly, and the response even quicker. Everyone was well-intentioned. No one was cruel.

And still, something closed.

The solution arrived before the story had finished unfolding. Before the person had finished becoming visible.

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Sitting With It

Solutions promise movement. Listening asks us to stay.

To stay with discomfort. To stay with ambiguity. To stay with stories that don’t resolve neatly.

When we rush to fix, we often do so to relieve our own unease. Action feels responsible. Silence feels risky.

But presence carries a different kind of responsibility.

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What We Begin to Notice

When we don’t start with solutions, other things come into focus.

We notice the pace of the room. We notice who speaks easily, and who doesn’t. We notice what is being left unsaid.

Solutions narrow the field.

Listening widens it.

And in that widening, trust has room to breathe.

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A Harder Kind of Help

I’ve learned that some of the most meaningful moments come when nothing is resolved.

A shared cup of tea. A conversation that ends without clarity. A commitment to return, rather than to conclude.

This kind of help feels inefficient. But it often does more than advice ever could.

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Staying With the Beginning

We don’t start with solutions because starting there assumes we already understand.

Lived experience reminds us that understanding is not the entry point — it is something that grows, slowly, through proximity and patience.

Sometimes the most honest thing we can say is not, “Here’s what you should do,” but, “I’m here. Tell me more.”

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Closing

We don’t start with solutions. We start by sitting down. And in that sitting, something quieter — and more enduring — can begin.

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