You are NOT the Problem

Remember my friend from yesterday's post who felt her problems were too unique for anyone else to possibly understand? I feel her. I understand, maybe not perfectly, but I do have some experience with a problem or two that has been statistically unique and complex. I do not happen to have that kind of problem today, maybe tomorrow a problem like that will pop up. But today, my brain is not on high alert trying to make something complicated simple. My brain is relaxed and more able to fire on all its cylinders, not just the survival instinct part of my brain.

When I can have a "whole brain" experience, I can ponder and remember and learn and consider new ways of seeing an issue. One hypothesis I have about my friend, because I've history with the same issue, is fear. I don't know about her, but when I have one of those big hairy problems that feels like it might swallow me, my last nerve resists MORE problems. And, I am deathly afraid someone will tell me that a problem this big is all my fault. I am bad. I am wrong. I am to blame. Who wants to add THAT to an already over-heated brain trying to survive?

Let me just say one more personal thing, to give you, dear reader, a bit of context. I have survived big problems in the past. Not the biggest, not the most unique, not BIG T trauma (well, maybe a couple of BIG T traumas), but I have survived problems. But my brain, for reasons I have some clarity on at this point in my life, has always believed that if I were good enough (not bad), smart enough (not dumb), worked hard enough (not lazy), then I WOULD HAVE NO PROBLEMS. So every problem, no matter how big or small, was in some way MY FAULT. See the reasoning? This kind of belief, will, eventually, say after your mother dies, a pandemic strikes, you live through a politically tumultuous time... cause your brain to short-circuit and explode.

And when that happened to me, I carried on, because isn't that what you're supposed to do? And...I got help. Lots of help. Lots of different kinds of help. And to my utter amazement, whether I was learning how to dead lift more weight than I believed I could lift, or zooming with my therapist, or talking with my physician, or taking a tennis lesson... I learned that mistakes are not big deal. Problems are inevitable and that you can have a multitude of problems without ever having to point a finger and assign blame or declare a winner of who is at fault. If my mind were not already blown, this would have surely resulted in the same outcome.

I did not know this. I could explain to you why I think I did not know this, but the whys no longer interest me. What has captivated my attention, energized my mind and body and spirit, is this idea that having a problem is inevitable and normal. Our work is NOT to avoid problems; our work is to take responsibility for our problems.

Mind blown. How about you?

Stuck on the Details…

I have this friend who is having trouble in her marriage. She has decided that her problem is so unique, so special, that no one can help her navigate it and find a path through it to a new and better problem.

Maybe she is right; I am very curious about this approach to life and I wonder if she is onto something I cannot see. I am also curious and wonder what would happen if she broadened her identity a bit. What if, instead of seeing all the exceptions to life that define her - what would happen if she chose to think about her situation more simply?

What if, for example, she chose to think of herself as a wife and mother? What would her core values be? What kind of wife would she want to be? How would she show up in the relationship? How would she want to show up as a mother? What values does she want to stand by and express?

I observe this so often in myself and others - we get very caught up in the details of our story. And it truly is OUR story, the one we tell ourselves and stand by with the loyalty of a brain that has limitations and prefers habitual patterns rather than insights and transformation. We get stuck on the minutia of the story, rather than focusing on our responsibility and the values we care about and how we want to take responsibility for living them in our present day life.

If she, and I, and you, could think like this more often we might be not only more curious, but more eager to ask for outside voices to challenge our brain's stubborn resistance to humility. We might ask for support. We might listen to learn rather than react to opinions that vary from our own certainty. We might end up with better, more interesting problems.

Go Solve Some New Problems!

For a variety of reasons, I grew up thinking it was my job to solve and even eliminate problems. My brother Bob was working on a project for scouts that involved staining wood. He was working in his bedroom for some reason that no one's brain can understand and accidentally spilled the stain on his bedspread. His brain knew that to go to mom for help would be disastrous, so he came to me. I solved the problem with my middle school brain.

I quickly sopped up what I could, ran the bedspread down to the utility room, threw in in the washer with extra detergent and then marched up to my parents' bedroom for affirmation for a job well done. I did a job alright - on the washer. Who knew varnish was NOT good for washing machines? My mistake was so BIG that I'm not sure anyone ever got around to asking Bob why he was staining a hunk of wood on his bedspread.

Today, I am happy to go back in time and report back to that little girl that she was doing the best she could with the information she had in her brain at that time. I would remind her that helping her brother is and will forever be her core value and that there is nothing wrong with that - ever. But I would also reassure her that over the course of her life, her experiences and situations will teach her how to "help" better. I would also give her some very key information - problems never go away.

Life is full of problems. Life will always be full of problems. Problems for the curious are not bad, they are opportunities to grow and learn. A rich and wonderful life can be crafted by ending up with better problems as we learn and grow.

I have spent way too much time judging myself and fearing problems. I believed that problems were MY FAULT. But mostly, problems are about responsibility. "Fault" is just a word we use to describe the consequences of a solution that is going to teach us something. It's not pleasant, but it is fully human and we can learn how to take full responsibility for that too.

I wonder what I will take full responsibility for today. I wonder what I will learn from it. I hope if I discover something today that I am at "fault" for from the past that I will be as gentle and kind to myself as I was to my brother all those years ago. It was easy for me to see that this cute kid made an honest mistake and try to protect him from an inappropriately (maybe understandable) harsh parental reaction. Why do we struggle so much to recognize that this is also true for ourselves?

Go solve some new problems!

Check in with Your Brain

The human brain is amazing, but not without its own limitations. Our brain, which loves to find patterns so that it can predict things, prefers predicting more than accuracy. Last night, after another rousing game of tennis, Pete said, "It is so weird, I hit a certain shot and my muscle memory causes my body to relax because you have NEVER gotten that shot back in our life...and now you return it!" This is brain bias. Fifty years of playing tennis together (I know! That's a long time!!) and his body/brain connection KNOWS what I'm not able to do. But guess what? I'm DOING different! I'm returning some of those shots and that man is standing there flat-footed, all relaxed in his tennis superiority.

Pete's brain and body have not caught up with the new reality around here. And he knows it, but cannot change it! This is the power of brain bias. Our brain behaves like this because it craves certainty. That is efficient, it requires our brain to not get over-heated while considering multiple options.

But a brain that is certain, but incorrect, is a brain that is making less-than-ideal decisions. The brain feels better about everything because nothing is threatened. But the human that is housing the brain is living with handicaps they do not even know about!

The current problem Pete has is an unresponsive body after he plays particular shots on the tennis court. If he hits a short ball cross-court, he assumes I cannot get to it fast enough. If he hits a high lob back to the baseline, he assumes I am going to flub the return.

This USED to be true. Not so much now. Pete is beginning to recognize (because he is humble and contrite of heart) that he has a better problem that he is responsible to address. The better problem is that he gets to hit the ball another time because I am going to return it. The old problem was that if he managed to hit the ball in predictable ways, I would lose the point every time. That's fine if you are playing Wimbledon. But we do not have rankings or prize money to fret over. We want to play a fun, competitive, game with lots of rallies.

The new problem is a better problem because it is more in line with our core values - lots of rallies. Pete will no doubt overcome his brain/body's sluggish reactions to his new, improved opponent. This is a new and better problem.

I bet your brain has some situations that are similar - habitual ways of thinking, believing, feeling, reacting, behaving. These habits are netting you predictable problems. Dare to dream! Wake up and discover that your brain, though lovely, has it limits and with less certainty, you might discover new, more interesting problems to solve.