What If It’s Not a Problem?
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Every week, clients come to me with problems.
And, as they describe their problems to me, here’s a question I never ask myself: How can I help them solve their problem?
Here’s the question I do ask: There’s a world where the client never brought this to me, because they didn’t think this situation was a problem. What are they thinking, in that world? And why are they not thinking that way right now?
Nothing is a problem until your brain decides that it’s a problem.
All the circumstances in your world, all the facts of your life, are completely, 100% neutral.
They have no meaning or significance inherently within them. They are just facts.
“Pooja graduated from Harvard College in 2012” is a fact. You can prove it in a court of law. I have the photos and the diploma to show for it. But it has no meaning until someone gives it a meaning.
One person could make it mean “Wow, that’s really impressive! She must be super smart.”
Another person could make it mean, “Ugh, another privileged snob. I bet she’s never left her bubble.”
My own brain makes it mean, “Damn, I barely survived those years. I hated being there and I’m never going back.”
Three completely different interpretations of the exact same fact. And if I asked a thousand more people, I would get a thousand more interpretations.
Facts are neutral. Interpretations are infinite.
And interpretations are not right or wrong. That doesn’t even make sense, as a concept. They’re just perspectives.
Interpretations are either helpful or unhelpful, based on what you want in your life. That’s it.
Now your automatic brain is going to tell you this isn’t true. It looks at facts all day long and it jumps to interpretations instantaneously. And then it tells you that its way is the only way to interpret what it’s seen.
Your automatic brain is not doing this to be a pain in the butt. It is doing this because it is trying to protect you.
But your automatic brain has been honed over generations to be negative, threat-oriented, and hypervigilant for scarcity.
Which means that its interpretations, unchecked, are probably going to tell you that everything is going badly, your security is being threatened, and there’s never enough of anything.
This is not the truth.
This is one interpretation of the facts in front of you.
And if you want to choose this interpretation, go for it! That is your choice. No interpretation is right or wrong.
But you can always ask yourself — What am I making these facts mean? How does that interpretation make me feel? What do I do (and not do) when I feel that way? And what’s the effect on me when I do those things?
And if your interpretation isn’t helpful to you, why are you still choosing it?
Because you can wiggle yourself out of your own perspective, even if you’ve had it a million times before. Even if your automatic brain is insisting that it’s dangerous to think anything else.
Your automatic brain is not the arbiter of the truth.
Sometimes, it’s just an overactive immune system that’s doing more damage than good.
So give yourself five minutes to look at the facts in a different light. Just briefly consider a different perspective.
What if there is nothing to be fixed here?
What if this isn’t a problem?