THE HIDDEN ART OF KEEPING A PROBLEM ALIVE

with Hernan Vilaro who gave me this idea!

Here’s a wild and crazy idea: Suppose for some odd reason you want to keep a problem, you want to keep the problem alive. How would you do that? Now to find the answer we would not have to go very far—we only need to ask someone who is doing that very thing—keeping a problem alive in his or her mind-body system.

Hernan Vilaro brought this to my attention recently. To illustrate this he began by addressing the problem of ‘trying again’ after several failures. He began by asking himself this question: “What state-about-state (meta-state) is governing the person’s relationship to the problem, the desired goal, and trying again?”

Let’s imagine that the person can describe and explore his presenting problem very well, yet when a possible solution is introduced, he says, “I have already tried so many things. Nothing ever changes. I am tired of trying.” Here at the primary level, we have disappointment, frustration, or exhaustion. So what is at the meta-level? There may be resignation about disappointment, helplessness about trying, certainty about his negative predictions, or distrust about hope— any one of a number of meta-states.

As he repeatedly experiences not being in control, he learns to falsely frame his efforts as ineffective and future trying as pointless, or too risky to trust. At this point, if you offer a new strategy and solution, he could keep his problem by using a higher frame to silently vetoing. He could frame his experience using numerous categories: “Trying is pointless.” “Hope only leads to disappointment.” “Nothing actually ever changes.”

Here, insteads of actually solving the problem, the person makes a meta-move and sets the next level frame. What then emerges, rather than solving problems, is a vertical response that keeps the problem, in fact, strengthens and empowers the problem. It is as if he asked himself the following meta-questions and created an even-more limiting category.

• What do you feel about trying again?

• What do you believe about your disappointment?

• What have you concluded about your ability to influence results?

• What frame are you placing around hope, effort, feedback, and failure?

Now you know the hidden art of keeping a problem, simply meta-state yourself with more and more limiting frames. In that way you can lock-in the problem and keep the problem so it does not go away. And knowing this, you also know something else, you can just as equally meta-state yourself with increasingly empowering frames—frames which will free you from the problem. What frames would do that?

• “There is no ‘try,’ only do;” stop ‘trying’ and take some action. Giving up closes the door of all possibilities. Persisting to search for an action that will move you forward opens the door of possibilities.

• When you hope with joy and anticipation, you give up the demandingness of being perfect and plant the seed of possibility of a bright future.

• Actually, everything is always changing. We live in a process universe where even the most sub-atom particles are forever changing. Since change is inevitable, nudge it in a positive direction.

As a caveat: Beware of the content of your meta-stating. The process itself is neutral; but the content you put into the process is not—it can limit or empower, it can be positive or negative. That’s up to you.