The Serenity Solution: How to Use Quiet Contemplation to Solve Life's Problems (16 page)

scaling such things as motivation and confidence may clarify or quantify exactly where we stand emotionally with a target goal. Example: “On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 stands for the farthest I have come to having sufficient confidence in reaching my target, and 10 represents the closest, what number would I choose to represent where I am right now in degree of confidence? What would get me one point closer in confidence? Sup-pose I did get one point closer, what would change for me? What would I think and do then?”

Target Resolving Dialogue

In the last chapter, we presented the case of Jim to illustrate how we go about getting our overall bearings on a problem. Recall in that example Jim had framed the target solution to his current problem (e.g. self-sabotage) as a need for self-acceptance. According to Jim, a belief that he is not good enough led him to sabotage his current relationship (as well as previous ones). We enter now with a continuation of his inner dialogue as Jim begins to resolve the target solution:

Surface Assessment:
What makes someone truly good enough? What are the main features of self-acceptance?

Inner Response
: I guess being comfortable in one’s own skin, being real about one’s strengths and weaknesses, being kind to oneself.

Surface Assessment:
What would it feel like to express these features for just a moment? After all, I can do anything in my imagination.

What do I think I might say to myself and do that is different than what I do right now? (Attempting to resolve the target)

Inner Response
: I guess I would feel that I deserve to have someone in my life and I would be more confident in getting that person.

Zooming in on the Target Solution 111

Surface Assessment
: What exactly would I be thinking and doing?

(Developing further action detail)

Inner Response
: I probably would be telling myself “I’m good enough”

and probably would be dating more. But, I don’t see how I am going to be doing this.

Surface Assessment
: There’s that negative thinking again (separating from the thoughts). Let me just say that presently I cannot see how I am going to get there; this is only how I see it at the moment. My view could change. So, let me think: when was there a time when I

thought I wouldn’t succeed at something, but I told myself I would anyway, and I eventually did end up succeeding?

Inner Response:
Mmm … I’m not sure there is a time. I can’t recall right now.

Surface Assessment
: Let me just relax for a moment and give myself time to explore my thoughts. (Entering further into a calm focus)

Inner Response
: Mmm … Oh yeah, when I was in sixth grade I won the science fair even though I thought at first I would never win. There were many projects better than mine.

Surface Assessment
: What did I tell myself at this time that convinced me to enter even though at first I thought I might not win? What

made the difference?

Inner Response
: I just told myself: “What’s the problem. If I don’t win I’ll still enjoy talking about my project.”

Surface Assessment
: So, I didn’t have this sense of ‘do-or-die.’ I was thinking more along the lines of giving myself a break; and without this pressure I could act freely. It’s that it exactly? Or is it something else?

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Inner Response
: Yeah … that’s it. It didn’t matter anymore. I took myself out of the equation.

Surface Assessment
: What if I was to try this same strategy in my current situation? Let’s say I tell myself: “Although I have thoughts that this might not work (separating again from the thoughts), it

doesn’t matter. I’m still going to tell myself I’m good enough, give myself a break and look for the good, and go out and date and see

what happens anyway. I’ll simply fake it until I make it.”

Inner Response
: I guess that feels all right.

As you can see, Jim was able to frame the problem, sight the solution, and resolve the solution in a fairly short period of time simply by using the Solution Targeting process. As a result, he now has a specific action plan for overcoming the problem. He can repeatedly tell himself that he’s good enough, look for the good, and give himself a break and some time to let this new script become familiar until it eventually overrides the old script.

Exercise 8.1: Resolving the Target

This exercise shows you how to resolve an identified target through the use of open questions. To start, take the frame of the target identified in exercise 7.1 and then ask yourself the following questions:

1. When have I come closest to reaching this target in the past?

2. If I can’t find such a time, when did I at least come close to reaching something like it?

3. What did I think and do that is different from what I

normally do?

Zooming in on the Target Solution 113

4. How can I use these thoughts and actions now to make

things better?

Again, allow your thoughts to flow freely and summarize your find-

ings. By the time you’re done asking these questions, you should have a better idea of what you can do to move from the current problem to the desired target state. All of these questions help you to focus and resolve action details. They help pinpoint the few, most effective actions needed to move you forward and prevent scattering and diffusing your effort.

nine

Landing and

Staying on Target

“To map out a course of action and follow it to an end

requires courage.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Solution Targeting (i.e. broad-narrow cycles of assessing and pinpointing actions) continues until we land on target or at least reach a place where we feel satisfied in our progress. In the latter case, the problem may still remain, but we have enough of what we’re looking for that the problem doesn’t seem like much of a problem anymore.

In either case, we may decide to stay the course and maintain our position using the effective actions we’ve identified so far, or we may decide to shoot for a new target. If we shoot for a new target, we begin a new cycle of Solution Targeting in a new direction. For instance, after seeing that we can be calm and confident with our boss, we may decide that we
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really do have the confidence to go out and get what we want. If so, our target may change to obtaining a new job.

Reaching a satisfactory position, however, depends on the length and severity of the problem and our focusing skill. With problems that are sufficiently long or intense there is usually a sizeable imprinting of the problem pattern. Mental and physical habits can become ingrained.

Getting beyond the problem under these circumstances will require

sufficient skill at mentally practicing target behavior, which should be done in sufficient detail and over time. If so, target behavior will imprint and eventually replace problem behavior.

Ongoing Target Monitoring

Once on target, though, we don’t stop here. We should maintain a good habit of monitoring our current and target positions on a regular basis.

The problem is still familiar territory. So, we’re bound to slide back into it as well as its ineffective thoughts and actions if we’re not observant.

To help us stay observant, we may use a
target chart
, which is a simple log for monitoring our ongoing progress. Below is an example of a target chart I use in my practice. With it, we may stay out of autofocus longer and be more aware of our target as well as our on and off target behaviors.

We will talk more about how to stay in the observing, monitoring mode in the
Observing from Broader Mind
chapter of the last section.

Landing and Staying on Target 117

TARGET

Date/Time

Feeling

Target

Situation/

Associated

Description

Closeness

Context

Thoughts

(i.e., cue to

(10=On-

(What,

and Actions

monitor

Target,

Where,

Before and

target position; 1=Off-Target)

w/Whom?)

During the

e.g. good,

Situation

bad, happy,

sad, etc.)

Illustration 9.1: Target Chart

At the top of the chart, write a brief description of your target as it currently stands for the week. Next, pay attention to your feelings each day, and when you notice a change in feeling, record it. In the first two columns, write in the date and time the feeling occurred and a descriptive word to describe the feeling. In the third column, scale how close you feel at the moment to your target using the 1-10 scale discussed earlier. Finally, in the last columns, provide a brief description of the situation in which the feeling occurred (include what happened, where, and with whom) as well as your thoughts and actions before and during the situation.

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After a week or so look for patterns. Compare the times when you

seemed closer to your target goal with the times you felt farther from it and note what you were thinking and doing in both cases. Then, stop doing what was getting you farther from your target and more of what was getting you closer to it. Think further about what you can add to these on-target behaviors to get you even closer to your target.

Many clients report that keeping a target chart helps increase their awareness of what they want and what they are thinking and doing each week in order to get them to what they want. It has not only significantly improved their ability to reach their target goals but also their overall mood, confidence, and relationships.

four

Accessing

Broader

Mind

ten

Harvesting Solutions

from Broader Mind

“If I were to try to put words to the essential truth revealed
by the mystic experience, it would be that our minds are not

apart from the world; and the feelings we have … are not of

ourselves alone, but are glimpses of reality transcending the

narrow limits of our particular consciousness.”

—Sir Arthur Eddington, early twentieth-century astronomer

So far, we have discussed how our inner mind can be harnessed to solve problems. We’ve seen how insights can be extracted by open questions and how solution outcomes can be manifested by delivering detailed imagery to our inner mind.

In this chapter, we explore the possibility of harnessing deeper, broader areas of mind. Recall our discussion of the layers of mind in the broaden-121

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ing awareness chapter earlier. In that discussion, we presented an analogy of a spotlight to represent these layers of mind. The bright center represented our focal awareness or conscious mind and the outer, shaded areas represented entry into the subconscious mind.

We can modify that analogy now to represent the relationship of our conscious mind to our subconscious mind and to the deepest, broadest area of mind: the
universal mind
.

We have discussed the conscious and subconscious minds already.

Recall that the conscious mind comprises the smallest area of our total mind. Its main function is to filter much of the information that reaches our awareness so we may attend to immediate concerns without being overloading with information. The conscious mind is the part of us that we identify as the self or ‘I’. It is the part that is self-aware. It is our focal awareness.

Again, just outside the conscious mind is the region of the personal subconscious mind. This area of mind is larger than the conscious mind and stores all our life’s memories, motor skills, habits, and automatic programs. Information is stored here as back-up so that the conscious mind is free to attend to immediate concerns and can access this information when needed. Most of what we do each day such as drive a car or brush our teeth is on subconscious automatic programming. Once we learn a task it is relegated to the subconscious and we no longer have to attend to every aspect of it consciously.

In fact, much of the information the mind takes in and processes is outside conscious awareness. The subconscious processes a multitude of data about the environment and internal physiological states every single moment and keeps up with all the vital functions of the body, including heart rate, breathing, metabolism, body temperature, and digestion—all without conscious control.

It even works while the conscious mind is asleep. If we have a problem, it will incubate on all the factors involved while the conscious mind
Harvesting Solutions from Broader Mind 123

rests and synthesize a solution. Later this solution will be delivered to the conscious mind when it is ready.

Finally, last but not least, the universal mind is the largest area of mind and extends beyond the personal mind to include all minds and quite possibly the universe itself. It is the underlying consciousness that we all share and the storehouse from which all the experiences of the universe are stored, including the knowledge of billions of years of physical and biological evolution and the experiences of all sentient beings who ever lived.

Think of this part of the mind as the Internet and each individual mind as a personal computer. With the right access we can connect with this vast storehouse of information and conceivably receive or transmit any bit of information we desire. It is the home of our brightest and most original ideas and our ability to manifest outcomes. By accessing it we may gather wisdom, make more informed decisions, perform at peak ability, and make things happen. The Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung, called this broadest, deepest mind the “collective unconscious.” We will show how this area of mind can produce some of the most profound solutions to problems.

The Quantum Connection

You may ask: “Can there really be a connection to the universe deep within all us?! And can we actually harness this connection to solve problems?”