The Serenity Solution: How to Use Quiet Contemplation to Solve Life's Problems (5 page)

subtle quantum effects when we discuss the power of thoughts and intentions in the
Harvesting Solutions from Broader Mind
chapter.

Autofocus

A common reason we stay stuck in a fixed view of a problem (and a problem persists) is because we don’t pay attention to our focus and what we are focusing on. We allow our focus to run on autopilot or
autofocus
.

As a result, we typically spend our days looking at our life situations in the same way often oblivious to the fact that there are other ways to see them and escape from fixed patterns of living.

Auto-focusing is frequently used because it allows us to go about our daily routines without much effort. After repeated dealings with things in our lives, we start to favor certain views and reactions. Eventually, we stop seeing what’s really there and see only what we expect to see: our
target
biases
. The result is an easy but mindless habit of responding. In a sense, we behave much like robots with fixed programming.

Obviously, this is not good for problem-solving because we’re likely to continue to see and approach a problem the same way and overlook alternate views that may open up a solution. We are limited to only a few conditioned thoughts and actions.

We can be sure that if we are complaining about the same things over and over again, or asking ourselves “Why does this keep happening to me?” or “Why do I keep feeling this way?” we are running on autofocus and fixating on the same aspects of our difficulty while overlooking other views and possible solutions to our problem. Left unattended, autofocus is the biggest barrier to happiness, and results in such unpleasant states as fear, anger, and sadness.

Janine had become quite frustrated with her at-home interactions

with her husband. She noticed that every time they talked about important issues, such as finances or parenting, they would get into a fight.

16 One

These fights went on for a while—so much that Janine began to think that maybe she was better off alone.

I asked her to pay attention to when these fights occurred and exactly how they began. Gradually, she noticed a pattern. Conversations would start off good but soon degrade into fault-finding and defensiveness.

She was then instructed to change the pattern. Instead of her usual reaction of getting into debate over who is to blame for differences between them, she began looking for ways to fix the problem, such as asking her husband: “What can we do to make this right?” or “How can we work as a team on this matter?” By taking this new approach, she soon found that she had her husband helping her set family goals instead of fighting her on them.

In this case, Janine found her solution by stepping out of autofocus.

Like her, we too, can do the same. The key is to be more observant of our usual patterns.

Calm Focus Opens Views

Therefore, in order to solve a problem we must change our view of it.

As the brilliant scientist Albert Einstein once said: “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” To solve a problem, we need to step out and observe it fully. We do this through a calm focus.

As we will discuss in detail later, a calm focus offers us one of the greatest advantages to solving a problem and that is its ability to broaden awareness. When we broaden awareness we in effect stand back and observe a situation in perspective. We can see other options. For example, in our earlier illustration, if we see that people can be both unfriendly and kind, we might not act so defensively, and therefore, produce friendlier reactions from people and a lessening of the perceived problem.

Focus Determines View of a Problem and its Solution 17

We call this broadening of awareness being in a
detached observer mode.

Other names for it are conscious focus, mindfulness, meta-cognition, and situational awareness.

The ability to be in an observer mode and reflect on things is what separates us from robots and lower animals. Unlike machines and animals, we can look at our thoughts and actions, see beyond our current programming, and change behavior. We are not fused with our experiences; and this is what has given us the ability to control our destiny and create civilization.

Every great thinker throughout history shared one thing in common: each stepped out and observed their thinking. It is the most direct path to illumination and the way out of any problem. It is also what great mystics and spiritual leaders have been referring to throughout the ages when they tell us to awake and recognize our greater Self.

What mindful observing gives us is free will—the capacity to choose.

There is an old saying we use in counseling: “Awareness is the first step to change.” When we step back and open our awareness of a problem, we then have knowledge of it and can do something about it. It is no longer out of our sight and control.

We will explore further how we separate from our thoughts and stay in this observer mode in later chapters. For now, try the exercise below to get started.

Exercise 1.1: Observing Your Focus

The best way to begin solving problems is to observe where you are placing your focus. We all have the ability to step out and watch the content of our thoughts. In the following exercise, you will find that observing your thoughts can be enlightening.

18 One

Close your eyes for a moment and notice what’s going on inside. The first thing you may notice is that your mind is continually going. Thinking is non-stop. These are the details of your life.

Next, close your eyes again and pay attention to the mode of your

thinking. For example, notice if you are talking to yourself inside or picturing things in your head. Afterwards, open your eyes and notice if you were aware of using either or both modes. Did you use one mode more than the other or both about the same?

Finally, close your eyes and observe where you’re placing your focus; this is the direction of your thinking. As you observe, you may notice that your focus shifts frequently from one target to the next. At one moment, you might be focusing on the present and what you have been reading. At another moment, your focus may stray to an experience in the past or to a future anticipation. Or, your focus may travel to a particular target, such as a person, event, emotion, or body sensation.

What direction did your focus go? Did you stay predominantly in the present or did your focus go elsewhere? Was there a particular thought or target you kept returning to?

You might want to record your findings in your journal. A journal

will help you see where you are now as you begin to learn to observe and control your focus as well as how well you are doing as you move along with the other exercises in this book.

two

The Focusing

Continuum

“The language of excitement is at best picturesque merely.

You must be calm before you can utter oracles.”

—Henry David Thoreau

Our ability to focus calmly and flexibly and increase our solution-finding ability is tied to our arousal levels. ‘Arousal’ refers to our degree of alertness. In order to focus flexibly, we must not have too little or too much arousal. If we were to scale arousal from low to high, we would see that we have a continuum of focus from no focus to hyper focus, where our degree of focus depends on our level of arousal.

19

20 Two

No Focus

At the low end, we have drowsiness and a dissolving of focus. In this state, our thoughts wander randomly and are not controlled or directed. We are passive, not committed to any one thing, and accept whatever comes into our awareness. We daydream.

In terms of problem-solving this is obviously not a good state to be in.

Some level of control is needed to recognize a problem and sustain focus on it long enough to solve it.

Hyper Focus

At the other end, we have a state of high arousal and hyper focus as usually experienced under strong emotion such as excitement, fear, anger, and frustration. In this state, we quickly lock onto a perceived threat and ex-clude everything else from our awareness; this is the deer-in-the-headlight or hard, single-point focus.

We call this act of diving in on a single view
premature focus
. Premature focus happens often when we deal with a persistent problem. In this case, we tend to focus on the most obvious or familiar parts of the problem; that is, we jump to the same conclusions. Example: “Oh, I know what this is about; this is about you lying to me again.”

Premature focus is a major obstacle to problem solving because it not only limits our view of a problem but it happens fast. Most of us aren’t even aware that we have done it. The speed and intensity with which we zoom in depends on the strength of the emotion we feel. The result is that we can quickly become cut off from other views and be left with an impoverished view of a problem without even really knowing it.

Edward de Bono, in his book
Lateral Thinking
, calls premature focus

“vertical thinking.” According to de Bono, a vertical thinker is one who seeks a solution from the first view he sees. Typically, the first view is a familiar, habitual one. In contrast, one who looks at a problem from dif-The Focusing Continuum 21

ferent angles before attempting to solve is one who is using “lateral thinking.” As a result, lateral thinking tends to produce insights and unusual solutions that are unavailable to vertical thinking.

For example, what word is associated with the following set of words: foot, hand, and eye? If you responded by saying ‘body’ you are using vertical thinking or the most common association for these words. If, however, you said ‘ball’, you are using lateral thinking. ‘Ball’ would have been the solution in this example if the original question had asked for an answer that could not mention the body. Life is sometimes like this. We cannot always go on as usual and must find a new course. It typically takes a little more consideration of alternate views before landing on a lateral answer.

Hyper focus also tends to lead to two other types of unproductive

focus: fixed and scattered. A
fixed focus
occurs when we hold onto a view of a problem and do not let go of it; this results from the strength of our arousal and a premature focus eliminating any competing views of the problem that might help us think about the problem in other ways. As a result of no competing views, our single view (illusion) starts to seem like the absolute truth, and so, we are less likely to challenge it. We therefore get more of the same. It’s like seeing only the faces and not the vase in our earlier example.

A hard, fixed focus is also typically employed to distract from or ward off distressful thoughts and situations. We use it to immerse ourselves in a diversionary activity so that we do not have to face the problem-at-hand.

(See the next section: Common Signs of Fixed Focus)

Likewise, a
scattered focus
results when we engage in premature focus repeatedly. Under strong emotion and a state of heightened vigilance, we scan the environment and sequentially target potential threats, rewards, or ways to avoid threats. As a result, we become easily diverted and prone to mental conflict and indecisiveness. We have a busy, racing mind or what psychologists call
cognitive overload.

22 Two

The end result of an over-use of hyper focus is much stress and chaos and a lack of oversight of our lives. We lose the ability to stand back and look at the totality of our thoughts and actions and where our lives our heading. As a result, it’s like being lost in the trees unable to see the forest.

We can’t see what’s most important.

Common Signs of Fixed Focus

There are several clear signs we are fixed in our view of a situation. Some of these include:

Negative Emotion

The most obvious sign we are fixed in our view of a situation is when we experience a persisting emotion like fear, anger, frustration, sadness, guilt, or resentment. These emotions are specific signs we are fixating on the faults of ourselves, others, and/or our circumstances while excluding other possibilities.

If we are experiencing anyone of these emotions or saying things like

“What if the worse happens?”, “Why bother; things always turn out the same,” or “Why does this always keep happening?” we can be sure we’re focusing solely on the same obstacles and robbing ourselves of new options to change.

Doubt, Confusion, and Indecision

Confusion, doubt, and indecision are signs that we are too up close on a problem and lost in it details. As result, we can’t see a clear way out. Again, it’s like we’re lost in the trees unable to see the forest.

Common reasons for confusion, doubt, and indecision are a lack of

experience simplifying problems and teasing out the necessary from the unnecessary as well as listening to one’s own inner wisdom (more about this later).

The Focusing Continuum 23

Body Aches and Pains

Another symptom our focus is fixated on a single view is body tension manifested as aches and pains. Too often, we focus on external demands and ignore the warning signs brewing in our bodies in response to these demands. Left unchecked, this tension can knock off the body’s natural balance and disorganize it.

On the other hand, a focus off external demands and on the body

(as we do in calm inner focus) can begin to redirect balance. (Again, we’ll discuss more about this later).

Avoiding and Sabotaging

Avoiding and self-sabotaging are also common ineffective approaches to problem-solving and result from a fixed view that an obstacle is too difficult to surmount, so its’ best not to try. As a result, we engage in such diversionary activities as busywork, watching TV, lounging around, shopping, overeating, drinking, and other addictive behaviors, in order to avoid the problem.

The diversionary activity’s main purpose is to help us take our mind off the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings associated with our difficulty (e.g. Oh, this is gloomy. I need to talk about something else. That reminds me I need to do my laundry). In doing so, the diversion becomes just another obstacle to finding a solution to the problem.