One of my clients recently asked me what we can do when we feel we’re close to an answer, and we know there’s something to uncover, but it feels out of reach.
Their words:
What if you're trying and trying and trying and can't figure out what's the fear UNDER the fear?
You just...wait?
Beat your (metaphorical or literal 😂) head against a wall?
My brain knows there's *something* there...but it's just. out. of. reach.
What follows is my response, plus some additional context from the book (actually, long-form essay), The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning, by Iain McGilchrist. I am obviously no brain-scientist, and can’t vouch for its accuracy; but I find this book super helpful and interesting in explaining how our brain works — specifically how the different hemispheres of our brain are working to do two quite different (and often competing) jobs: narrowing things down to a certainty; and opening up to possibility.
Dear lovely client, when you’re trying and trying and trying…
This is going to sound infuriating…
But don’t try so hard.
Don’t try to pinpoint an emotion or a problem or a reason —
don’t go looking for it.
Don’t apply laser focus
Apply soft focus
That relaxed open heart feeling —
I know it sounds weird but it’s like you have to go around your own brain.
You can’t go straight through.
Our brains are good at two things. (Okay, lots of things — but here I’m talking about focus and attention 😅). We can pinpoint our focus on one thing — finding food, finding a solution, finding a needle in a haystack…
Or we can apply our focus outwards. We can scan the area, scan the horizon, open up to the breeze that surrounds us — that two seconds ago wasn’t there because we were so focused on whatever happened to be in front of our nose at the time.
Or, to put it another way,
in order for us to make sense of the world, we must pay two kinds of attention:
The first is a narrowly focussed attention. It’s interested in what we have already prioritised as significant.
“A bird needs to be able, for example, to pick out a seed against a background of grit on which it lies, to pick up a particular twig to build a nest, and so on.”
The second type of attention is completely opposite. This is a broad, open attention — without any preconception of what we may find.
This is the type of attention that allows us to stay open to potential sources of threat and reward; the type of attention that cannot know beforehand what might happen.
As it happens, our brain carries out both tasks admirably. But, we need to be able to switch between them. And sometimes we can get stuck in one mode — or try to apply one kind of attention to a task when perhaps the other type of attention would be more fruitful.
Which is why, if you find yourself trying to pinpoint a reason, grasping without being able to see it, perhaps you might be better served trying the softer focus of the ‘relaxed’ attention. Where your brain is less enamoured by what you’re trying to find, and more open to the potential of connection and exploration.
I don’t know if you ever did those Magic Eye books — but if you did, you know you can’t look straight at the picture.
You have to soften your gaze and change perspective.
So it’s like that, but this time with your brain and your heart
and if you ever did those Magic Eye books — you know it takes practice.
💛
PS. I like you
“I like feeling vulnerable. I like feeling small. I like seeing the world… as being part of it, and not controlling it.” // Jeff Shapiro.
What would the world be like if more of us felt this way? What would you do..?