She looked at the mirror and saw herself looking back.
It seemed as if she were being observed, and a bit critically at that. She reminded herself, “Those are my eyes looking at me. It is I who is doing the observing.”
For a moment, a glimpse of the truth.
Then, she closed her eyes again.
Q: What is my purpose? I do this and I do that but I don’t know what I really want do.
A: Follow your heart and you will find your purpose.
Q: Man, seriously? That’s all you got? That was my fortune cookie last week.
A: I found my truth in a hallmark card.
After my last post on decision making, I got a lot of emails. Being “stuck” seems to be a recurring theme – many people feel like victims of their situation and find it challenging to make a positive change.
Usually in these situations, a therapist might try a cognitive approach – getting the person to look at the underlying, often negative thoughts, that are causing distress. And while cognitive therapy makes sense theoretically, I find that people often get caught up in their thoughts and instead of being able to extricate themselves from the situation, they get entangled in the complexity of the situation, their feelings and thoughts.
Instead, I recommend an approach based in mindfulness, at least in the initial stages of problem solving.
Whenever you find yourself “stuck” or troubled in a situation that seems not to have a solution, I suggest that you try the following steps. In practice, these steps are aided by guided meditation for each of the cognitive/emotive sequences, but meanwhile, here are the 4 steps.
The SOAR technique:
Stop
Stop thinking about the problem. Stop trying to distract yourself. Stop trying to think of solutions. Just stop. Don’t run away. Don’t retreat into the past or into fantasies of the future. No
“should’ves or could’ves”.
Stop.
Observe
See what is. Look at situation, not to analyse, but to understand, to witness, to observe. This is often the most difficult step of the SOAR technique and it is useful to practice mindfulness techniques.
In this step, you become mindfully aware of the situation – able to see the situation without minimizing it or blowing it out of proportion
Accept (Serenity Prayer):
Accept what you can change and what you cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference. (thanks to the great Reinhold Neibuhr)
Transform:
This is the easy part. Transformation – either of yourself, or the situation, but often both – will occur as a consequence of steps 1, 2, and 3. Once you calm your fears and anxieties, once you are able to see and observe
So there it is, Stop Observe, Accept , repeat as necessary.
Best wishes
Shyam Bhat MD
Sometimes I cannot make a decision, especially when it seems like there’s no good choice. How to make the right decision? Can you please help me improve my decision making ability?
Thanks
KG
Mumbai
Dear KG,
I am reminded of the time when a therapy client said to me, “The time for inaction is over,” and then added, “I will make my decision tomorrow.”
I knew that he would say the same thing next week, and of course, he knew it too.
Talking about action was enough to ease the anxiety of inaction, and so he continued to hold back from making this important decision that could change his life.
Most of us, during the course of a lifetime, will have to take many life changing decisions.
Of course, it could be argued that all decisions are life changing, especially the ones we don’t consciously make – If you weren’t late by five minutes for that train, you would not have met the person who would become your life partner, and so on.
But there are times in our lives when we know that the decision we have to make will have far reaching consequences.
Should I get married? To this person or to that? Should I move to a new place or stay here? Should I take this job or that? Or, should I join this university or that?
And so on.
If you have a difficult time with such decisions, if you are stuck, then it’s probably because you are thinking too much.
Decisions that force you to choose between ambiguous outcomes are difficult to make – your rational, theoretical brain will not be able to find a solution and will often spin in a closed ended loop.
Decisions can be difficult and complicated for a number of reasons, but often, difficult decisions are those when the 2 alternatives presented seem equally bad, or equally good.
(The first – 2 bad choices – is referred to as Morton’s Fork (more here at Wikipedia) and the other, Buridan’s Ass (here’s the wiki link)
While you struggle with the decision, thinking about it, weighing your options, the “correct” decision eludes you.
That is because your decision will not feel like the “right” one, unless it resonates with the emotional center of your brain.
When you make the “right” decision, you will not question it, you will know it.
Sounds kind of self-evident, but it bears underlining. The right decision – as Malcolm Gladwell discusses in his book, Blink – is often made in an instant.
So in order to make the right decision, you have to trust yourself.
If you are caught between a rock and a hard place, or between a stack of hay and a pail of water, act with conviction.
Trust your instincts, your emotions, your gut, and you will have made the right decision.
Best
Dr Shyam Bhat