masterly inactivity
Little Bo-Peep knew about this
“Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep, and doesn’t know where to find them. Leave them alone and they will come home, wagging their tails behind them”.
Lao Tzu #29.”Do you think you can take over the universe and improve it? I do not believe it can be done. The universe is sacred. You cannot improve it. If you try to change it, you will ruin it. If you try to hold it you will lose it.”
Thorvald Stoltenberg was a Norwegian politician who took the chief Israeli and the chief Palestinian negotiators to a hut in the Norwegian mountains, put them in front of a fire and filled them with gluvine. The Israeli said to the Palestinian “I hate you and I hate what you are doing to my country”. The Palestinian replied I hate you and I hate what you are doing to my country”. They each realised that they were saying the same thing, and fell into each other’s arms. Peace broke out in the Middle East. What did Stoltenberg do? Not much, but the result was astonishing.
MRI [Mental Research Institute] have an invariant approach to therapy - “don’t change”. John Weakland said that the most import lesson he’d learnt was to apply constraints. They were strongly influenced by Erickson, and it seems to me, also by Lao Tzu. Richard Fisch wrote about a man who loved “delicatessen” food was advised to avoid these foods after he had a heart attack. After some time, he reverted to his preferred fatty food, and his wife’s nagging didn’t help. She sought help from MRI and followed their advice, buying a generous amount of delicatessen food and told her husband that she was sorry to interfere with his right to kill himself, offering him his favourite food and saying that she loved him and didn’t want to watch him eat this food. When she returned he discovered that he had thrown all the food she had bought into the rubbish.
A colleague told me that when he met a new client he would routinely ask the client to gather more information so he could be more helpful. They were instructed to not make any changes so they could give him more details next time. He told me that most people came to their second session surprised to report that their problem was solved. He hadn’t heard of MRI.
“Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows deep in the forrest”. Zen saying.
Doing nothing is obviously not a useful answer to all problems. If a bus is about to run us over, it’s obvious that we should do something, but it’s not so obvious, that sometimes, in our fast-paced life, doing nothing is an option that is awfully under utilised.
A woman told me that she wanted help for her “insomnia”. She had tried many different method, but none had helped. She’d tried relaxation, hypnosis, ordeals … I simply offered her the option of, instead of trying all these different methods, perhaps she could just be awake, and do nothing at all. I reminded her that if she tried to not think of a pink elephant, she would be in danger of being trampled to death. She was intrigued by this novel, but at the same time, obvious idea, and was surprised how quickly she naturally went to sleep.
If you were to look back on your life, what experiences can you recall when you did nothing and a problem solved itself? Also what problems persisted, or even are still persisting, would be helped by stopping attempt to fix it and doing nothing about it?
