Why Some Problems Feel Unsolvable

Some problems just feel unsurmountable, like there isn’t a solution close to hand, nothing to grasp hold of to assist yourself out of the hole and the problem persists.

So, here is one of the biggest factors contributing to that state of mind. The presenting problem is rarely the problem.

I imagine that many of you who are reading this are feeling chords of familiarity being resonantly struck. If not for yourself, I’m sure that you have already discovered this phenomenon as you listen intently to the problems offered to you by your clients, colleagues and friends. The stated problem is rarely the real problem and often the actual problem never sees the light of day and so continues to work its destructive worse, inside.

As we paint detailed pictures of our problems and their nature, how are we creating something that masks the content of the real problem? Think of this. When we have a problem which has been identified internally as a problem, we feel something about it. You may also be experiencing meta feelings (feelings about the feelings). Feelings can be extremely confusing if their intention is unclear. In order to attempt to gain some conscious acceptance of those feelings, you do the one thing that is readily available to you and attempt to link the feeling to something outside of yourself, like another person, event or experience. The issue here is that the link we make is rarely correct or truthful.

For example, how many times have you heard someone attribute a feeling to another person by saying, ‘They upset me’? We know from our studies of NLP that because perception is projection, it is impossible to notice something in others or outside of yourself that hasn’t come from within you. The problem pre-existed, inside and the reaction was generated by choice. I’ll let you ponder that for a while.

If the link we make is incorrect with no clear foundation in truth, then how do we get beyond the presenting problem towards the real issue? The answer is a way of thinking behind the problem and the system for doing this is called Prime Concerns, to use NLP terminology.

We use the thinking system of Prime Concerns to discover very, very deep-seated concerns, problems. We seek out the deepest level of meaning behind the labels we use to create our problem states. The concerns I’m referring to are so deeply contained within your neurology that they are not available to you within your conscious awareness. If you are not consciously cognisant of the problem, then you can’t solve it and you become entrenched within it without hope of escape. Has someone ever approached you for assistance, offered up the problem, you did the most excellent intervention to resolve it and the person remains in an incongruent and misaligned state? You may even have chunked up the problem to the highest possible level of problem and the person still doesn’t feel right. In this instance, you need to look for Prime Concerns.

Prime Concerns are deeply held, unfulfilled values which are mostly unconscious. When a value is unfulfilled, there is a feeling of incompleteness, like something important is missing from life. When this occurs, we will spend an inappropriate amount of time focussing on the something that is missing and desperately attempting to get those desires fulfilled. Without clarity of the nature of the value that is presently unfulfilled, this endless and gladiatorial search can cause frustration to be installed.

Prime concerns are held together by the structure of meaning. Something is unfulfilled for you at the deepest level of meaning. We can explore that chain of meaning by asking the question, ‘What does that mean?’ At the deepest level of that chain of meaning lies the Prime Concern.

As Masters of language, we have a process to elicit and to remove Prime Concerns which involves the skilful and elegant use of Quantum Linguistic language patterns which you can learn to construct and utilise in a masterful way. Quantum Linguistics are designed to blow out the boundaries of a problem from within, moving your thinking from inside the problem to outside the problem using Inductive Language Patterns.

Inductive Language Patterns begin with the detail and move out towards the big picture, blowing through the boundaries of the problem as it goes. We linguistically move from one thing to everything, from detail to a Universal Quantifier. This is the little detail that will make all the difference with how your problems are held in your neurology, linguistically.

Once you have mastered the art of constructing Quantum Linguistic Patterns, you begin to assist people to resolve their problems, even the most deep-seated and unconscious issues, with your language alone, imagine that!

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