A Professor of something to do with food was on public radio today, talking about our propensity to eat too much unhealthy food whilst distracted, watching tv or working on the computer. His solution was twofold: to eat vegetables instead of high sugar/fat snack foods, or to set aside at the outset the amount of food we intend to eat and then stick to that amount.
We have been flooded with such eminently rational and sensible advice from experts. By now, we all know that all we need to do is set our goals, and then stick to them. But it reminds me of the taxi driver in Jakarta who, when I asked him why the road was so congested, he said: “Because many people want to use it.” The answer is obvious but it is the obvious answer to a different question.
The problem is not that it never occurs to us to substitute unhealthy foods for healthy ones, or to limit the quantities of our consumption. We all know this. The problem that needs to be addressed is all the emotional imbalance that lies behind our imbalanced choices: our addictions that need to be sated, our pain that needs to be numbed, and our fears that need to be allayed.
Left-brain experts totally fail to understand that they offer a left-brain solution to a right-brain problem. As Einstein famously said, we cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created that problem.
Daniel Pink, author of the bestselling books like “A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future” and “To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others”, points to the importance of right-brain intelligence in a comment that, while intended to refer to the business of sales, actually has a wider application:
“One of the best predictors of ultimate success…isn’t natural talent or even…expertise, but how you explain your failures and rejections.”
Pink makes an important point. It is not how much we know about good nutrition or how good we are at setting goals and sticking to them, it is our ability to process the difficulties in life that lead us to want to avoid or numb pain that is the result of our “failures and rejections.”
What is key here is the story we tell ourselves about who we are, and what we are capable of, in the face of the events that leave us feeling unworthy and inadequate. We need to use right-brain strategies to learn to process these events differently. This involves sophisticated emotional skills, and our traditional educational and socialization techniques often fail to instill them in us. They are attained and mastered gradually, requiring many attempts and much practice, so we must ensure we do not to become defeated,
We need the right-brain skills of persistence, drive, passion, commitment, and strength displayed by the sportsman. When I learn a new technique in tennis, I recognize that my first failed attempts say nothing about my ability as a tennis player. They merely tell me I need to create new brain pathways, which takes time and practice. I don’t give up or leave the court discouraged. I ask the coach to send me another ball so I can try again.
To succeed in achieving our desires, it is incumbent upon us to process our feelings impersonally and with detachment, to get the emotional space to make the necessary changes in thought and approach. Then, when we experience the pain of disappointment, failure and rejection, all of which are necessary parts of the human journey to mastery and awareness, we recognize it as merely information telling us where we aimed amiss. Nothing more, and nothing less.
