The miracle question by Steve de Shazer is now familiar to all coaches: "Imagine that one night a miracle happened and your problem is solved! How would you recognize that it is a problem? How did the problem come to be solved?"
Problem definition
Before me stands a trembling bundle of misery, more precisely, an angry, trembling bundle of misery. The misery is named Verena. She is furious, super furious, mega-super furious! Angry at the leadership of her project.
"I am now going to this idiot of a program manager and throwing the begging at his feet. Let him find an idiot, like himself, for the job!"
I nod, indicating that I understand her, and then probe a little beneath the sensitive, quivering surface of her mental framework. What I perceive frightens me a little. The facade that allowed her to speak so determinedly and harshly is very thin and, above all, unstable. I ask her if she can sleep:
"Of course not! I haven't slept through the night for weeks, and not at all for the last two days!"
She is mentally and physically quite exhausted and on the verge of tears. She complains about this and that and how unfairly she is being treated.
What can I do to alleviate the worst of the emergency for now and bring Verena into a state that allows meaningful work on the actual problems? With Verena, a classic problem seems to exist, which I repeatedly encounter: She feels solely responsible for the success of the project, and naturally, the project only succeeds if all tasks are completed "correctly" and not "incorrectly." However, this core issue is hidden beneath a layer of great frustration and even more pain!
Problem Materialization
I choose an approach that could perhaps be described as a spatial variant of Steve de Shazer's famous "miracle question": "Imagine that a miracle happened during the night and your problem is solved! How will you recognize that your problem is solved? How did the problem get solved?"
Linguistically speaking, this is a “systemic” interaction. It forces the client to leave their own problematic perspective and to consider the problem from the outside and separated in time. They must leave the associated “1st position” and adopt a disassociated “3rd position”. De Shazer’s question, through language, i.e. audibly, creates a solution orientation. How could one now represent the path to the “solution” kinesthetically, i.e. in three-dimensional space?
I asked Verena:
"If what is currently burdening you and making you angry and disappointed were a symbol or an object, what kind of symbol or object would that be?"
"An anvil! Ugly, big, and black."
‘Where in the room is this anvil? In front of you, behind you, to the right or left?’
"He's right in front of me, there!"
She points to a spot directly in front of her.
"Approximately how far away is he in meters... and... if the anvil had eyes, where would they be looking?"
Again, she points to an imaginary spot in front of her in the room. However, now slightly higher.
‘He is about one and a half meters in front of me and his eyes are staring at me! Wow, he is ugly and gloomy!’
What I have done here is an application of the Mental Space Psychology by Lucas Derks .[1] The anvil is now firmly connected to the problem, and we have built the context associated with Verena's bad feeling.
Now comes the peculiarity of this "miracle process". I'm not interested in why it's an anvil or why she feels bad.
"Why? Why? Why?"
This standard question does not solve any problem. It only gives a static answer as to what the supposed cause might be. One can then endlessly ask why the why is the why, until the last day and beyond. It is much more efficient to let the problem materialize in 3-dimensional space and then ask how the, "what is the case" [2](Wittgenstein) are linked together. Perhaps one could say that I work with the form or the structure of the problem and not with its content.
Resource activation
The object that triggers a bad feeling in Verena is therefore an anvil, which is in her field of vision in front of her. Now I ask about the connection between the anvil and the feeling:
“How do you feel? How is that for you when the anvil is in front of you?”
"I feel miserable and sick and have a drilling pressure in my stomach. It also presses against my solar plexus! The anvil is hindering me! It is in my way!"
Now I break her frame of thinking by asking her something she has probably never asked herself before:
"What's behind the anvil? What is the anvil hiding from you?"
"What's behind the anvil? No idea! How should I know?"
With this question, I am refocusing your attention! Away from the bad feeling, towards something new. You are feeling better immediately. Then I instruct them to imagine stepping out of "Verena", so that "Verena", who has the anvil in front of her, remains in the same position. She is to walk around the anvil, and please do so in such a way that, seen from "Verena", she moves to the spot in the room that is immediately behind the anvil. So to the spot that is "beyond" the manifestation of the problem.
Verena steps out of ‘Verena’ with a distinct step and makes a small arc around the spot in the room where she materialized the anvil. I accompany her by touching her arm and walking with her. Arriving behind the anvil, I ask her to close her eyes and say:
"Verena, you are now on the other side of the anvil and 'that Verena' is standing back there. Correct?"
She confirms my statement.
"Verena, what do you perceive in this position with your senses? How do you feel here?"
Often, clients already feel quite good at the spot beyond their obstacle. Occasionally, as it turns out with Verena now, it's not okay here yet:
‘It’s pitch black here! I can’t see anything. It feels cramped.’
‘What do you hear? What do you feel?’
‘Oops! I’m standing in an elevator cabin! The walls are made of metal and cool!’
Even if clients' associations are sometimes surprising, it is important to simply accept and take them seriously. If the client ends up in an elevator, the coach accepts this map and works with it.
It seems that the olfactory and gustatory receptors are most directly linked to the limbic system in the brain. That's why it's interesting to find out if there are "bad" sensory perceptions here.
"What do you smell when you are inside this elevator car? Do you have a particular taste in your mouth?"
Verena says that the taste is neutral, but the air smells musty. I continue to move on Verena's map.
"Where is the door? Can you leave the elevator car?"
Verena turns slightly to the side.
‘Yes, there is a door. But the door is closed! I can’t open it!’
I answer with precise vagueness:
"In every elevator car there are buttons and switches! Try to open the door!"
"The door is opening a crack!" she says, straining.
‘Keep going! Open the door!’
Verena huffs loudly: "I did it! The door is open!"
‘Please leave the elevator cabin and go outside! – What is there?’
Verena takes two steps in the room.
"There is a landscape! I am standing in a meadow! There are flowers! It smells good! It's beautiful here!"
I let Verena linger a little in her obviously beautiful experience.
"Verena, how do you feel in this place?"
“ I feel good! I feel joy … freedom … peace!”
‘How would you like to name the sum of the individual feelings? Give me a term for it.’
“Hmmmm … I am with myself … hmmmm … I am centered and grounded!”
"You are centered and grounded here, that fills you with joy. That's a good feeling – correct?"
‘Yes, I’m fine!’
"Is it possible that Verena back there – behind the elevator and the anvil – doesn't have this feeling, but would need it?!"
Verena sighs and confirms:
"Oh yes, that's right!"
We have now found out in a very short time which resource ‘Verena’ is missing in her problem state. This method works exclusively with emotions in the room. It does not require working out logic or motivation (positive intention).
Problem management
Now I use this feeling of ‘centeredness’ and ‘groundedness’ as a resource in the form of an energy that ‘the woman in the flower meadow’ feels throughout her body. My coachee determines the color of the energy – in this case ‘red’. Then I ask her to let this resource flow through the elevator, through the anvil into ‘the Verena’ in the form of a thick red energy beam. The energy flows through ‘the Verena’ and fills the entire body!
“Let it work … and notice what changes, … as the red energy flows … and flows … what happens?“
Verena calls out in surprise: "The anvil is shattering into loud pieces!"
"Let the red energy continue to flow... be centered... be grounded... What happens next?"
"The anvil parts are getting smaller – they are dissolving – they are moving to the side!"
I now ask you to leave the place on the flower meadow while the energy continues to flow, and to "flow" with the energy to Verena, and to flow into "Verena" with the feeling of centeredness and the feeling of being grounded, and then to become her. When Verena has "flowed through" the space and has taken up her original perspective's position and viewpoint again, I ask her again what has changed.
"I feel free. The pressure is gone. It is pleasantly warm at heart level!"
What is left of the anvil floats to her right in the air. I ask her how she feels about the remaining problems. She says that it feels neutral, she simply "doesn't care".
Sustainability
I am still checking the sustainability of the solution after All Quadrants All Levels Model (AQUAL) by Ken Wilber, by checking if "Verena" (1st position) is doing well now or if she would still need something. She says everything is fine. I also want to know if the anvil remnants (2nd position) are doing well in their new position. Here too, everything is fine. I continue to check if an external observer (3rd position) perceives the new constellation as "in order". When I place her high up on an imaginary moon (4th position) to experience the overall system including past, present, and future, something is bothering me. Verena receives another resource, the check of all perspectives is repeated and now the solution is appropriate and good from every point of view!
Verena now feels relaxed and free!
With this good feeling, I send her for a walk around the building. That was strenuous enough for this moment. She should go alone and, if possible, not talk to others. Verena trots off somewhat exhausted and with a cheerful expression.
Conclusion
Is the problem now "definitively" solved? No, but she can sleep again now and in the next few days we will find out more about what makes Verena take on all the responsibility. Then perhaps another miracle will happen. What would Steve say about that?
[1] Derks, Lucas : The Game of Social Relationships – NLP and the Structure of Interpersonal Experience. With a foreword by Wolfgang Walker. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart (2000)
[2] from Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein. “What the case is, the fact, is the existence of states of affairs.”
