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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=3><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold'>From: L. Michael Hall<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold'>2026 Neurons #14<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:bold'>March 23, 2026</span></font></b><font size=3><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><i><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-style:italic'>Problem Solving Expertise #14</span></font></i><font size=3><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><b><font size=5 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:20.0pt;font-weight:bold'>THE ART OF MIS-HANDLING PROBLEM<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>When it comes to problem-solving, handling a problem occurs on a continuum. There’s are many degrees between mis-handling a problem and handling it with grace, power, and focus. Your skill and my skill for effectively handling problems depends on a great many things: your ability to clearly define the problem, the number of contributing factors to the problem, the number of symptoms that result, the amount of noise around the problem, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>One kind of mis-handling of a problem involves creating a minimal solution or a pseudo-solution, and then exaggerating ut as if it was the ultimate solution. Here’s an example: <o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Let’s say a young man complains that “nothing ever works out and I can’t find pleasure in anything.” Imagine that those around him have a solution, “Just cheer up; put on a happy face; look on the bright side of things.” If the young man complies, thinking that they know better, he then adopts this shallow solution. He adopts a style of ‘smile, count your blessings and all will be well’ as his ‘solution.’<o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Yet actually this is a pseudo-solution. It is not a real one, not an authentic solution. Why not? Because it is based on a false assumption, namely, that the suffering person can directly turn his emotions on and off and that the source of the emotions (i.e., his thoughts and beliefs) do not really matter. Now given how we can adopt false understandings, false strategies, false ways of acting, etc., what if the young man becomes ‘overly optimistic,’ by developing his ability to ignore his emotions and ‘pretend his way’ to a shallow optimism?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>If that happens, then his ‘solution’ has becomes the next-level problem. In that case, the ‘overly optimistic way of being’ not only covers up the real problem, it also defends and protects the real problem (his original negative thinking). The pseudo-solution would now stand in the way of getting to the original problem. It becomes an interfering problem itself. Yet the young man would not see it that way. He would see it as the great solution and so would refuse to give it up or consider it as a problem.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>What may have been a fairly harmless difficulty in the first place which the young man over-generalized and over-exaggerated (‘nothing’ ‘ever’ works out for me), the solution of denying his emotions, refusing to look within, and adopting a shallow optimism has all come together to create a really big problem. And he doesn’t even know it! <o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>In this way the attempted solution mis-handled the first problem and became the next-level up problem. And when an inadequate solution becomes the problem, if often becomes a much bigger problem and more difficult to deal with. The entire experience may have gone in another direction. What if the attempted solution of denying emotions and adopting shallow optimism lasted for a short while and provided a temporary relief, but the original problem continued and got worse— more frustration, more failures, etc. Then below the shallow optimism that he’s faking and that others are preaching could be a slow burn of a rage, a deep sense of helplessness and a rage at the unfairness of the world. He would then become a volcano in the making, becoming more and more ready to explode.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Obviously, the pseudo-solution became a much bigger problem <i><span style='font-style:italic'>because of its implications:</span></i><o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=a style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>∙ Don’t look within. Don’t seek to understand why you felt what you felt when things didn’t go well for you. Ignore your emotions and they will go away.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=a style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>∙ Don’t track back the emotions to the thinking that produced them. Don’t discover your cognitive distortions or ill-formed ways of thinking about your original problem.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=a style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>∙ Cover up the negative emotions with positive emotions. Just ‘fake it till you make it’ and all will be fine. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>This reveals how the original problem was mis-handled. Nor is this rare or an exception, <i><span style='font-style:italic'>pseudo-solutions occur all the time. </span></i>They are, in fact, easy to generate. The same structure occurs when a parent tells a child, “Go to your room and don’t come out until you have a smile on your face.” Or when a manager says, “Just suck it up; everybody’s struggling, it’s best if you leave your emotions (your problems) at home.” <o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>To flush out hidden solutions that have become a problem, use these questions:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=a style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>∙ What ‘solutions’ have you used in the past that may now be in your way?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=a style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>∙ How have you interpreted some previous problems and thought you ‘solved’ them, only to fine that they are returning?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=a style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>∙ What symptoms may be popping up which don’t make sense and seem to come from out of the blue? <o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The bottom line is that problems need to be handled aright—appropriately. And that requires a creating a well-defined problem in the first place. Then developing the skills to do the meta probe into the mind-body system to find out what needs to occur.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'><br clear=all style='page-break-before:always'></span></font><p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-weight:bold'>L. Michael Hall, Ph.D., <i><span style='font-style:italic'>Executive Director </span></i><o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><i><font size=2 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-weight:bold;font-style:italic'>International Society of Neuro-Semantics </span></font></i></b><i><span style='font-style:italic'><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-weight:bold'>738 Beaver Lodge<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-weight:bold'>Grand Jct., CO. 81505 USA<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-weight:bold'> 1 970-523-7877 <o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=1 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:9.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Calibri><span lang=X-NONE style='font-size:11.0pt'> </span></font><img width=215 height=67 id=BF308BB8-DA03-4DF4-BEFC-A0A0DF648B05 src="cid:image001.jpg@01DCBFCE.A9DAF6E0" alt="cid:261CED33-4408-4124-862B-B9A4B37A367A"><font size=1><span style='font-size:9.0pt'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><img width=637 height=417 id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image002.png@01DCBFCE.A9DAF6E0" alt="cid:image002.png@01D6149D.5CB2A1C0"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p><p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Calibri><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p></div></body></html>