Fixing problems

Bill’s latest blog “What is love?” got me thinking.

He mentions the observer effect and how in Quantum physics the observer’s attention collapses the wave into a particle. This means what we give our attention to becomes our reality.
   
So what happens when we encounter a problem. We talk about “fixing” a problem and I suppose given what Bill is saying, that is right. By focusing our attention on the “problem” we collapse the wave and literally “fix” the problem!
   
When Bill and I set up acreativespace we were clear that it was not about “fixing” broken kids. I don’t think we realised at the time what we were saying but three years down the line I realise we were spot on. By looking at childen in terms of all the things they couldn’t do we would have been “fixing” them. Collapsing the wave and stifling their potential with a label, “dyslexic”, dyspraxic”, “ADD”, “Autistic”.
   
Realising this I have been wondering about all the problems I have been “fixing”. By giving them attention am I actually creating them? As Bill points out, “Where the attention goes the energy flows.”
   
How do you deal with a problem without making it worse? We always advise parents to be curious about their child’s behaviour. We say we have never met a naughty or stupid child....just one who we don’t understand yet. So when a child does something they don’t appreciate we suggest that rather than getting annoyed they become curious. This stops them resisting the child’s beviour because as we know, “What you resist persists!”

So maybe it is time to take my own advice and become curious about some of the problems I am trying to fix. Curiousity killed the cat but could it be my new best friend?