If it isn't a problem, it probably doesn't need a solution.

Once in yoga teacher training, I couldn't do what the teacher was asking me to do.  When I was sharing this with Alyson-in-Triplicate later, she said: "It's because your brain is too involved. Get your brain out of it!"

What? 

"Just turn it off."

I tried Alyson's technique--impossible as it sounded--and suddenly I was able to do what I wanted to do.

Our brains spend a lot of time in judgment of ourselves.  Evaluating, critiquing. The problem with that is that anything to which we assign negative criticism becomes "a problem to be solved." (Which I'm pretty sure our brains love. Problems are puzzles.  Good work brain!)

You know that axiom that when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail?  Well, it occurs to me that if our brains are always in problem-solving mode, then everything starts to look like a problem.

But we can release the need to solve.  Seriously.  We can. Just. Stop.

We can let our brains play. Daydream. Meditate.

I do know this.  If we leave them in problem-solving mode all the time, then that is all our brains will ever get to do. And as John Eldridge put it, "Life is not a problem to be solved. It is an adventure to be lived."