How to be Good?

Feeling stuck? Find your Door #3

December 27, 2021 Sarah Buckmaster Season 1 Episode 20
How to be Good?
Feeling stuck? Find your Door #3
Show Notes Transcript

For this Bitesize Episode*, we’re taking some advice from Daoist Monk Yun Rou that “there's always a door number 3 to things”.

Whenever we find ourselves in a challenging situation or even a conflict of some kind, Monk Yun Rou suggests we look for Door #3 – a third option that is available to us when we feel limited in our choices. 

This episode is all about how considering the variety of options available to us in any given moment gives us a greater sense of freedom and helps us get more creative in how we can manage and manoeuvre in any circumstance. 

Enjoy!

If you'd like to support this podcast, please visit https://www.buymeacoffee.com/exploregoodness - we appreciate you listening and supporting each episode.

Thank you!

*In Bitesize Episodes, we take a few minutes to focus on a theme, topic, or piece of advice related to “How to be Good” that’s come up in our interviews. We'll talk about how we can put advice from our interviews to practical use in our daily life

[Podcast Theme Music: upbeat electro/beats]

Sarah Buckmaster [00:03]
Hi everyone, I'm Sarah and this is "How to be Good?" - the podcast that explores what it means to be a good person in today's world. 

[Podcast Theme Music]

Sarah Buckmaster  [00:14]
For this bitesize episode, we’re taking some advice from Daoist Monk Yun Rou 

Monk Yun Rou
“there's always a door number 3 to things”

Sarah Buckmaster
Whenever we find ourselves in a challenging situation or maybe in a conflict of some kind, Monk Yun Rou suggests we look for Door number 3 – a third option that is available to us when we feel limited in our choices.

 Monk Yun Rou
“So the right response is a third one - a third door. And the third door is just defined as being not door number one and not door number two. It's a creative, perhaps unique response to any conflict or situation, which you only define as being not one and not two. All else goes. So when you asked me what somebody could do right now, today, right is to explore door number three if a conflict arises in your day, see if you can figure out: what is your door number three?”

Sarah Buckmaster
Monk Yun Rou’s suggestion to always look for that Door #3 reminded me of very similar advice I’d received a few years ago from an incredible coach – a woman called Carol MacKinnon. 

Carol coached me through a really difficult period of my life where I had to make a number of life-changing decisions. I often felt stuck, especially when the options available to me seemed to be particularly drastic. Our sessions would often start with me feeling stuck between two different paths - which would take me in two completely different directions so the anxiety about which one to choose was really high.

Carol would start by listening to my two options and then asking me what my third option was. Sometimes this would feel impossible, but she’d really push me to consider that third option, even if it wasn’t anything I’d ever consider doing, she’d make me add it to the list. And once I’d found something, she’d continue – asking me to explore option 4, 5,6 - even if they were completely absurd. The key was to open my eyes to the variety of options that were available to me at every stage of the decision-making process.

In some ways, this sounds overwhelming – to add even more possibilities to the mix, but at times when you feel limited in the moves you can make, this exercise works.

So often, when faced with a conflict or challenge, we feel overwhelmed by fear or anger or sadness – and our brains get stuck in the trap of A or B… should I do this or that? Binary thinking rears it’s ugly head and we feel limited in our options. 

Monk Yun Rou
Why does it have to be a binary choice. There is always a Door number 3 to things

Sarah Buckmaster
As soon as you find just one alternative – your door #3 -  you feel a greater sense of freedom. Your mind steps out of doubt-paralysis and gets more creative in how you can manage and manoeuvre in any circumstance.  

Training ourselves to consider additional options – however unlikely they seem in the moment - is a great tool to increase our psychological flexibility – and it’s this flexibility that helps us adapt to, and take effective action, in all situations. 

Even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time - there are always multiple options available to us. The freedom you feel when you list more than two options is more than worth a few minutes of time investment.

As Monk Yun Rou shared when he chose Door #3 – finding an alternative solution in times of conflict can do wonders for our feelings of happiness and contentment too…

Monk Yun Rou
I drove away thinking that I had taken this conflict and turned it into something else. And you know, I was very happy.

Sarah Buckmaster
So, our challenge for this bitesize episode is to find door number 3 when making decisions. You don’t have to take that third option  – but start exploring additional options that are available to you in any moment. Get training that muscle, start strengthening your psychological flexibility, and abover all else – have some fun finding that Door #3.

I am deeply thankful to Monk Yun Rou and Carol MacKinnon for this piece of advice – and let me know how you get on, and what your Door #3’s are! 

[Podcast Theme Music, fades oin and plays in background as Sarah speaks...]

Sarah Buckmaster
If you've enjoyed this episode, and would like to hear more episodes and interviews exploring the question of what it means to be a good person in today's world, then please visit howtobegood.co.uk or subscribe on your favourite podcast listening platform.

And if you'd like to support the podcast, then head over to buymeacoffee.com/exploregoodness, and you can buy me a warm drink to help with the creation of these episodes.

Thank you for listening. Please share with your friends. And if you have any questions or suggestions, email me at any time. It's sarah@howtobegood.co.uk and I always love to hear from you.

Thank you!

[Podcast Theme Music, fades out]

Transcribed by Sarah Buckmaster