Dealing with big fears using a little whimsy.
Remember Star Trek? Not the new series, but the old one. The one with mini skirts and beehives and Captain Kirk emoting like his life depended on it. The one with Spock, McCoy, and Uhura.
There is an episode where a Tribble is brought on board the starship Enterprise. A Tribble is a sort of fluffy ball type of creature with no face, arms, or any other discerning feature. They are the sort of creatures that you might put on your desk as a curiosity. They look inoffensive and compared to all the other scary things in space they seem harmless. The most notable thing about Tribbles is how quickly they reproduce.
At first, it’s all fun and games—tiny space puffballs popping up everywhere, delighting the crew. Then they start pouring out of cupboards, blocking doorways, infiltrating the food supply, and eventually clogging vital ship systems. It highlights how one seemingly harmless thing can pose a serious threat through unchecked reproduction.
A quibble is much the same. By definition, a quibble is a petty objection over a trivial matter. A simple seemingly inoffensive thought that can, like Tribbles, multiply and completely bung up the works.
Neville and Abdullah
I first heard about quibbles through Neville Goddard. Neville was a manifestation teacher who was popular in the 1940s and 50s, before manifestation teachers had been invented. He was so far ahead of his time that we are still catching up with him in some ways.
He was called the Mad Mystic of 48th Street, which was where he used to give his free lectures. The name conjures up images of some Rasputin-like character but Neville’s lectures, which are all over YouTube, were anything but. He was measured, articulate, and inspiring. He leaned a bit too hard on the biblical stuff for my taste, but he had some real gems of wisdom—one of which was about quibbles.
Neville‘s teacher was an Ethiopian man called Abdullah. One evening in New York, they were having dinner together. Neville, a long-time vegetarian, was politely navigating his spud and two veg, while Abdullah was demolishing a 10-pound steak, washing it down with whiskey.
Neville had seen Abdullah do this many times. On this occasion, it got the better of Neville and he asked Abdullah how he could eat and drink in such an unhealthy way and it not affect him.
Without missing a beat, Abdullah said it didn’t affect him because he didn’t have any quibbles about it. When Neville asked him what he meant he explained that Neville had quibbles about eating meat and drinking whiskey so it would be unhealthy for Neville to eat meat and drink whiskey. He on the other hand didn’t have any quibbles about eating meat and drinking whiskey so it posed no health problems for him.
Neville sat there for a long time, letting that sink in and I did too when I first heard the story.
Quibbles In Action
Then I started noticing it everywhere. Initially, it was in other people because things are always easier to notice in other people first.
It became especially obvious when people had quibbles about something that I had zero quibbles about. In these instances, I would waltz through a situation without any problems and the person who had the quibble would invariably run into the problem they had the quibble about.
For example:
- Punctuality: I don’t have any quibbles about other people’s punctuality, and people, by and large, are on time for me.
Not so with people who have quibbles about punctuality. They are continually exasperated by people being late for them, or trains being delayed, or flights being canceled. - Technology: I don’t have any quibbles about technology either. When I run into a problem with technology I expect it to work out and for the most part, it does.
This is not the case with people who have quibbles about technology. They run into continual problems. Everything from their computers, to their phones, to their cars. They might even say things like, “I’m not very good with technology.” or, “Technology and I don’t get along.”
I used to have a big, fat quibble about, well… being fat. Everything related to weight was a problem for me. Buying clothes was a nightmare. Dressing room mirrors? Distorted. Lighting? Clearly a conspiracy against me. Sizes? Seemed to be deliberately adjusted to make me feel like I had mysteriously gained weight since my last purchase. I would then have to do what felt like the walk of fat shame back out onto the sales floor to get the next size up. And before you ask, getting a sales assistant to help was not an option, for me at least. They were always very slim and attractive and it was all too much.
In photographs, the camera would add 10-pounds to everyone else in the photo and 30-pounds to me.
My weight was something that people felt almost compelled to comment on. It felt like random strangers would cross the street to ask me if I had put on weight. Friends and family who were sensitive to my fat quibble would say things like, “I’m not saying you’re fat. I’m just saying you shouldn’t wear stripes.”
Letting Quibbles Go
So what to do? What to do when you see you have a quibble that you would prefer not to have?
To answer that let me include a little extract from my no 1 best selling, award-winning book (shut up, my mom said it was great and that is award enough for me) – Why Do We Get Sick? Why Do We Get Better?.
“I had a friend named Lilly. Lilly loved jewellery. She saved for two years and paid ten thousand dollars for a diamond ring. Man, she loved that ring. She wore it everywhere.
When she was talking she had a way of moving her hands to draw attention to the ring. She loved to mention it in conversation. When she was on her own she would just look at it.
After a year she needed to upgrade her insurance and had to get the ring valued. She was shocked when they told her the ring was a fake. It was only worth fifty dollars.
Lilly wanted to take the ring and throw it away. Then she thought, ‘what the hell’, and continued to wear it. If no one else knew, who’d be the wiser?
A funny thing happened. She stopped looking at it when she was alone. She stopped talking about it. She stopped moving her hands in that attention-grabbing way.
She would leave it on the washbasin when she washed her hands. Sometimes she forgot to put it on again. Eventually, she lost it. She couldn’t be sure where or when. It wasn’t around anymore, not that it bothered her much.
So what had changed for Lilly?
Well, she still loved diamonds. The only thing that had changed for her was the value. In that one conversation with the valuer, the ring dropped substantially in value. A simple change in perspective began the chain of events that eventually led to her losing the ring.
And it’s the same with unconscious sabotaging behaviours. As soon as we discover what they are, it has the same effect as Lilly’s conversation with the valuer. When we discover what they are, we instantly realise the price we’re paying for them.”
We always feel like we have to “do,” something when we discover some unconsciousness in us, but usually we don’t. Seeing is enough. Once we see, change naturally happens.
I found this to be the case with quibbles. Seeing the quibble itself, then seeing how the quibble creates the end result.
- “I get upset when people are late for me.” → creates people being late for me.
- “I’m not good with technology.” → creates technology problems.
- “I am fat.” → creates a never-ending stream of comments about my weight.
Simply noticing the quibble and being open to the idea that it might be the real cause of the problem is like Lilly realizing the true value of her ring. The quibble loses its grip, and over time, it just sort of… disappears.
Once you see it happening. Once you go through this cycle and see the quibble disappearing and with it the end result, it gives you more confidence with the next quibble.
As your confidence grows you can address quibbles that have bigger and bigger impacts on your life because small quibbles multiply and turn into bigger problems just like Tribbles.
A person might have a quibble about being loved and that quibble can multiply and cause them to sabotage relationship after relationship and keep them from happiness.
A person might have a quibble about being financially independent and those quibbles can multiply and keep that person in a continuous fear of lack.
A person might have quibbles about their health and vitality and that can keep them in a continuous state of hypervigilance and defensiveness about their environment and cause all sorts of physical manifestations.
Not Trivial
Surely these situations are too serious to relate to as mere quibbles. They are not petty objections about trivial matters.
Exactly. Which is why we should treat them like quibbles. When we label something a major life issue, it becomes a giant, immovable monolith. But a quibble? A quibble is small, silly, something we can deal with. “oh I have a little quibble about my health,” or, “I have a little quibble about my love life and how I am loved,” or, “I have a little quibble about money.” Relating to our big problems as quibbles gives us the lightness and deftness of touch that allows us to change them.
Between you and me, quibbles are actually fears but fears seem big and insurmountable and scary whereas quibbles seem kind of trivial and easily overcome. Fear amplifies itself, making everything seem insurmountable.
So shrink the fear—call it a quibble.
I encourage you to look for your quibbles and start letting them go. Start with the little ones first. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at how light the feeling is when you say, “Oh I have a quibble about this thing or that thing. . .”
Letting go of the little quibbles will give you the confidence to deal with the bigger ones until you can relate to the biggest quibble we all have—Death, with the lightness of Oscar Wilde who on his deathbed, commenting on the décor of his room said, “Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.”
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