Skip to main content

Don't Trust Your Instincts, or, "Well-Meaning People Can Exacerbate Big Problems"

My evangelical friends talk about being "convicted." That moment when you hear or read a message and like an arrow, it dives into your heart, and you know that you have been guilty, and you have some growing to do.

At the very beginning of my learning about Bowen systems theory, the professor was laying out the basic idea: that we all feel anxiety, and when we do, we act (often in unhealthy ways) in order to lessen our anxiety. And in an unhealthy system with emotionally immature people -- a family, a business, a church -- one person's anxiety can trigger the anxiety of others.

Here's a great primer on that. Really great. Like, watch it 20 times in a row. Or every morning as you drink your coffee. (I'm not kidding. I think your life would be better. Consider it a spiritual practice.)



So back to my conviction moment. The professor went on to talk about how when we see someone who is "vibrating" with anxiety, our instinct is often to rush over, and help them manage their anxiety. Maybe we try to soothe them, "I know you're worried about this change, but I really think it's going to be okay." Maybe we commiserate: "I know, this is really awful that Person B told you that thing."

Those aren't good, but most damaging is when we over-function. Here's how it plays out: The Vibrating Person tells us all about This Thing that is making them anxious and so then we begin to feel anxious. It is not a good feeling, so we try to calm our anxiety by calming their anxiety.  "You know, let me go talk to Person B, I'll FIX IT!"

And this was the statement that stopped me cold:

The only way a person can become more emotionally mature is by learning to manage their own anxiety. 

Wait, wait, wait! You mean when I was trying to be nice, trying to soothe their anxiety, it was EXACTLY THE WRONG THING to do???

I was a Well-Meaning Person.

I just wanted everyone to get along.

I didn't want anyone to feel anxious.

And then I had to admit to myself: I didn't want anyone to feel anxious, because when they were anxious, I got anxious. (This was my own emotional immaturity.)

Well-meaning or not, I usually made the problem worse. And the big picture was so unhealthy: I was keeping someone from growing. If I managed their anxiety, then they wouldn't have to. And so they would never mature emotionally.

GOBSMACKED.

CONVICTED.

Here's what I mean when I say "don't trust your instincts." I don't mean that you should always mistrust them. Some people have highly honed instincts that serve them well. An example would be a doctor, who just feels like something is "off" in a diagnosis.

What I mean is to look closer. Examine what your instinct is telling you. Be open to new information. Don't assume that because something feels normal that it actually is.

And don't assume that because your motivations feel right -- that you're a well-meaning person trying to help someone else -- that your actions are right.

So, what do you do when someone is vibrating with anxiety?

Stay connected, but still clear about where they end and you begin. They may offer you their anxiety. Decline politely. If you can sit with them in their anxiety while they navigate how they're going to manage it, it is a gift.

* Don't overfunction for them.
* Don't take their anxiety into you.
* If they trigger something in you, do your own work (away from them).

And if you're a leader and your organization has made a controversial decision based on the guiding principles of the group?

Stay Calm. Stay Connected. Stay the Course. 



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Me and My Collar

You may run into me on a Friday, in my neighborhood, so it's time I let you know what you might see. When I was doing my required unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), my supervisor suggested that any of us who came from traditions where a clerical collar was an option, take one "collar week," to see how we were treated, as opposed to wearing regular professional clothes. After a couple of days, I joked to the Catholic priest, "How do you manage the power?" In regular clothes, I would walk into a patient's room, and it would take about 5 or so minutes of introductions and pleasantries before we could really get down to talking about their feelings, their fears, the deep stuff. With most people, as soon as that clerical collar walked in the room, with me attached, they began pouring out all the heavy stuff they were carrying. I was riding the bus back and forth every day, and though not quite so dramatic, the collar effect was alive there, to
10 comments
Read more

Too Many Reasons to Kill

Along with discussing racism and common sense gun regulation, perhaps we should consider Cain Killing Abel, Daniele Crespi, Wikimedia something more basic - why, in the United States, do we have so many legal reasons to kill another person? My dad and I were talking about this whole Zimmerman thing, and some other cases that have come up. He recalled a conversation with a colleague from Germany. His colleague was an engineering contractor, here in Houston for a few weeks. They were at Guido's, enjoying seafood and beer, and his colleague was astounded at the long list of killings in the newspaper. He said that Houston alone had more killings than all of Germany. Yes, they have regulations about weapons in his country, he said, but more than that, "we do not have all those legal reasons for a person to kill another." Around the U.S., it's hard to make the case that we value human life, we have so many reasons to kill. If you feel threatened , if you're p
Post a Comment
Read more

We've Reached the "Tom Hanks Eating Raw Fish" Phase of the Pandemic

Last May, as it became apparent the covid-19 pandemic was not going to be a temporary affair, I wrote about the benefits of imagining you were shipwrecked on a deserted island.  Now, a year after we began hearing about the "novel coronovirus," I suspect that many of us have now entered the "Tom Hanks Eating Raw Fish" stage of the pandemic.  We've made the best of things. Rearranged home offices and homeschool desks. Got through the holidays, mustering as much joy as we could. There's a permanent hook or basket at the front door for our masks.  Most of us by now either know someone who died of covid, or are, at most, 2 degrees away. Our co-worker's husband's mother. Our friend's aunt. Or closer. We've grieved.  And now...we're just numb. We keep putting one foot in front of the other, because that's what we have to do. We eat, we drink, we sleep. We get our work done. We nag our kids to do school work.  But our affect is flat. Like Ha
1 comment
Read more