I observed a couple of interesting phenomena among the constituency as these changes were addressed by the leadership. One was the importance of strong leadership during times of change. Second was the anxious response of some in the group that necessitated the strong leadership.

The unsettling situation demonstrates the need for what is known as differentiation of self. This is the capacity to maintain one’s own emotional and rational bearings in the midst of outside pressures to conform, or when others are being emotionally reactive.

In his book A Failure of Nerve, Edwin Friedman defines differentiation as:

“Differentiation is the capacity to become oneself out of one’s self, with minimum reactivity to the positions or reactivity of others. Differentiation is charting one’s own way by means of one’s own internal guidance system, rather than perpetually eyeing the ‘scope’ to see where others are at.”

This capacity is as crucial in marriage and family relationships as in organizations. Each relational system needs strong, differentiated leadership. However, it’s important to note that the primarily leadership task is to lead oneself, not others.

The higher level of differentiation each marital partner, parent, child or sibling can exercise, the greater the capacity to form effective relationships in these systems. It’s a growth process that takes a lifetime to develop.

Friedman goes onto describe the characteristic mile-markers of this process:

·         The capacity to take a stand in an intense emotional system.

·         Saying ‘I’ when others are demanding ‘we.’

·         Containing one’s reactivity to the reactivity of others, which includes the ability to avoid being polarized.

·         Maintaining a non-anxious presence in the face of anxious others.

·         Knowing where one ends and another begins.

·         Being clear about one’s own personal values and goals.

·         Taking maximum responsibility for one’s own emotional being and destiny rather than blaming others or the context.

·         Being able to cease automatically being one of the system’s emotional dominoes.

Friedman is fond of saying that partners, parents and presidents are all in need of

high levels of differentiation. How true, especially in the midst of anxious times.

Our conversation reminds me of an observation made by several students of romantic relationships. The question is raised, “When you are at a restaurant, how can you tell which couples are married and which ones are dating?” The answer: The married couples don’t talk to each other.

This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, but it does merit consideration. Many couples who have been together for any length of time sit in silence with each other while they’re out to eat. My hunch is they probably sit in silence at home, too.

There are many theories on why this is so. They might be silent because they already know each other so well there isn’t anything left to talk about. They may be so comfortable with each other that there is no need for conversation. Or, they may simply be bored with each other. Each of these is a possibility.

I’m more inclined to agree with author David Schnarch’s hypothesis. Partners who have been together for long periods of time already know what each will say, and they find it too uncomfortable to hear it. Plus, each is reluctant to voice what they really want to say for fear of the likely response of their partner. It’s more comfortable to keep quiet, maintain status quo and not upset the apple cart.

We both faced these fears during our time together. We crossed a crucial threshold of intimacy. Intimacy dares to be honest and authentic. It doesn’t mean that we are unkind or harsh with that truth. It simply demands that we have courage and the confidence that we’ll be okay even if our partner may not like what we say, and vice-versa.

This is best summed up in Schnarch’s statement:

“I don’t expect you to agree with me; you weren’t put on the face of the earth to validate and reinforce me. But I want you to love me - and you can’t really do that if you don’t know me. I don’t want your rejection - but I must face that possibility if I’m ever to feel accepted or secure with you. It’s time to show myself to you and confront my separateness and mortality. One day when we are no longer together on this earth, I want to know you KNEW me.”

It’s admittedly scary to take this position. But it leads to growth and possibilities. It addresses the propensity toward boredom. The results are well worth it.

            We pass it onto our kids, telling them they can do anything they want to do. We back it up by not saying “no” to the constant demands and activities that come their way. We feel guilty even contemplating saying no, fearful that we’ll deprive them of an entitlement.

            Before we know it, our schedules are maxed. School events, sports, gymnastics, music lessons, sports, scouts, 4-H, sports, Tie-Kwan-Do, dance, sports . . . You get the picture.

            We adults aren’t much better. We pile on our own activities on top of dual income marriages, plus the kids’ schedules.

We find ourselves running back and forth to meet the latest deadline. What promises to generate quality family activity becomes a source of exhaustion and resentment.

The pastor stated that we Christians are just as guilty as anyone else. Perhaps we struggle even more. We can add an endless list of church activities to the above.

We tend to equate busy-ness with godliness. How many times when asked how we’re doing, we automatically respond, “I’m busy.” We say it in a way that implies that this is a desirable trait. “I’m busy, so God (and you) should be impressed.”

The pastor went on to say that such busy-ness misses the essence of Christianity. In our satiated schedules, God is often the first to be squeezed out. What do we do with the verse, “Be still and know that I am God?”

Many of us get sucked into this quagmire because we feel pressured. It’s expected of us. Unfortunately we fail to realize we have the right to question the expectation, the assumption, that we’re supposed it all.

As I listened to the sermon, some such questions came to mind:

Are we doing what is expected, or what is good?

Are we doing what is expected, or what is healthy?

Are we doing what is expected, or what is effective?

Are we doing what is expected, or what is important?

Are we doing what is expected, or what is valuable?

Are we doing what is expected, or what is right?

Give yourself permission to question. Give yourself the permission to not do it all (because, in reality, we can’t do it all).

You and your family will thank you for it.

            Much of what I observed between candidates would be best categorized as monologue. One candidate would talk at the other. They seldom exchanged ideas and engaged in each other’s philosophical processes. There was little true debate where one candidate seriously considered the other’s view.

            Truth be told, many couples do the same in their relationships. They take turns talking at each other, rather than with each other. Their predominant interaction style would be better labeled monologue rather than dialogue.

            Why is this? One reason is that monologue is much safer. If I talk at you, then I don’t have to risk hearing your position. As a result, I won’t run the risk of being influenced by you. I can keep a grip on my demand to be right, and thereby make you wrong.

            This posture doesn’t work very well, of course, for relationship building. It minimizes the other partner. It’s disrespectful, arrogant and frustrating. But that doesn’t stop some from persisting with it.

            When partners engage in power struggles, it’s often assumed that one’s partner wants to totally dominate and control the other. While that may be true in some cases, most of the time a partner doesn’t want to have total control.

Instead, they want to know they have influence—that their partner is giving them the respect to hear them out and to seriously consider their position. They want to know that their opinion matters to their partner.

This can only happen when partners engage in dialogue with each other.

            I observed a couple of interesting phenomena among the constituency as these changes were addressed by the leadership. One was the importance of strong leadership during times of change. Second was the anxious response of some in the group that necessitated the strong leadership.

The unsettling situation demonstrates the need for what is known as differentiation of self. This is the capacity to maintain one’s own emotional and rational bearings in the midst of outside pressures to conform, or when others are being emotionally reactive.

In his book A Failure of Nerve, Edwin Friedman defines differentiation as:

“Differentiation is the capacity to become oneself out of one’s self, with minimum reactivity to the positions or reactivity of others. Differentiation is charting one’s own way by means of one’s own internal guidance system, rather than perpetually eyeing the ‘scope’ to see where others are at.”

This capacity is as crucial in marriage and family relationships as in organizations. Each relational system needs strong, differentiated leadership. However, it’s important to note that the primarily leadership task is to lead oneself, not others.

The higher level of differentiation each marital partner, parent, child or sibling can exercise, the greater the capacity to form effective relationships in these systems. It’s a growth process that takes a lifetime to develop.

Friedman goes onto describe the characteristic mile-markers of this process:

·         The capacity to take a stand in an intense emotional system.

·         Saying ‘I’ when others are demanding ‘we.’

·         Containing one’s reactivity to the reactivity of others, which includes the ability to avoid being polarized.

·         Maintaining a non-anxious presence in the face of anxious others.

·         Knowing where one ends and another begins.

·         Being clear about one’s own personal values and goals.

·         Taking maximum responsibility for one’s own emotional being and destiny rather than blaming others or the context.

·         Being able to cease automatically being one of the system’s emotional dominoes.

Friedman is fond of saying that partners, parents and presidents are all in need of

high levels of differentiation. How true, especially in the midst of anxious times.

            My wife and I had that kind of experience over the weekend. Our second daughter competed in the Kansas Music Teachers Association District Fall Honors Audition.

            Rachel is a highly motivated, self-disciplined young lady. She’s been working on these particular compositions for the last year, practicing anywhere from 2-3 hours a day. This is in addition to playing volleyball, maintaining a straight-A average, participating in jazz and marching bands, and being in the school play.

            She’s performed this particular audition for a variety of audiences with great skill. During warm ups prior to her audition, she was hitting on all cylinders.

            But during the actual audition—in front of the judge, her instructor, her sister and her parents—the wheels fell off.

The first of her three pieces was an extremely complicated piece by Bach. She made it through the first movement in fine shape. But a few measures into the second movement, she hit a wall. She missed a measure, paused and tried again. Same result. She tried again. And again. And again.

            No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t hit the right succession of notes. It’s as if her brain and her fingers lost communication with each other. She was stuck. What she’d done flawlessly hundreds of times before, now escaped her.

            I was dying. I’ve watched my kids compete in athletes more times than I can begin to count. But nothing makes me as nervous for my kids as these piano auditions. I hurt so bad for Rachel, I could barely stay in my chair. I wanted to bolt out of the auditorium.

            Meanwhile Rachel stayed put at the piano and fought an internal battle of gigantic proportions.

            Finally, her judge offered to allow her to catch her breath and move onto her other two selections. Rachel agreed and played them with great finesse. She then returned to her Back piece, and pulled it off.

            Rachel demonstrated a maturity that many people way beyond her years never accomplish. She found a way to face her anxiety, master her reactivity, self-soothe and stay engaged with the task at hand.

            These are crucial skills for relational effectiveness and maturity. Without them, we’ll struggle being able to develop and maintain effective relationships.

            These skills can only be forged by going through the pressure cooker of real relationships. Like Rachel, we learn to do it by doing it. In the midst of the heat of the situation, we find ways to master ourselves and regulate our anxieties.

            I am immensely proud of my daughter. I’m proud of her musical skills. But way beyond that, I’m proud of her ability to face adversity, hold onto herself, and master her anxiety, even though it was painful for her.

            And I’m pleased to report that Rachel was justly rewarded for her musicianship and courage. She qualified to move onto the State level of the competition.

My wife and I have gone through the college send-off with our two older sons. But this was different for me. For one, my boys stayed pretty close to home for college. It didn’t seem like they were that far away. Plus, they are boys. Daughters are different, at least for this dad.

Memories of my daughter as an infant, toddler, and grade-schooler kept dancing through my head. Wasn’t it just the other day she was learning to walk and talk? Now she’s moving out on her own, far away from home. Ahh, the transitions of family life.

As we were walking through the airport, I spent a few moments alone with her for some father-daughter time. I asked her how she was feeling. “Kind of sad,” she said. “I hate airport goodbyes.”

“I’m feeling sad, too,” I replied. “But I’m also happy. I’m happy you have this opportunity. This is a great time in your life, and I’m excited for you. I’m taking the sad with the happy.”

That mixture of happy and sad seems be the nature of life. Life often has both sides of an experience happening simultaneously. We’re happy and sad. Circumstances seem good and bad. We’re appreciative and disappointed, hopeful and afraid.

Somehow it all gets wrapped up together.

It’s my experience that the more we can live with the ambiguity of such mixture, the more effective, resilient and resourceful we are. When we get locked into an either-or approach to life, we become rigid and life loses its options. Relationships grow more difficult. We feel very constrained and don’t have much room to breathe.

It’s a bittersweet time for me right now. I miss my girl, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

            As I read her statement, I paused momentarily with the thought, “Hmm. What if there isn’t such a thing as wasted time? Could that be possible?”

            I quickly moved on and didn’t give it much more consideration. Until a few days later.

            Over the weekend my wife and I took our daughters to Kansas City to celebrate our 14-year-old’s birthday. We were humming right along, making great time until we hit the south side of the metro area on I-35.

            Road construction reduced our trip to a stand still. We inched along as the road crew narrowed four lanes of traffic down to one. It took us 45 minutes to go five miles.

            While waiting in the long line of traffic, I began to grow impatient. Time we could be spending on the Plaza in the gorgeous weather was evaporating while stuck behind an obnoxious semi that belched out its diesel exhaust.

            As the anxiety mounted and irritation built, I was tempted to grumble and complain. Surely if I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel and gave loud sighs of exasperation, the traffic would open up.

            Then I remembered what I’d read, “There’s no such thing as wasted time.” I had a choice. This could be wasted time. Or it could be valuable time.

I often lament that we don’t have enough time together as a family. But here we were—all together with no distractions. My wife started a word game where we each took turns creating a metaphor that expressed our appreciation for our birthday girl.

After a while, the lanes cleared and we made it to the Plaza. More importantly, I was able to be present with my family and seize the opportunity the traffic delay created.

It turned out to be a wonderful waste of time.   

Have you heard this CD?

The Person in the Picture Ain't Me by Kareen King

Totally awesome!  I recommend it!

~k

Thanks to Kyle Knapp for recommending the CD. The artist is my wife, Kareen. The project tells the stories of the elder population who struggle with dementia and other age-related issues. She tells their stories in their own words. Kareen travels doing this presentation as a keynote concerts for various associations, events, conferences, etc. She also does a variety of workshops along with it. If you’re interested in learning more or having Kareen perform at your event, visit her website at www.kareenking.com.