Thinking Systems Blog

It’s hard to forgive a wrongdoing. But there is a way to approach forgiveness that can be helpful to your well-being.

Research and interventions show the benefits of forgiving for the individual doing the forgiving. This makes sense, since forgiving help to reduce negative emotions. One approach is based on a REACH model that involves completing a workbook over several hours.

Very difficult relationships can lead one to ask why bridge cutoff. Karl Pillemer discusses this in-depth in his book Fault Lines. This post borrows ideas from that book. His work is based on extensive interviews and research. In my opinion, he adds a lot of practical thinking to the theory of cutoff.

In Bowen theory, emotional cutoff is a process that occurs between generations. It is a particular type of emotional distance and was so significant that Dr. Bowen made it one of the eight concepts in the theory. It would be impossible to talk about cutoff without discussing other concepts of the theory. Differentiation of self is another core concept and is fundamental to bridging cutoff.

During COVID, my wife and I, like many people, went for a daily walk in our neighbourhood. Over time, we would see the same people and say hi to them. It was a pleasant experience to have even a stranger smile and say hello. Of course, I wondered what the biological significance of this reaction could be. I decided that my body was getting "it's safe here" signals from other bodies.

It's not a giant evolutionary leap to come to that conclusion. We can instantly (within milliseconds) assess whether the incoming sights and sounds are a threat. Smiling faces would signal "non-threat" and even "more safety," depending on the situation.

Most of us avoid conflict for the wrong reasons. We perceive or “feel” that it’s going to be bad for us. A situation feels uncomfortable often because of what think may happen versus what is actually happening at the moment. Conflict threatens us, not because of the conflict itself, but because of what it might represent. The idea of conflict can mean different things to different people. We have different stories or beliefs about what conflict means, what we should or shouldn’t do around conflict, and how much we should avoid it. I think it’s useful to unpack some thinking about conflict, as this can help one handle conflict better.

Organizations often have a personality that reflects what the leadership decides is important. But just like with individuals, what a company says it'll do and what it actually does can be very different. That difference has a lot to do with the level of differentiation of the individual. I believe the same is true for a company. This is not referring to a marketing niche that is "differentiated" from competitors. I'm talking about the ability to be emotionally separate but connected to others or the level of differentiation of self. How might a well-differentiated leader impact the behaviour of their company? In many important ways, and the ways influence each other. The list below is NOT in any order of importance.

Facts versus fiction

One characteristic of well-differentiated individuals is that they recognize subjective, feeling-based thoughts as different from objective, fact-based thoughts. They know when they are 'making up a story' about something and that it is just that, a story, an opinion. Understanding all the facts of a situation, whether they are positive or negative, is important to them. These leaders encourage their teams to share good news and bad news.

How would a Bowen theory perspective help one handle climate anxiety? Does a systems perspective have something special to offer? I believe it does. While climate anxiety provides a timely context, I believe a systems perspective can help with any anxiety.

Humankind's impact on the planet is real and noticeable. It is affecting millions of people. The impact is also emotional, as it is a threat on many levels. For example, in British Columbia, we have dealt with fires, floods, heat, and air quality. We have had acute events that have had real and lasting effects.

The previous post discussed the calming cycle theory by Welch and Ludwig. Welch's study demonstrated that an adaptive emotional connection could be regained in premature infants and mothers. They could measure this based on an automatic calming effect on both. But how does this happen naturally?

Effect of person: emotional programming?

An insight into how individuals learn came from prior research on dog behaviour. Pavlov and Gantt studied animal behaviour using dogs, and part of this work involved making dogs anxious. However, they noticed that if the dog's handler petted it, its heart rate would slow. After repeated petting sessions, a dog would become conditioned to have a lower heart rate in the handler's presence. This calming effect was so distinct that they called it the "effect of person." This was not a top-down cognitive process, so what was going on? Is this a type of emotional programming?

New research has found important linkages between mothers at the autonomic nervous system level. This is part of our nervous system that is outside of our awareness. The linkage process starts in the womb and continues after birth. This process affects the mother's well-being and the infant's development. It's also systems theory in action.

Calming Cycle as Co-Regulation

Calming Cycle Re-Programmed - Family Nurture Intervention

• significantly improved FNI maternal caregiving behaviors at 36 weeks (Hane et al., 2015)
•  decreased maternal depressive and anxiety symptoms in infants assessed at 4 months of age (Welch, Hal- perin et al., 2016).
•  FNI infants showed highly significant increases in EEG power and decreases in EEG coherence at term age in frontal areas associated with socio-emotional outcomes that predict improved out- comes (Hane et al., 2015; Myers et al., 2015; Welch, Myers et al., 2014).
•  FNI infants also showed significantly improved social relatedness, attention, neurodevelopment, and decreased risk for autism spectrum disorder at 18 months corrected age (Welch et al., 2015, from Welch 2017)

Emotional Connection - the start of Emotional Programming?

How does a Bowen theory perspective inform the "terror of threes?"

Three major nuclear powers instead of two. Apparently, this is a big problem. Why? According to physics, "the three-body problem" is almost impossible to solve. Thus the title of the New York Times article "The Terror of Threes." But people aren't planets, so could a human systems model provide some insight? I think it can.