Emotional dynamics in family and organisation systems

• Six Key Learnings for Personal growth

Personal Growth: Six Key Learnings

September 12, 2022

Personal growth: Individual Effort in Social Systems

Does an individual’s anxiety level vary when embarking on a journey of personal and spiritual growth? How would the existing social system react to the change? Would the level of anxiety vary over a long period? What sustains the individual on their journey? With these questions, I did a research project including in-depth interviews of ten family systems from different cultural backgrounds and localities. Here are some key lessons.

1. Personal growth is an individual effort.

As one grew and changed, the existing social system, such as one’s family system, would make a difference in the experience. The more calm and more supportive the family was, the lower the individual’s anxiety was. And vice versa. However, as the individual learned to proactively and independently grow and change, the individual embarks on a journey that is their own. S/he needs to find a new emotional, functional position with updated beliefs, moving towards differentiation from one’s old way of thinking and values. With this new functional position, no former family support would support or deter their progress in facing new challenges.

2. The level of anxiety could skyrocket when one progresses on the journey.

In the process, an individual confronts multiple pseudo selves, with the system testing their beliefs. One’s belief system is highly personal, so the process can trigger many emotional reactions. “Stress exposes the underlying emotional vulnerability. If one responds by addressing this vulnerability rather than attempting to avoid stress, one can learn to be more adaptive to stress.” The stress can be from 1) the conflicts between one’s new beliefs and one’s previous beliefs; 2) the conflicting thoughts, opinions, and behaviours of other individuals on the new journey; 3) the individual’s getting lost in the learning process of the new social environments. For example, the level of anxiety can skyrocket for one who has a hard time reconciling a high spiritual standard and their own flaws and imperfections. Here, the high standard is a stressor for the individual because of a self-judgmental attitude, a chronic pattern.

3. This lonely journey must happen within social systems.

One does not grow in isolation. Becoming a more mature and well-differentiated individual requires connecting with people. A common tendency is to seek support from other individuals with similar experiences. It may ease the anxiety in the short run before the individual finally finds a relatively stable new functional position in the system with updated beliefs. Sometimes, other individuals may further increase one’s level of anxiety. These people give the individual a place to work on differentiation!

To stay engaged in the learning process means maintaining one’s function despite anxiety in order to function as a more differentiated self, both in one’s newly founded journey and with one’s existing social systems. If the individual stayed engaged with both the learning process and their family as an integral part of their learning, with endurance, they would reflect on their experiences and solidify their own beliefs. This is a gradual process. In parallel, by staying in contact with the new community, individuals better define themselves. And staying in contact with their families of origin decreases the level of distance in the family system.

4. The social systems would gradually catch up.

If the individual maintains their level of functioning and stays in good contact, the system will “catch up” over a long period.  The emotional changes started by the individual’s journey do impact the family system. The family members, rather than projecting their anxiety onto the individual, adapt to the change of the individual. Paradoxically, the level of supportiveness from all families interviewed moved slightly toward the positive end of the spectrum. One’s effort in personal growth has a positive effect on the next generation.

5. Lower anxiety resulted from personal growth.

When individuals learned to adopt a new way of living and generate knowledge in a self-sufficient way, the level of anxiety goes down. The system establishes a new equilibrium after the first decade. From the cycle of doing-reflecting-doing, the individual gains a more comprehensive understanding of the learning process and achieves a balance between inward growth (e.g. prayer, meditation, reading) and outward growth (community building, teaching, services). At this stage, one no longer blames oneself or is overly anxious about one’s imperfection.

One is less affected by pressures from the family or the pressure from the individuals of the Community. Their own principles and convictions are supportive, and one can be open to friendships and consultation with others. One has the flexibility to listen, consult and adjust while adhering to a set of personal principles in line with one’s understanding of the Teachings. One takes ownership to change self to enhance one’s emotional connection with the surroundings, rather than relying on the community to change and provide support. A more mature person contributes to unity rather than consuming unity.

6. Having a research attitude helps.

Last but not least, the research project itself taught me about the healing effect of the research attitude. It helped me to see one’s challenges and difficulties with compassion and understanding. Struggles and tests in life are not an indicator of one’s level of differentiation and certainly not for self-blaming, but they form from a family projection process over many generations. This natural process sets the stage for us before our birth. But as actors on this natural stage, we have choices of how to play the role. To play it well is a lifelong effort that no one else can do for us.

Eve is a coach and a graduate of the Living Systems Clinical Training Program.  Read more about BOWEN THEORY

How would Bowen Family System Theory apply?

• clarifying family dynamics, restoring emotional connections, and cultivating mutual understanding across generations.

• apply system thinking in clarifying organization dynamics, developing team cohesion, and cultivating collaboration across teams

Meaningful Career

A meaningful career? First, draft a Vision Roadmap.

Eve Yi Chi 

November 26, 2016

“How can one have a meaningful career?” Often times, it is a question that needs to be redefined. Firstly, what is career? The word career is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a person's "course or progress through life (or a distinct portion of life)". Therefore, career is associated with ‘life-long’, ‘learning’ and ‘progresses’. It does not have to be related to financial transaction or occupation. Unfortunately, today there is a pervasive view of seeing economic activities as the center of life and reducing our life-long learning processes to merely economic level. Therefore, we cannot talk about meaningful career without talking about meaningful life.

Life is a portfolio. One’s relationship with the universe, one’s education, profession, recreation, family and community are all parts of one’s life. So before diving into a world of jobs, it would make sense to take a step back and ponder the meaning of life, the essence  and purpose of being a human, what matters you most, before examine how a job would fit in the whole picture. To draft such a Vision Roadmap is a process of illustrating one’s values, and to organize various aspects of life around the life-long learning process. Such a process is ever-evolving. 

We will talk about the second step in the next post. 

Meaningful Career

A meaningful career? Second, define your relation with the Universe.

Eve Yi Chi 

Having drafted the Vision Roadmap, you have probably got some idea on what ‘life-long learning’ means to you. If so, congratulations - You are already half way there. As in a Chinese proverb, ‘Great beginning is half the success.’ And the next, to make this map work for you, is to define your ‘relation with the Universe’: your vision and mission in life.

As a process of marching into the unknown, one’s ‘life-long learning’ about oneself and one’s environment, on one hand, is achieved by carrying out activities that develop the environment such as other people, the organizations and the societies. On the other hand, learning is not merely a combination of activities. For no matter how many progresses actions could generate, to march into the unknown requires a sense of direction, a sustained source of inspiration, and the steadfastness in difficulties. Therefore, ‘life-long learning’ has a twin sister, which is one’s ‘relation with the Universe’. Human beings are intrinsically attracted by beautiful things and each person has a unique appreciation for beauty. What does beauty mean to you? What are you attracted to? What is your vision of the world and your mission in it? What may be of help for this step is to ponder what would be the answers from those who you admire, either is Mother Teresa, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, or 'Abdu'l-Bahá.

There are three common traps people usually find when clarifying such vision and mission.

Trap #1: Social Entrepreneurship

There are two types of conceptual framework of social entrepreneurship. The first is to see social entrepreneurship as using economic means to tackle social issues. It points out that the pursuit of social good is not always rewarded by the financial system, while at the same time including the financial pursuit as an integral part of the endeavor, without clarifying how to reconcile the two often misaligned aspects. In short, it recognizes the issue of such misalignment while is based on the same misalignment at the same time. The motivation duality in creating social good and creating financial results often lead to Cartesian anxiety and confusion in the measurement of the success. (As for how to look at wealth and its function in betterment of the society, we will discuss in future post titled “Rethinking Wealth”.)

The second type of conceptual framework is that social entrepreneurship is for social good and does not have to be associated with material means. The value of this framework is that it is shielded from the misalignment between social good and financial system and encourages pure motivation. However it does not answer the definition of the social good. Not pursuing financial goods does not necessarily lead to social goods. It does not clarify in the measurement of the success either.

The mind cannot solve the problem which is created by the same mind. Similarly, we cannot solve the issue in the system without being aware of the baggage we inherited from the same system, either a culture, a habit of thought, or a pattern of behaviors. To solve the misalignment between social good and financial system, we cannot marry the existing solutions, nor can we be ignore how financial resources work. Instead, we need to go deeper to examine the perpetuate issues embedded in our social, economic, financial, healthcare, environmental, governance and all other existing systems. One relevant question laid in front of us is how to develop an on-going cycle of reflecting, acting, consulting and learning as a process leading to more and more coherence between material means and social ends.

Trap #2: Financial Independence (FI)

The second trap is to see ‘financial independence’ as the solution. We are not against FI here. The trap is that it equals the option of not worrying about income with living a fulfilling life. Well, if that’s true then all retired people should be living a fulfilling life.

Universal House of Justice (the highest administrative body of the Baha'i Faith) indicted in the letter dated April 2 2010, "The acquisition of wealth is a case in point; it is acceptable and praiseworthy to the extent that it serves as a means for achieving higher ends—for meeting one’s basic necessities, for fostering the progress of one’s family, for promoting the welfare of society, and for contributing to the establishment of a world civilization. But to make the accumulation of wealth the central purpose of one’s life is unworthy of any human being."

FI does not mean detachment from financial pursuit, nor does it mean being shielded from any life challenge, if not more. FI is still the mere financial aspect of life. A meaningful career is about how to live proactively in one’s being and doing, rather than the option of not doing something. What would you do if you already have enough?   

Trap #3: Power as Enabler

Sometimes people think they can create changes once occupy a higher position in social or organizational hierarchy. This opinion only makes sense when one envisions contributing to a world based on merely power and forceful actions. Actually, it is because of the misuse of power there is corruption. As a society, we need to learned to develop effective institutions free from misuse of power, the institutions which educate and inspire individuals to make conscience choice voluntarily, and the institutions with love rather than the punitive attitude.

In sum, to clarify our relation with the Universe, our vision and mission in life, is not a quick fix. Economic issues cannot be solved in isolation. We need to consider, examine and understand the intertwined non-economic forces. Only when we admit that we do not have the answer, and only when we are ready to face what we are not aware, we would be able to start marching into the unknown. We hope that when defining your relation with the Universe, your vision and mission in life, you would manage to recognize those intertwined forces, to avoid false dichotomy and any kind of extremity, and to develop an on-going cycle of reflecting, acting, consulting and learning.