The Fake Maturity of Emotional Distance

Embracing the spiciness of moving towards someone

Annual migration of Adélie penguin in South Orkney Islands. Source: Shutterstock

Anxiety, or lack thereof, is a terrible measure for growth.

When I reflect on the year, in many ways I feel less mature in my own functioning. There was more reliance on triangles to manage tension. More rumination over whether I should have sent that email or said that opinion out loud.

But I try to remind myself that things get spicier up close. That distance is a variable which can make us appear more mature than we actually are. Avoidance of situations that require our emotional courage can create a sense of pseudo-maturity.

In other words, we rarely encounter ourselves at a distance from others.

A person who feels calm and in control of themselves in reality might be in a very inflexible position in their family or another system. Distance works until it doesn’t.

So instead of asking myself, “Did I feel less anxious this year?” or even “Did I grow up a little this year?”, I’m trying to ask myself, “Did I become more acquainted with my own immaturity?”

And I can say yes to this question in a way that I couldn’t in previous years, and that’s something. I’m playing the long game here.

So I’ll turn it to you and ask,

How did you get acquainted with your own immaturity (or automatic functioning) this year?

When did you choose distance over an opportunity to learn about your functioning and a system’s functioning?

When did emotional distance give you a kind of pseudo, “I’m above it all,” sense of maturity?

What anxiety do you see as the price of being more present?

Fake maturity could look like:

• Relating to people only in groups rather than one to one.

• Asking someone lots of questions to avoid talking about yourself. (Hi, it’s me.)

• Declaring neutrality or apathy to avoid having to define your thinking about a decision.

• Focusing on how little someone contacts you rather than how you want to stay in touch with them.

• Focusing on how open and honest others are, rather than how you want to represent yourself.

• Only talking about your kids with someone instead of yourself.

• Only talking about others with someone instead of each other.

• Focusing more on how someone runs a meeting than how you want to participate in it. (That one hurt.)

• Getting information through triangles/gossip rather than asking people about their thinking.

We are connected whether we are in contact with people or not. “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.” Distance can regulate the intensity of the closeness. At times it is the right choice. But is it a choice? Or are you just being dragging along by the quickest way to calm down?

Cheers to moving towards your immaturity in the new year. Towards the spiciness of being a person who has to cooperate with others and hold onto themselves. Cheers to taking up opportunities to get acquainted with ourselves and others, and developing the versatility to be present in important moments, in our families and other groups.

Want to read other newsletters I’ve written about distance? Here are a few:

25 Ways We Use Distance to Manage Anxiety

Tired of Superficial Connection? It’s Time to Get Creative.

The Power of Contact

News from Kathleen

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Locust Swarms and Thanksgiving

Thinking for yourself when you're caught in the togetherness

Migratory locusts crawling on a maize plant. Source: Shutterstock

This holiday season, I’m thinking about locusts.

Did you know that locusts have kind of a Jekyll and Hyde thing going on? In times of plenty, they mostly stick to themselves. But when food is limited, they crowd together. They bump up against each other, which triggers an increase in serotonin, which transforms their little solitary selves into a social, terrifying, crop-destroying swarm.

In this social state, the locusts have to keep marching forward. If they stop, they might get their butt chewed off by the locusts behind them.

I don’t know about you, but organizations and families can sometimes function like this. In tough times, we go along at the expense of our own individuality. Nobody wants to get their butt chewed off!

“As threats crop up, groups tighten. As threats subside, groups loosen. Threats don't even even need to be real. As long as people perceive a threat, the perception can be as powerful as objective reality,” writes Michele Gelfand in her book Rule Makers and Rule Breakers.

So why am I talking about this a week before American Thanksgiving? My hope is that folks can be a little more curious about how their families function. And have a little more choice in how they function. Unlike the locusts, we have a tad more say in whether we chug along with the anxious functioning of the group. When a group gets tense, we have the capacity to stop and ask ourselves, “Is this really a threat?”

What does shifting out of the swarm, out of the togetherness, look like for you this holiday season?

Maybe it looks like:

• Moving towards someone you’d normally avoid.

• Talking to someone one-to-one instead of using another as a buffer.

• Saying, “Well I think about it differently,” rather than staying quiet or trying to convince.

• Calming yourself down rather than trying to calm others down.

• Not frantically overfunctioning for people.

• Letting others navigate their relationships with people.

• Letting people be disappointed.

• Being more flexible with how things are done.

• Not trying to lecture people on how they need to be more flexible.

What would you add to this list?

How could seeing the rigidness of the system as an adaptive response keep you from getting too focused on changing others? Can it keep you more focused on who you want to be in the middle of it?

If you need more holiday resources, you can check out my Thanksgiving Family Anxiety Bingo board from last year. I’ll be back next week with a post for paid subscribers, and I’ll see you free folk in December. Have fun!

News from Kathleen

Reading: Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell

Buy my new book, True to You! (If you didn’t get the preorder bonus workbook, just reply to this email letting me know where you bought the book, and I’m happy to email you one.) If you bought my book on Amazon, could you leave a review? I’m in need of some more so other folks can find it. Thanks!

Want to read more of my writing? Read my books or my newsletter archives. Paid subscribers can access the entire archive.

Email me if you want me to speak to your group or are interested in working with me. Follow me on Linkedin, Facebook, or Instagram.

Want to learn more about Bowen theory? Visit the Bowen Center’s website to learn more about their conferences and training programs.

When the Launch Window Opens

Seizing opportunities for better relationships

Mars rover Curiosity. Source: Shutterstock

In October, the launch window to Mars opened up. This only happens every 26 months, and depending on the goal, teams have anywhere from a few minutes to a few weeks to launch their mission.

This is a helpful metaphor for me for the upcoming holidays. Sure, technology gives us access to each other all the time, but there are certain windows in the life of a family or system that are unique. They provide us with in-person opportunities to observe patterns and move towards people.

For families, these opportunities could be events like holidays, deaths, illness, births, weddings, religious rites, or big decisions.

• What are the upcoming launch windows in the life of your family, your organization, your congregation, your community?

• What would be the evidence that you had taken a launch window and done something with it?

• What does it take to show up and learn something about yourself and others? How much contact, and what kind of contact does it take?

I’m always fascinated when someone makes the transition from dreading contact to being curious about it. How they begin to move into someone’s orbit and see what they can do with themselves. I think it helps when people recognize that failure is an essential piece of the effort. We learn just as much from those missions as the successful ones, if not more.

These efforts don’t happen organically. They require analysis and planning, because it’s all too easy to talk yourself out of the opportunity. To say, “I’ll catch the next window, the next holiday, the next event.”

My hope for anyone, including myself, is to take this exploratory spirit into relationships this holiday season. To embrace the unfamiliarity of some of the territory. And if you need to give your trip home a NASA-style mission name, then by all means go for it.

Do whatever keeps you interested and open to a new way of relating.

News from Kathleen

Buy my new book, True to You! (If you didn’t get the preorder bonus workbook, just reply to this email letting me know where you bought the book, and I’m happy to email you one.) If you bought my book on Amazon, could you leave a review? I’m in need of some more so other folks can find it. Thanks!

Want to read more of my writing? Read my books or my newsletter archives. Paid subscribers can access the entire archive.

Email me if you want me to speak to your group or are interested in working with me. Follow me on Linkedin, Facebook, or Instagram.

Want to learn more about Bowen theory? Visit the Bowen Center’s website to learn more about their conferences and training programs.