Reminding People You're in Charge of Yourself

What do you do when others try to overfunction for you?

In case you missed it, the bonus companion workbook is now available for folks who’ve preordered my upcoming book, TRUE TO YOU. You’ll also get a sneak peek at a chapter from the book. Preorders help the publisher know how many copies to print, so if you know you want a copy of the book, buying it now is the most helpful. In other news, last week I answered a question about forgiveness for paid subscribers.

I’ve written a lot about overfunctioning for this newsletter, but I wanted to think a different challenge this week—the fascinating challenge we face when people feel comfortable overfunctioning for us.

Almost every day we encounter people who will attempt to be over-responsible for us. Maybe your partner is advising you as you complete a chore, or a colleague keeps reminding you about an upcoming meeting. I once had a guy on Zoom try to give me advice (via chatbox) in the middle of my presentation. Humans are gonna human.

When others try to be irresponsibly overinvolved with us, we tend to respond rather predictably:

• We slip into an underfunctioning position, letting them take over.

• We lash out, struggling to manage our emotions.

• We try to teach them how to not overfunction for us.

• We complain to others.

• We try to avoid these people.

There’s another option here, which is to define yourself and your capabilities to the other person. But how do you tell the difference between teaching others to not overfunction (ironically a kind of overfunctioning itself), and defining yourself to them?

Here are some examples:

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Situation: Your colleague is giving you excessive advice on a project.

Focus on the other: “You need to stop giving me so much advice.”

Focus on self: “I want to see what I can do with this on my own. I’ll let you know if I have a question.”

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Situation: Someone keeps finishing your sentences for you.

Focus on the other: “You need to learn to be more respectful!”

Focus on self: “I’m happy to share my thinking when you can give me the space to do so.”

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Situation: Your partner is telling you how to peel an orange.

Focus on the other: “Why are you always so critical of me?”

Focus on self: “Let me show you how high I can fly!”

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Humor doesn’t always work, but I do think lightheartedness can do a lot to interrupt a relationship pattern. It seems to jolt people out of rigid ways of relating.

These examples aren’t instructions. People come to their own best thinking about how to respond when others try to dominate them. Often it has less to do with communication, and more with stepping up and being more responsible. Or simply ignoring attempts of others to manage them. A person doesn’t have to announce that they’re changing their behavior for things to be different.

When have you tried to change another’s part in an over/underfunctioning pattern, rather than focusing on your end? When you change your part, you make the relationship more flexible. You make it something different. The other person can no longer manage the anxiety by overfunctioning for you.

What are upcoming opportunities for you to do something different when someone tries to be over-responsible for you? Here are a few that come to mind.

• A friend keeps anxiously asking you if you’re okay.

• Someone starts directing your driving from the passenger seat.

• Your partner is telling you that you need to go to bed.

• Your boss keeps micromanaging you.

• A sibling gives you excessive parenting or career advice.

• Someone speaks for you in a meeting where you’re present.

• Your mother tries to tell you how to take care of yourself.

It isn’t your job to teach people to treat you like you’re capable. It’s to define your own capability, and to demonstrate it by acting like a responsible human. A person who is doing this work may find that they are less reactive to people’s attempts to overfunction for them. They are less sensitive to the intensity that others bring into the room and better able to direct themselves by their own best thinking.

Cheers to showing yourself, and others, what you can do with a challenge.

News from Kathleen

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Bonus content is finally here! Preorder True to You, submit your info here, and download the workbook + sneak peek of a chapter.

Want a signed, personalized copy? You can preorder it from my neighborhood bookstore, East City Bookshop, the best bookshop of all the bookshops.

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

How Loneliness Changes Us

And how systems thinking could help.

Shutterstock

Happy Tuesday! Excited to let you know that the preorder bonus for my upcoming book, True to You, is finally available. The amazing folks at St. Martin’s set up a page for you to enter your order info and immediately download the companion workbook + a sneak peek of a chapter from the book. (Yes, it’s the chapter on overfunctioning.) So this is me, asking you to preorder my book. More preorders = more retailers order it for their store = more people buy it.

Also, the First Friday Q&A for paid subscribers is this Friday. You can email me your question at kathleensmithwrites@gmail.com or drop an anonymous question here.

If you’re a new subscriber, you can access the entire archive of my newsletter here.

Continued thanks to all 11,000+ of you for being on this ride. It is a real gift to get to write every week.

As someone who is self-employed and works from home, I think a lot about loneliness. Every week, I have to make sure I’m connecting with people who aren’t therapy clients or my immediate family. Because without that contact, emotions fill in the blanks. I’m more likely to assume people are annoyed with me, disagree with me, or don’t want to spend time with me, without much evidence.

Loneliness changes us, down to the cellular level. Dial up the sensitivity, and we tend to act in ways that produce the very outcomes we fear. If you assume someone doesn’t like you, you might act more standoffish around them. Assume your mother will never understand you, and you’ll probably contact her less, giving her fewer opportunities to do so.

In their book Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection, John Cacioppo and William Patrick wrote, “The secret to gaining access to social connections is being less distracted by one’s psychological business—especially the distortions based on feelings of threat.”

But how do you not be so distracted by your “psychological business?” One idea in Bowen theory is getting factual about your own functioning and the functioning of others. Because when you have a lot of contact with others, there are fewer blanks for the anxiety to fill in. You also get a lot of practice trying to not push those predictable buttons to get comfortable. For the lonely person, distance is often the easiest button.

Most research about loneliness focuses on the individual and their emotions. But a systems perspective helps us see that the sensitivity of an entire relationship system will vary, depending on the level of anxiety and the emotional maturity of its members.

Have you ever been a part of a family or an organization where potential threats were sensed in every corner? Where people spent a lot of time wondering whether others liked them or not? These groups probably have more a few members who feel deeply lonely, even when surrounded by others. People who are more likely to cut off, try to please others, or demand conformity. They might talk a lot how about how being “close” is important to them, but be unable to tolerate any attempt at it.

We miss a lot when we don’t consider how the system affects one’s “psychological business.” The more closed the system, the more the anxiety reigns.

A few other facts about loneliness:

• Impairs mental performance.

• Makes the support you do get seem less fulfilling.

• Increases your body’s inflammatory response.

• Makes you less accurate in interpreting facial expressions and vocal tone.

• Makes you more critical of others, even potential friends.

• Increases the odds you’ll go along with the group.

• Increases your vulnerability to impulsive behavior.

You can be intimidated by this list, or you can hold the science in your brain, letting it help you manage yourself differently when you feel lonely. Maybe you’d think twice before writing off a potential new friend. Maybe you’d catch yourself when you hear your brother’s voice as dismissive. Maybe you wouldn’t join that weird, culty group just to feel connected to something.

And the next time you feel lonely, try asking yourself, “What’s been going on in my relationship systems?” Or, “How could contact provide new data?”

How much contact do you need to have with people in a system to:

1. Better self-regulate the emotions stirred by perceived isolation?

2. See the reality of what’s happening in your relationships?

3. See the reality of how the system operates, both in the past and present?

I’m going to say a lot of thoughtful contact! Showing up for important meetings or events. Asking people what they think instead of assuming. Asking people if they want to hang out instead of mentally saying no for them. Trusting that people can learn to deal with differences in thinking. Giving your prefrontal cortex the chance to override that easy response, which is to stay distant.

What can happen in a system when one person is less distracted by their “psychological business” and more focused on operating as the kind of person they want to be? When they can see their own loneliness not as a personal failure, but simply another data point in the functioning of a system?

I think it takes the pressure off. I think it gives people a freedom to operate in a way that is less about blaming oneself and others, and more about solving problems and pursuing relationships. Feelings of loneliness will come and go, but how we function in our relationships is the real story.

News from Kathleen

Like this post and want more? Consider upgrading your subscription to receive weekly newsletters and other resources.

Bonus content is finally here! Preorder True to You, submit your info here, and download the workbook + sneak peek of a chapter.

Want a signed, personalized copy? You can preorder it from my neighborhood bookstore, East City Bookshop, the best bookshop of all the bookshops.

Want to read more of my writing? Get my book, Everything Isn't Terrible or check out my newsletter archives.

Email me if you’re interested in Bowen theory coaching or want me to speak to your group or workplace. 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.

Families, Positions, and What It Takes to Play Ball

Why change is an opportunity to get more flexible.

Clari Massimiliano / Shutterstock

My daughter played in her first softball game yesterday. Rather than walking a pack of five year olds through complicated rules, their coaches threw them in and let them play. Predictably, some of them ran to the wrong base or chased butterflies in the outfield. But it was fascinating to watch how quickly they picked it up, falling into the rhythms of the game.

Like the rest of us, they were built to cooperate. Add some group cheers, high fives, and new uniforms, and you’ve got more than enough oxytocin to get them working as a unit.

Watching kids navigate the game, and each other, made me think about how no one teaches you to be in a family. We’re thrown in, and somehow we find our spot in the mix. That position might look like running the show, pleasing others, or keeping a comfortable distance. We’re quite brilliant at organizing ourselves to manage tension or navigate challenges.

Our comfortable positions are both a feature and a bug. Someone can be very cozy at first base, but not know what to do with themselves in the outfield. Working on one’s own versatility in the relationship system, the ease with which we can move into different ways of relating, is a gift to oneself and the family. In baseball, the people who can play multiple positions are called utility players.

If our families and organizations never changed, then we could probably get away with staying at first base. But our systems are in almost constant transition. New siblings are born, people die, kids go to college. People get married, divorced, or very sick. A leader leaves and a new one is chosen. The anxiety goes up and down. What a difference it makes when someone is curious in these times. When someone is less likely to blame, or diagnose, or try to teach everyone else how to be.

Change is an opportunity to get more flexible. To learn to move around the field, depending on the needs of the system and one’s own beliefs and interests.

Getting more flexible could look like:

• Taking directions if you’re most comfortable being a leader.

• Helping out with an aging parent when your sibling usually steps in.

• Learning a skill your spouse usually handles.

• Moving towards people you tend to avoid.

• Listening when you’re quick to finish people’s sentences.

• Speaking up when others are more than happy to talk for you.

• Working with a group when you love to fly solo.

• Generating internal motivation when you love praise.

• Connecting with people who think about challenges in a different way.

• Talking with someone rather than asking another to deliver your message.

• Managing your distress while your child learns to navigate a challenge.

Learning to operate with more versatility requires a lot of practice, a lot of person-to-person contact. It also can generate a good deal of anxiety, because others may want you to stay at first base. In these moments, your only job is simply to keep playing ball. And possibly have some fun while you’re doing it.

It’s been helpful for me to think about the people in my life who are utility players. They seem comfortable stepping up as leaders but are also curious about the thinking and strengths of others. They are capable of helping, but they also can just be interested and along for the ride.

I’d like to live that way, mirroring the spirit and versatility of these girls playing softball. Little kids seem to accept that a good deal of chaos, hilarity, and missteps are to be expected in life. As adults, it’s easy to forget what we miss when we stay comfortable in our positions, the places we settle in our families and other groups.

What would it look like for you to move around the field a little, in your family or another system? How much contact would it take for you to get the hang of it?

News from Kathleen

Like this post and want more? Consider upgrading your subscription to receive weekly newsletters and other resources.

Bonus content and a sneak peek forthcoming! The folks at St. Martin’s are putting the finishing touches on a bonus workbook I’ve written just for newsletter subscribers who preorder my next book, True to You. They’re also including Ch. 4 from the book (the chapter on overfunctioning!), so you’ll get to read it early. I will have a link up soon for you to submit your info.

Want a signed, personalized copy of my next book? You can preorder it from my neighborhood bookstore, East City Bookshop.

Want to read more of my writing? Get my book, Everything Isn't Terrible, from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or your local bookstore (best option). You can also check out my newsletter archives.

Email me if you’re interested in Bowen theory coaching or want me to speak to your group or workplace. 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.