A Year Without Overfunctioning for Others

How to help your brain shift out of anxious over-responsibility.

Happy New Year! Thanks to everyone for their continued support. A reminder that this Friday I’ll continuing with my monthly Q&A for paid subscribers. You can email me at kathleensmithwrites@gmail.com (I’ll keep your identify confidential) and I may answer your question on Friday. - K

A few days into the new year, when everyone is doing the dreaded “circle back,” it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. It’s tempting to shove tasks and responsibilities onto the chopping block to temporarily relieve the anxiety.

Rather than weaseling your way out of every commitment, consider first looking at your relationships. Three days in, where has your energy already wandered out of its lane? How have you already acted over-responsibly for others?

Let me just say, as someone who told my incredibly responsible husband at least four things he already knew this morning, I feel you. I want a year where I’m treating people like the capable humans they are. A year where I’m trusting people can say no if they don’t want to hang out with me. Maybe I’ll get really wild and not delete those exclamation marks from emails, trusting people can handle my enthusiasm!

What could a year with less overfunctioning look like?

• Someone might worry more because you didn’t write “No worries” in that email.

• A family member will forget someone else’s birthday.

• You’re not anxiously finishing people sentences when they’re fumbling with their words.

• You watch someone take on a project you suspect will fail.

• Your spouse might not pack your kid’s lunch exactly the way they like it.

• You let people do a task less efficiently than you might.

• You’re telling people you want to hang out with them rather than assuming they find you annoying.

• You treat people like they can handle your thinking.

• You let people dislike their meal or manage their bad mood.

• You let someone take a wrong turn.

• You let your child learn that disappointment is manageable.

• A ball drops because you didn’t catch it.

It’s easy to romanticize a life with less overfunctioning. But we become what Dr. Bowen called “irresponsibly overinvolved” with others for a reason. Stepping back is tough. It increases the anxiety in the short term. Watching a colleague fumble through a task, or a parent try to change their iPhone settings, can be just as demanding on your brain than doing these things yourself. This is how you can end up feeling exhausted on days days you haven’t done much.

Changing these behaviors isn’t simply a matter of willpower, of gritting your way through an interaction. One has to consider how you give yourself, in particular your pre-frontal cortex, the best chance of changing strategies, rather than hitting that predictable OVERFUNCTION button over and over.

We give ourselves the best chance of evolving when we’re managing our stress in a more responsible way. And when we’re creating opportunities to be curious about our functioning. For one person that might look like exercising more and going to therapy. For another, it could be singing in a community choir and keeping a journal about their relationship observations.

Interrupting overfunctioning is a combination of stepping back and stepping up.

1. We step back to observe the relationship and its patterns. To give people an opportunity to show us that they are capable.

2. We step up by giving ourselves something else to chew on. By becoming more responsible for ourselves and how we manage stress, so we don’t need the predictable relationship pattern of over/underfunctinoing as much to steady ourselves.

Look, I’m not saying that becoming a birder or taking a barre class will make you stop flinching when your partner loads the dishwasher the wrong way. It’s not magic. But what Dr. Jenny Brown calls “making a project out of yourself” can free up a relationship to be something more than the over/underfunctioning seesaw it often is.

So here’s a fascinating research project, if you want to take it up. Does learning to manage stress more responsibly decrease your tendency to overfunction for others? Are you less anxiously focused on your child’s challenges, your mother’s immaturity, or an organization’s dysfunction? And more curious about who you want to be in these relationships?

Your assignment: Make your own list of what a year with less overfunctioning might look like. Now make a list of what you want to be curious about instead. How would you like to manage stress better? To give your brain a chance to do something new in your relationships? Let me know how it goes.

News from Kathleen

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