When the Family Tightens Up
Why we take nature so personally
In anxious times, can you predict what people will do?
Living systems have to adapt to manage stress. Herds tighten. Locusts swarm. Chimpanzees groom each other. People get salty in the group chat.
Despite being a part of the natural world, humans spend an incredible amount of time feeling personally offended by how a group functions. (This isn’t surprising—we’re narrative creatures who see motive everywhere. It’s why you get angry at the couch when you stub your toe.)
What happens when a person begins to feel less offended and more interested in the predictability of the family or the group?
I think they began to have more choice over their own behavior.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how groups sometimes tighten up in response to stress. Have you ever seen this happen in your family, organization, congregation or country?
You might see:
Less tolerance for differences in thinking.
Less flexibility around traditions.
People feeling threatened by the contact you have with others.
Lots of “group processing” and fewer individual conversations.
More people triangled in to worry or take sides.
Excessive bureaucracy.
Decisions are focused on keeping things steady.
More worry about whether people like you.
(Systems can have other responses in times of stress. Maybe they get incredibly loose and distant. Maybe traditions or protocol are abandoned, and there’s a hesitancy to take a position on anything.)
What do you do when a system tightens up? Maybe you:
Go along with it.
Distance yourself.
Criticize every decision. (I never do this. . .)
Is there anything else on the menu? YES.
Let’s say your family is facing a challenge, like a death or financial insecurity. What happens when you can look at the system and say, “Yeah, it makes sense that things would be tightening up. That Aunt Marie would cling to those holiday traditions like a barnacle on a sea turtle.”
When happens when you can look at your workplace and go, “It’s not surprising that Bill would see my private conversation with the boss as a threat. Times are tense.”
Being less surprised can dial down your own reactivity, so you can choose how you want to engage with a very tense system.
Prediction creates flexibility.
It helps you:
Hold on to your thinking without trying to anxiously convert everyone to it.
Curb the impulse to automatically disagree with everyone because it feels good.
Not waste your energy trying to get everyone to function better.
Be a little bit calmer than the person in front of you.
Hang in there when you might normally distance.
Stay interested in the challenges.
Are you a part of any family or group that is experiencing a phase of tightness right now? Here are some questions that might be helpful.
When have you been personally offended or surprised by responses that are predictable?
When has your own criticism been more about managing stress than solving problems?
Who do you want to be in challenging times? How do you engage the group as a more thoughtful or responsible person?
Some other newsletters I’ve written about the value of prediction:
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