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Welcome to episode 210 of The Non-anxious Leader Podcast. I'm Jack Shitama. Before we get into today's episode, I want to let you know that another round of Family Systems 101, the free course that goes through my book, If You Met My Family, you'd Understand, starts on Tuesday, February 7, at 07:00 p.m.. Eastern Time. It's going to run for eleven weeks every Tuesday night from seven to 8:30. It's led by Brian Ivory, Lisa Reardon, and Dave Mullen, and it is a great experience if you are trying to learn and apply family systems theory. One of the participants in the last round was a retired school district superintendent, and she commented after the course that she couldn't help but thinking how helpful this would have been if she had encountered family systems theory earlier in her career. So if you want to be on non-anxious leader and you haven't yet done Family Systems 101, you can get more information by going to the show notes and clicking on the link there. That will take you to a page with information. And if you still want to sign up, then you can click to register there. And now, without further ado, here is episode 210 of Family Systems take on emotional labor.

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Today's episode comes from an article I found in The Atlantic by Julie Beck. The concept creep of emotional labor. And the subtitle reads, the term has become a central part of an important conversation about the division of household work, but the sociologist who coined it says it's being used incorrectly. That sociologist is Arleigh Hawkshield, and she coined the term in 1983 in her book The Managed Heart, and she defined it as managing one's own emotions as required in certain professions. An example that she gives is a flight attendant who has to be nice even to mean people. Now, immediately you would understand that this type of emotional labor is a form of self-regulation. Anytime you aren't able to self-define in a healthy way, you're having to regulate your own reactions so that you can produce the type of behavior that's called for in the situation. The term over the years, though, has been expanded quite broadly. Some even include household chores, which is kind of the crux of this article as emotional labor. And Hawkschild notes that chores are labor, but they don't necessarily require any emotional work. She noted that she is horrified by this definition creep.

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And so Julie Beck, the author of the article, interviewed Hawkshield for her understanding of what emotional labor is and how it applies today. The article gives more examples of the concept creep, such as writing Christmas cards or remembering to call in laws on birthdays and keeping todo lists. Part of the conversation about emotional labor is that many of the tasks that are related to keeping households and relationships running smoothly fall disproportionately on women. But hawks shield. Wants us to know that these are not emotional labor. She does, however, note that managing the anxiety around obligations, managing the anxiety around the chores, or the duties that come with keeping things running smoothly is emotional labor, but the obligations themselves are not. The key point here from a family system standpoint, is the obligations are things that you have to do. They may or may not include surrounding togetherness pressure. For example, if you have to figure out dinner, whether it's shopping and cooking or ordering out, you have to do it. That's just a task you have to do it's labor. If you're single, then you have no choice. You have to do it. There's nobody else to rely on.

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So it's not emotional labor. It's just labor. That doesn't mean it's not hard or exhausting or a plain old pain in the butt, but it's not emotional labor. On the other hand, if your spouse, partner, or roommate is either wittingly or unwittingly expecting you to take on the task, then there is surrounding togetherness pressure. You then have the choice to go along, even if you resent it, which is adaptivity or self define and say you prefer not to do it, or you want to come to an agreement on a fair way to share the duties. So that's the distinction. The duties themselves are not emotional labor. They're just labor. But the work involved in working through the expectations of others is emotional labor. It takes work to figure out what integrity in the moment of choice is, but in either case, whether you are intentional or not, it's still going to take an emotional toll on you. And so I believe that emotional labor can be a good thing when we are actually working through how to self differentiate. Now, according to Hawkshield's strict definition of emotional labor, it involves two components. First, it is evoking feelings that you don't really have.

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That is, it's faking it. And second, it's suppressing your real feelings. And according to Hawkshield, this occurs in a professional situation. This occurs when you are getting paid to do something. I think we all get the second part of that, which is suppressing your real feelings. The first part of that evoking feelings that you really don't have can be in a variety of work situations. She uses an example of a bill collector who needs to act harsh even when they don't feel it, or in addition to flight attendants, who have to act nice when they don't feel it. Hawkshield notes that teachers, nursing home attendants, and child care workers also fall into this category where they have to be nice even when they don't feel it. Even though Hawksfield does define emotional labor as coming within the work context. She does acknowledge that other aspects of life involve emotional labor. For example, she says managing to do lists is not emotional labor, but managing the anxiety you have around forgetting something is emotional labor. Again, this goes back to the distinction that the task itself is not emotional labor, but how we respond to it, how we process it, could involve emotional labor.

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In the interview, the author Julie Beck asks if doing other things to keep people happy or comfortable is emotional labor. Hawkshield separates what she calls mental work, like keeping a to do list or being expected to manage the office social gatherings and emotional labor, which she says occurs when the mental work provokes anxiety or fear. From a family system standpoint, this is exactly what Edwin Friedman means when he says, nobody gets the problem they can handle. If they could handle it, it wouldn't be a problem. Emotional labor has more to do with what's going on inside of us than the task itself. It has more to do with how we manage the task than the task itself. For example, Beck asks Hawkshield if expressing your ideas in a nonthreatening way at a meeting is emotional labor. Hawkshield responds, Only if it provokes anxiety and fear. Beck does note that women in particular have internalized an expectation to not be too assertive or threatening to men in these situations and asks if that internalized expectation is emotional labor. Hawkshield responds "I love attention to this, but we need to be precise about it. If, in the course of asserting yourself, you find that you are having to brace yourself against imagined criticisms, or people are looking disapproving and you realize your job may be in jeopardy, all of that bracing and anticipation and experience of anxiety I would count as, yes, emotional labor, but it's not welded into the task itself."

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For me, the bottom line here is that self-differentiation can involve emotional labor whether or not we are being paid to do something. When we are trying to exercise integrity in the moment of choice, it can be hard. Anytime we're feeling surrounding together in this pressure to act a certain way that isn't in line with our values, then emotional labor will be involved. This is where self-awareness and intentionality are so important. And for me, the concept of emotional labor is helpful because it's a reminder that self-differentiation doesn't happen automatically and it can wear us out. That doesn't mean we don't do it because it wears us out, but just acknowledging that it's hard makes it a bit easier to do. Also, in the stricter sense, if you are being paid to be inauthentic, that is, to self regulate and be nice when you don't feel like it, or to play a certain persona that doesn't feel like you, then it's important to face the fact that this will wear you out. In these cases, it's not necessarily helpful to self-differentiate in those moments because the job calls for something else. That said, self-differentiation in this case means that you own the inauthenticity.

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If you are able to say this job is important to me for X, fill in the blank because I need the money, I want to take care of my family or I'm making a difference in the world, remember, it's process, not content. If you can own that in authenticity, if you can say this job is important to me for whatever reason, and you can own it and not resent it, then that is self differentiation. If you can't, then it's time to think about a change. These are not easy things, but it's better than going through everyday exhausted and resentful. Life involves emotional labor, whether in our family, congregation or organization. The more we are aware of this and the more we own it, the more we can function as a nonanxious presence. That's it for episode 210. Remember, you can find a link to information to the Family Systems 101 Free course through the nonanxious Leader network at the show Notes. That's thenonanxiousleader.com/210 and you can always connect with me at jack@christian-leaders.com. Until next time. Thanks and goodbye.