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Welcome to episode 289 of The Non Anxious Leader Podcast. I'm Jack Shitama, and if you are new to this podcast, you can connect with me at thenonanxiousleader.com. you can subscribe to my Two for Tuesday email newsletter there or at a link that I will provide in the show notes. And if you have ideas or questions that I might address in future episodes, feel free to email me@jackristianleaders.com. dot this week I'm continuing my interview with Doctor Kathleen Smith, who is on the faculty at the Bowen center for the Study of the Family and who has written two books, second of which has just been released. It's entitled true to you, a therapist's guide to stop pleasing others and start being yourself. Her first book was Everything Isn't Terrible Conquer Your Insecurities, Interrupt Your Anxiety, and finally, Calm Down.

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Kathleen also has a free substack newsletter, the anxious overachiever, and there is a premium version that is only $5 a month, which I gladly pay. I will put a link to all of these resources in the show notes. And now, without further ado, here is episode 289, an interview with Doctor Kathleen Smith, part two of four. So in the opening chapter of true to you, it's titled how we lose ourselves. So can you describe what losing ourselves looks like?

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So in Bowen theory, Murray Bowen talked about how in any relationship, there's a little bit of give and take. We're all sort of giving up a little bit of what he called self to keep things steady or we're lending it, we're borrowing and lending. Somebody's in a position where they don't have to do that as much and the other person is right. It's useful to pay attention to all those daily small and big ways. We make accommodations and adjustments based on who's in the room. And again, I don't think of that as a good or a bad thing, but over time, what is the cost of sort of functioning in that way? I think about sort of, I talk about this in the book. If I'm telling a story to somebody, let's say somebody, I'm telling it to a relative versus a close friend, right? Or somebody who has different beliefs than me versus somebody who has the same beliefs as I do. How do I adjust, how I talk about something, how I present myself? That's just useful to pay attention to. Right. Or if, let's say somebody is acting, I'm working with a client and they're just really anxious and they don't know what to do.

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I know that my best thinking is not to just take over and tell them what to do, but if I am not careful, I will go along with that pattern and over function for them. Right. And that is a way of kind of losing self, losing one's own best thinking about how to be as a way of keeping things calm, you know? And so can you go throughout your day and notice all those small accommodations and adjustments as a way of keeping things steady or getting comfortable? And does it have to be that way? Is that an opportunity for maybe interrupting that a little bit of seeing what you can do with yourself? I mean, it's just. It's endless fun and endless and endless anxiety, too. Right? Right.

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I mean, just because you're calm on the outside doesn't mean you're not feeling anxious on the inside. And you use the terms, I think, that are very helpful. Managing anxiety, keeping calm, being able to kind of think in terms of what's going on in the situation. And I think I. When you talk about how all of these are ways that we're trying to be comfortable. Right. We're trying to avoid discomfort, I think it helps people to understand it better. So that said, what's the value of embracing discomfort so that. So that you can, you know, grow in terms of how you function?

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I think it, you know, as we talked about earlier, it adds a level of flexibility to the relationships. Similar what doctor bone called the emotional system. Right. For people to kind of exist outside of these rigid patterns of relating to somebody, you know, do I, can I be myself without giving in to pressure or without giving up on having a relationship with you? That's, you know, that's an interesting challenge. And so it's useful for the greater system, but I think it's also useful for the individual to be able to kind of relate to people in a way that they think is best. You know, I use the metaphor a lot of the ice cream flavors. Like, I think a lot of how we relate to people is very strawberry, chocolate, vanilla, you know, those neapolitan flavors. There's nothing wrong with them. Right. But there are a lot of other ways to be in the moment, ways that aren't about calming things down as quickly as possible. And how much does that set you up and the group up to be able to meet goals and solve problems when all of the energy isn't getting diverted towards keeping things calm.

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Right. So much of our energy goes into that. Right. If we're being honest with ourselves, I think interesting things can happen when you're willing to kind of acknowledge that some of that anxiety is kind of going to be present when you're doing it.

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And you talk about not just that as an individual, but groups or communities or organizations being able to do that. To what extent have you seen that one person can kind of provide or encourage or create space for others to do that?

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I think when one person is clear with themselves about what they think and what they believe and what their responsibilities are, but they're also not putting pressure on others to be any certain way, just the freedom that that could create in a system. Right. When you take a little bit of that pressure out, when people, you know, when people are able to use the front part of their brain a little bit more easily because they're not, other people aren't directing their anxiety at them. Right. We all have had these experiences where we're relating to somebody who's not involving us with how they manage their attention. That is a beautiful thing, you know, and I think it's so rare in day to day life, but you kind of have those what I kind of call unicorn moments where you're like, wow, what's going on with that person? You know, they were. That doesn't mean we always like it, but, you know, they were clear. They know what they're about to, but they're not trying to manage me. And that's great when you have people in your family who aren't trying to manage you, who are interested in you and invested in you in a less anxious way.

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I mean, that's what you're, your podcast and your work is all about, too, right? So the more of that, I think, the better.

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Yeah. I wrote a mini book. It's called everyone loves an on anxious presence. And I think it does kind of capture that idea that there's something about people who know what they're about and yet they're not trying to change you. There's a certain attractiveness or power to it that I think is really helpful, not just for leadership, but life, functioning in your own family and, you know, in your church or whatever, so in everything isn't terrible. Your first book, you say that curiosity is the opposite of anxiety. And I remember we met before and I asked you about this, and you didn't remember writing it, but that's okay because. Yeah, so. But I love that curiosity is the opposite of anxiety. Could you unpack that a bit?

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Yeah. Well, I think the first thing I'll say, it doesn't mean that a person who's curious doesn't have anxiety, right. But I think of it as that difference between the automatic and sort of the more intentional functioning that I described. Right. And what we just talked about, you know, that value of being interested. And how does that open up a different way of relating to people in very predictable ways. Right. If I'm interested, I'm engaging the front of my brain versus the kind of the back of my brain. Right. I'm asking questions that aren't about blame and that's what we do when the anxiety is in control. Right. It's sort of whose fault is it and how do I get away? Maybe it's my fault, maybe it's somebody else's. And how do I get away from this threat or manage it as quickly as possible. Right. And so when that, when that happens, then you get the boundaries between yourself and others. That's when they all blur the boundaries between what's my responsibility and what's not. That all blurs. It all just becomes about this sort of quick, quick fixing that you'll see occur. And so a person who's a little bit more curious is able to kind of tolerate responding to challenges in a way that's not about the quick fix.

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Doctor Mike Kerr, in his book about bone theory, he calls it activating grown up solutions. And I love that phrase. How much is a person who's curious able to activate grown up solutions, uh, more mature solutions than just sort of putting out those that are putting out the fire fixes that, you know, that's what the churches are up against now. There's a lot of anxiety about the future of things and so it becomes this sort of like quick fix. This is going to be the thing, you know, the, the temptation of that. When the anxiety's up, there's not a lot of curiosity in that.

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Right, right. Yeah. It's not a, it's, it's not a helpful response to challenge because it's a not taking a whole lot of responsibility. It's looking kind of to the outside for answers instead of in here. One of the things I love about your substack, your newsletter, is you explain things in family systems terms in ways that are different than I'm used to hearing. I think most people who've looked into family systems theory understand over functioning and under functioning. Could you unpack how they're related?

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Sure. So this is sort of what we talked about earlier. With this borrowing and lending of self that occurs. The anxiety goes up, those lines blur. What is my responsibility? What is yours? There's not a lot of clarity with that. Right. And so it's very easy for people to kind of shift into this seesaw of one person being more of or over involved or over responsible with the other and the other person kind of going along with that. It can work in both directions. A person can, can act less capable because they know somebody will take over and do it for them. Right. We, we do that all the time in our day to day lives and that's just how to, how sort of things shake out. You know, it's, it's um, it's sometimes described as sort of one person kind of trying to manage the other and the other going along with that, which is different than conflict, where you've got both people trying to manage and change the other. It's moving in both directions. But then you can also get the seesaw of over and under functioning. Doctor Kerr calls it one person being dominant and the other person being kind of adaptive.

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And going along with that pressure is another way of describing it. But I think it's useful to kind of look at the family and see where that pattern played out over time. It's often very easy to see and also sort of in organizations and congregations get set up when a leader is in that position and let's say, and then they leave. Right. I mean, it creates all kinds of challenges. So I think it's useful just in your day to day life to ask yourself, where am I? When do I shift into a pattern of being an over functioner or over responsible for people? And where am I under functioning? Because I know somebody will take over for me again, that just, that gives you those opportunities for doing something different, being a little bit more responsible for yourself, a little bit less responsible for others.

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Would you equate over functioning with lending yourself and under functioning with borrowing from others, or are they different?

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I mean, I think it depends. That's one way I would think about it. But the under functioner can also be the dominant one and people are making the adjusting to that person's under functioning. Right. So it can move, the pressure can move in either direction depending on the situation. So I think that's important to remember because we're very quick to kind of blame the over functioner, but it's a two part dance, you know, so somebody.

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Who'S, let's say, highly emotionally dependent and demanding could be actually an under functioner because they're, they're demanding other people to function for them.

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Yeah, they can be kind of a dictator in the family or in the system, and people are shifting and accommodating to keep that calm.

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Right. And to do that, they have to over function to, to keep that calm. Okay, that's really helpful. That's where we're going to stop. That's it for episode 289. I hope you're enjoying this interview. It's a different format than I usually do. I'd love to hear your thoughts. So email me at jack@cristian-leaders.com and if you are finding this helpful, if you like this podcast, please like it on the platform of your choice. And please share it with somebody who might also benefit. Until next time, thanks and goodbye.