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Welcome to Episode 138 of the Non Anxious Leader Podcast. I'm Jack Shitama, and this week we are going to do another chapter from my book. If you met my family, you'd understand Family Systems Primer. This is chapter five on Process, not content. This is learning how to recognize the difference between emotional process and the content of the situation and how you can manage things more effectively. Also, a reminder that the Family Systems Book study using this book starts on Tuesday, September 28, at 07:00 p.m.. Eastern Daylight Time.

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It runs every Tuesday for twelve weeks.

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It's free.

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I'll put a link in the show notes. It's led by Dr Brian Ivory. I'll be involved in the first and the last sessions. This is the third time we've done it, and people who have participated in the past have said it's really helped them to learn more about putting family systems theory into practice, both in their family and as a leader. And now, without further Ado, here is Episode 138, Distinguishing between Emotional Process and Content.

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Chapter 5
Process Not Content

“We fight a lot, you know, but that's family. We may be dysfunctional but we're still family.”
Star Jones

Separating emotional process from content is simple, but it’s not easy. It’s simple because in any interaction you can ask yourself, “What is the emotional process that is going on?” The content is whatever you’re discussing.
It’s not easy because most of us are more likely to speak without thinking. We automatically react to whatever is happening. This often takes the form of reactivity, which I’ll discuss in greater detail in chapter 6.
Without self-awareness and intentionality, we do life the way we always have. We are on autopilot. This means that we play all the scripts that have been programmed by our family of origin. Whether it’s unleashing or stuffing our own anxiety, or reacting to the anxiety of others, our tried and true patterns persist.
The problem is that “tried and true” is more like “tried and failed.” Because we typically function in self-differentiated ways about half the time, that means half the time our scripts are not working. We are triangling or being triangled. We are arguing with others or giving in without taking an emotional stand. We are the source of anxiety—or the object of it.
Understanding emotional process gives us a tool to get some perspective. Because it is not related to the content of the matter, it enables us to see things differently. When we view things from the standpoint of process, we are able to better regulate our own anxiety, as well as better able to respond in healthy ways. This starts by understanding the four patterns of interaction.

Four Patterns of Interaction

In any system, there is stress and tension. This is a part of life. The question is: How does the system respond? Family systems theory documents four patterns in the nuclear family.
The first is marital conflict. As stress increases, so does the anxiety of each spouse. Instead of dealing with it in a self-differentiated way, they create triangles. The content could be anything. The other spouse works too much, doesn’t pick up their underwear, watches too much TV, spends too much time on social media, doesn’t eat enough, ad infinitum. This is triangling: Instead of dealing with whatever stress there is (e.g., money, work, or kids), they focus on something that is wrong with their spouse.
In marital conflict, the other spouse will respond in kind, picking something about the spouse that needs “fixing.” This creates a dance where each criticizes the other, each resists being controlled, and the anxiety in the system increases.
The second pattern is when one spouse dysfunctions. This occurs when spouse A reacts to stress as outlined above, by triangling spouse B through criticism and efforts to control. In this case, spouse B adapts by giving in. Instead of standing up for herself, she goes along with spouse A to try to preserve harmony in their relationship. However, she can only do this for so long before her anxiety will increase and, if intense enough, may cause dysfunction in some other way. The symptoms will vary, manifesting in overeating, high blood pressure, substance abuse, etc. Note that this form of adapting can result in a dysfunction that affects the emotional or physical health of the spouse who is unable to self-differentiate when pressured by the other.
The third pattern is an unhealthy focus on one or more of the children. Instead of triangling each other, they triangle the kids. Typically, one of the parents will focus on one of the kids with either an idealized or a negative view of her (“She’s so smart, beautiful, dumb, irresponsible, etc.”). This is process, not content.
This intense child-focus results in the child becoming more reactive to the parents, making it less possible for her to self-differentiate. This can result in rebellion or an intense desire to please resulting in adapting. Neither is healthy, often affecting her academic performance, social relationships, or physical or emotional health.
The fourth pattern is distancing emotionally. When the anxiety of the system gets too intense for a poorly differentiated person, one way she will respond is to withdraw emotionally. Instead of reacting or adapting, she pulls away. The extreme case is emotional cut-off where there is no connection with one or more members of the system. If there is any connection in a cut-off relationship it is through triangled third parties. “Tell father I’ll speak to him again when he apologizes.”
Too much emotional distance creates anxiety in the system. Those who are distancing themselves will be pursued by those who are most anxious. This causes them to want to withdraw even more. This is the problem with the fourth pattern. The problem with the first three patterns is too little emotional distance, which creates conflict or adaptation.
All these patterns represent what is called an anxiety-driven regression. Instead of self-differentiating, people seek to relieve the anxiety of the moment by fighting, triangling, or adapting. From a process standpoint, the key question is whether someone is taking a clearly defined, non-anxious position. If they are, then this is not a regression; this is self-differentiation. If they’re not, then they are seeking to relieve their own anxiety in a way that is not healthy for themselves or the system.
The goal of a self-differentiated person in any system is to take responsibility for oneself and no one else, while remaining connected to others in the system, especially the most anxious. Recognizing anxiety-driven regression is the first step. The second is to remain self-differentiated without engaging in content. It’s process, not content. This requires understanding emotional space.

Emotional Space

A key concept in emotional process is emotional space. This is not physical space. In fact, a family member will sometimes move far away to unsuccessfully create emotional space. Healthy emotional space is created when people are self-differentiating. If people in the system are able to take non-anxious, emotional stands, then they create breathing room for everyone. In other words, when people can say what they believe while giving others the freedom to disagree, the whole system relaxes. When they don’t, the opposite occurs, and anxiety becomes rampant.
The irony is that anxiety is created when there is either too little or too much emotional space.
Emotional space disappears when someone anxiously overfunctions in the emotional space of another. This is typically a parent or a boss but can be any member of the system who is more concerned about defining the other than herself. This often comes in the form of caring too much. As we saw detailed in chapter 2, because she has a low threshold for the pain of the other, she will overfunction, which increases everyone’s anxiety.
Conversely, system anxiety will also increase when there is too much emotional space. This is the fourth pattern of interaction, where someone pulls away emotionally, even to the point of cutting others off. As mentioned above, the least differentiated in the system will anxiously pursue the one who is distancing to try to reconnect. This will make it even more likely that the person who is distancing will pull away.
There is a sweet spot to healthy emotional space. If people are too close, there is no self-definition, which increases anxiety. If there is too much space, there is no emotional connection, with the same result. Healthy emotional space occurs when people define themselves and not others, while staying connected emotionally. The positive impact on healthy emotional space will ripple throughout the system, whether family, congregation, or organization. As long as a few people can maintain their self-differentiation, even through the inevitable sabotage (more on this in chapter 7), it will be more likely that others will become less anxious in the long run.

Identifying Emotional Process

The key to understanding emotional process is recognizing when it is helpful to engage in the content of a situation. The first clue is the level of anxiety. If there is a lot of tension and if anxiety is being unleashed, it’s possible that that there is an emotional process issue in play. This is not always the case. Tension can occur even when people are self-differentiating. But tension combined with externalized anxiety is often a sign that content should be avoided.
Another clue is whether people are defining self or others. When they are defining self, especially in a non-anxious way, this is self-differentiation. When they are defining others, especially you, this is not.
One way people do this is through blaming. Rather than taking responsibility for their own condition, they blame other people or forces. Anxious blaming is a sure sign that content should be avoided. If they are blaming you, then you definitely want to avoid content. They are triangling you by making you the cause of their problem. The more you try to defend yourself and argue your case, the less likely they will be to take responsibility for their own situation.
Another form of triangling occurs when they are blaming someone else and asking you to do something about it. This is still avoiding responsibility, but, in this case, you’re not the problem. However, the other wants you to be the solution. Again, getting involved will only make it harder for the other to take responsibility for self.
My first Christmas Eve at a new pastorate involved doing "reader’s theater" for the candlelight service. Instead of having readers in the pulpit reading Scripture, we had four persons dressed in black, sitting on barstools, reading a dramatized version of the Christmas story from scripts on music stands. This was over two decades ago and, at the time, was pretty radical for a traditional congregation. When I arrived at the church, I was accosted by a woman who was livid about the change. She was in my face claiming this was not her idea of a Christmas Eve service, was an awful idea, and would ruin everybody's evening.
Let's break down the process and the content. There were two process clues. The first was heightened emotionality. Her anxiety was unleashed on me in a verbal barrage. The second clue was blame. She blamed the change in the service on me and focused more on defining me than defining herself. All change is loss, and she wasn't handling it very well. The content, of course, was the Christmas Eve service.
By recognizing the process, I knew that it would be a trap to try to defend the change to the service by trying to convince her that it was a way to reach people who didn't attend church regularly. Arguing content with someone who is not taking responsibility for self will give them the argument they're looking for and will only enable them to continue this avoidance. Getting into content with my congregant in this situation would have enabled her to continue to be angry at the service and at me.
I did my best to respond in my most non-anxious presence. Remember: This doesn't mean you won't feel anxious inside. Most times you will. My anxiety level was through the roof in this situation. But I was able to self-regulate (see more on this in chapter 8) and respond with, "I can always count on you to tell me how you feel." Sometimes God gives me just the right thing to say, and this was one of them. The woman responded with a "Harrumph!" and walked away.
Note the elements of the response. There was no arguing, no agreement, and my response fostered continued connection between us, despite her anger.
When I asked another member of the congregation if this woman was all right, I learned that her daughter had died around Christmas two years prior. Bingo! There was deep pain around Christmas for this woman. That's hard to deal with, making it easy to create a triangle between her grief and the Christmas Eve service (and me). I visited the woman the following week to connect with her and ask her about her daughter. The Christmas Eve service never came up. See? Process, not content.
The important thing about understanding that it’s process, not content, is to realize that emotionality needs emotionality to persist. If you get defensive or argumentative, this will maintain the level of anxiety and enable it to continue. Likewise, if you adapt and give in without self-differentiating, it will reduce the anxiety for the moment, but it will allow the other to avoid taking responsibility, and the pattern will repeat. She’ll unload, you give in, and everyone’s happy (well, you’re not).
Learning to identify emotional process is like learning a new craft. At first things will be hard to identify. But, over time, you will get better at noticing anxiety, blame, pain displacement, and the lack of taking responsibility for self. Engaging with others when they are self-differentiating, even if they don’t agree, will provide healthy conversation. Avoiding content when people are not, will give them back the responsibility for their own condition. Either way is great.

Questions for Reflection:

What interaction patterns do you recognize in your family of origin?

What emotional processes are involved in these patterns? What is the content?

Is your tendency to get too close or too distant emotionally? Where does that come from?

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That's it for Episode 138. Next week, I'll be back with an all new episode on what it looks like to be an authentic leader. In the meantime, if you want to sign up for the Family Systems Book Study, you can find a link in the show notes at thenonanxiousleader.com/138 until next time. Thanks and goodbye.

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