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Welcome to Episode 234 of the Non Anxious Leader podcast. I'm Jack Shitama. In Chapter Two entitled decoding fear of her book, The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times, Michelle Obama tells of how she was a young child and was offered a role in the Church Christmas Pageant. She was excited about this because she got to wear a red dress and her only role was to stand near the Christmas tree and twirl in the red dress. However, when she got to the one and only rehearsal, she found that there were many stuffed animals around the Christmas tree, especially one big turtle, which scared the heck out of her. Her response was to cry and refuse to go on stage because she was afraid of the stuffed animals. Her aunt, who was in charge of the Christmas pageant, didn't fuss over her. She said, Okay, if you don't rehearse, you're not in the show. Obama realized that she only had two choices. One was to realize her dream of twirling in a red dress on stage, and the other was to sit in her mother's lap. In his book A Fail of Nerve, Edwin Friedmann writes that in a chronically anxious society, people choose safety over adventure.

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On the other hand, non anxious leaders choose adventure, and that means not only embracing discomfort, but learning to like it. Friedmann notes that there are three characteristics of stuck systems, the first of which is an unending treadmill of trying harder. I see this in many declining churches where they continue to try activities to attract people as well as do fundraisers to replace the giving that has been lost over the years. I hear over and over again that people are tired, that there are too few people to do the work, and they're not sure how they are going to get out of this. This is the unending treadmill of trying harder. These are good people who are doing their best, but because they are clinging to safety, they have a hard time seeing new ways of thinking and new ways of doing things. According to Friedmann, the second characteristic of a stuck relationship system is looking for answers rather than reframing questions. In stuck systems, people not only want answers, but they want them quickly. They look for the quick fix instead of going through the difficult process of examining everything to see what might emerge that is new and hopeful.

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One of the best questions we can ask to reframe the situation is to ask what has changed? and we can look at this both externally, meaning outside the relationship system, and internally, meaning within the relationship system. Another question that non anxious leaders can always ask is, what is my responsibility in the situation and how can I change my functioning to improve things? Finally, the third characteristic of a stuck system according to Edwin Friedmann is either or thinking that creates false dichotomies. I believe this is related to the desire for people to have quick and easy answers because they want to see everything in black and white. This is connected to the desire to have certainty as opposed to ambiguity. My experience is life is never this certain. We see this type of either or thinking in the politics of our nation and the world where you're either with us or against us. I see this in my own denomination where we are going through a Schism over human sexuality. It's either or thinking you're either with us or against us. You're either going to stay or you're going to go. One way I have found that non anxious leaders embrace discomfort and the spirit of adventure is being willing to make both sides mad by taking positions that make neither happy.

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Doing this acknowledges the ambiguity and that things are more complicated than people want to make it. And it also embraces the idea that self differentiation means that you claim your own goals and values even in the midst of the surrounding togetherness pressure to take one side or the other. If these are the characteristics of a stuck system and the only way out of these stuck systems is through embracing discomfort and learning to love it, is through a spirit of adventure, then the question becomes, what does that look like? Friedmann notes in a failure of nerve that there are three aspects of a spirit of adventure. The first is the unimportance of making mistakes. This is uncomfortable at first, but the key to this is to view mistakes not as failures, but to view them as learning opportunities. As a leader, it is uncomfortable to embrace mistakes at first. It's a discipline that can be overcome because it will become more and more comfortable. When you feel free to make mistakes, it opens up a world of possibility, not just for you, but also for those that you lead, because it encourages them to have that same type of freedom, that same spirit of adventure to try something.

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And if it doesn't work to say, What did we learn? The second characteristic of a spirit of adventure is knowing the value of chance, that is, the willingness to encounter serendipity. As a person of faith, I would say this is embracing providence, but from the outside, both providence and serendipity look the same. For me, embracing the value of providence, embracing the value of what others would call chance, creates excitement and anticipation because I'm looking to see what God will do. What surprises does God have in store here? It turns uncertainty into possibility. And if we believe in possible things can happen, we are more open to them. We're more likely to actually see something as it's happening and recognize that this is an opportunity. The third characteristic of a spirit of adventure is the will to overcome barriers to imagination. And Friedmann notes that beliefs are born of mythology and kept in place by anxiety. One of the mythologies that I've seen in declining churches is when people say, We just need more young families, and that will fix things. I believe this mythology was born in the heyday of Christendom in the 1950s and 60s when everybody came to church just because that's the respectful thing people did, regardless of whether they were trying to live out their faith.

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Churches were full of young families, and those who have been around for a long time think back to those days and think that all we need to do is get young families and we will be fine again. But in reality, a desire to try to attract young families is actually a barrier to imagination. This is where reframing comes in and the question becomes, what can we do to tap into people's spiritual hunger, whether they are young families or otherwise. When we do this, God can open up our imagination to see what might be possible. I'm working with a church that has staked their identity on the idea that Christian discipleship and social justice go hand in hand. That is imagination, and it's living out their faith in an authentic way. And as it turns out, because they are living in an urban area with many progressive people, they are attracting young families, many of whom started watching the services online during the pandemic. Methologies are about outcomes and attracting young families is an outcome. On the other hand, imagination is about who we are, what we do, and how we do it. There should be no holds barred when seeking to discern what that is and where God is leading.

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The interesting thing I find about Michelle Obama's aunt in the story of the Christmas pageant is that she is the epitome of a self differentiated, non anxious leader. She didn't dote on Obama and try to comfort her and encourage her to do the pageant saying, oh, it's going to be okay. And she didn't get reactive. She didn't scold her, which we know would not have been helpful. Instead, she gave Obama the freedom to choose as well as the consequences of her actions. In essence, she was saying, embrace your discomfort and your fear of stuffed animals, and you can have a great experience of being in a pageant in a red dress. Or don't embrace your discomfort and you can sit on your mother's lap. It's telling that Michelle Obama remembers this story so vividly because it was an important way that she learned to embrace her discomfort. And yes, she did get up on the stage. And the closer she got to the stuffed animals, the smaller they looked, and the less frightening they were. And yes, she did enjoy that Christmas pageant as a highlight of her young life. As a non anxious leader, you can learn to embrace your discomfort and you can actually learn to love it.

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You can learn to seek that out and say, if I'm not feeling discomfort, maybe I'm not really leading, maybe we're not really going anywhere and to not find discomfort for its own sake. But say, what can I do to move things forward that may feel uncomfortable but may open up the opportunity for hope and imagination and new ways of thinking and doing. This will not only help you to choose courage over comfort, but it will create anticipation and excitement in your own leadership and for those that you lead. That's it for Episode 234. If you have found this helpful, please share it with somebody you think would benefit. Don't forget, you can connect with me at thenonanxiousleader.com and you can email me at jack@christian-leaders.com. I received an email just this week with a question that I think I will use for a future episode, so I would love to hear from you. Until next time, thanks and goodbye.

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Thank you for listening. If you found this episode helpful, there are two things you can do to help others find this podcast. First, tap the subscribe button on your podcast app, and second, leave a review. I appreciate your help. Finally, you can find more resources as well as subscribe to my blog at thenonanxiousleader.com.

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Now.

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Go be yourself.