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Welcome to Episode 315 of The Non-Anxious Leader Podcast. I'm Jack Shitama. If you are new to this podcast, you can connect with me by emailing me at jack@christian-leaders.com. You can send your comments, questions, and suggestions for future episodes. You can also get more resources at thenonanxiousleader.com, and you can subscribe to my Two for Tuesday email newsletter there or at the link in the show notes. Now, without further ado, here is episode 315, Managing Anxiety, Yours and Others, with Dr. Becky Kennedy's Acknowledge, Validate, and Permit strategy. In the realm of parenting, few names resonate as profoundly as Dr. Becky Kennedy, also known as Dr. Becky. A clinical psychologist and expert in child development, Dr. Becky has revolutionized the way parents approach children's emotional well-being. One of her most impactful strategies is the acknowledge, validate, and permit, or AVP method. Designed to help children regulate their emotions, this strategy fosters a deep sense of emotional resilience. One thing I love about this approach is that it teaches children that challenges are a part of life and that challenges give them opportunities for growth. This is central to family systems theory, and it's the way that we all build resilience and the ability to take responsibility for self.

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I believe the AVP strategy is a great way to respond to the anxiety of others and to manage your own anxiety in anxious situations. It's designed to help parents respond in a helpful and mature way to children, and it can help us respond to others when they act like children. But I also think we can use it to manage our own anxiety. I say this a lot, but according to Murray Bowen, even the most are only self-differentiate about 50% of the time. The rest of the time, we are reactive, adaptive, or triangling somewhere else to manage our anxiety. The first step in self-differentiation is typically self-regulation. It's hard to provide a non-anxious response when we're reactive or adaptive. In case you're newer to family systems theory, reactivity is when you respond defensively or aggressively to another or to a situation. This increases the anxiety in the situation and is rarely helpful. Adaptivity is when you give in without standing up for yourself. Technically, adaptivity is a form of reactivity. It's an automatic response to your own anxiety, but instead of fighting, you emotionally flee or freeze. In family systems terms, Dr. Becky's AVP strategy is a means to bring down the anxiety in any situation.

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It can help you respond to anxious people, and it can help you regulate your own anxiety. Let's get into it. The first step is acknowledge. In parenting, it involves acknowledging the child's emotions. By identifying and naming their feelings, parents let their children know their emotions are real and significant. This act of acknowledgement helps children make sense of their emotional experiences. For instance, a parent might say, I can see that you're feeling really upset because your toy isn't working. If you're familiar with Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication or MVC, you'll recognize this as the first step. It seeks to make a healthy emotional connection with another to work through whatever anxiety is going on. I'm not going to go any further into MVC, but I did do a two-part series on it, and we'll post links to that in the show notes. You can probably see how acknowledging another's feelings is showing up as a non-anxious presence. You aren't arguing, you aren't agreeing, and this is helpful regardless of the age of the other person. You can also apply this to yourself. Start by asking, What am I feeling? Am I angry, frustrated, afraid, or something else?

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Naming or labeling what you are feeling is a well-known technique for self-regulation. The key here is to accept it without judging yourself, others, or the situation. There's no blame, it just is. Emotions themselves aren't bad. They're a signal that something is going on inside. However, when we dwell on them, it's usually not helpful. Acknowledging Managing feelings can help you respond to others and to manage yourself. Dr. Becky's second step is validate. In parenting, this takes acknowledgement a step further by affirming that the child's emotions are understandable and acceptable. This process involves expressing empathy and showing that it's okay to feel the way they do. An example could be, it's totally normal to feel sad when your favorite toy isn't working. I would feel sad, too. In family systems terms, Sometimes this is leaning into emotional connection. Self-differentiation is the ability to self-define while remaining emotionally connected. However, it's more art than science. Sometimes we need to focus on connection to help others know we care. Other times we need to self-define to make sure others know what's important to us. It may seem easier to talk to a child in this way, but it's also helpful with adults.

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Saying it's normal to feel frustrated that the pastor disagrees with you, or it's okay to be angry that you have to work this weekend, are mature statements that validate another's feelings and foster emotional connection. You can use this for yourself as well. It can reverse your self-talk instead of thinking I shouldn't feel that way, or it's their fault that I feel this way. You can validate your feelings by thinking, It's okay to be frustrated. This will make it easier to think clearly about how you can respond as a non-anxious presence. Dr. His third step is permit. With children, it means allowing the child to express their feelings without fear of reprimand or dismissal. This step encourages children to experience their emotions fully by creating emotional safety. For example, a parent might say, It's all right to cry and feel sad about this. Your feelings are important. Translating this to an adult, you can say something like, It's a good thing to get it off your chest, or, It's good to get it out of your system. You can go further when they're directing their anxiety at you by saying, It's okay, I can take it.

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Of course, you need to be able to listen to their rant without reactivity or that won't help. One thing that helps me is to remember it's process, not content. Whenever someone is responding to a situation or a person, including to you, with heightened emotionality and/or blaming and not taking responsibility for self, there is usually something else going on inside of them that is not related to you. Otherwise, they would be able to respond in a healthy way by non-anxiously self-defining. There's a big difference between, you're always telling me what to do, which is anxiously defining you, and, I'm feeling frustrated that you're not hearing me. In the latter case, I'm much more willing to engage in the content of the situation. In the former, I'm thinking, something else is going on with them or they wouldn't be defining me. This helps me to avoid getting stuck arguing content, as well as helps me understand that this is not about me. It's likely that something else is going on inside of them, and the best way I can help us get through this is to be a non-anxious presence. It's process, not content. Finally, turning this on yourself, permitting yourself to feel your emotions, can help you express them more clearly.

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I think this is especially true if you tend to be adaptive. It can help you figure out how to express yourself without giving in. For example, let's say your boss asks you to take on another assignment when you're already feeling overloaded. Instead of blasting them, which is inadvisable, you just say yes, which is also not healthy. If you go through the AVP strategy, you acknowledge yourself that you're feeling frustrated and overwhelmed by your workload. You're already feeling like you can't keep up. You validate by thinking, It's okay to feel this way because I want to do a good job. And you permit yourself to express this by finding a to self-define and stay connected. An example would be, I'm feeling buried right now, and I'm afraid this is going to make it harder to accomplish the other important things that I'm doing. How important is this? Notice that you're taking responsibility for your own feelings, and you're asking for more information. If your boss says, It's really important, you can ask, What should I set aside while I get this done? Some bosses may get frustrated with you and just tell you to shut up and do your job.

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Then you know they have a problem and it's not you. Then you have to decide whether it's worth staying there or not. Remember, self-differentiation is taking responsibility for self. You may need the money and you can't leave right now. That's not your boss's problem. Own it and figure out a way to deal with it. But I digress. The important part here is that if you never permit yourself to speak up, to self-define, you will likely always feel like you are being taken advantage of. Non-anxious leaders are able to say what they believe and what they're feeling without blaming others. It doesn't always work, but in the long run, it can help any relationship system get better at self-differentiation. I believe Dr. Becky's AVP strategy is one approach that can help. That's it for episode 315. Remember, you can connect with me at jack@christian-leaders.com, and you can find more resources at thenonanxiousleader.com. If you have found this episode helpful, please share it with somebody who might benefit, and please leave a review on your podcast platform of choice. Thanks for your help. Until next time, go be yourself.