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Welcome to Episode 321 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-leader.com with your questions, comments, and ideas for future episodes. You can get more resources at thenonanxiousleader. com. You can find out about my coaching, about my books, and about my speaking engagements. You can also subscribe to my Two for Tuesday email newsletter there, as well as at a link in the show notes. Finally, you can become a patron for as little as $5 a month, which gets you access to an exclusive online community and monthly live events, as well as the ability to ask me questions directly, and I will answer you within 24 hours. For as little as $9 a month, you can get all of that, as well as discounts on everything that I offer, including coaching and positive intelligence. You can get more information by going to the link in the show notes. Now, without further ado, here is episode 321, Two Levels of Self Differentiation.

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This episode is based on an interview with Michael Kerr in 2007 by the Family Systems Institute. I want to give a big thank you to Michael Nacca, who gave me a heads up about this interview and also asked the specific question about these two levels of self-differentiation. Of course, I thought, well, if he is asking, then it's probably a good topic for a podcast episode. Dr. Michael Kerr, trained under Murray Bowen for two decades, and then when Bowen died in 1990, succeeded him as the Director of the Bowen Center for the Study of the Family at Georgetown University So Kerr has stellar credentials. In this interview, Kerr reminds us that self-differentiation is hard. He doesn't say this, but I am reminded that Murray Bowen said that most people are able to differentiate less than 30% of the time, that 50% of the time would be extraordinary, and 70% of the time would be a once in several century occurrence. In this interview, Kerr says, We are all a lot more emotionally immature than we would like to think. Emotional immaturity comes in so many deceptive packages such as helping others. We often try to help others to relieve our own anxiety about their distress.

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It is hard to appreciate the depth to which anxiety runs our lives and the myriad ways we try to deal with that anxiety that are out of awareness. Kerr is reminding us that many times the ways that we function may seem healthy but are not actually differentiating. We are using ways to relieve our anxiety that are not necessarily taking care of self. The example he uses of helping others is that helping others is not bad, but when we do it to relieve our own anxiety, we are actually avoiding our own discomfort. In this interview, Kerr identifies two levels of self-differentiation, functional and basic. I have been studying family systems theory for 30 years, and I have not seen this distinction. Functional differentiation is a change in functioning. For example, when somebody who drinks heavily decides to stop drinking, that change is functional differentiation. Kerr describes this as change. What he notes is that even though this type of functional differentiation changes how we function, it still does not get at the underlying anxieties behind who we are and what makes it difficult to differentiate. In contrast, basic differentiation is described as progress. This is when we start to deal with the underlying anxieties in our functioning, and it makes us more resilient and better able to manage the challenges that trigger symptomatic behavior.

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The way I would describe this is that functional differentiation which Kerr describes as change deals with how we act. It's in a way a managing of our functioning. So even though it doesn't get at the underlying anxieties, it helps us to function more effectively. One of the best examples of this is self-regulation. This is something I talk about a lot, but self-regulation doesn't actually deal with the underlying anxieties. All it does is it helps us to manage our automatic response. It helps us to avoid responding automatically with either reactivity or adaptivity. This is increasing the space between stimulus and response so we can be more self-aware and more intentional, but it does not change the underlying anxieties. Functional differentiation enables us to manage our responses, to self-regulate, but it doesn't mean we won't feel anxious inside. We still will feel very anxious inside, but because we are self-aware and intentional, we're better able to manage it. For example, if you have a family member, a coworker, or a member of the church who is always doing things that trigger your anxiety and cause you to respond automatically, When you learn to self-regulate, you are increasing your functional differentiation.

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You are learning not to respond automatically to those triggers that are caused by the other person's functioning. Now, in some ways, this is taking responsibility for self. This is managing your own response. But it is not the same as increasing your resilience. It's not the same as basic differentiation. Increases in basic differentiation occur when we do our own family of origin work, when we start to look at our family of origin without blaming to better understand how we function and how others function in the system it enables us to take more responsibility for self, and then it enables us to rework the relationships in which we have difficulty differentiating. Basic differentiation occurs not only when we are able to self-regulate, but when we are able to take non-anxious stands with those who make us most anxious, when we are able to self-define in healthy ways with those who make us anxious, even as we are staying emotionally connected to them, then we are growing in basic differentiation. This is something that takes patience and persistence because early on, others in the system will try to sabotage our new functioning. They will not be on board with our new functioning.

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But if we can maintain a non-anxious presence through that sabotage, then we have a chance to get ourselves and the system to a better place. As Kerr says in the interview, Differentiation is a way of being that grows out of a way of thinking. No shortcuts exist. People must think more objectively about their families and then act consistent with that new view. It takes time, but theory provides the lens that makes it possible for people to get beyond blaming their families or blaming themselves. It's really important to emphasize what Kerr says about not blaming others and not blaming ourselves. This is what basic differentiation does. This is what true self-differentiation does, is it enables us to take responsibility for self without taking responsibility for others and doing it in a healthy way. I believe the main takeaway for non-anxious leaders is that we can begin by increasing our functional differentiation, but we want to work on our basic differentiation negotiation as a long-term approach to growing as an effective leader. When we do this, we can lead a system in a healthier direction as well as lead effective and lasting change. Kerr notes that Bowen often used the metaphor of a team of horses.

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He said, If you watch a team of horses, one horse will step out first and the others will follow. In the same way, if we start to differentiate If we increase our basic differentiation in a family of origin, a congregation, or an organization, it encourages others to do the same. That's the difference that a non-anxious leader can make.

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And that's it for episode 321. Remember, you can connect with me at jack@christian-leaders.com and get more resources at thenonanxiousleader. com. If you have found this episode helpful, please share 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.