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Welcome to Episode 392 of The Non-Anxious Leader Podcast. I'm Jack Shitama. If you are new to this podcast, you can connect with me at jack@christian-leaders.com with your questions, comments, and suggestions for future episodes. And you can get more resources at thenonanxiousleader.com where you can find out about my coaching practice, books that I've written, speaking engagements, and courses that I offer. You can also subscribe to my Two for Tuesday email newsletter and get your free AI family systems coach at the website or at the links in the show notes. Finally, if you would like to support my work for as little as $5 a month, you can get more information and sign up at the link in the show notes. Thanks in advance for your consideration. And in case you skipped through this introduction because you've heard it many times before, I want to let you know that I am doing a 4-week book study on Edwin Friedman's A Failure of Nerve. It runs every Tuesday from September 8th to the 29th at 5:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time, and the cost is $99. I will record the sessions if you can't make it in person. I'll put a link so you can find out more and register in the show notes.

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And now without further ado, here is episode 392, a rebroadcast of Understanding chronic emotional patterns.

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In family systems theory, a chronic condition is a pattern of reactivity that occurs repeatedly. It can either be ongoing or recurring, and there is a pattern to it. If you have an ongoing interaction with a family member that is filled with anxiety, then it is likely a chronic condition. The key point to understand is that a chronic condition, a chronic emotional pattern, is sustained by feedback, and that feedback is reactivity or adaptivity. Without a reactive or adaptive response, a chronic condition will disappear. A reactive response occurs when you get defensive or argumentative. It is engaging in a conflict of wills where you try to convince the other of your own position. It's focused on the content of the interaction rather than recognizing the emotional process that's occurring. Simply, the process is you responding to the anxiety of the other with your own. Instead of remaining a non-anxious presence, you are an anxious presence that can't let go of what the other has said. Self-definition is important to you, and emotional connection goes by the wayside. Chronic conditions that are characterized by this type of reactivity have a pattern of punch counterpunch. One person says something and the other responds defensively or argumentatively.

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This causes the first person to respond with greater intensity and anxiety. Things only go downhill from there. An adaptive response occurs when you give in and go along with what the anxious other is saying. In this case, you are being a non-anxious non-presence. You avoid a conflict of wills, but it's because you don't self-define. You are choosing emotional connection over self-definition. This type of chronic condition or chronic emotional pattern takes on the pattern where the dominant one takes the other for granted and assumes that they can get whatever they want. Over time, this can cause feelings of resentment towards the other by the adaptive one, even as the adaptive one is unable to stand up for themselves in a healthy way. At some point, they may not be able to take it any longer and can explode with anger and anxiety, which will come as a surprise to the other because the adaptive one had always just gone along. This leads to an important component of chronic emotional patterns. Chronic emotional patterns tend to have an up and down characteristic that gradually spirals down into successively more anxious interactions. At some point, a real blowout occurs, both sides make up, and things get better— for a while, but then they gradually deteriorate into a similar pattern.

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This is similar to the cycle of abuse or violence which has 4 stages: building tension, an incident of abuse or violence, reconciliation, and then calm. In the case of a reactive pattern, the sniping, the reactivity is not bad at first but the tension builds. The reactive one is able to keep in control, but over time is less able to self-regulate. At some point they can't take it anymore, the conflict of wills escalates, and a blowout occurs. In the case of an adaptive pattern, the adaptive one gives in continually, but each time is less able to take it, and the resentment builds. When they get to the breaking point, they respond with full-blown reactivity, and a blowout occurs. In either case, a reconciliation of sorts occurs and things reset to a calmer state. Things will get gradually worse until the next blowout, and then things reset again. So how do you break the pattern? It's not easy. In fact, things will likely get worse before they get better, but remaining a persistent non-anxious presence can get things to a new and better place. The first step is to break the pattern. Self-regulate so you don't react or adapt.

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Pause and remind yourself that you need to respond differently. You can prepare yourself in advance for this because if you spend time reflecting on the chronic emotional pattern, you can readily predict how those interactions begin. Then when they do occur, you can be prepared to think and respond differently. The second step is to avoid a reactive or adaptive response. Don't argue. Don't agree. Again, it helps to prepare yourself in advance. Develop some responses that can help you remain a non-anxious presence and avoid reactivity or adaptivity. I'll cover how you can go about this in next week's episode. The third step is to remain a non-anxious presence. Stay connected to the other even as you don't argue and don't agree. Things will likely get worse before they get better, but if you do, if you can remain a non-anxious presence, things can get better than they ever were. An illustration will help. Marshall Goldsmith is a world-renowned business educator and coach. In his book Triggers, Goldsmith shares a story about Amy, a 51-year-old senior executive at a media company. Quote: Amy described a close mother-daughter relationship, perhaps too close. Her mother was in her late 70s and they spoke daily, but the conversation was governed by sniping and petty arguments.

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Parent and child were engaged in a zero-sum game of proving herself right and the other wrong. Love by a thousand cuts, Amy called it. One day, triggered by her mother's mortality and the realization that neither of them was getting younger, Amy decided on a truce. She didn't tell her mother about it. She simply refused to engage in the verbal skirmishing. When her mother made a judgmental remark, Amy let it hang in the air like a noxious cloud, waiting for it to vaporize from neglect. With her daughter unwilling to counterpunch, Mom soon stopped punching, and vice versa. This was a chronic condition. The pattern of interaction was the mother making a comment and the daughter reacting. It was only when the daughter decided to regulate her reactivity that the pattern changed. I love Goldsmith's metaphor of the noxious cloud. Anxiety is like that, but without reactivity or adaptivity, it will dissipate. In Amy's case, she would have never argued with her mother if she were being adaptive, and she would just sit there and take it. If she never reacted anxiously, let alone never took a non-anxious emotional stand, then she would be responding adaptively, and it's likely that Amy would then triangle someone else, taking out her frustration and pain elsewhere because she's unable to stand up to her mother in a healthy way.

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Either way, it is a reactive or adaptive response that sustains the chronic pattern of anxious interaction. Now, it's likely that this example is compressed over time. Amy's mother would be more likely to have pressed Amy for a response since she was so used to the verbal jousting, and Amy would have had to work on remaining a non-anxious presence for multiple conversations. But the end result would be the same, and it's important to understand she needed to break the pattern by not reacting. And that's what she did. Whether you experience chronic emotional patterns in your family of origin, congregation, or organization, understanding how they work is the first step toward changing things for the better. Next week, we'll go deeper into how you can actually respond in helpful ways. This doesn't happen automatically. It takes self-awareness and intentionality, but that will make the difference. And that's what non-anxious leaders do.

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That's it for episode 392. Remember, you can connect with me at jack@christian-leaders.com, and you can find more resources at thenonanxiousleader.com. And if you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone who would benefit and please leave a review on your podcast platform of choice. Thanks in advance for your help. Until next time, go be yourself.