Blog
Is Cutoff or Estrangement Good for You?
I read a piece in the New York Times explaining to us that estrangement is more common than you think and sometimes a great thing to do. Drop your family members off and walk away smiling. Now I am thinking about the long-term consequences of these actions.
Aging Parents and Working with My Stepsiblings
This time in the lives of our parents has required more time and energy from each of the siblings. An unforeseen benefit is that it has also given me a chance to work with my siblings and stepsiblings rather than simply visit. I have had a chance to see the gifts of my family members, to cooperate with them and to work together towards a common goal. There was no master plan, but the way each of us was, promoted a high level of cooperation.
Talking Turkey
Once again, Thanksgiving approaches. Along with figuring out the complex logistics of what to serve and who’ll bring what and what about the vegans and how much wine and where everyone will sleep and what questions are deep enough for meaningful discussion yet still fun, I begin the process of keying into my own gratitude. The list begins to take form in my head as I count all the many blessings in my life.
Blindsided by a Mass Murder: What does it take to change a social system?
The family is one factor that is often minimized, denied, and overlooked in most efforts to understand an individual’s pathway to violence. Can we know more about the pressure cooker called the family? Can we understand the influence of family life on a mass murderer? How does anyone’s identity become so twisted that they are willing to kill unknown others? How do relationships escalate, turning simple interactions into a chain reaction of fear, aggression, and cutoff, leading to revenge?
Totality of an Emotional Eclipse
Sometimes it seems like the whole world is in disarray! Pressures and changes are from everywhere – the family, the country, the world politic, mother nature, the planets.
Confessions of a Grant Study Groupie
In Adaptation to Life, Vaillant poses some fundamental questions about individual differences in confronting life's stresses. Why do some of us cope so well with what life allots us, he asks, while others cope badly or not at all? Are there ways in which understanding Bowen Family Systems Theory could effectively alter the patterns of our automatic behavior that make us unhappy, unhealthy, and unwise? Could it provide us with other choices? With the additional knowledge of Bowen Family Systems, I believe that we might be able to make the changes in our relationships which promote greater emotional maturity to have a more emotionally rewarding life.
Observing and Gaining Insight into Social Challenges
As we have moved from 2 billion to 7 billion people over the last hundred years, the family unit has undergone significant changes. There were four children in the average family. Now there are two children. There has been an increase in single-parent families[i] and often a decrease in the number of relationships available to an individual family member.
Moving Towards Aging and Dying
I am challenging myself to be emotionally connected with my parents as they are in later stages of aging, still with vigor yet with more actual challenges than they have ever faced. My father, 97 is the communicator, and my stepmother has the incisive memory, still doing their taxes this year at 92 with only a bit of help seeing.
Schools of Fish and Human Behavior
Shortly after listening to Dr. Couzin talk about his research with schools of Shiner fish, I began thinking about my own family as a collective and how anxiety can flow through a human system. The family group can move in a direction that I do not agree with, tension in the system increases, and I find myself having to swim alone for some time. I could also see how understanding collective behavior can provide a new lens through which to understand leading or having a different position from the group, in business organizations.
Keep the Thinking Going
This past weekend, the Bowen Center for the Study of the Family held a two-day meeting called, "Flocks, Families, and Organizations". This meeting was spear-headed by Navigating Systems' Kathy Wiseman. This conference encouraged business consultants, leadership coaches, wealth managers, C-Suite executives, and employees to think about how the group plays a reciprocal role in functioning. You can read more on their website.