If one family member can successfully increase his or her threshold for another's pain, the other's own threshold will also increase, thus expanding his or her range of functioning. (Friedman, Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue [New York: Guildford Press, 1985], 47).
Here we come to Friedman's fourth rule of family process. As children we all learned ways to manipulate our environment. In other words, we learned how to influence others to meet our perceived need.
Once when my daughter was very young maybe two years old. We were in the supermarket and she was not getting her way. I cannot remember what she wanted; I just remember she wanted it now. So she decided to have a tantrum to bring everything to a stop. Screaming she threw herself to the floor with arms flailing. Her strategy depended upon us being in a public place and she believed we would be embarrassed by her actions and that we would immediately take care of her needs. Her mom and I looked at each other, shrugged ours shoulders, and moved on down the aisle then turned the corner. As we had hoped the spectacle ceased. Our daughter pick herself up off the floor and for the rest of the day kept pace with us. Had we succumbed to our daughter strategy, I'm sure we would have experienced much more of it.
This story illustrates several principles Friedman is attempting to teach us. It illustrates homeostasis, the need to be an individual, and the corresponding need to be a collective. While the story does not illustrate what will happen every time you might toughen up against another's pain, it does illustrate the capacity that leaders have in working within the anxiety of their organization if they're willing to bear with their own pain.
As ministers enter new church systems, they are often overwhelmed by the number of expectations that come their way. In church life there's always more to do than one minister (or even church collective) can get done. This is primarily true because expectations will always exceed the capacity to meet them. However, if the minister is unable to regulate himself or herself, in the face of these expectations, then, unwittingly that minister becomes subject to the whims and desires of particularlly the weakest, unregulated, members. Over time this will diminish the minister's capacity to lead.
If ministers are to self-differentiate, then it means that they will have to say "no" to things that will not help them accomplish the goals they have set for their ministry. This will always leave some member or another who feels their pet agenda is not being met. When this happens, anxiety can begin from that member to others within the church. If the minister should beocme the lightenrod in picking up all unspecified anxiety, that minister discover that he or she has become the most responsible and most vulenrable member of in the congregational family. Comparable to my daughter's having a tantrum, the anxious member or their allies will seek to increase the pain of the minister to conform to their values and wishes.
However, the minister who is savvy to family systems, will know that it is in the best interest of the church, that he maintains a well-defined position and direction. If, as Friedman reminds us, the minister will maintain a non-anxious, well-defined, unflinching, yet connected to the body, position, the likelihood is that the resistant members will follow him or her.
Since my introduction to Friedman's principles, I have developed or adopted some sound bites that help me keep this particular point in perspective:
Affected not Infected. Every leader will be influenced by the anxiety within their organizational system whether that be family, church, or business. So it is important then that leaders understand that they will be affected but they can takes steps so they are not infected by that anxiety.
Saved by Our Pain, Not Their Pain. Our first impulse is to rescue people, not because of their pain, but because we are in pain. Keeping Friedman's third rule in mind that we can often make people stronger by increasing their pain by rushing in where fools really ought to fear to tread. Furthermore, "not rescuing" can increase the likelihood of a positive outcome.
Maturity is about increasing our threshold for emotional pain. One of the essential features of growing up is learning how to function and stabilize ourselves within the midst of increasing pain. Imagine, if as an adult one still needed the same attention one needed when an infant. The maturation process involves increasing our threshold for emotional pain. Somewhere in the toddler stage of our development we learn that mom and dad are not ever present and that we have to comfort ourselves during times when our parents cannot or do not respond quickly to our cry.
One form of pain which is absolutely essential to growing up is learning to delay gratification. Those children who learn how to delay gratification are often the more successful in life later on. Generally speaking all emotional pain partakes of delayed gratification. There are plenty of times in life when you cannot get what you want now; how you live in that space speaks to your emotional maturity.
No wonder, then, that in an instant society we are a people most anxious.
