3 Ways to Reduce Emotional Reactivity
3 Ways to Increase Self-Differentiation and become a better leader
We’re a nation of quick fixes and big promises.
8 minutes to rock hard abs, one week juice cleanse to vibrant living, a one weekend workshop that promises to save your marriage…
The counseling industry is no different either…I get tons of adds on my social media counts -
GET 15 CASH PAY CLIENTS THIS WEEK, NO WORK REQUIRED!
But change…real change…takes time…
Change that will make you a better parent, child, co-worker, leader, pastor…change that will allow you to face toxic, highly charged situations and still stay calm, curious and open while owning your own truth…
it actually really is possible…
It’s not quick, it’s not easy…but it really can happen.
This post explores 3 possible next steps you can take on the journey towards self-differentiation and emotional maturity
Series on Self-Differentiation
This is the fourth and final post in a series on self-differentiation. We’ve covered:
4 common types of emotional reactions (things we all do, but are signs we’ve still got some work to do)
7 signs of self-differentiation (what does it look like when I’m acting in family/church/work systems in an emotionally healthy way)
These are all based on Bowen Family systems concepts.
If you’re unfamiliar with Bowen Family Systems thinking at all - you can start here for a quick intro, or a deep dive to work your way through the larger series on Bowen Family Systems applied to churches.
Okay - here we go:
Three Ways to Address Emotional Reactivity
This post is focused on introducing 3 Ways to Reduce Emotional Reactivity, and Increase Self-Differentiation.
Each of these practices could get their own post, or, several posts…so this is a very brief introduction. I’ll also add a key resource for you to check out for each practice, if you want to explore and go further.
“Doing the work” as they say…actually trying to improve, change, transform yourself…takes time, effort, and intentionality. But, undergoing the process of self-differentiating can be beneficial in so many ways.
Just a reminder, my own definition of self-differentiation is the ability to remain calm, curious, and open with others in the face of conflict, while also remaining true to yourself.
Here are 8 possible benefits lowering your emotional reactivity, and raising your level of self-differentiation:
The ability to let go of our expectations and demands of other work/family/church members
Lowering our own overall emotional reactivity
Developing greater objectivity
Gaining the ability to focus on ourselves instead of scapegoating and reacting to others
Knowing and understanding where we came from and what made us the way we are
Greater compassion for ourselves and others
The ability to break free of enacting the same reactive script in family/church/work systems
Integrating feelings and thoughts instead of being overwhelmed and overrun by emotions alone
Sounds great, right?
Wouldn’t it be amazing to be able to be in an emotionally heated, high-stakes meeting and be able to feel comfortable speaking your truth, while also helping to bring the overall stress level in the room down a few notches?
Wouldn’t it be great to be able to be with your entire family for a long Thanksgiving weekend, and not get frustrated and angry, or need to leave the house altogether, or without sinking back into that same pattern of being a compliant teenager that goes along with what everyone else says because they don’t want to rock the boat?
Here are 3 practices that will help you take that next step on your journey towards self-differentiation:
Mindfulness/Centering Prayer
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
Family of Origin Work
Mindfulness/Centering Prayer
I know mindfulness/centering prayer are very en vogue right now, but, like Stranger Things, Spindrift, or avocado toast - some things are popular and talked about all the time because they are actually really good.
Another benefit of mindfulness/centering prayer is that you don’t need a trained professional to do it…you can learn the basics after reading this brief write up, and that’s really all you need to get you headed in the right direction…unlike the other two options which will require professional support.
I love to talk about the image of a river when first explaining mindfulness/centering prayer to people.
Side note - yes, there IS a difference between mindfulness and centering prayer, but, there’s not really space here to get into the details of it here…so I’m basically just using the two interchangeably.
Imagine a person standing in the middle of a swift moving river. The water runs quickly all around him. Soon, it picks him up, and he finds himself swept downstream despite his best effort to stay standing in the stream.
Our everyday emotionally reactive conscious mind is like a person standing in a swift moving river. Our thoughts are like the river - they come into our mind, and they sweep us away with them.
For most of us, we are totally at the mercy of the swift moving river of our thoughts…whatever upsetting, anxious, angry, shaming, etc thought enters our brain will pick us up and sweep us down the river.
This is what Martin Laird calls ‘mind tripping’...it’s when our thoughts come and hijack us, and take us with them down the stream. Another word for it is the Reactive Mind, the mind that is always reacting to whatever comes its way. One piece of bad news, or one piece of good news, and we’re swept away and thinking about it. We can’t control it, we’re at the mercy of our minds' reaction to the events of the day.
We identify so strongly with our thoughts that we begin to think we ARE our thoughts.
What mindfulness/centering prayer teaches us however, is that we are NOT our thoughts.
They’re just thoughts.
What we learn in centering prayer is that instead of being swept down the river with our thoughts, we can actually learn to stand on the bank of the river, and remain perfectly calm as we watch the thought pass us by in the stream.
The thought comes, and we watch it come, but it doesn’t take us with it. We watch it come and watch it go and have a sense of separation between ourselves and our thoughts.
So how do you practice it?
Sit comfortably in a chair
Firmly plant your feet
Rest your hands in your lap
Close your eyes or soften your gaze
As you breathe in, focus on the sensation of your breath, and then as you exhale, either focus on the sensation of your breath, or, say the word ‘Jesus’ to yourself internally, and focus on the word.
As you try to do this, other thoughts or sensations will come up for you and enter your mind, and you just notice them. Just notice them, and calmly return your focus back to your breath. Have compassion for yourself and your thoughts, don’t judge them or become frustrated…just continuously return your focus to your breath or to the word Jesus. It sounds simple, but, after a few minutes you’ll realize how difficult it can be. Thoughts will enter your mind about a laundry list of things you need to do after you finish meditating, or about that upsetting thing your coworker or congregant told you, or you’ll remember a scene from your childhood that you try to forget. But, no matter what comes up, you just notice it, have compassion for yourself and the thought, and return back to the breath.
Try it once or twice a day. Set a timer for somewhere between 5-10 minutes, and over time increase the timer till you get to 20 minutes.
Over time you’ll notice yourself noticing thoughts and reactions, and being able to let them go instead of having them carry you away throughout your day. You’ll be able to stand in moments of increased tension without becoming reactive…you’ll be able to notice what’s happening inside of you, and return back to your still, calm center that you experience during meditation, even in the midst of tense family drama.
Intimacy With God by Thomas Keating is a great resource if you’d like to know more about centering prayer.
You can also find a counselor or spiritual director in your area that specializes in mindfulness meditation or centering prayer and see them occasionally…maybe once every month or two.
Any counselor will be able to give you the basics of mindfulness, but some have further specialization. Also, like I mentioned before, there is a conceptual difference between Buddhist influenced mindfulness, secular mindfulness, and Christian contemplative prayer - so - you may want to keep that in mind when looking for a good ‘fit’ for a therapist or spiritual director to explore mindfulness/centering prayer with.
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) was created by Marsha Linehan in the late 1970s as a way to help chronically suicidal clients. Since then, DBT’s use has been expanded to help individuals dealing with a wide range of issues, including depression, PTSD, and personality disorders.
Mindfulness, mentioned above, plays a core part in the treatment, along with learning about emotional regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness.
If just the thought of working with your family of origin evokes an intense reaction in you, it may help to do a little work with a DBT trained therapist to help build some skills to get you ready to do family of origin work.
Standard DBT work from beginning to end takes about 6 months to a year, but it definitely depends on the individual.
But for others, I think it may be enough to just buy a DBT workbook, work through it on your own and get a few helpful concepts, and then move on to family of origin work.
Here’s a good one you could pick up:
DBT can be very spiritually integrated because of the influence of mindfulness, or it can be really cut and dry and simply going through worksheets and talking about them…it really depends on the personality and values of the therapist, as well as your values and style, so, again, you’ll want to look for someone that’s a good fit.
Family of Origin Work
The best way to work through our emotional reactivity and raise our self-differentiation is to go right to the source of it - our family of origin.
Family of Origin Work involves making the commitment to go connect, in-person with your family on a regular basis for about a year, with the help of trained therapist that specializes in family dynamics (ideally Bowen systems).
It’s really important you find the right therapist here that is trained in thinking through family systems. Lots of individual therapists are great, but if they don’t think in systems, they will end up just taking your side and joining you in your frustration with your family of origin…which may feel very validating in the moment but does nothing for your growth.
Much of the work involves having conversations with, and spending time with, individual members of our families. For a lot of us that can be unusual, and a bit uncomfortable at first. But, the goal is to get curious about our own family members and what has made them the way they are and to discover why they act the way they do.
As we gain clarity around the their motivations and histories, we can often begin to develop a sense of compassion for them, and clarity around the multiplicity of forces that have gone into shaping us as well.
Once we are able to be close to them, while still maintaining our own sense of self…we’re really getting it.
We can also gain clarity, in real time, of how triangulation (you can start my series on relational triangles and triangulation here) unfolds within your family, and over time gain the ability to not join in the triangulation. Once you’ve gained that ability in your own family of origin, you can do it anywhere.
Ronald Richardson quotes Murray Bowen as having said that doing family therapy is “three-quarters staying out of triangles and one-quarter defining self”. The same truth applies to us when we interact with our own family of origin, of our church, or in staff or board meetings at work…once we are able to learn to navigate triangulation and stay true to ourselves…we’re really doing the work of self-differentiation.
Doing family of origin work also forces us to confront the reality that we can not change our family. Once we are able to accept this (which I have to admit is easy to write about but much more difficult to know in an embodied way), we can work on changing ourselves and our reactions instead of trying to change others. We still remain connected to them, and don’t shut ourselves off from feelings…but no longer need to change them. Again, if we can make this change within our family, we can make it anywhere.
Ronald Richardson lists “6 Principles for Re-entering Our Family” in his book Becoming a Healthier Pastor, which, while geared towards pastors specifically, is a good introduction to family of origin work for anyone interested. Here are his six principles:
Maintain Active, Intentional, Regular Contact
Get to Know Them Better
Develop a Multigenerational Family Diagram
Honor the Family (get to know all the “good stuff” as well as the “bad stuff”)
Research the Toxic Issues
Explore Relationship Cutoffs
So, that’s a glimpse of what the work entails. I recommend reading Ronald Richardson’s book if you’re at all interested in engaging in family of origin work.
And again, you’ll want to do this with a family systems therapist (ideally Bowenian), so that you’re able to process this work in a healthy way that helps you make progress, instead of just spending time with your family, having them frustrate you, and coming to the conclusion that they’re as crazy and messed up as you always knew they were.
I know none of these three options are quick fixes.
They aren’t tips, tricks, or hacks that you can implement immediately and see astounding results.
Real change takes time.
It’s totally possible…but it takes time.
If the idea of family of origin work in particular seems too intense…start with DBT or mindfulness, and then in 6 months or a year check back in with yourself and see if you feel like you’re ready.
This is the last post in our series on Self-differentiation, and the last in the larger series on Bowen Family Systems. If you’re still reading this and have stuck with me from the beginning, you’ve made it through 11 Posts! Congrats! You’re a family systems expert now!
Thanks for Reading!
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About the Author
Travis Jeffords is a National Certified Counselor and Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor Associate in North Carolina. He holds a Master of Science degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and a Master of Divinity from Christian Theological Seminary. Travis writes on the intersection of faith, spirituality, the church, and mental health.