Edwin Friedman was a rabbi and family therapist who became one
of the foundational leadership consultants in the 20th century. His primary work, Generation to Generation, detailed how communities behave according
to generational patterns. Much of his
theory about communities was based on the family system. Friedman believed that unhealthy or toxic
systems could be transformed, in part, by self-differentiated leaders. For Friedman, self-differentiation meant the
ability to separate yourself from your environment, to have clarity in that
separation that allowed you to reflect and see patterns, and to be able to
engage conflict and risk while maintaining emotional regulation. In some ways, Friedman’s work is so integrated
into our understandings of communities that we use his theory without noticing
it. Leaders now might talk about the
diagnosed patient in a system (the person who is essentially healthy and
functions as a scapegoat) or how communities can be conflict-avoidant and
enabling of toxic patterns.
Anyone who has ever gone through therapy after growing up in
a family with toxic patterns of behavior can testify to the challenging work of
becoming self-differentiated. It
certainly does not happen overnight, and often, requires on-going therapy and
check-ins. The human mind, especially
under stress, reverts to old patterns of behavior easily. Even when these patterns hurt ourselves and
others, familiarity will often win in the face of stress and chaos.
Friedman utilized a lot of parables in his work to help
illustrate how to better self-differentiate.
One of my favorite parables is the rope story:
There once was a woman standing at the
opening of a bridge. She had a rope tied
around her waist. She held one end of
the rope in her hand. As a man
approached her she shouted to him, “here, here, hold this.” The man took the rope. Suddenly the woman jumped off the
bridge. The man strained against the
edge of the bridge holding onto the rope with great effort. He started to shout for help. The woman shouted from below the bridge, “Don’t let go of the rope! I’ll die if you let go of the rope! You are saving my life.”
Friedman asks, “so what should the man
do?”
Often, people will answer that the man should absolutely
hold on to the rope. Friedman asks
further questions. For how long? Under what conditions? Why did the woman hand him the road? Can he really save her? What if he can’t hold on?
The moral of the story emerges with each follow up
question. Don’t hold a rope that isn’t
yours to hold.
It sounds almost harsh to some ears, but Friedman would
claim that it is self-differentiation.
Certainly liberation is about fighting against forces far beyond
our control. Liberation is also about
struggling against the mirror of those forces within ourselves. Sometimes we are the one passing the rope and
sometimes we are the one holding the rope.
Part of liberation, a powerful part, comes when we move beyond shame for
our particular actions and begin to see the rope and what it tethers. Seeing the rope is the first step of a self
account that at least allows us to consciously choose to take the rope, to
throw it or to put it down. When we put
it down, we get to decide what to do with that new rush of energy and
opportunity.
As we join in deepening our spiritual understandings of
liberation in our lives together this month, I encourage each of us to look for
the ties that bind.
What would it be to let go?
With faith and love,
Rev. Robin
