I am indebted to Clare Erhard-Trick who inspired this conversation.
A good friend and I were talking openly one evening recently about his
experience of his family.
He's a good Dad, a very good Dad,
committed
to his family, generous almost to a fault. He was sharing something
with me, a new undercurrent if you will, which he noticed
had surfaced in his family resulting in conflict.
The thing about family is there are always undercurrents.
There are undercurrents of intention, thwarted intention
in particular. There are undercurrents of expectation,
unfulfilled expectation in particular. There are
undercurrents of communication, undelivered communication
in particular. These three undercurrents (thwarted intention,
unfulfilled expectation, and undelivered communication) provide the
essential ingredients for
being upset.
Family, it would seem, is a veritable Petri dish in which
upsets
are
created.
Of course, family is also a veritable Petri dish in which love is
created
... but we don't complain about having
too much
of that, do we?
The minutiae, the
details
of what happened when this new undercurrent surfaced in my friend's
family (that is, the
details
of what happened when this new undercurrent surfaced in his family
among all the other undercurrents already present in his
family) actually aren't relevant to this conversation. In any case,
they're his and his family's
personal and private
affair. Gratuitously sharing them would violate his trust. What
can be shared, however, what's both OK and
useful to share is our ensuing
observations
of how undercurrents in family are disproportionately more consuming
than any other undercurrents in almost any other area of living. What's
also OK and useful to share is our ensuing realization of a way for
family
to correctly regard undercurrents so they're no longer consuming, and
allow instead for fully appreciating the gift family is.
We're
mastering
this game of being Dads - he and I. I would have said we've
master-ed
this game of being Dads except family is always expanding so being a
Dad is an ongoing, expanding learning experience. I'm learning more and
gaining more leverage and traction with it every day. Being in
relationship with
my children,
being in relationship with
my mother,
being in relationship with my sister and my brother, I know when to
talk, I know when not to talk. I know when to get close, I know when to
draw back. I know when to come on strong and when to let well alone. I
also know I'm the guy
my children
want to be independent of
(it's not personal)
so my gift to them is to let them be independent of me, even if I miss
them. Who else do they get to push away from just in the process of
Life itself?
Given all of the above, it could be said there's no more deeply
reactivating and occasionally no more disappointing milieu
than family. There are so many
woulda coulda
shoulda
undercurrents in and around family, there are so many opportunities, so
many missed opportunities (real and imaginary), there are
so many expectations, so many unfulfilled expectations.
One of the things my friend and I have in common is we agree that
without the edge granted by
transformation,
it's almost impossible (if not outright impossible) to
regain freedom, power, equilibrium, love, and affinity once an
upset
takes root in a family - which is to say once an
upset
is triggered by an ever present undercurrent (it's all on
automatic,
yes?).
We noticed that because we're thrown to
take things personally,
indeed because our
machinery
is wired to
take things personally,
the first place we
ordinarily
go to when family undercurrents surface, is being threatened (even if
we're not being threatened), being accused (even if we're not being
accused), being invalidated (even if we're not being invalidated), then
to retaliate, to be right, to make wrong, and to avoid being
dominated at any cost.
That's the
ordinary
way of responding to an
upset, yes?
Actually I should say that's the
ordinary
way of being triggered in an
upset
because in this model there's no choice: it's all on
automatic.
In a family
upset,
once the trigger is pulled by some surfaced undercurrent, then freedom,
power, equilibrium, love, and affinity fall like dominoes, like houses
of cards. They stay fallen until enough time has passed for them to be
forgiven and forgotten, a process in which (please
observe)
while a good result is produced, there's no
mastery.
In a
separate conversation
you and I can speak about
Werner's Erhard breakthrough
technology
for dismantling
upsets.
In this conversation, however, I'd like to suggest another
way of being with family when the family undercurrent surfaces causing
upsets.
Not a better way - just another way. There's no
better way, in any case, when it comes to this sort of
thing. Whichever way
works
is a better way. Any way of being with the surfaced family undercurrent
or being with
upsets
or managing
upsets
or dismantling
upsets
is simply a
tool
in your
toolbox
which you'll use as and when the need arises. And you may have more
than one tool for accomplishing the same result. You may have more than
one wrench, for example, in your
toolbox.
Here, then, is another way of being with an undercurrent - a family
undercurrent, to be sure, but any undercurrent really: realize it's
not personal.
It
never was
personal.
It was going on before you got here. You were born into it. The
family undercurrent is the condition you were born into. It's the
condition called being human. And it's
not personal
(it's
never
personal)
unless you make it
personal
- which is to say unless you
take it
personally.
When a family undercurrent surfaces triggering a family
upset,
it's
not personal.
You didn't cause it. They didn't cause it. You're not at
fault. They're not at fault. There's no blame. The
undercurrent was already going on long before you got here. It was
already going on long before they got here. You were born
into it. They were born into it. It will continue after
you're gone. It will continue after they're gone. It'll be going on
forever.
It's ... not ...
personal.
It's
not personal
that you were born into the morass of
undercurrents of family which is the condition called being human ...
and ...
it's
not personal
that you were born into the exquisitely rich and unspeakably joyous
experience of family which is the condition called being human.
What my friend and I realized is getting it this way starts with being
who you are,
loving being
who you are,
and being powerfully, unashamedly,
fearlesslywho you are.
In this way, you don't vote on a course of action for
family or for a particular outcome in response to
upsets
caused by the surfaced family undercurrent. Instead you simply offer
leadership.
Period.
Be careful: realizing you were born into it, realizing
it's not personalisn't a way of avoiding being responsible. Rather it's a way
of
creating
space for what's going on, a way of allowing
whatever family undercurrent is going on rather than being
consumed by it - in other
words,
it's a way of not simply going off on family. It's a way
of having the space to choose family and to be with
family. It's a way which actually facilitates enhanced responsibility
rather than diminishing or obfuscating it.
If there's a way for family which interferes with the
ever-present undercurrent which results in conflict when it surfaces,
if there's a way for family which honors, respects, and deeply
appreciates the gift of family, if there's a way for family
which
stands withfamily
and
stands with
each individual family member regardless of anything
upsetting
which results, even unknowingly, from the family undercurrent, then
this is it.
If there's a way of realizing the family undercurrent isn't personally
caused by family members even when it looks like it's personally caused
by family members (including you) then this is it.
No onecreated
the family undercurrent. You were just born into it. It's like diving
into a warm mountain pool. You didn't make the pool warm. It was warm
long before you dived in.