Why Belonging belongs with DEI

As you can see from the image above, the highest stress point causes freeze. Freeze happens on a spectrum. In the work place it might look more like going quiet in a meeting, not speaking up against a co-worker or supervisor who is being inappropriate, allowing others to take credit for one's own ideas or work, laughing and going along with things that make one feel sick inside, etc. Diversity helps us widen who is a part of the work place. This is a value to the company because it brings in more perspectives that will bring more collective wisdom. But because diversity can be limited by bias to certain categories (e.g. diversity in age but not in race, gender, etc.) Equity helps diversity stay accountable. Inclusion does the same for Equity by not only creating seats at the table for people but ensuring they have a voice. Belonging continues this trend of helping the previous letters meet their goals. With all of DEIB you are increasing psychological safety in the work place which helps people have a better chance of staying in the green of social engagement (this is good for creativity, problem solving and productivity) and out of the yellow of fight or flight and the red of freeze. Belonging brings this home by helping people feel that their inclusion is not a burden, that their personal experience is not alien or isolated but understood by the community of their workplace. Belonging helps people feel they fit. When people feel they fit they can naturally be authentic and have a voice easier. This is how Belonging helps Inclusion meet its goals and makes the green of social engagement even easier.

#DEI #DEIB #PsychologicalSafety #Polyvagal #Belonging

Taking Back Yourself From Narcissistic Leadership

Whether it’s toxic leadership in religious communities and churches, companies or politics more and more people are finding a voice to call out these ways and say they are not okay. To take back yourself from narcissistic leadership we have to start with understanding what does that term even mean. Really it is a description of trauma that was never helped and so created a pattern of coping that became habit which became personality.

Trauma specialist Peter Levine defines trauma in many ways but one of them is “incomplete self protective actions waiting to complete”. When we get overwhelmed and there is no one able to help us we freeze. Freeze is the highest level of activation (not fight or flight). In freeze we experience terror, helplessness, and we shut down to cope. This is natural however what is not natural is for this biological emergency break to stay on for long periods of time. Levine discovered that most animals in the wild do not get PTSD despite going through life threatening situations (like almost being eaten). This is because they allow their nervous systems to complete the fight, flight and freeze impulses their body initiates when threatened. As humans however we often don’t allow ourselves to complete fight, flight or freeze (due to a ton of different reasons). This means that the enormous amount of energy that is initiated in the fight, flight or freeze reaction becomes stuck in our bodies. We do all that we can to not re-engage that energy because it’s overwhelming. We don’t want to feel the fear, rage, helplessness, isolation, chaos, etc. of those states especially if we don’t understand why we are feeling that way. Problem is the incomplete past won’t stay in the past.

When we experience something that has similar enough feelings, events or pieces to our original painful experiences that we are still holding our brain does what it’s supposed to do. Which is to re-engage how we survived (coped) last time. Meaning, it says something like, “I know what this moment is because I’ve lived a moment similar to this before. It’s a threatening moment and I remember how I survived last time so I will re-activate all those ways to ensure survival again.” So the way we looked away, tightened our lips, clenched our jaws, the ways our muscles tighten in our legs, gut or chest, the way our bowels felt, the feelings we had, the meanings we made about the moment, all re-activate to attempt to adapt and keep us alive and keep the feelings and survival mechanisms from completing.

Part of that will be to dissociate from those bodily awarenesses. To do that we may use outside things to distract us (e.g. needing things to be super exciting or interesting or quick hits of novelty, needing things to be zen and not upsetting at all, needing things to not be about anything meaningful to keep it surface level and superficial) or we may use inside things (becoming hyper sexual, arrogance, becoming hyper rational, staying in go mode for longer than normal, thinking everyone else is at fault, thinking everything is our fault, needing to be around powerful or attractive people, getting depressed, getting anxious, etc.). Of course we often use outside and inside distractions simultaneously. Over time this creates a pattern of feeling/thinking/behaving that is automatic/unconscious and so frequent that it becomes a part of our personality.

So what happens when this is in the background of a leader, especially a founder? Often what happens first is the company gets set up so that it’s difficult for there to be accountability for the leader. This helps the leader continue to use the original ways they have coped (e.g. maybe they become manic and make a bunch of changes really quickly - emailing late into the night, maybe they become critical and bully-ish, maybe they say sexist things or really vulgar jokes, etc.). This could look like the HR department is non existent or is hampered in some way. Or perhaps a co-dependent culture is cultivated from the start so that everyone knows implicitly you don’t cross them or you get fired. Or there is little to no Diversity, Inclusion, Equity or Belonging initiatives.

It gets so complicated when money, security and livelihood feels on the line. We stop listening to our guts and our authenticity. We utilize our own distractions in order to calm our reactions to what doesn’t feel right in order to not feel anxious about losing our jobs or causing problems in an area that could affect our ability to earn and provide. Or in the case of religion we potentially fear disconnection from the Divine.

Really, the strongest thing we can do is become more conscious. The more conscious we are of our feelings and convictions the more we can make a conscious choice as opposed to an automated one that is based on a past survival strategy. We may choose to stay somewhere because it feels worth it to us and learn to adapt through having other support systems. We may choose to confront problematic people and systems. We may choose to leave. Or something else. It’s not about right and wrong, healthy or unhealthy. It’s about being able to stay in touch with your own built in value system that lets you know what feels life giving and what doesn’t.

So how do we become more conscious? Well the first steps are to get in touch with what the signals are that we don’t feel okay. Ask yourself:

When something is off/when I don’t feel safe/when I feel uncomfortable I:

Feel what?

My muscles, bowels and visceral do what?

Dream what?

Think what?

Say what?

Do what?

Don’t feel what?

My muscles, bowels and visceral don’t do what?

Don’t dream what?

Don’t think what?

Don’t say what?

Don’t do what?

Counter-Transference In The Work Place

In a previous article, I described transference in the work place. In this one I will describe the other side of the coin, counter-transference.

Counter-transferences are the reactions we have to the unconscious beliefs, emotions and desires being communicated implicitly through another person’s behavior. It can be empathy based or authenticity based. Meaning, you can experience the way the person is feeling in reaction to them (likely you feel more of their feelings and have a deeper sense of understanding and compassion for them) or you can feel how it feels to be treated the way they are treating you (you could feel great about about being idealized for example or really annoyed if you’re being treated like you don’t matter, etc.). Counter transference is unconscious (again without practiced awareness) and can be problematic if it causes you to engage in a drama of the past (e.g. perhaps you unwittingly take on the role of a parent with someone who needed more care than they got and so look to you for guidance. This might activate you're own unconscious adaptive strategies from childhood in which you pleased/entertained/cared for others as a way to experience emotional security. Re-engaging in such a drama replays how you had to be more responsible than your parents and causes you to struggle with your own personal boundaries around your time and effort - working longer and harder than you should. You once again might be stuffing anger and unwittingly be trying to please [i.e. control] the person who unconsciously is communicating unprocessed emotions of need by intensely needing your mentorship. These kind of enactments usually work for sometime until the authentic needs of the one being idealized clash with the unconscious needs of the one being mentored. Such ruptures are confusing because they can reveal upset emotions and even lashing out over reasonable boundaries.)

So, counter-transference is the emotional reactions we have to the unconscious and implicit expression of emotions and needs from another. Depending on the dynamics it can create re-enactments of insecure relating. Knowing how to identify and compassionately help transference/counter-transference can give your work culture a great advantage.

Transference In The Work Place

Transference is when a present moment is read by the brain as being the same as a moment in the past and then treated as if it was the past. Meaning, the ways we coped, the ways we felt, how acted and how we understood the moment are imported from the past. This happens all the time, it’s why we can automate so much of our lives. Most of our life is not lived in the present moment, it is lived in what McGilchrist calls re-presented. We are experiencing our own reconstruction of life that is based on what we’ve learned and predict from those memories and models. The type of transference I’m talking about however is more relational based. This type of transference is noticed when either it reveals unprocessed memories in which we were in some kind of survival mode or when it reveals memories of unmet developmental desires. With survival moments we see people treat the present as a threat at some level when it really isn’t. With developmental desire moments we see people treat the present as something to harvest when it’s more than just that. Both are unconscious processes (unless the work is done to be aware of such phenomenon) and not always easy to decipher.

For example, if a co-worker launches into taking up all the space in a meeting it might mean they are unconsciously in a survival based moment in which they are working to control the situation through avoiding silence and other’s reactions in order to avoid feeling abandoned. Such unconscious behavior would help them feel more safe. Or it could mean they have become excited about the possibility of feeling seen and validated which unconsciously leaves them trying to resume getting natural unmet developmental needs satisfied. Either way, it derails the meeting.

If this kind of transference is not understood and helped it becomes limiting to our professional and personal lives. It’s also why I suggest we stop calling companies families. It suggests something that isn’t true (companies are motivated by profit, families are motivated by relationship) and that can unnecessarily provoke transference.

Next I’ll talk about counter-transference in the work place...

Why it's hard For some to not be judgmental

By: Aaron Mitchum

We notice emotions when they are too high or too low (just like we only notice the temperature in our body when it’s too cold or too hot). The feelings we notice are the ones with the most demand and the most opportunity for doing something about them. When we take action to meet the demands of the feeling it “solves” for it and the positive experience we feel is the relief of the emotion coming back to a level that is sustainable. We no longer feel bothered.

So what does this have to do with being judgmental? Judgmentalism is thought of as a defense (notice I’m not talking about sound judgement here, I’m talking about the way we scrutinize others). It’s an unconscious or automatic mechanism that keeps us unaware of our own emotions and their demands on us. Defenses are a grace that help us cope and deal with life (it’s really helpful to be able to compartmentalize, etc.). Of course defenses can become maladaptive as well. Which is why it is good to be regularly practicing awareness. Often the defenses we pick up and adopt are ones that are modeled for us. This might be why some folks gravitate to it more than others.

Being judgmental can relieve us of feeling our own needs and focuses problems as being outside of us (it might also seduce us into thinking that judging others will help us feel better about ourselves thereby attempting to relieve our emotional pain somewhat). When we are in pain from under met or over extended emotional needs and don’t have the time to deal with them, or we feel unequipped or alone to deal with them (perhaps they are feelings from the past) we automatically cope by trying not to be aware of them. Without relieving the underlying emotional need we require some kind of distraction. Judgementalism is that distraction for some.