Into The Depths
Years ago, I used to wait in great anticipation of our annual holiday as a time of rest and refreshment. I would look at the past photos of beaches, happy faces, sandcastles and ice creams and I longed for those days of rest and fun when the daily routine of a busy life felt exhausting. Then the holidays would arrive and a few days into it I would remember that of course the photos are the highlights and the reality with four children was noise, mess, chaos, fun and laughter but also tears and tiredness. In many ways it was far less restful than the normal daily life of work and school but every year I had the same realisation, like it was the first time. According to Kahnerman, my automatic ‘system 1 constructed a story’ and my slower, reflective thinking ‘system 2 believed it.’ [1] The photos had meant that I had focused on peak moments and endings rather than the overall experience and I had a false emotional memory of peace and calm which I had associated with the photos of beaches and smiles. My distorted view of past holidays is a classic example of an adaptive way of coping with stress and thus not noticing that ‘we can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our own blindness,’ which is surely terrifying when we are in positions of influence or power.[2] When have we accidentally put our own filter on a past experience which then stops us from being able to hear negative feedback or a different opinion? This is why I am so aware that I need others to be kind enough to gently point out my blind spots so that I can continue to grow and develop.
Our instinctive, subconscious process of associative memory ‘in which each idea is linked to many others’ is both a considerable problem in trauma processing but also a helpful recovery tool when it comes to facilitating courage when we understand how possible it is to break the link between the associations.[3] Associative memory can cause painful flashbacks, phobias, anxiety and a limited life view until it is acknowledged and processed with empathy and patience.
Our minds are incredible and adaptive, but in positions of leadership we often need to be able to lead teams to make decisions with speed and the outcome can inevitably be less than positive if we can’t find time to slow down to use our System 2, or our higher cognitive function that can reflect deeply and try and avoid contextualised bias or assumptions.
I have recently discovered that I work with faster intuition and more confident delivery as a trauma consultant in critical incidents and crisis when I feel like people are excited or relieved to work with me and they communicate that they feel expectant that it’s going to go well! I have only really noticed this vast difference in ‘my performance’ in the last five years, but Kahneman says ‘an even more striking result is that unhappy subjects were completely incapable of performing the intuitive task accurately; their guesses were no better than random.’[4] I wonder if there is some link here with the words that Jesus said, ‘A prophet is not without honour except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own town. He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.’[5] Did God make us to be better at what we do when we are relaxed, accepted, wanted and feel like we belong? When people don’t feel heard and don’t feel valued and cared for, we know that this activates their sympathetic nervous system and consequently, their prefrontal cortex has less neural energy and they can struggle to think, imagine and dream. Conversely, when they can experience a sense of being valued and belonging, it can enable the parasympathetic nervous system to operate, and they can begin to heal from the turmoil and laugh and imagine. A question I often ask myself is how we can make our workspaces and churches into places where there is emotional safety, the ability to be slower and be able to reflect on the present, not be afraid of the past and be able to dream of a better future for our communities.
How can we be better work with our instinctive ‘gut’ feeling or System 1, to make it more trustworthy and not an instinctive self-protective mechanism that is deeply influenced by bias or mood or gullibility? The obvious answer is to slow down, breathe deeply and reflect on our own life experiences that have subconsciously shaped our understanding of life. Friedman reminds us that “reactivity, herding, blaming, a quick fix mentality, lack of well differentiated leadership- will always be descriptive of a regressed institution.”[6] This hard work is the journey of life, but to involve others involves trust and sometimes the pace of our society these days seems to make that less possible, yet it is vital to sit without rush and reflect on the instinctive, small hunches and thoughts that have poked up within a moment or an encounter with another. Dr Tammy Dunahoo instructed the students in Washington DC to remember that “reflection offers meaning to life…so stop and do the deep work.”[7]
Ultimately, I think it is consoling and terrifying to conclude in Kahneman’s words that ‘you know far less about yourself than you feel you do’ and a thought that should help us stay humble as we go about serving others.[8]
[1] Kahneman, Daniel. 2012. Thinking, Fast and Slow: Daniel Kahneman. London: Penguin. 67
[2] Ibid, 26.
[3] Ibid, 59.
[4] Ibid, 79.
[5] Mark 6:4-7 NIV.
[6] Friedman, Edwin H. A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix. New York: Church Publishing, 2017.274.
[7] Dunahoo. Tammy. DLGP Lecture. September 2024. Washington DC.
[8] Kahneman, 59.
About the Author
Betsy
7 responses to “Into The Depths”
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Betsy,
Last week, I walked into a conversation between two people on church governance and debate over appropriate models for selecting elders and deacons. Is it appropriate to draw lots? To hand select? Should a pastor be voted in?
My response: whatever the system, there needs to be accountability. If we are blind even to our own blindness, accountability is a critically necessary guardrail for those with power and influence. I think embracing accountability as part of the package of self-differentiation is what makes a leader worth following.
Joff, I so agree. However, how does that exactly work when so few people seem to understand even how complex the human soul is, let alone how to create cultures that reduce shame enough to enable people to be fully honest.
I have been a pastor in two denominations and grown up in the household of a dad who was a pastor in another one. All of those accountability failed deeply in my mind. The structures challenged what they saw through simplistic eyes and measured fruit and health by metrics that are not able to ‘test the depths’ of integrity and instead merely focus on external factors.
It is an area that I feel passionate about, because people can get deeply hurt on the other side of bad leadership. Yet so many leaders are unfamiliar with anything but cognitive learning, theories and systems and rarely have opportunity to take time to look at their own soul and what may flow out of it. Many don’t know where to start and can be deeply afraid. So accountability works if those who seek it are on a journey to be authentic, transparent, deeply concerned to not harm another person and those who they are accountable to share the same passion and commitment. Don’t you think? How can that be tested? People can learn to talk the talk but avoid walking the walk can’t they?
That’s a very important question, Betsy. I called up a friend today who has been a professional educator for all of her career to ask a few questions – primarily, what can be taught through wrote informational processes, and what can be taught through experiential tension-resolution processes (e.g. threshold concepts).
She explained that maths curriculums often adopt the former approach with exercises that are practiced to develop mastery through repetition, but that reading comprehension takes the latter form. It’s not that repetition is unimportant in reading, but the emotional process of embracing tension and finding resolution is important in a way that it isn’t in maths.
Does our perception of adult maturity needs to change similarly? Having an MBA might give someone a whole lot of information and feel cosy to hire because they can fiddle with the easy-to-reach management bits of an organization, but, as an MBA holder myself, it does little to help our metacognition, self-awareness, security of identity in Christ, and ability to stabilise dysfunction in ourselves and others.
Perhaps the right long game to play is a fundamental shift in understanding of what a good and mature leader is, transforming MBA from “Master of Business Administration” to “Mindful, Balanced and Aware”!
I do agree with your conclusions. My question has always been; ‘how do we change the culture in different sectors to grasp the central reality that we can only hide, suppress and repress our unhealed experiences for a length of time, but pressure and crisis eventually cause them to take over.’ The automatic System 1 reaction to crisis and stress can come from unhealed places. I have been helping in so many painful situations where leaders have suddenly been found to have had secret, abusive hidden lives that no one could comprehend were possible because of who they assumed the leader was. I am keen to know how we can raise awareness and bring cultural change so that the more common metrics of health of an organisation include the leaders self awareness and commitment to working with others who are on a similar journey, to heal and repair and transform.
Do you have any ideas other than keep raising awareness?
This thread is incredibly relevant.
Betsy, you characterize the inclination to cover up as a central reality, which means that we should not be surprised when it happens close to us. After working through an instance of this last year, a bigger picture outcome was recognizing the need to have written guidelines for how to navigate when a church employee is in violation of the behaviors portion of their contract. System 1 reactions can run the gamut from enabling to crucifying. A slower paced approach—written down for the inevitable ‘when’—encourages the System 2 thinking that can restore both the individual and the affected organization.
This is aside of building an environment of living openhandedly, asking for help, and removing halos. We don’t need to feature sinful behavior. We also don’t need to promote perfect facades.
Your last lines of the post are key. We know far less about ourselves than we think. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”(ESV) What we do about this condition speaks to maturity and sanctification.
I think Rich’s comment is very relevant. Self-awareness is where we begin, as described by scripture and reaffirmed by great thinkers from Aristotle onwards (“know thyself”).
When it comes to culture change, I am sometimes guilty of being aspirational and philosophical. In a sense, I don’t ever want to lose that sense of aspiration of the ideals. However, I also need to temper that with a realistic expectation: that widespread culture change probably isn’t going to happen because of me. If I have a positive influence on the people around me, and they have a reciprocal influence on me, I think we’re OK. By God’s grace and each of us following his voice, I have to trust that he will handle the meta-social stuff.
It won’t let me reply to you Joff and Rich. But i wanted to say I agree with your thoughts. I have a phrase that i have framed in my office, ‘self awareness is the key to integrity.’ I do so try to have that as a cultural value in the places I lead. But I am aware of the irony that we can only be as self aware as we have people who can kindly bring to us insights and reflections on our weaknesses or sin.