I’ve Known Anxiety and Fragility
I was a young adult, eager and enthusiastic, with my first experience of anxiety. Maybe 19? Maybe 20? The memory is still blurred. But I remember the thinning of my feelings as my heart palpitated wildly beneath my chest, the involuntary panic that I would never want another soul to know I carried around in my body. With multiple college textbooks spread in front of me at the library, my Bible was the first book I read leading me to comforting Scriptures like Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.” Or verses I knew by heart that I prayed silently, ”When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you” (Isaiah 43:2). Oh, my deep trust in God and His Promises carried me for many years up until young adulthood anxieties plunged my soul into a tsunami of emotions, making me question if I was the leader others at my Christian University and church continually reflected back to me saying, “You have the personality, charisma, and gifts.”[1] These were the years before the internet, text messaging and instant anything! So when my first real experience of anxiety swept through, leaving me on the floor of my college dorm’s bathroom for an entire morning, I did what most young women in the late 1980s did: I found my closest girlfriends and wept in their presence asking, “Why am I Like this?[2] And Where’s God in the middle of this?” I don’t remember how long the feelings lasted but I do remember receiving a confident, calm courage to face what was next on my schedule. I felt good. I felt close to God. And I felt close to my girlfriends long enough to feel “normal” . . . until the next time. For years, I would repeat this cycle once in a while (not chronically) while still thinking in the back of my mind, Something is terribly wrong with me.
The Reality
Andy Crouch writes, “Whenever I am with college and high school students, I often say, ‘The statistics tell us that you are experiencing extraordinary levels of anxiety and depression and loneliness. That is not because you are unhealthy people in a normal world, that is because you are normal people living in an unhealthy world.’”[3]
“You are normal people living in an unhealthy world,” resonates deeply with me.
The Problem
I witnessed rates of rising anxiety and depression among college students in the last two decades. The statistics are alarming. The symptomatic displays are overwhelming. In 2016, I was part of a team of professors who helped start the writing studio for incoming students. One student quit showing up for classes which impacted her overall grade average. When I reached out asking her why she stopped attending classes, but still turned in the work sporadically, she explained she was too anxious to sit in the class. When I mentioned this to the younger, new director of the writing program, he explained this was her choice to make, not mine, and I was to pass her. Discussion closed. In 2020, more than one third of my public speaking students struggled with getting out of bed to attend class due to lack of sleep and anxiety at night. One student, who suffered from PTSD, called me after almost every class asking for notes saying he was sorry to miss again. The attendance policy for undergraduate students needed to shift or my students would fail. An employee from the disabilities services department met with myself and the student creating an accommodation boosting the student’s chances of passing the course. Of course I would do anything to help a struggling student to succeed, but in the back of my mind I wondered, “Are we creating psychologically weak future leaders?[4]”
The truth is, I could never ask that question aloud.
The Risk
In my mind, the challenge presented to us in this week’s reading seemed extraordinary and brilliant: We need leaders who are just plain desirous of nerve:
Decisive
Self-individualized
Willing to be exposed and vulnerable and
Persistent in the face of rejection[5]
But there’s a question niggling in the back of my mind as I read A Failure of Nerve.
Would Edwin Friedman stand by his thesis in front of leaders who are currently on the front lines of working with younger populations?
The Way Forward
I’ll offer Friedman’s own words to serve as a partial response, “In any hostile environment whatsoever, whether the toxic force is outside or inside the person, most often the critical variable in survival has less to do with the response of the endangered organism. It is responsibility, not empathy, that is the crucial variable in this equation” (144).[6]
If university professors, young adult pastors, coaches, parents and others self-differentiate by being responsible for their own integrity (rather than being empathetic), might their failure of nerve cost them their jobs? Another way to ask this is: Wouldn’t lowering a young person’s “pain threshold” be the same as helping them avoid challenges and compromising their failure of nerve?
Perhaps the prophetic word responding to my curiosity is the book’s subtle take away for leaders: Those working with younger people can modify relationships through their non-anxious presence rather than forcing, “the way we used to do things.” I still cannot see or imagine how one doesn’t compromise their integrity but I am open to discussion.
Edwin?
[1] Blackaby, Henry T., and Richard Blackaby. Spiritual Leadership: Moving People on to God’s Agenda, Revised and Expanded. Revised edition. Nashville, Tenn: B&H Books, 2011.
The authors note that factors outside people’s control, such as size, looks, genius, and charisma contribute to their capacity to lead. However, other leadership qualities within people’s control, if developed, can significantly enhance their leadership ability.
[2] Campbell, Kobe. Why Am I Like This?: How to Break Cycles, Heal from Trauma, and Restore Your Faith. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2023. I heard Kobe Campbell speak at GFU’s chapel last month where she confessed to showing up at a Christian Athletic group event struggling with severe anxiety and depression when the Christian leader asked her to stop attending because she could hurt her witness for Christ.
[3] Crouch, Andy. The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World. New York: Convergent Books, 2022.
[4] Lukianoff, Greg, and Jonathan Haidt. The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. Penguin Books, 2018. Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, say that in the name of emotional well-being, a culture that allows the concept of “safety” to creep so far that it equates emotional discomfort with physical danger is a culture that encourages people to systematically protect one another from the very experiences embedded in daily life that they need in order to become strong and healthy.”
[5] Friedman, Edwin H. A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix. New York: SEABURY BOOKS, 2007.
[6] Friedman, A Failure of Nerve.
About the Author
Pam Lau
Pamela Havey Lau brings more than 25 years of experience in speaking, teaching, writing and mediating. She has led a variety of groups, both small and large, in seminars, trainings, conferences and teachings. Pam’s passion is to see each person communicate with their most authentic voice with a transparent faith in Jesus Christ. With more than 10, 000 hours of writing, researching, and teaching the heart and soul of Pam’s calling comes from decades of walking alongside those who have experienced healing through pain and peace through conflict. As a professor and author, Pam deeply understands the role of mentoring and building bridges from one generation to another. She has developed a wisdom in how to connect leaders with their teams. Her skill in facilitating conversations extends across differences in families, businesses, schools, universities, and nonprofits. Pam specializes in simplifying complex issues and as a business owner, has helped numerous CEOs and leaders communicate effectively. She is the author of Soul Strength (Random House) and A Friend in Me (David C. Cook) and is a frequent contributor to online and print publications. You can hear Pam’s podcast on Real Life with Pamela Lau on itunes. Currently, Pam is a mediator for families, churches, and nonprofits. You can contact Pam through her website: PamelaLau.com. Brad and Pam live in Newberg, Oregon; they have three adult daughters and one son-in-law. One small, vocal dog, Cali lives in the family home where she tries to be the boss! As a family they enjoy worshiping God, tennis, good food and spending time with family and friends.11 responses to “I’ve Known Anxiety and Fragility”
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Pam, I enjoy reading your posts.
Your thoughts took me back to those early college days (shall we say the late 70’s) when I entered college. I remember thinking I was so lost in the academic environment. I felt so unprepared for it.
Feeling sorry for myself, I was sitting on the steps of Weber Hall and pigeons flocked in for a handout. There was one pigeon who lost a leg, but he was hopping about with the best of them hunting for food. I thought to myself, “Well if this pigeon can hang out in college with one foot, then perhaps there was hope for me!”
I think there is a real tension between “empowering and enabling” our students. There must be a balance of leadership/empathetic traits that all good teachers strive for.
While there must be Grace, there is also a responsibility to “train them up in they they should go.” Ahhh…sounds a lot like parenting.
Thanks for your comments…Shalom…Russ
Russell,
Thanks for your response. As leaders in our doctoral program, I firmly believe we have a responsibility to think carefully about our younger generations and what our presence in the world speaks to them. Are we struggling with anxiety and stress? Maybe. Does it overcome to the point we cannot work? No. What strikes me about Friedman’s work is the relationship piece: Leaders must know where they begin and where they end so we can communicate effectively when those around us want only our empathy and a pass to not be responsible. Yes, it does sound a lot like parenting!
Reading your post makes me think about how complex our current context is. So many nuanced situations requiring wisdom for responding.
I really appreciate you sharing your own experience because I think it gives you some authority to respond to today’s need. Thank goodness for the wise friends you had around you at the time. What other leadership lessons do you think you learned at that time that helped move through that intense period of anxiety?
Jen, Great question as I wanted to write more about what I learned during those times. Frankly, my professors at the time responded appropriately to me because they knew me so well. Not one of them let me off the hook for not meeting deadlines and I am thankful for that because they told me I was stronger than I thought I was. In fact, one professor reflected back to me how he witnesses the way I think in images and might that cause me higher intensity of feeling? He talked through things.
Second, I was a leader on campus during those years and had I suddenly been given a label, perhaps I would have pulled myself out of the life-giving activities of leading because of a weakness.
Third, the day after I graduated, Gannett Media hired me as a national advertising manager in Cherry Hill, New Jersey offering me an East coast region to manage. The pressures for me at that time stretched me beyond limits. My direct boss was a fabulous leader who reminded every day that all I needed was more experience to build my confidence. He was right! What I’ve learned about leadership through my own struggle is that confidence grows beautifully under pressure as long as you have voices calling you up and calling you out.
Hi Pam,
I appreciate your honest reflection and, like you, wonder about how we get out of this current mess. I news headline in Canada highlights the issue: A grade 8 basketball coach who wants his team to be on time makes them run lines at the start of practice for being late. The kids do it, they practice, all is fine….and then the coach gets ‘fired’ that week by school administrators. Holding kids ‘responsible’ definitely can cost you your job in the educational system up here in Canada!
In my view, Friedman has correctly diagnosed some of the reasons why we are where we are as a society (although I have issues with what he does with the word ’empathy’)….but the ‘how’ of moving forward as healthy differentiated leaders is extremely complex and nuanced-and more so when we try and integrate Christian values of ‘concern for the marginalized.”
Working our way out of this seems overwhelming…but I guess the best place to start is ensuring I am seeking to be a healthy leader myself.
Scott,
We keep coming back to this theme in our readings, posts, and peer group discussions. Remember the book Culture Wars: Struggle to Define America? A book written by James Davison Hunter and published in 1991? It concerns the idea of a struggle to define American public life between two cultures: the progressives and the orthodox. Now I feel like the culture wars are more refined and specialized. The war is within ourselves because we’ve become so hyper-individualized–we need a tool to manage what leaders are imagining all day long! Thanks for your comment. What are your ideas?
Pam, I love the nerve of you to ask this very hard question! I believe it’s the honest question and it’s a threshold concept question, how much do we cling to what we know builds resilience and integrity or do we adapt and trust nature of the new world to develop new ways of doing this? I guess the question, is thriving and building strong leaders nature or nurture? My first career was in Residence Life at a Christian College in Chicago. I was a Residence Hall Director and then the Director of Residence Life for 6 years. I cannot tell you the amount of phone calls I fielded with parents calling on behalf of their Johnny who didn’t like his roommate. The amount of education I had to give them on the “proper protocols” for roommate conflict, which starts with talking with their RA, then RD then me was beyond them, not because they didn’t “get it” but because Johnny was theirs, their son, their child who called because he was miserable and we want our children, and especially our newly leaving the nest children to thrive! We end up clipping their wings when we swoop in and fail to let them fail! This was over 20 years ago, and it was the beginnings of the helicopter parents. It helped me realize what kind of parent I needed to be, I needed to be okay with my child failing or falling and maybe getting hurt. Perhaps that is why we are here today? I am thrilled that we are taking our children and young adults mental health seriously, we need to, since those of us older probably kept our anxiety , depression and shame to ourselves and probably not for the better. However, you are also speaking to the pendulum swinging too far the other way. What are post-pandemic institutions going to do if they start failing students, when they don’t have enough to sustain the system as is? I’m wagering that some of these decisions get made out of budgetary concerns, to be honest. The technology age is a transition point for our society and young children, it is moving faster then we can respond too. We must find a way to adapt and think out of the box without clipping their wings. I think just the courage and nerve to ask the question is what Friedman would do. Thanks for asking it. Who knows what the answer is though. I sure don’t.
Jana,
Thank you for sharing a part of your journey where you worked with younger populations and their parents. In reading your experience and response to the helicopter parents, I wondered if there’s been leadership research within these last 20 years about the impact of such parenting particularly to leadership? On pages 213-15 in a Failure of Nerve, Friedman summarizes the principles of what new criteria of information is important for leaders under the four headings of Society, Relationships, Self and Leadership. Two distinct points that I find fascinating in light of your response fall under Relationships and Leadership. Under relationships, criteria #2 says, “Increasing one’s pain threshold for others helps them mature.” Under Leadership, criteria #4 says, “Followers cannot rise above the maturity level of their mentors no matter what their mentor’s skill and knowledge-base.”
Might institutions, churches, etc (organizations that work with parents) offer a new kind of leadership courses in raising, nurturing and challenging the next generation in the digital age? You are correct, Jana. We have a problem.
Pam, Thank you for sharing your story. I love how you referred to the reliance on your girlfriends for support in that very difficult time. Interconnectedness and interdependence were a source of healing in that moment. How might young leaders develop this to support them in their relationship with Jesus and their leadership in the world? How might older leaders, support and encourage them to engage in community?
Kathy,
Ironically, back in 2012 when I first started my research for my second book on mentoring Christian women across the generations, I was shocked by what I found out during my ethnographic interviews. Women in their late teens, early 20s and late 20s all told me that they would never share their greatest anxieties and fears with someone their own age but had no problem telling a complete stranger or an older “mentor.” When I shared my research with other professors, I asked if they thought this was true. Hands down, they all told me they witnessed the shift of peers not sharing with peers. Your questions is important: How might older leaders support and encourage them to to engage in community? We must tell our stories more publicly. Perhaps we find and create spaces for young leaders–as I’ve mentioned before in my posts, David Brooks believes we have a Relationship Crisis. We need a course called Friendship 101.
Hi Pam! Thank you for the story.
What a surprising fact concerning anxiety problems in teenagers nowadays.
I like your reflection regarding the leader’s condition in the future.
I’m just wondering, how do you and all the teachers help the students overcome their anxiety struggles, especially those who need long-term treatment?