{"id":40999,"date":"2025-03-06T14:11:27","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T22:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=40999"},"modified":"2025-03-06T14:11:27","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T22:11:27","slug":"into-the-depths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/into-the-depths\/","title":{"rendered":"Into The Depths"},"content":{"rendered":"

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 \u2018system 1 constructed a story\u2019 and my slower, reflective thinking \u2018system 2 believed it.\u2019 [1]<\/a> 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 \u2018we can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our own blindness,\u2019 which is surely terrifying when we are in positions of influence or power.[2]<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Our instinctive, subconscious process of associative memory \u2018in which each idea is linked to many others\u2019 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]<\/a> Associative memory can cause painful flashbacks, phobias, anxiety and a limited life view until it is acknowledged and processed with empathy and patience.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s going to go well! I have only really noticed this vast difference in \u2018my performance\u2019 in the last five years, but Kahneman says \u2018an even more striking result is that unhappy subjects were completely incapable of performing the intuitive task accurately; their guesses were no better than random.\u2019[4]<\/a> I wonder if there is some link here with the words that Jesus said, \u2018A 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.\u2019[5]<\/a> 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\u2019t feel heard and don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

How can we be better work with our instinctive \u2018gut\u2019 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 \u201creactivity, herding, blaming, a quick fix mentality, lack of well differentiated leadership- will always be descriptive of a regressed institution.\u201d[6]<\/a> 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 \u201creflection offers meaning to life\u2026so stop and do the deep work.\u201d[7]<\/a><\/p>\n

Ultimately, I think it is consoling and terrifying to conclude in Kahneman\u2019s words that \u2018you know far less about yourself than you feel you do\u2019 and a thought that should help us stay humble as we go about serving others.[8]<\/a><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Kahneman, Daniel. 2012.\u00a0Thinking, Fast and Slow: Daniel Kahneman<\/em>. London: Penguin. 67<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid, 26.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid, 59.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid, 79.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Mark 6:4-7 NIV.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Friedman, Edwin H. A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix. New York: Church Publishing, 2017.274.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Dunahoo. Tammy. DLGP Lecture. September 2024. Washington DC.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Kahneman, 59.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2073],"class_list":["post-40999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-leadership-kahneman","cohort-dlgp04"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40999"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41015,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40999\/revisions\/41015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}