I also believe that knowing your values can be a source of courage, especially when find yourself in a difficult conversation. If the situation goes completely wrong, at least you can walk away knowing you stuck to your core values. I have had so many times when, out of fear, I didn’t say anything. But I now feel more called to speak up. As Nina said, “If I don’t say anything, then I’m complicit in the evil.” I can also reflect on a few times when I found the courage to speak up. For me, it doesn’t happen easily, and reflecting on my values gives me the courage to do it.

Freedom or Perfection

Nina was talking about the idea of getting rid of perfection. I don’t personally have a perfectionist self-expectation that I struggle with, but I do lack self-control and can be careless at times. She said that you have to muffle it. You can’t get rid of it. It’s a process, a journey.  I need to pray I think, more often, at all the things that trigger my lack of self-control.

Jer said in the chat, “what drives my desire be/get better?” I wonder if the driver is to be free from our poison, maybe that will be a resilient motivation. If the driver is out of an expectation of perfection, I can see that fizzling out very quickly.

Naming Systems

“When you see something in someone, name it. Live with kindness, not niceness. Kindness tells the truth. Kindness cares enough about another person to not be comfortable.”

In my leadership of the self class, I have an assignment in which I ask my students to think about something they admire about someone else, then go to them and say the thing. After that they practice naming their styles under stress. That’s the beginning. Later, we get into identifying all types of systems and then naming them. Some are healthy, some are toxic. The purpose being to build the muscle of naming things that often remain unsaid. Then we can live with intention, rather than automatically playing a part in the systems that remain below our conscious.

In a response to Chris’ question in the chat, Nina said that in the act of naminig what is real, some people will call you the instigator because their highest value is to keep the conflict at bay. This reminded me of the family systems theory concept of differentiation of self, which is the ability to remain separate and present in the midst of anxiety (i.e., not cutoff or reactive). Differentiation enables us to speak with truth and kindness. Doing this (or any self-differentiating move for that matter) inherently disrupts the system and usually comes with a bit of sabotage, like being called an instigator or other names. The goal of systems in general is to maintain the status quo. But the differentiated leader is like an immune system, and eventually the system calms down. If I want to be a peacemaker, I need to prepare myself for a bit of sabotage.

For anyone who is interested in a visual representation of common systems, here is a linke that shows some of the most common archetypes (e.g., tragedy of the commons, addiction, etc.): https://thesystemsthinker.com/systems-archetypes-at-a-glance/