... authenticity can be abusive... How easily does the question: "Can I offer you some feedback?" not result in the receiver of the feedback pulling back, into themselves and being less than who they are?
Hi Frank!
Good morning, Francois. How are you doing today?
I’m fine thanks, and you?
I’m great. What have you done with the last conversation we had?
Oh, it’s processed, filed and will soon become part of my non-conscious competences.
Nice way of putting it… Before you let your non-conscious run with it in the effortless and benign way it deals with these things, I think let’s summarise and contextualize what you have learnt so far.
You mean let’s get the bigger picture?
Yes. Let’s build a model from what you have learnt so far. I’ll start with a story and we will work from there, OK?
Excellent. You know I love stories.
Good. So this story is about Charles and Vicky. Vicky has had much experience in and knowledge about emotional intelligence: she is an executive and life coach, she has attended many personal change workshops and eagerly applies what she learns. Charles and Vicky met a couple of months ago and the relationship is blossoming. They are very much in love and love spending time in each other’s company. They both are open and honest and tell each other about their past experiences, mistakes, lessons. Let’s just say Charles past is not a perfect picture, but he has made the changes he wanted to make and trusts Vicky to be adult about it.
What do you mean being adult about it?
Well, the “5 As” come to mind… Accepting, Allowing, Affection, Attention and Appreciation (How to be an Adult in Relationships). So he expected her to accept him and his past, allow him to be what he had chosen to be now, and so on.
OK, I get it, thanks. Looks reasonable…
Vicky, having a certain set of values, mental models and meta-programs, inferred some conclusions about Charles. “A leopard does not change his spots – this will happen again. And then I’ll not be able to live with it. Ugh! He’s done all that and we’ve been intimate!” So she decides being authentic and telling him how she feels, using I language. In the beginning Charles validates what she says and her feelings, but Vicky is not satisfied – she is now more than ever convinced that Charles is bad for her and she sees many red flags for the relationship.
Why did she stick around? I mean, if the bad effects of what we do start outweighing the good effects, we know we should stop doing it!
Sure, if you’re not addicted, or there is some other secondary gain… And perhaps a part of her genuinely liked and admired a part of Charles.
Not sustainable, that’s all I say.
Yep. So Vicky confronted Charles again, and this time he pointed out to her that her inferences are irrational and unnecessary. Vicky, being authentic, says that she feels very unsafe. Charles, knowing that everyone is responsible for their own thoughts and feelings, asks her what she is going to do about her feeling unsafe. Vicky realize that she has been confrontational and backs off. But the next morning, something Charles does or says triggers another outburst. Charles, realizing that he is not trusted or accepted, ends the relationship there and then. He says that he cannot fight against the monster version of him Vicky produced in her head. She says she can’t understand it, can’t understand why he so suddenly throws away everything they had. And that is the end of it.
Phew, Frank! A soapie of note…
Come on Francois, your mouth was hanging open at one point. I’m pretty sure you really got into it. J You looked like a spectator next to the wrestling arena.
*both laugh*
OK, I admit it, I could empathise with Charles – put myself in the situation. I may have reacted like him in some respects, but not all.
Alright, let’s build the model. Where do you think we should start?
On the inside.
Inside?
Yes, with their mental models, meta-programs, values and beliefs. Both had a set of non-conscious criteria for what to expect of a relationship, of a partner of the opposite sex, of how that person would act, what their background should be like, of their past… and there is another, peripheral set – about all the things related to the partner – for example the prejudices and stereotypes about something in Charles’ past.
OK – good place to start. We can call it, in short, the way of seeing others, ourselves and the world. What then?
Well, the way we see things shape our expectations of those things and it gives us a specific attitude towards those things. When we act in their context our behaviour reflects our attitudes. Vicky had an attitude towards something in Charles’ past and she acted in line with her expectations. Everything Charles said or did that was in tune with her criteria (values, expectations, beliefs) would easily pass through her perceptual filter, anything foreign, but not patently against her criteria, may not even be noticed as they pass through, but anything that goes in against her criteria or is completely alien will not be allowed to pass and would cause an emotional response.
Stop there for a moment. Let’s go with when experiences just pass through the perceptual filter, what happens then?
Alright. The stuff that goes through the filter (comparison to criteria was positive) tells us that our criteria are right and our view of the world, our self and other people are justified.
And the stuff that is foreign and does not get caught in the filter?
The comparison to criteria was neutral, so it causes no secondary information – emotions.
And the stuff that compares negative to our criteria?
This is the interesting bit… instead of weakening our criteria it actually can strengthen it. We would rather defend our criteria as they are than change them. So the difficulties Vicky was experiencing was evidence to her of some value or belief that you did not mention in your story and that she probably was not conscious of, perhaps some limiting belief.
Please explain?
I think she perhaps believed she was not capable of being in a relationship. Knowing her past experience with relationships would help to see if this could be so. Or she may have non-consciously believed that she is not deserving of a relationship. Or she may have non-consciously believed something like: “All men are so and so.” Also it seems she had the I’m OK, you’re not OK mental model in this context. So these things set her to filter for danger signs. Believing is seeing. What Jamie Smart says in his 10 Tips for Unconditional Happiness is what the believer believes the prover proves… She finds the danger signs and the evidence that Charles is not to be trusted and that the relationship is bad (for her). She authentically confronts him about her problem. That’s insane!
A bit of a vicious circle, isn’t it?
So it would look something like this?
Yes.
Yep. We’ve not looked at Charles’ process in this model, but I’m sure we’d find very similar unresourceful criteria in his. Important to note that the cause of our distress is not the other person, but our mental model. I think he may also have heard her authentic statements different from what they have been said. It is easy to make the jump from “I’m feeling unsafe” to I’m feeling threatened, to and inferring that he is experienced as the threat. How does this clash with his expectations of being accepted and allowed to just be himself – to be authentic?
Ah Francois, this brings me to a specific point. If anyone’s being authentic will result in anyone else being less authentic, it has become harmful. Someone that is truly emotionally intelligent will think about the consequences of the feedback they want to give about their own state even before they give it.
So being yourself fully and truthfully… congruence/authenticity at all costs… can be dangerous?
Yes, if it is not tempered with an ecology check.
But I don’t what to be walking on eggs the whole time around other people’s sensitivities! And I’m pretty sure they won’t appreciate my wanting them to toughen up.
Sure. The good news is that most people are not that sensitive and that they have a self-regulating feedback loop. The other good news is that this is a skill that can be learnt even though the process happens in the non-conscious. You want to add it to the model? Come on, let’s start where someone becomes aware that there are things not passing through their perceptual filter.
OK. This is where we experience negative emotions. The more intense the emotion, the less rational we will be and the more ‘programmed’ our response – we act nearly instinctively. Here it is important to remember that emotions are like a live electrical current. If we take hold of the open wire it is going to grab us and shake us until our teeth clatter and our hair are frizzed and smoking. If we lightly touch the wire and feel: “Ah – here be strong feelings,” we don’t get caught. We can either leave it be totally or look at it later to work out where they come from.
That working out where the emotions come from is what I call the feedback loop. What would you say is the best way of doing that?
I’d be doing two things here: something like appreciative inquiry… as logically and rationally as I can come up with answers to a set of questions; and then testing the answers once again with my gut feel and intuition. Only if I am feeling good about the answers I will make the changes.
Can you give me some examples, Francois?
Sure. I ask myself questions like:
- "Am I seeing right? Does what I am experiencing really mean what I think it means? Can it mean something else?”
- “How am I a part of the problem? What did I say or do that could cause the reactions I got? What does that tell me about my values and beliefs?”
- “What am I telling myself? What is the story in my internal dialogue?”
- "Which of my beliefs are in the way or are limiting me?”
Then, when you feel good about the answers you make the changes?
No, there is one more question I ask myself. “Is this context important enough that I should change the way I look at life, the world, other people and myself?”
Wow! That means you are conscious how your outlook may be hampering you and because the context is not important, you choose not to change it. OK, on an intellectual level I can appreciate it, but give me an example of a context that you would feel is unimportant and perhaps one that is important to you.
Well, for me the work context is important, and so are my relationship and my family. An unimportant context would be, for me, doing grocery shopping or driving on the freeway. I don’t need to make profound changes to my belief system to be able to operate resourcefully in those contexts.
OK, so now the ‘model’ will look like this:
Sure, that is a good enough map of the territory.
When did you learn all this?
The past couple of conversations we had… and from past experience. You know, I fell into many holes in the road because I assumed that other people consciously operate from the same model with the same feedback loop. I’ve learnt that some people’s feedback loop is non-existent and they typically would not check whether they are being responsibly authentic. Others have an overactive second loop and they are never really themselves.
Yes, that is a very good insight. Well, I think we’ve spent enough time on this for now… How much of this are you applying?
Practice what you preach, ne? Mostly I’m doing fine. Sometimes I still get derailed, so now I want to learn how to stay on track.
Great, that is something we can chat about at another time.
Sure.
Let the learnings sink into your benign unconscious… and every time you find yourself becoming aware of the parts of the model you wonder about at that moment, with wonderment, I am sure that you can congruently balance being authentic and taking a view of how much wisdom the people around you need.
Thanks, Frank. I don’t know what that means but it sure feels good.
Then it’s fine. We’ll chat again soon.
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