Steve Cuss Profile picture
Sep 28, 2020 17 tweets 3 min read Read on X
If you're stuck in a recurring, predictable toxic pattern with someone, your temptation is to focus on them - all the things they are doing to make it worse. But #SystemsTheory teaches us to take responsibility for what we can own. By pausing, we can break toxic patterns.

1/
Rather than spend energy on 'them' you can pause and run a few powerful steps.

1. Map out the actual problem.

Many people stay stuck because they haven't clarified the ACTUAL problem. Sometimes a 'problem' is actually 5 interrelated problems.

2/
Our KidMin was struggling with volunteers cancelling on Sat night. That feels like the problem, but when you tease it out, it is several interrelated problems.

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Actual problems:
- my family's frustration that now I am working Sat night to get volunteers.
- My response to volunteers that 'it is no problem' because I am a people pleaser.
- potential KidMin rooms closing Sun due to vol shortage

etc.

4/
We get stuck in a PROBLEM because we don't take time to tease out the tangle of problems that make up THE PROBLEM.

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Step 2 is vital: name the attempted solutions to this problem that are not working. List all of them:

- telling the vol 'its no problem.'
- telling your spouse, 'it is for the church, we do what it takes' rather than hearing spouse's frustration at Sat night work etc.

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Step 3 is always most painful and then most freeing:

List your complicity in the problem.

What are you doing to make the problem worse?

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Step 3 works because we don't realize that 'the problem with those people' is often inexplicably linked to our own behavior. This gets to the heart of Systems Theory - we are all linked, our behavior and assumptions all impact each other.

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Naming your own complicity helps you bring actual systemic change.

So many times, this step has helped me move from frustration, demonizing another person, and reactivity, to taking responsibility.

9/
Step 3 is gold when you bring change. Rather than blaming the other, you start with, 'here is what I am doing that is making things worse. What do you see that I am doing to make it worse?'

Coming to someone 'underneath' them, confessing your own complicity is disarming.

10/
Step 4: List the 'motivated change agents.'

No point wasting energy on people unmotivated to change.

Also, 'who is over functioning and who is under functioning in this dynamic?'

Sometimes the simplest stopping of over functioning can break a pattern.

11/
'The colossal misunderstanding of our time is that insight will work with people unmotivated to change.' Edwin Friedman.

I have violated that quote so many times.

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Once you're clear on the problems, your attempted solutions, your complicit, now you have perspective.

Now you can bring actual change clear headed. Now you can approach the person and have a difficult conversation admitting your own contribution to the problem.

13/
With our KidMin - their frustration kept them from seeing that Sat night cancellation was an attempt at courtesy by dedicated volunteers.

Vol would get sick on Wed, and say to themselves, 'I'll be better by Sun' but still sick Sat and had to call.

14/
They then call and staff says, 'no problem at all!' Staff communicated, 'you make no difference.'

Staff changed communication. They told all vols, 'when you get sick midweek, tell us right away, we know you're waiting our of courtesy, but tell us early now please.'

15/
Sat night cancellation was not 'usual, unreliable suspects' it was 'random % of 130 volunteers.' Knowing this made it feel less personal. Everyone gets sick once in a while. Everyone forgets they made weekend plans once in a while.

We studied companies that over book.

16/
Airlines overbook all the time, counting on a % of no shows. KidMin began a plan to 'overbook' Sun vols, so when % cancelled, we were still fine.

Twitter always makes things seem tidier.

This is brave, difficult work, but it keeps you from staying STUCK.

17/17

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More from @stevecusswords

Mar 22
A gentle reminder that your inner critic is telling you a gospel. It just happens to be a gospel of condemnation and shame.

I fired my IC, but he kept coming to work, like Milton from Office Space. I've learned to quieten it by containing it with God's first and last word.
1/
This is slow transformation work, not one and done. I started in 2016, noting how often I called myself 'stupid' or a 'moron.

50-100 times per week. Lord have mercy.

I vowed to treat myself the way God treats me. It was harder than I thought it would be.

2/
It turns out, I believed the gospel of 'self' and inner critic over the gospel of Jesus. And it took much faith and patience to relax into the gospel of Jesus.

Still a work in progress.

A quick test for you:

3/
Read 8 tweets
Jan 5
One of the most powerful ways to lower reactivity in you and your people is to learn to notice it.

Noticing is sort of a reactivity power tool. It builds your immunity and you're less likely to catch and spread it when you're working on noticing.

What situations or types of people tend to generate reactivity in you?

How can you put yourself in those situations this week so you can practice noticing what goes on in you?

Then, after a few reps, as you walk into those situations, how can you pause to get your noticing radar set?

I'll give an example from my own life:

1/
A surefire generator of reactivity for me is when people ask me questions and I don't know the answer. I am a recovering 'stupidholic' and when I don't know something, especially if it is within my responsibility, and someone asks, I feel exposed.

*This, of course, is a false need.*

So in elders meetings which are monthly for our church, it is common that an elder asks me about, say, the children's min budget trend from the last few years.

2/
Now that elder isn't expecting me to know it right away. He or she is very happy for me to get that info later, but in the moment, I lose all reality because reactivity puts us in a false reality.

In the moment, I HAVE to know the answer for the world to be ok.

Reactivity is CRAZY. It is always selling ARMAGEDDON in the moment. That which is crazy suddenly feels eminently reasonable.

3/
Read 7 tweets
Nov 11, 2023
Parents, what do you do when your child is coming at you anxious, either anxious because of you, or simply spilling their anxiety?

1/
Step 1 is counter intuitive:

Connect to yourself.

By connecting to yourself, being aware of what is going on in you, you increase your capacity to manage anxiety. Notice your temptation to fix, shrink or irritability etc.

Irritibility IMO should be all 'i's.'

2/
Step 2: Listen to connect and learn rather than fix or defend.

Use curiosity to have them talk more about it.

Curiosity keeps anxiety managed for both of you.

3/
Read 13 tweets
Nov 10, 2023
I have been playing with a new tool:

"Put yourself on your conscious list of relationships."

It sounds weird and can feel counter intuitive, but it is transformative.

Here is the idea:

1/
When someone asks about my family and friends, I NEVER list myself. I cam get to great, great aunts and second cousins once removed before I even think to add myself to that list.

But I have, in fact, been in relationship with myself for sometime.

2/
Think of what you do for friends vs what you do to yourself.

Family and Friends: I check in on them, ask how they're doing. When they tell me, I believe them. I encourage them etc.

3/
Read 16 tweets
Nov 10, 2023
A quick reminder of some basics of Systems Theory.

1. Chronic Anxiety spreads in 4 spaces.
2. God exists and moves freely in those 4 spaces.
3. Anxiety tends to block our awareness of God.
4. Awareness of God's presence and goodness tends to cast out anxiety.

1/
Chronic anxiety is a specific form of anxiety. It is generated by:
- False belief.
- False need.
- Assumptions.

Other forms of anxiety: PTSD, Grief, GAD, Acute etc act differently and require different tools - often specialized professional attention and medicine.
2/
So expecting the tools for Chronic Anxiety to help, say, PTSD won't work.

However....

Chronic anxiety is the most common and pervasive form of anxiety flooding leaders and parents.
We carry SO MUCH pressure, expectation, assumption.

3/
Read 15 tweets
Nov 7, 2023
The human tendency is to focus on others rather than take responsibility for ourself. That, along with our tendency to minimize can keep us anxious and in stuck, predictable patterns.

1/
Sometimes I focus on others but blaming them, I noticed this especially with unreasonable critics. It was so much easier to be frustrated at them than it was to take responsibility for my part of the dynamic with them. Once I took responsibility, the dynamic changed.

2/
So ‘focusing on them’ looked like me feeling sorry for myself, having an anger fantasy about them, frustrated at how unreasonable they were etc.

Taking responsibility looked like noticing my anxious need to win them over, explain myself, get defensive etc.

3/
Read 9 tweets

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