Who Are We? Part 2
Along with reactivity, the second tendency a successful coach addresses is blame. We humans have a strong tendency to focus on “the other person,” and how their behavior “out there” is reponsible for what we’re feeling inside. (Some of us tend to blame ourselves for what others are feeling “out there,” while most of us prefer to blame others.) It’s as if our tombstones should read, “My life was his/her fault.” I think this blaming tendency stems from our fight-or-flight instinct to characterize other people as friend-or-foe.
Again, the goal is to shift our minds from the instinctive tendency to look for cause-and-effect. In fact, sometimes our “enemies” serve us, and sometimes our most intimate partners do us in. If we can begin to see the human animal as a jumble of irrational behaviors governed mostly by instinct, we can begin to understand that it truly IS nothing personal. People aren’t reacting to us, they’re reacting to their own reactivity within. They’re prisoners of their instincts, and they can’t even see the bars. To understand this makes it much easier to forgive and accept others as they are.
Once we begin to learn how to not take things personally, we can spend less time reacting to others, and instead focus on our SELF, and that one-degree shift from reptile feeling to cortex thinking. Said another way, we don’t have to prove whether “that other person” is to blame. We can simply take responsibility for our thoughts, feelings and actions, and our role in the situation. That’s where empowerment lies.
In practical terms, the goal of Bowen Theory is to help one to observe onself. If one is observing oneself, one is thinking. In a coaching session, this goal is achieved by some didactic teaching, but mostly by the therapist getting out of the way of her emotions and instincts—both her client’s, and her own. In a successful session, both parties are feeling as few feelings as possible, and thinking as much from their cortexes as possible. A theory that describes and predicts human behavior is a valuable tool in helping both coach and client to achieve less feeling, more objectivity about self, and more thinking-guided behavior.
In spiritual terms, the goal is to transcend our earthly “desires ” and attain a state of what the Hindus call pure thought, which is the ultimate creative force (i.e., God). This process of transcending our instincts/emotions (I make no distinction) is the common denominator in all religions.
The teachings of Jesus used to seem abstract and impossible to me: turn the other cheek? Don’t defend yourself when on trial for your life? Forgive seventy-times-seven times? Treat all others as equals, be humble, and take the log out of your own eye? What could be more counter-intuitive to a human being than these things? Bowen Theory helped me bridge the gap between the teachings of Jesus and my own behavior. I now have a “navigational map” to behaving like Jesus, that charts how to get there. My goal is to change my ship’s course by one degree.
