Relational maturity involves being able to hold onto our inner direction when the pressure is high. It involves staying connected to others in a meaningful way while also staying aware of one’s responsibility.
Interview with Jenny Brown
I was asked the following questions in an interview for a community magazine piece. I appreciated the opportunity for reflection and thought that others might find it useful food for thought:
I’ve read your book ‘Growing Yourself Up’ as well as your blog and found them very helpful for understanding my part in relational dynamics. What would you say is the main insight of the book?
It’s hard to pin down a central insight. The central premise is that if we can get our focus off blaming or trying to change others and work on our responsibilities in our relationships we can contribute to healthier relationships.
What does it mean to be mature?
Family Systems understands that all of us humans have inherited various levels of maturity in relationships from our intergenerational families. Relational maturity involves being able to hold onto our inner direction when the pressure is high. It involves staying connected to others in a meaningful way while also staying aware of one’s responsibility. Immaturity is when we are shaped by relationship tensions – either by putting aside principles in order to be accepted or by distancing from important others when feeling under pressure.
How do we change to be more mature, and what are the obstacles to maturity?
The starting point is learning to see our immaturities and be realistic about the relationship sensitivities we’ve brought from our families of origin. It’s not really an appealing project to confront our maturity gaps but it is essential to improving the way we function in relationships. Helpful awareness grows from good observation of ourselves in relationships – especially during times of stress. Do I distance? Do I avoid by venting to 3rd parties? Do I become over adequate or controlling? Do I give up my problem solving and allow others to take over? Do I over invest in the life of another – perhaps one of my children? These are the common patterns for managing relational demands without bringing a more mature self to these pressures. Being aware of our predictable patterns is the key to slowly adjusting the way we behave.
The obstacles to maturity in this anxious world are many. A key one is the pull to focus on others at the expense of seeing ourselves honestly. Stress and busyness gets in the way of building improving our ability to observe self in relationships. It’s also extremely difficult to get objective about our-selves when our emotions are highly charged. Symptoms or problems in others draw our focus to ‘fixing’ efforts rather than addressing our part in contributing to a more health generating environment. Individual thinking, rather than seeing how all of us affect each other, is another obstacle to growing maturity.
How can we help each other grow ourselves up?
We help by being meaningfully connected to each other in open and honest relationships. We help by addressing our issues in the relationships in which they have arisen, as opposed to taking our issues elsewhere. We assist by not rescuing or over- helping others. In other words we respect the other’s space to find their own way through their difficulties, while demonstrating that we care and are ‘side by side’ with them. We listen well and share our own experiences rather than telling others what to do. We allow others to hear about our own journeys of joy and sorrow in a way that promotes mutual compassion and a deeper knowledge of each other. We stay persistent in prayer for others.
I know you’ve done a lot of training of people in ministry – what’s your biggest piece of advice for people doing Christian ministry?
Christian ministry, because of its imperative to serve others, has particularly intense challenges to not get caught up in others expectations. One of the most common dilemmas I hear is: how do I truly love and serve those in my community without getting burnt out? I think that the path of genuine contact with others without going into ‘over functioning- controlling-pleasing’ is a biggie. Avoiding triangling is also useful – to not rely on 3rd party lines of communication – as this will distort how one views others and generates unnecessary negativity or exaggerated worry.
What’s the most interesting feedback you’ve received about your work and how have you seen it affect people?
I do find it interesting that many people perceive this family systems approach to be uncaring. To me it is a different way of caring that is committed to the best for others.
I am regularly surprised at how people report being able to change the way they operate in their life and relationships by turning their attention to changing themselves and not others. People report that this lifts a huge burden from their experience of relationships. I admit that I am surprised that people are able to make shifts just from reading a book – I find that system’s thinking is complicated and difficult to apply. I have endeavoured in this book to make the ideas more accessible. I am truly encouraged that some people have found this effort useful.
‘What does it mean to be mature?’ – Jenny Brown