Psychological flexibility | Donna Boni, MSW, LCSW, LCAS, IDAATC, CCS-I

I recently read an article about a woman, “Mary”, who had a mom and pop type business with her husband. They divided the duties of running the shop by strengths and interests. He died suddenly and now she was left running the whole show. Not only wasn’t she good at doing his part, she didn’t even really know what it was he did or how he did it. She was overwhelmed and felt hopeless and incompetent and scared, as well as grief-stricken.

This made me think that marriages and long term relationships are like a small business. Each partner takes on part of the load and the couple manages, more or less, to keep it going.

I am at an age when people around me seem to be experiencing huge life changes — spouses dying, divorce after decades of togetherness. This is when the challenges of “doing it all” can become as overwhelming as it was for Mary.

A client who lost her partner of 20 years confided that she just couldn’t cope. She was unbearably lonely, depressed, and would break down as she tried to navigate the daily chores that her partner used to handle — things like calling the plumber (who was the guy they used?), or changing the credit card used for auto pay (she never did know the pin number). She felt like an incompetent child – she couldn’t manage on her own and was convinced she was obviously deficient in some crucial way.

I believe our ability to go on in the face of great loss and change ultimately comes down to our ability to go against the conventional wisdom of these times and NOT “be in the moment.” The moment sucks. The moment is what’s getting in the way of breathing and thinking clearly. What can give clarity, offer solutions and provide respite is to look at the big picture and not delude ourselves that we have all the information we need nor that we will achieve peace by accepting the present reality. It takes more than that. It takes trust in the reality of change. It may take awhile. It will certainly take longer than you want. Things may not visibly improve but they will change. And who knows what doors that change will open?

There is a story about a bug that gets trapped in a cup and goes around and around, trying to escape and finding no way out. There are times when we are all like that bug. We are trapped and see only what we can see, limited by ourselves, our own thinking. And yet, unlike that poor little bug, we might be able, if we step back, to see that there are unlimited options that the future could bring. Our “in the moment” puny brain just can’t see them. But if we breathe, give the world a chance to work its magic, Plan B, C, D, E etc might reveal themselves to us and offer a whole new vision of our life. Step out of the moment and into infinite possibilities. The moment may still suck, but maybe the future wont.

“Life requires of man spiritual elasticity, so that he may temper his efforts to the chances that are offered.”

― Viktor E. Frankl

If you have paid attention to what Silicon Valley innovators and business pundits are saying, you have probably heard that we are poised for the biggest, most innovative change that our society has ever seen. In 50 years the world will be significantly different. The job market will be changing dramatically and at this point no one knows what it’s going to look like.

The most important skills that we must bring to the future will be our emotional and psychological ability to adapt to rapid change. This will require a kind of emotional flexibility most of us don’t have. Humans tend not to like change. We get ourselves in ruts. We are comfortable with stability and predictability. It has always been important for people dealing with emotional and mental health issues to learn how to adapt. It is now becoming increasingly important for everyone to grow in this area. We need to learn what we don’t know. And sometimes we don’t even know what that is. We need to teach it to our children; we need to start implementing it in the workplace.

Where do we start? There are many tools that attack pieces of this puzzle. Terry Real’s Relational Life Therapy can help us differentiate between our Wounded Child, our Adapted Child and our Functional Adult, and gives us ways to improve our intimate relationships. Dialectic Behavioral Therapy helps us regulate our emotions and decrease knee-jerk reactions. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy teaches us to identify the automatic, entrenched thoughts and beliefs that get in our way. And on and on. Each approach looks at human behavior through a different facet of the human prism and each offers useful insights and tools.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy was developed by Stephen Hayes and others precisely to develop psychological flexibility. It invites people to open themselves to uncomfortable feelings, to not overreact, and to not avoid situations where these feelings are evoked. Dr. Kevin Polk has streamlined this using the Matrix which simply and visually clarifies the process:

Look where you are right at this moment. Pay attention to the world around you and the thoughts and emotions within you. Think about who and what is important to you and why. What are your values and do your goals align with them? Who do you want to be? What do you want your life to look like? What gets in your way from being that person and having that life? What feelings? What actions occur in response to those feelings? What different actions could you take, knowing that SOMETHING is always going to be there, waiting to derail you? How can you learn to accept that this is just part of being human and yet doesn’t need to run your life?

The Pro-Social Matrix expands this process to working with groups and organizations. Teams are taught how to identify what is getting in the way of effective teamwork. Is morale and productivity down? Is the company having difficulty functioning on a very basic level? Is employee turnover causing the company money and resources? How can such problems be improved quickly and continue to improve using these new skills?

I am proud to announce that I am being mentored in this work by Dr Polk and am expanding my use of the Matrix to groups and organizations. Please contact me at donna@donnaboni.com if you want more information.