I continue to think about how I have changed in the past two years. More to the point I continue to wrestle with how these changes have affected how I interact with others and how I do my work. I'm reading and re-reading material on leadership and hope. In part that reading goes with the research and writing for this blog/book. It is also part of my continuing development in practice as a coach, consultant, mediator and facilitator.
The book, Primal Leadership, reminds me in the strongest possible terms that my affective life impacts my leadership capacity. Effective leaders create emotional resonance in organizations. Ineffective leaders create emotional dissonance. As I look back, for example, over 2010 I know that I must have been creating much more dissonance than resonance.
It was truly the worst year of my life. It began in January of 2010 with Ben Larson's death. I think I did an effective job of moving the Our Saviour's congregation through some of the work of grieving that terrible tragedy. I didn't do such a good job myself. By May someone asked me if I was ever going to get over that loss. I was offended at the time by that question, but in retrospect I can see part of its import. My ability to create emotional resonance within the community I was leading--that capacity had been greatly reduced by my grieving.
By August the ELCA had immersed itself in the throes of a fight about homosexuality and Lutheran Christian practice. I was not emotionally equipped to lead our people through that fight. I did everything I could to avoid that conflict. My grief was deepened by the fact that I felt betrayed by folks whom I had counted as friends and supporters. They were entitled to their views, but I found it very difficult to define myself and maintain my boundaries in the midst of criticism, recrimination and duplicity. My emotional dissonance deepened into real anger.
That's when I became fully certain that it was time for me to leave. So I found another satisfying position. Then it was November, and Anne died. That's where my recollection of my emotional processes gets really opaque.
How much did my anger at life and the Church and God handicap me in dealing with Anne's death and the aftermath? I'm not sure how much, but I am sure that there was some significant effect. I recall that the sense of the world collapsing into a dark tunnel with no light at the end--some of those emotional experiences well pre-dated Anne's death for me.
How much have I retrojected my anger over Anne's death back into my anger at the emotional system at Our Saviour's? I'm not sure how much, but I am sure now that I did some of that. Memory is a fluid process of re-writing history every time we recall it. I wanted no emotional support from the people I had known and loved for over twelve years. I felt betrayed and rejected by that system, and I certainly didn't want their sympathy after the fact. In my anger I felt that those expressions of care were hollow and inauthentic. I know that's not true, but that's how I was primed to respond.
Most to the point, how much of the anger and pain continue to impact my affect in ways of which I'm not even aware? That's the part that concerns me now. I know that I am different in many ways. I am indeed more spiritual in my orientation than at any previous point in my life--thanks in large part to the wonderful influence of my spouse, Brenda. But I know that I have to work like never before in my life to maintain a positive affect and to resist hopelessness. This means that I am more aware and mindful than ever before.
Does it also mean that I project some anger, sadness and despair without even knowing it? Am I primed in ways that make me less of a leader? Is this the real downstream impact of that lowered "set point" which seems to be a common experience among widows and widowers? I'm not sure, but I do wonder. And if any of that is true, what does it mean for what I will do my life for the next thirty years or so (I hope)?
I wonder if other bereaved folks have similar wondering about who they are and how they impact the world around them with conscious or less-than-conscious changes in their emotional and spiritual lives.
Lowell, thanks for this vulnerable snapshot of part your journey. How is it that you have come through such difficulty and remained so graceful?
ReplyDeleteVern, it's nice to talk to you again. One of the openings for me in this process was the online class on Shame with Brene Brown (and the associated books, articles and videos). I was, in retrospect, fortunate to make bereavement my full time job for the first several months after Anne's death. I'm really a student who has jobs to fund my student "habit," so I have become well-informed about my condition. I was working on the psychology and theology of hope before all this happened, so I was blessed in that regard as well. It is God who is so graceful to me in all of this...I'm just trying to learn something along the way. Have a great day, Vern! And thanks for the comment.
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