One aspect of Family Systems Theory that I think is at risk of being lost is 'playfulness.' Students of FST like Friedman and Whittaker actually measured anxiety through the lens of playfulness, the opposite being earnestness.

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Playfulness doesn't mean you don't take matters seriously. Sometimes the more serious, the more important 'play time' is.

Playfulness is not only for people of privilege, it is a human need and a true antidote to anxiety's grip.

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In the 1950, Murray Bowen, founder of FST coined the term 'societal regression.' It became one of his 8 core concepts.

As he studied the way anxiety spreads between people, he kept moving his view wider and wider from couples to families to groups to an entire society.

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Societal Regression is the simple idea that if anxiety spreads in a group, then any group gets more anxious over time unless the group has leaders with calm presence.

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Bowen predicted that by the 1970s, our whole society would be very volatile, highly anxious, combative and polarized. These 'ends' are the result of chronic anxiety in a group over time.

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If you've ever strongly disagreed with someone, or had, say, a strong political difference. Then if you pay attention to your inner life - what you think about them, the way you 'demonize' them.

Now imagine that on a societal level.

Societal Regression.

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Our problems are profoundly serious. Our society is profoundly broken and people are profoundly anxious.

Now is the time for leaders to do even deeper work.

Often the first impulse of a leader is to lead 'the other'

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I see this all the time in my trainings. People get a whiff of FST and quickly want to apply it to 'that person.'

But the first necessary deep work a leader does is always on herself or himself.

Want someone to be less anxious? Pay attention to yourself first.

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Or, as our flight attendants incessantly remind us, 'first place the oxygen mask on your own face before helping others.'

Same sentence. Every time we fly. Every. Time.

Why the repetition? Could it be that it so deeply goes against our impulse to be others' focused?

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So in order to de escalate societal regression or family regression or congregational regression the first thing a leader does is put the oxygen mask on her own face.

Then the leader clarifies 'what am I responsible for? What can I do? What is for the other to do?'

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'What is God's to do?'

Chronic Anxiety in our life is the evidence that we've fallen into the oldest snare in the book, 'you can be like god.'

Some of our chronic anxiety is generated by our attempt to control what we simply cannot control.

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But Paul reminds us in Galatians that we can control 'self.' Self control being evidence that Spirit is alive and working in us. Part of self control is releasing our grip on what we cannot control.

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Ok, so O2 mask and all that....

That is where playfulness can come in. Laughter, fun, recreation, soul care, contemplative prayer, full cream lattes and more come in.

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Some questions for today:

1) How can I play today?
2) With whom?
3) What serious matter am I anxious about?
4) What can I do?
5) What can I not do?
6) What is God's to do?

Amen and amen.

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