I recently attended a conference that featured Dr. Thomas Seely.  He’s the “bee” guy.  His research has shown that bees have a quasi-democratic method for selecting the sight for a new hive.  

Dr. Seely has taken his research with bees and applied it to the human decision making process.  He calls it, “Five Habits of Highly Effective Hives.”  The habits include:
 
1.         Remind individuals of their shared interests, and foster mutual respect.
2.         Minimize the leader’s influence on the outcome.
3.         Seek diverse solutions to a problem.
4.         Avoid the tendency to seek rapid consensus; take time to talk it through.
5.         Balance interdependence and independence (no “groupthink”).
 
These principles for cooperation and collaboration are based on the behavior of bees.  In making a decision, bees do not have a designated leader (despite having a “queen”), diverse options are always considered, the rate of decision making is always the same (it never speeds up or slows down) and they use individual observation to inform the group.
 
This process reminds me of the movie “Of God and Men.”  In the movie, which takes places in the 1990’s, a group of Trappist monks in Algeria must decide if they will stay amid the rising Islamic tensions in the area or leave their predominantly Muslim community for safety in France.  I wrote a blog about it that you can read here.

Differentiation of self, a concept discovered by Dr. Murray Bowen through his observations of human behavior, is useful for making good decisions.  Differentiation of self is the force that motivates individuals to be clear about what one feels, thinks and is willing to do or not do while at the same time helps one stay in good contact with important others.  As one becomes freer from group process and group think (the togetherness force), one is able to contribute facts and objective observations back to the group.  This process of providing facts and observations influences the decision making process.  Thinking begets thinking, which begets thinking.  Individuals who are working on differentiation of self are a good resource to anyone working on a problem.
 
Clergy may “hear” differentiation as a technique for working with committees, teams and boards.  It’s not a technique and it cannot be confined into steps.  It is a way of thinking.  It’s not about being in control of the emotional “atmosphere” for decision making.  It’s about taking responsibility for the way one contributes to the emotional atmosphere of the group.  One learns to pay attention to the automatic reactivity that is generated in self and in others as one works on engaging others at a more thoughtful level.
 
The best place to work on differentiation is in one’s family.  It’s in the family that one’s patterns of reactivity are given birth over multiple generations and it’s there that one can practice (yes practice) working on being a responsible self in relationship to others.  As we grow up in our families, we develop the capacity of differentiation (which is a counter force to togetherness) as we separate (without cutting off) from our families of origin.  Anxiety disrupts this developmental process.  Most of us will spend a lifetime learning how to do a better job of regulating our anxiety as we continue the process of separation.  The bees may be lucky that their decision-making process is automatic and highly effective.  Humans are still learning how to make good use of the prefrontal cortex.  The upside to having a thinking brain is that humans get to not only enjoy the honey but also observe and appreciate what it takes to setup shop and make it!

 
It was the first time I called in sick on a Sunday morning.  There was no way I could stand up in front of the congregation.  My body was being unusually unpredictable.  I had to call someone.  I gave them a two-hour notice.  As I hung up the phone, my anxious brain (the title of my next book) concocted at least four narratives of how my absence would result in a train wreck.  None of them are worth mentioning, although the fear of a mutiny is always in the mix of perceived possibilities. 
 
While I rested in uncertainty, my phone chimed with words of encouragement.  The worship services had gone well without me.  The person I called on at the last minute did a wonderful job.  My anxious brain was wrong.
 
I felt relieved.  Not the kind of relief you get after a long illness or a battle with a disease where you finally start to feel better.  It was the relief you feel when your fears are not realized.  Those fears, unyoked to any sort of reality, had felt real.  Feelings are useful when they provide feedback on how the body is processing anxiety.  But I’ve learned through trial and error not to respond to situations solely based on my feelings.  That morning, lying in bed and worried sick, my feelings got the best of me.
 
Train wrecks don’t happen because of one person.  Likewise, things don’t go well just because of one person.  It takes a relationship system to get results, good or bad.  Everyone plays a role in how the systems functions.  Each person is responsible to the system and it was clear that anxiety led me to think that I was solely responsible. 
 
I realized, as I recovered on the couch, that I am prone to take responsibility for the functioning of a congregational system; a system that is largely out of my control. I cannot be responsible for how a congregation meets a challenge or if it meets a challenge.  Congregations do the best they can do.  That morning, they did well. 
 
Running into one’s level of worry can feel embarrassing.  But if one can observe how one’s level of worry impacts oneself and others in the system, it becomes an opportunity to shift one’s functioning in a more responsible direction.  I am grateful for the morning I had to lie still and contemplate this observation.
 
You might be wondering how I got sick in the first place.  Symptoms, like the one I was experiencing, are generated from the family emotional process.  To truly understand how symptoms develop, I encourage you to read Dr. Murray Bowen’s book, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice. 

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