Do you feel like the world is moving too quickly and you're having a hard time keeping up? Are you experiencing more stress, anxiety, and just want to get on the path to becoming less emotionally reactive?

If you want to become less emotionally reactive you can use the Bowen Family Systems Theory. Brene Brown, Harriet Lerner, Jenny Brown, and Andrea Shara are all examples of people who use Bowen Family Systems Theory in their work.

Why is understanding reactivity so important?

Reactivity is when the emotional field or the circuitry of the relationship system pings each other, then we react and become reactive as a result. Often it is unconscious and it goes back to our functioning and pinging within our family of origin.

Now, we can have conscious feelings that come as a result, but often the way we function in relationships is automatic and deep within us. That's why it's so important to work at a deeper level of emotions rather than only working on the secondary level of feelings.

While feelings are very important and can be dealt with and resolved, if we want to have a deep change in our sense of self, then we need to begin to do the work of self-differentiation, working on the self which deals with that underlying emotional field.

What is reactivity?

Emotional Reactivity — What is emotional reactivity?

It's our deep emotional system or an inherited emotional field from our family of origin. It's when we say "Our family is inside of us" and often which we don't feel very readily, that's why it can be harder to get to. It can take different ways to become less emotionally reactive, to heal, and to mature that part of us.

The emotional field in this deep emotional system is working within us at all times. When it's triggered we feel feelings.

Most therapy, coaching, and pastoral counseling deal with a tertiary level or a level in which they deal with hurt feelings, or the symptoms of the deeper emotional system, not the deeper limbic lizard brain part of us. This is a part of the emotional field. When you change the lizard brain you change that emotional field, which ultimately will change your feelings and your sense of self. This is the key to becoming less emotionally reactive.

The Bowen Family Systems Theory is the view of a very natural system theory, meaning it comes from nature. It's how nature, cells, and animals interact. This is what's called the limbic part, a very deep emotional part. Then there's the lizard brain part of us. This is the higher frontal part. When we can begin to change the lower brain, the top brain is less affected. Once that is achieved, we feel more sense of self, more mature, and we're becoming less emotionally reactive.

As you already know, feelings are very important because it's how we navigate our way through life. However, working to change this emotional system is most important for deeper permanent change for functioning as adults emotionally, behaviorally, and in relationships.

Here is an example. If someone was a pastor and their father had passed away, they're expected to do all of the prayers before the meals, they are always the family member to say grace. If the pastor didn't want to say grace at all of the family gatherings, you might imagine everyone would be thinking..."Okay, now you're on...you do what you're supposed to do." If the pastor wanted to go to dinners and just be a family member, not the one who has the role of responsibility, they might begin to feel uncomfortable or have feelings of fear or rejection. They might think "Choosing myself would be so selfish, God wouldn't be happy and the family wouldn't be happy."

There are a lot of emotions going around, However, on that deeper level of the family of origin brain, that family of origin emotional part of us, there is a fixed role in which the pastor is supposed to function and perform behaviorally and emotionally. They are supposed to feel guilt, fear, and shame if they don't do it.

"If I don't comply then I will disappoint my mother and it will challenge that role that I play in the family. I feel there's conditional love rather than unconditional love and they might withhold their conditional love for me, and then I will feel abandoned."

When they have all of these fears happening, it's easier just to continue to stay in that role.

The problem is this won't make them happy or help them function, so then their choices are fight or flight. They can either be mad and react "Why do I have to be the one that always has to ay the prayer? what's wrong with having you do it?" By now they're angry and that's reactivity. The other option is to withdraw in reactivity (fight or flight) and not go to the dinners anymore. They don't want to say the prayer and can't confront everybody so they'll just make up excuses why they can't be there. One's very passive one's too aggressive and we often find ourselves falling between those two sides. When we can't deal with the emotional field within us then there's a way of choosing fight, flight, or stabilization.

For example, muscles stretch back, forward, and also stabilize. Muscles do all three of these functions and we want to work on stabilizing our emotions to become less reactive. Neither pushing forward nor pushing backward (angry versus withdrawn) we want to stabilize in the middle.

It's helpful when you have a bird's eye view of your emotions and see them in the system, then dealing with them becomes more effective. Through coaching, you can begin to understand and observe your emotional functioning.

You learn to discover what you want and who is your true self. You can learn to coach yourself to be calmer, deal with your feelings, and become less reactive. Ideally, you want others to feel like they can be themselves while you stay authentic. This will transform the inner you. You will have the ability to stand firm, declare self-stated in I position while remaining connected to others.

The idea is you don't have to rescue anyone, run from anyone, or put pressure on anyone else. You can simply declare your beliefs, wants, needs, while remaining emotionally stable. Some less than desirable emotions may arise and that's normal, but you remain calm and stable while focusing on thinking rather than feeling. Using this process long-term will result in a greater sense of self, feeling calmer, feeling less fear, and greater maturity.

Becoming Less Emotionally Reactive

There are some behaviors and feelings which help us affect our deeper self, the lower brain. You can start by working on observing rather than absorbing. We oftentimes absorb other people and relationship systems, then our functioning remains immature and unable to change.

If we can think more than we feel when we're interacting with people, we can become stronger and focus on what we need to do.

Learn to listen more to others and resist absorbing the other person and their feelings. Try to think more and feel less. Identify and break the family of origin beliefs, values, rules, and roles. We challenge those with our sense of self, our authentic self, and if it doesn't match our family values, rules, and roles we can begin to resist slowly, calmly, and maturely. Over time this will change our lower brain and our functioning. We will become less emotionally reactive and focus on achieving deep change or a personal transformation. Achieving deep change in your instinctive brain will raise your level of self-differentiation and change how you function in other relationships, increase your awareness when you are pained, feel more confident, and become more emotionally independent, and less emotionally reactive.