Fix You
“And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can’t replace
When you love someone, but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you”
Chris Martin’s haunting lyrics in the Coldplay classic ‘Fix You’ speak of the pain of loss that we all feel at different times in our lives. They also speak of the desire we often feel in the face of the suffering of others to reach out and fix other people’s problems. Anxiety spreads, so when we see someone who is anxious it can promote anxiety in us, which we attempt to quell by trying to fix them rather than managing our own feelings. It can be the same in institutions we are part of. When there is a high level of reactivity, we can spend many fruitless hours trying to make others change or take responsibility for matters which are not appropriately ours. Attempting to fix other people or institutions can bring its own set of problems and may make things worse. Bowen, in developing his Family Systems Theory, saw this behaviour as an expression of what he called ‘overfunctioning’ and it happens more often than we might care to admit.
In the Beginning
Let’s go back to Adam and Eve in the garden. They have been created for a mutually beneficial relationship. There is no anxiety at this point and God is close to them. There is a benevolent triangle. In comes the snake – and the snake brings an anxiety-inducing question – “Did God say?”. The woman now must deal with the anxiety brought by the question. She eats the fruit and then says to the man, “here you have some too”.
We immediately see the impact of anxiety in the emotional system. The man and woman hide from God as the benevolent triangle becomes a destructive one. But the patterns that Bowen would later describe as overfunctioning emerge more clearly as the Genesis story unfolds. In Genesis 11 the people try to alleviate the anxiety that they will be scattered by building the Tower of Babel. Then in Genesis 16 Sarai decides to deal with the anxiety provoked by her childlessness by giving her servant Hagar to Abram (this is before their name change) and Abram goes along with it. Here we see the other part of the pattern, for when someone overfunctions, it can generate underfunctioning in others. Genesis 16:2 tells us that “Abram listened to the voice of Sarai” and acquiesces to her plan. As the story unfolds he finds himself drawn into more triangles and conflict than he could possibly have imagined.
In the end
As I reflect on my twenty-seven years in ordained ministry, I believe that my tendency to overfunction was one of my greatest challenges. I particularly remember when I started my first incumbency that I often said to myself, “I just want to do a good job.” As I look back now, the problem with this thinking is that wanting to do a good job doesn’t automatically make it happen. On the contrary, this good motive was accompanied by an anxiety that could lead me to step into situations when it would have been better to leave them alone. I wonder, is this a pattern you recognise in your own life?
If this article has resonated with you, and you would like to explore how this way of thinking might help you develop your leadership, enhance your wellbeing, or reflect more deeply on your ministry, I would be delighted to have an initial conversation with you.
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