Steve Cuss

This book has helped me notice when I and others are spewing anxiety and spread it as an infectious disease. Cuss seeks to make the reader more self-aware and group-aware of how anxiety affects us and spreads through the systems we inhabit: families, churches, workplaces, even basketball teams.

Cuss is a Christian and brings biblical reflections to bear on his analysis of anxiety at many points. 1) Some of these reflections are helpful and profound. 2) Sometimes uses the Bible as a proof text for his preexisting principles. It’s not that Cuss’ principles go against scripture, but that the texts Steve goes to aren’t about his principle. 3) However, sometimes Cuss missinterprets what scripture is saying and rejects the Bible’s clear teaching. For example, Cuss ignores the Bible’s teaching on the offense of sin against God, and God’s settled, controlled personal hostility to sin. Instead he defines sin as that which harms us, and God’s response is that he sad that we are hurting ourselves. While the Bible’s teaching on sin does include the harm
it does to us and God’s sorrow at our own self destructiveness, nevertheless, at heart the Bible’s definition is that sin is against God, not merely against us. It’s for this reason I would find it hard to unhesitatingly endorse this book to others.

Nevertheless there was lots of extremely helpful principles in the book. These principles were practical, illustrated with real life examples and relevant to all leaders. The book could be improved with a summary in chart form of the sources of anxiety he states and principles for breaking them.

The following are some of my highlights and takeaways from the book:

- Pay attention to what I am feeling and how it is expressing in my body language and words I speak during meetings.

- If I spew anxiety on those I lead, that anxiety will spread through the system.

- Write and regularly consult a life giving list of people, places and practices that help me diffuse anxiety and find rest.

- Be careful not to over function in relationships—high activity, inability to pause, over sharing, resistance to planning, directive leadership style—all of which is a sign I am anxious and not thinking straight.

- A truly non anxious presence is the ability to ‪not let others' anxiety and affect me.

- Laugh at myself and be playful in meetings. It reduces my anxiety and theirs.

- Pay attention not just to the content of what is said in meetings but the process.

- ‘Burnout has less to do with workload and more to do with internal and external leadership anxiety. As surely as the sun rises every morning, so will a leader face a situation where she is anxious or annoyed at the person she is leading, or she wonders why she feels ashamed. Or he gets tired of being stuck in the same pattern with his team. Or he doesn’t know what to do, yet he must do something.’

- If I am leading my team more by “how-ing” rather than “wow-ing” I have a problem with control.

- Many of our negative behaviors flow from childhood vows: ‘childhood vow is a promise you make to yourself as a child, either consciously or subconsciously, that informs the way you see and operate in the world. A childhood vow is often forged out of pain and neglect, but can sometimes be made in the chase of pleasure. The challenge of a childhood vow is that it becomes deeply entrenched into our false selves and keeps us bound to bad news instead of the good news of Jesus.’ I need to be conscious of the vows I’ve said to myself and how they show up in my anxiety and behaviour.

- Second Order Change: if you find yourself solving entrenched problems by doing more of the same, you are exhibiting an anxious response. I enjoyed Cuss’ solution of his sons basketball team. When his son’s teammate never passed the ball to him, Cuss’ advice to his son was to pass the ball every time to the teammate six times in a row. This broke the pattern and got them working together. Cuss applies second order change also to the quiet members of staff team saying over next 3 weeks you need to speak 6 times on any subject and the rest of the team must engage.

- I don’t need to give the last word in any given transaction. It’s okay to be misunderstood. One more response from me is not always needed. I can be at peace with not having the last word.

- Mapping my family of origin and the impact it had on me as a geneogram could be a helpful way of understanding the reason I feel and behave the way I do. This will likely help me see the scripts with which I interpret my life’s events. For me, my script or lense by which I interpret the events of my life is “I’m invisible”.

- Writing a verbatim could help me process past negative emotions and learn from the things which trigger me.

I found Cuss’ chapter on ‘Sources of Relational Anxiety’ extremely helpful. His brief descriptions of the following sources of anxiety were invaluable:

- Cognitive dissonace: ‘the message someone is sending because it is incongruent with reality or at least incongruent with our perception of reality.’

- Mixed messages: ‘a specific form of cognitive dissonance. A mixed message is two conflicting messages arriving at the same time from someone... If you find yourself in the anxiety of interpreting mixed messages, simply choose the message you want to receive, ignore the other, and see what happens... If you work with a concrete thinker or a strong personality, you can mistakenly think that his mode of communication represents his level of commitment to it, but most of the time, we are not as hardened in our messages as we may come across. One way to deescalate anxiety is to simply ask or... act on the preferred message. One of the mistakes we make is we adopt the presumption of the communicator. Some people naturally communicate in a rigid way, and their statements are more rigid than they may intend. One way to move communication forward is to not automatically adopt the presumption of the communicator.’ Cuss gives the example of two mixed messages that came to Robert Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

- Double binds: when ‘you feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Double binds are the source of much anxiety in leaders, especially when you don’t recognize that you are in one. You spend much energy trying to win when you are set up to lose... The insidious nature of a double bind is the belief there are only two options when often there are more. It is the “locked in” feeling that generates so much anxiety. God offers an open-ended future, but a double bind convinces us that we are backed into a corner of doom... God often has a path outside the “two doomed options,” and if you’re able to pause and reflect on the options, you’ll often find many more paths than you first thought. Often you will need the perspective of a trusted friend to help you see the other paths. Having said that, sometimes we really are in a true double bind: we only have two losing options. When this is truly the case, go ahead and get it over with. I’ve been in relationships before where the game is, “You lose.” The person I am dealing with has no interest in resolution, so no matter what I try, I am always losing. When that is the case, go ahead and lose and move on. You are going to lose a few, and by a few of course I mean a lot. No need to punish yourself when you lose a game of “You lose.” Sometimes the best way to manage certain loss is to reframe what a win is. A win is losing quickly, losing well, and moving on. Boom.’

- Paradox: ‘A paradox is very similar to a double bind. It is simply an impossible situation where you are trying to do something that is impossible to do.... [Eg] “Come here. Go away.” They want help, they don’t want help. They want you to care and step in, they want you to back off and leave them alone. Paradox...The best solution for a paradox once you recognize it is to simply name it to the person and work on a new approach together that is actually achievable.’ Another Eg I want my kid to want to clean their room. Reality is as an adult I don’t even want to clean my room.

- Phantom strikes: ‘A phantom strike is anytime one person takes a shot at you, but she is carrying a hidden army with her. It is any variation of “Me and a bunch of people who aren’t here and who I won’t name all think there is something wrong with you.”... Phantom strikes hurt because they catch you when your defense is down; you never see the extra firepower coming. They also hurt because you can’t face your accusers square on and now your internal triggers are at work. Is the whole organization talking about me? Are the people who are kind to my face stabbing me in the back? How many people and how strongly do they feel about this? Since you don’t have access to any of this information, your mind fills in the gaps, usually to a pathological level, making something potentially much bigger than it really is.’

- Stepping on a leadership land mine: ‘Leadership land mines can really do damage. You’re leading a group and you have no idea there are highly emotional topics and history involved in the decision at hand. As you’re leading you think all is well, you’re even excited, but someone in the group is hurt or highly offended. You’ve stepped right on a land mine you didn’t know existed... Leadership land mines are particularly tricky because everyone loses a leg in the explosion. The people receiving the new direction are hurt, but so is the leader who feels shame for not seeing it coming. The impact can be significant relational anxiety. Like many of these sources, the best way to diffuse the issue is to name it, in the moment if you’re able. You cannot undo the damage, but you can diffuse the anxiety by naming it and inviting people to share their point of view and assumptions. You can share yours as well and move through the situation together.’

- Power and responsibility: ‘Another source of relational anxiety is when you are serving in a role where your responsibility and power do not match. You are constantly in an anxious state, but you cannot put your finger on the source. It may be because you are responsible for significant aspects of your organization, but you’ve not been given the authority to manage your responsibility. If you find yourself “in trouble” for a decision that impacts your work or you have to clean up a mess not of your making, it may be because you have responsibility but no power... If you have much responsibility but no power to execute, you will battle ongoing anxiety until that dynamic changes or until you leave.’

- Triangulation: ‘A triangulated relationship is any three-person relationship that should have two people in it. This isn’t to be confused with a threeperson relationship that should have three people in it! A healthy three-person relationship might be a father, mother, and daughter who all relate together. A triangulated version of that relationship is where the daughter says, “Don’t tell Dad” or the father says to the daughter, “I’ll let you do it, but your mum is going to hit the roof. You know how she can be.” A triangulated relationship is where two people collude against the third or one person co-opts an outsider into a two-person relationship. ... People who struggle with direct communication are particularly prone to triangulation because co-opting people onto their “team” is a way they overcome their feeling of powerlessness. They recruit, sometimes well-intentioned, oftentimes not, trying to get a gang against the person with whom they have an issue. Rather than speak directly to the person, they speak about him or her to everyone else. Beware secret knowledge, both sharing it and being invited into it. ... The simplest way to get out of a triangled relationship is to inform everybody that you are going to inform everybody. Give everybody the same access to the same information.’

- ‘All these relational sources can be extra challenging because the solution to them almost always involves engaging the person you’re anxious about. Dealing with internal anxiety can be a private matter, but the best way to reduce relational anxiety is to address it with the people you are in tension with.’… (mais)