Lately I’ve had occasion to appreciate again the power of the past to influence the present. What is amazing to me is how much that influence operates below people’s awareness, and how powerful that influence is on systemic homeostasis and patterns within systems.
Edwin Friedman wrote,
The nature of connections in the present have more to do with what has been transmitted successfully for many generations than with the logic of their contemporary relationship.
I have found that statement to be chillingly accurate. First, because the power of the influence of the past so often is inimical to rationality. The influence of the past can create patterns of emotional process that seem to impede a system’s ability to access the power to think through an issue rather than operate out of reactivity.
Second, I’ve observed how the influence of the past can suck in latecomers into the system into the systemic homeostasis and patterns of the culture. People who only recently enter the system will not take long to begin thinking and sounding like personalities from generations past— even when the newcomers are totally unaware that they are doing so!
Third, because reactivity born of anxiety is such powerfully formatting force, what gets “successfully transmitted” often is patterns of reactivity (like binding triangles and cut offs), functional myths that “explain” or interpret reality in a biased or untrue manner, or simply patters of relationship that ensure homeostatic stuckness.
Is it any wonder that change can be so difficult to bring about in systems?
