Ep. 7 Boundaryless Change Part 3: Everyday Applications

In part 3 of this 3-part special on boundaryless change, Katie talks with CRR Global co-founder Marita Fridjhon about some of the everyday applications of boundaryless change. This episode brings this mini-series back down to earth and looks at the importance of this concept in our everyday lives. Across this episode, they discuss:

• How to explain this concept to a 6-year-old?
• How might this concept be useful to a parent?
• Some of the ways we need to embrace boundaryless change in our daily lives
• The importance of embracing and working with the principle of emergence

If you haven’t listened to parts 1 and 2 already, we would highly recommend listening to Boundaryless Change Part 1: The Meta View and Boundaryless Change Part 2: The Coaching Evolution first. 

Marita Fridjhon is a co-founder of CRR Global and mentor to an ever-growing community of practitioners in the field of Relationship Systems work. She designs curriculum and operates training programs in Relationship Systems Work for coaches, executives and teams. She came to this work from an extensive background in Clinical Social Work, Community Development, Process Work, Family Systems Therapy, Business Consulting and Alternative Dispute Resolution. She has an international mentor coaching practice of individuals, partnerships and teams. Her primary focus in coaching is on systemic change, leveraging diversity, creative communication, deep democracy in conflict management and the development of Learning Organizations.


For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to build stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time

We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity to nature, to the larger whole.

Transcript

Key 

KC – Katie Churchman

MF - Marita Fridjhon

[Intro 00:00 – 00:06] 

KC – Hello and welcome back to the Relationship Matters podcast. We believe relationship matters, from humanity, to nature, to the larger whole. I’m your host, Katie Churchman, and in part three of this three-part special on boundaryless change I talk with CRR Global co-founder Marita Fridjhon about some of the everyday applications of boundaryless change. This episode brings this mini-series back down to earth and looks at the importance of the concept in our everyday lives. Across this episode, we discuss how to explain this concept to a 6-year-old; how might this concept be useful to a parent; some of the ways we need to embrace boundaryless change in our daily lives and; the importance of embracing and working with the principle of emergence. If you haven’t listened to parts 1 and 2 already, we would highly recommend listening to Boundaryless change Part 1: The Meta View and Part 2: The Coaching Evolution first. So, I bring you Marita Fridjhon talking about boundaryless change and its everyday applications. 

KC – Marita, as always, a warm welcome back to the Relationship Matters podcast. I’m very excited to be continuing our conversation around boundaryless change today. 

MF – Thank you Katie, and it’s always good to talk to you but I have to tell you, the topic we started around boundaryless change, when I thought about it again this morning, it leaves me with my heart in my throat a little bit because it’s a very edgy conversation…  

KC – It is. 

MF – … that really pushed us to the edges of what it is that we can understand and identify and align with, and then we are trying to talk about it, it’s not always easy. 

KC – Yes, and to do so in three episodes as well, it doesn’t feel like an easy feat. I believe in this episode we’re going to try and bring our conversations a bit more back to earth and look at some of the everyday applications of this concept in our lives. 

MF – Yeah. 

KC – So, to do that, I want to start by asking you a really strange question about this. But Marita, how would you explain this to a six-year-old? I always think it’s useful to think about how we would explain complex concepts to young children as a way of understanding them in a simpler way. 

MF – Katie, tjos is where I love to hate you, hate to love you. But I sometimes think we can tie up this series with this conversation and this question about how would you explain this to a six-year-old. And I think that we cannot explain boundaryless until we begin to understand boundary and we’re talking about change, so if we are talking about how do I explain to a six-year-old what change is, we have to start there. And I think that one of the simplest ways that I can talk about this is to really talk about change is something and somebody that I am not yet. It reminds me of the work of Arnold Mendell when we talk about in his channel, edge theory, talking about what is the primary, what is that I am, who is it that I identify myself to be? That’s the primary. I am Marita, I am female, I am filling in the blanks, those are the things that I can identify with, it’s easy, it’s primary identity for me. Who am I not yet is then the piece that is more challenging, and if I’m now thinking about the conversation with a six-year-old there really is a question, and I think these things, we need to be able to dialogue and question with. So, I would really start with a question about who and what do you believe you are? But if I then ask the question when you think about your next birthday or two birthdays from now, how will you be different? And then again, I think it’s very difficult to have these conversations without asking a few questions because it is one of the ways in which the parenting role also is changing, so that as a parent am I willing to ask my child that question rather than tell them who they should be in two years’ time. But let that unfolding come from the six-year-old and then see where that takes us. That is a dialogue about becoming that which I am not yet, and what are the safe access points too that? I think the example for me of what is boundaryless is what I believe parents are experiencing more and more when thinking and working with their children, there’s a boundary in the past that could be clearly identified, whether it’s in performance or in sport or whatever it is, and more and more there is a different boundary that is being created by life itself, by new evolution. If we just use this sports example - the biggest evolving sport right now is pickle ball. Pickle ball is virtually putting tennis out of business. Nobody saw it coming and I think that’s the piece where we need to begin to consider that change is always evolving but we now are being thrown into that change faster and boundaries that we could solidify and regulate in the past now are no longer so easy to do. 

KC – So in many ways this feels like something the kids are more connected too than us in general anyway, because I often think about how wonderful it is that kids can decide they want to be an astronaut one day and they want to be an actress the next, and as adults we get quite fixed in the ideas of self and so I wonder do you think kids are in general more connected to the boundaryless nature of all things? 

MF – I think so. Then again, one of my colleagues that I really, in so many ways hold as a role model in her work with her children and one child that is challenged in certain ways. The example that I might of used before is that when they get into the car, I’m talking about kids that are six, seven, eight, younger children, when they get into a car she will, before they start driving, ask them ‘as we drive today what animal or thing do you want to experience our surroundings through? Do you want to be a dog, a cat, a what?’ And they choose. That’s a boundaryless choice. But what it does is not so much create identity, but it creates a different collective understanding beyond that which we already hold as humanity. It connects to nature, it connects to animals, it connects to the land. You could see how those other places where we want to have a very different boundaryless connection, that we can become it in order to better understand what does nature want from us, rather than what I think of as the farmer, what I need from nature. 

KC – Yeah. 

MF – No fault, no blame, can you see and feel how it’s always been boundaryless but we now have more challenge because it’s forced upon us, 

KC – Yeah, so it’s not just what can we learn about nature, it’s also what can nature teach us about the world and this example, this playful example you give, it reminds me of this meditation technique I’ve been using called ways of looking which is essentially the idea that you can bring different lenses to a situation and there are a multitude of lenses, and so every situation there’s the possibility to see it through just infinite amounts of ways. Almost like we’re putting on different glasses. And if we think about it in that regard, I guess every moment then is somewhat boundaryless, it depends on what glasses we’re wearing. 

MF – That’s a beautiful example Katie and I think that wearing different glasses is part of what’s being forced upon us faster. I think that fight for identity and a case for belonging to the identity that I more identify with because there’s a broad shift in those worlds and environments that’s throwing us under a lot of pressure because there’s a boundaryless nature of that that’s always existed but circumstances, the world, evolution are forcing us to cross into a boundary that’s very difficult for us to identify with. So, I think that’s the challenge. And I think kids, to some extent, because they are not so shaped and formed into an identity yet has easier access to that, because they are less - I could use the word contaminated, I could use the word experienced - that shapes their thinking. They still have less of a ladder of influence and a cleaner experience that they can express. 

KC -Yes, there’s more signals as something that’s trying to happen, more information as opposed to stories that we’ve learnt through our experience and expectations and inheritance. I guess I wonder, building on this focus on children, how might this concept of boundaryless change be useful to a parent? Say there’s a parent listening to this and wonders well, I get it but how is this useful or applicable to me in my role as a parent, what might you say? 

MF – Great question. I think that you and I have talked so often about systems inspired fill in the blanks, systems inspired supervision, systems inspired change, systems inspired leadership. I think that’s where the systems inspired approach is helping us to explore more than tell. And I think that if we as parents and we as leaders and we as people on the street going into a store or meeting somebody that we’ve never known before, if we can shift and allow the question to be asked of the child – what do you think about? What would you rather do? What is important for you? That’s when systems inspired parenting is beginning to happen because then as the parent I can begin to shape and talk along those ways, but creating from what comes from the child, and its way beyond the six-year-old. I think that’s the place that is the biggest invitation for us, in this what we talk about as a boundaryless world when it comes to change. It’s always been there. That RSI principle, systems are in a constant state of emergence, what is emergence is softening of boundaries in multiple ways, how do we create from that? There’s a lot of reacting to it that we’re seeing in the world at the moment and I’m not sure how far that gets us. 

KC – Yeah well what I’m realizing through these conversations, Marita, is in many ways when we’re standing in the principles, the principles of relationships systems intelligence, we are sort of automatically moving towards boundaryless change because what you were just saying there around the role of the parent, it starts to become more fluid when we see that roles belong to the system, not to the individuals, and you’re reminding me of a paragraph in Faith’s upcoming book, Relationship Matters, and she talks about how when you started this work together you were on what she calls the bleeding edge in terms of relationships, and how actually most companies that you worked with said that relationships don’t belong in the workplace, and so it makes me realize that we have come a long way because we are realizing that if there’s a challenge at work it doesn’t just stay at work, it impacts someone’s whole wellbeing often unless we’re cared for, and so we have moved forward from, I guess, 20 years ago, and you must have seen that yourself Marita? 

MF – It’s almost as if we keep on being thrown the breadcrumbs that say there’s a way out, there’s a way to do it differently, there’s a way to learn. And that is one of the big advantages if we think about boundaryless change. I can help evolve beyond the boundary of my own stupidity by being curious. 

KC – By being curious, I think that’s key because it’s so easy for us to rebalance something in a system, so, for example, going back to the team coaching piece around when you and Faith started this work and how emotions were to be left at the office door, now there’s sometimes a culture of toxic positivity where actually certain emotions are marginalized because there’s such a focus on wellbeing to the point where only positive things are allowed, and so that’s another example of well actually we need to start to see the boundaryless of it because maybe there are emotions that we’re not allowing because that doesn’t fit with our view of what should be wellbeing in the workplace. 

MF – Exactly. So those are the unspoken rules of laws that we’re talking about that are changing, but one of the biggest challenges I think that we see on the street and everywhere is the primary way in which the world at the moment is holding boundaries is through legislation and laws. And no suggestion that that changes. But as evolution happens, when does evolution maximize in such a way that the law can be changed and will be changed to match what is evolving? I think that’s the piece. And that also takes me back to what happens on the street but to the extent that we are bringing that curiosity, bringing that adventurous spirit that is curious about what’s happening across from me that’s so different for me, rather than going oh no, I’m stepping away from it. How do we bring that on the street in a way that makes kindness and opens doors? So, there’s something there that still needs an invitation. And I think the easiest place to do it is when we meet a stranger because when I meet a stranger, I have not identified that person in a certain way yet. But how do we bring curiosity even to that? Because underneath the boundary is something that is fiercely protected. 

KC – On that though, I would say that even when we are meeting a stranger we tend to see them, you know, our brains have that amazing ability to sort of fill in the blanks, so when we are going to the supermarket and we’re checking out we automatically have put people in boxes that sometimes are favorable, sometimes aren’t, and it would be interesting for us to maybe look beyond some of those boxes because they are helpful, I don’t want to criticize our brains because if we were constantly taking in every kind of sensory stimuli we’d be overwhelmed, so our brains do a great job and if we were to question for a moment who is this person, what’s their passion and, you know, what do they love and what are they fearful of, that might enable us to lean in in a different way, even if just with our energy. 

MF – You make me think, Katie, of what is the work that I need to do with myself when I meet that stranger? I think the first question is I need to work with myself and stand a little bit in the who do I think that person is? Because until I know the frame, the box that I’ve put that person in I don’t know which question to ask because I need to be able to put that aside completely and go who are you really? However, I frame that and bring that question. And it is why I think all of this is actually a spiritual journey, and spiritual beyond whether you want to choose or think about a religion, an approach that you have, it really is that journey of radical development becoming more of a better human. 

KC – Yeah, I agree and I don’t think I realized quite how much, in some ways we do try and put things in boxes, things and people, places, projects, initiatives, and it’s not necessarily wrong but when those boxes become so hardwired in our brains it can be hard for us to see beyond those boundaries and how curious it would be if we could just see that person beyond the box we’ve put them in and what that might enable us to create in that relationship. 

MF – Katie what you bring up for me in this call is how, and there are a myriad of ways in which we can do our own practice with that. That really is about what if, at the end of the day, I really sit with myself and think about the people I spoke too. Think about the people I met that I’d never seen before, and what is it that I made up about? Because the moment I get in touch with what it is I made up about them, I’ve lost all curiosity about them because then I think I know who they are. 

KC – Exactly. 

MF - And just to wake up, I think this is the work in everyday life for each one of us, to sit with our own complexity as a system. Sit with the boundaries that I will not let go and get curious about it. 

KC – Yes. And, I’d say, to be kind to ourselves too because of course we have a sense of our partner or our parents in a certain way or our children, because it would be very strange to wake up every day and get to know them as a stranger from the beginning all over again, and if we can allow a little bit into our lives, that curiosity that comes from beginnings I guess? 

MF – Yes. 

KC – That might enable us to listen and to be with those people in a different way because I particularly think for those that we love the most we can so often just end up making up a story about them and not actually seeing them as they are, as the emergent beings that they are. 

MF – Yeah, and the parent with making up that story is if I make up that story it doesn’t matter how that person did it, I will project it to them that they have done it, they’ve done the story that I’ve thought about them. 

KC – Yes. 

MF – One way or the other, I’ll find a way to make it fit. 

KC – Yeah. And then we don’t really see them as they are and it’s incredible how that, I guess that projection and that presumption can shape our experience of reality. I mean we’re never really seeing reality as it is, we’re always seeing it through a certain lens. Imagine if we brought a different lens to our relationship just to shake up the boundaries that we see or don’t see. 

MF – I think so, and again it takes me back too two things, something you said before about how can I sit with myself in that discovery and how can I bring kindness to my own self before I go ‘that was just so stupid of you Marita’. Just sit with it, even I can do that. I didn’t know that was happening. And again, just sit with the acceptance and broaden the boundary of what I can sit with and can accept and then come back to myself with kindness, and then go to meet that new person in a different way. So, I think that’s one thing, and to go back again to being on the street with the six-year-old, that’s where our third entity exercise or that, ok you come then and sit in my seat as parent and you be the parent, and you tell me. I’ll go and sit in your child’s seat, and I guarantee… just, play with that, that softening the boundaries, and that is a place where they can learn and there might even be some really useful tips for us as parents when we can sit with that, and there might be some insight for them where they can go oh I didn’t know it was that difficult over there. 

KC – Yeah. Well, I love what you said there Marita and I want to underline that, softening the boundaries, this isn’t about breaking down all the boundaries because in many ways they do keep us safe and secure and they can be really helpful, and if we can soften them slightly, it’s not saying that we reject them it just allows for a different kind of awareness to emerge. 

MF – Yeah, from all we can experience from different perspectives, I think the wiser we get and more fluid we become, and I do think that fluidity is a key piece for us on the street. The street is the place where we can live it in a way that’s harder to do than on my team, in the office, or curiosity and kindness are the key building, not knowing. 

KC – Yeah. Not knowing, and I think applying that as you say Marita to self, to other people and then to those wider systems in our lives and the world, that’s something we can all do, that’s the world work that we can all take forwards so I just want to say a huge thank you to you Marita for introducing this concept and for braving through it, because it’s not easy to talk about boundaryless change with the boundary of three podcasts! So, thank you for enlightening me and our listeners over the course of these episodes around what this can mean and how it might live in their worlds. 

MF – And I’m going to send you and all of us home with a lesson that I got today from Guedo, our French bulldog who’s got an eye problem at the moment, and the thing that I took away from him this morning when I put his fourth drop in after 15 minutes, and he’s really upset with me, but then when I come back and I pet him again, he’s forgotten all about it and he still loves me and it’s just I want to be like Guedo, I want to forget. Not forget but forgive when you hurt me and accept the love that comes my way, that pet of love that comes afterwards. That’s easier said than done. 

KC - Yeah, but what a beautiful way of living in the world. I think we should all be a little bit more Guedo, Marita. 

MF – Katie, thank you as always, it was wonderful navigating this complexity with you and sometimes getting stuck in the complexity and sometimes getting some simple answers. 

[Music outro begins 24:04] 

KC – This concludes our three part mini-series on boundaryless change, so a huge thanks as always to Marita Fridjhon. Here are my key takeaways. Boundaryless change sits on the edge of what we can understand, identify with and align with. There’s an immense amount of complexity surrounding it, yet it’s important that we develop more language, talk about it, so that we can work more skillfully with the interdependent nature of systems. Boundaryless change isn’t new. It’s simply being thrust on us faster, forcing us into new awareness. The systems inspired approach can help us explore beyond the boundaries of our imaginations by helping us to create from whatever is emerging. Curiosity can help us to open doors and look beyond the boundaries of our lives. It helps us look beyond the walls and protection mechanisms that stop us from embracing the boundaryless nature of systems. What is the work I need to do with myself when I’m meeting with a stranger? What box have I put them in and how can I become curious about who they are beyond the stories my mind has made up about them. For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time. CRR Global’s unshakeable belief is that relationship matters, from humanity to nature to the larger whole. For more information please visit CRRGlobal.com. 

[Music outro 26:00 – end]