The literature on soft-skills talks about it all the time : mental and psychological flexibility is the gateway to all other interpersonal skills. The idea is not new : already in the 1930s, Marie Jahoda highlighted this skill among the latent functions of work. Today, the notion of psychological flexibility is at the heart of the ACT (Acceptance & Commitment Therapy) approach used in therapy but also in the support of managers with change issues.
But what exactly is psychological flexibility? We take a closer look at the concept.
Before flexibility, rigidity
Trapped by our natural reflexes in the face of stress
To talk about psychic flexibility, we must start by mentioning our tendency to rigidity. In 2017, psychologist Christophe Deval explained all the good reasons we have for freezing ourselves in postures that limit our ability to act. Among these reasons, we share with animals a certain number of natural, often defensive, reflexes to face threats and by extension to react to the emotions that danger or the prospect of it inspires in us, starting with fear.
When I am afraid, when my sense of security is degraded, when my confidence in my environment and in the future is damaged, I react rigidly : I freeze, I retaliate brutally, I flee in a single direction at the risk of causing damage to those around me... And inside me.
Are we screwed, are we thinking too much ?
But what differentiates us from animals is that we have an additional reason to become rigid: thoughts. These push us to pursue actions even when we see that they are ineffective or even counterproductive. For example, I have in mind that to lose weight, you have to eat less. So I'm starving. But I'm not losing weight, not as much as I'd like, not as I'd like. After 15 days of dieting, I realized that not only did my method not work, but that it also made me tired, depressed and irritable. Never mind, I continue, driven by the conviction that not eating will allow me to lose weight (and that slimming down will improve my existence, give me more self-confidence, therefore allow me to be more successful in my work etc.). My thoughts, my reasoning and my convictions seem stronger than all the signals that scream at me to stop this convict diet, useless and dangerous for my health.
In relationships, the passion to convince
Rigid with oneself, one also knows how to be so very well with others. Thus, for example, in relationships, there are many of us who believe that to win the conviction of the other is to make him change. So, we argue, we argue, we argue, we deploy rational discourse, we bring out the figures, we argue that we have science, authority or the vox populi on our side. We end up getting a piece of the Holy Grail from the other person: " you're right ", admits the spouse, the teenager, the colleague, the neighbour.
And yet, after a few days, it is clear that his/her behavior has not changed : he/she continues not to close the lid of the bowl (we had agreed on the spreading of viruses and bacteria proven by science !), he/she continues to leave empty biscuit packets in the cupboards (although it was explained to him/her that it was in his/her interest to throw them in the trash, otherwise you can't guess that you have to buy more), he/she continues to say behind the backs of others (while he/she has admitted that saying is exposing himself more to being said about him and that it creates a climate of paranoia in the company), he/she continues to consider that the level of the 4th is his/her personal riddance (while he/she understood when you talked about the fact that in the event of a fire, this mess in the stairwell, it could slow down the firefighters).
Of course, if he/she perseveres in his/her actions contrary to our will (which of course, we consider to be simple common sense), it is because the other person is narrow-minded, totally rigid. But we don't necessarily realize that we have rigidified ourselves by obsessively paying attention to something and that we have probably contributed to rigidifying it by leading our argumentative battle to the supposed victory.
An art of making one's misfortune ?
The more rigid you are, the more you risk frustration. Whenever I experience the fact that my thoughts are not enough to convince and that my strength of conviction is not enough to produce effects on reality, I can experience in turn the feeling that I am not listened to, that I am not respected, or even that they are trying to upset me, to provoke me, to put me in a situation of failure. And I can become even more rigid: as I am resisted, I brace myself and I persevere all the more assiduously in the belief that my thoughts, my arguments, my position should influence reality.
The more rigid I become, the more brutal is the contact with reality when it diverges from the idea I have of a good and just life. It hurts me to realize that what I represent as a good way to work or to lead a family life does not correspond to the way we work in my team or the way my children behave. It exhausts me to constantly swim against the tide to assert a vision of things which, however convincing it may be on a rational or normative level, does not produce what I expect from it. It harms the quality of my relationships to enter into tension, even conflict with others (and sometimes with the people I love the most) and to risk breaking up because I interpret their attitudes and actions as contradictions.
In short, the more rigid you are, the more tense you are and the more likely you are to break when you are exposed to the strong winds of reality.
Soft as willow
Be flexible and rooted at the same time
In nature, there are trees that are less resistant to the onslaught of the wind: the largest, but also those with the hardest wood, break and tear themselves from the earth in storms.
Those that resist best combine three characteristics :
- A developed root system: deep, extensive and irrigated roots
- A softwood that can bend without breaking
- A density of foliage allowing air to pass through it
This is an interesting metaphor for thinking about our ability to cope with hazards.
We could see the root system as our identity, our historical baggage, our body of values, our self-esteem. Without forgetting that all this must be irrigated, nourished on a daily basis by what is good for our souls, what revitalizes us and fulfills us.
As for being made of soft wood, let's equate it with access to emotions, acceptance of our affects, but also our ability to welcome others and relationships.
As for the breathing foliage, let's take the image as it is : inhale, exhale, let the air pass through us. More metaphorically, we can see our ability to bear that things that are foreign to us (different identities, ideas that we do not share, behaviors that we do not have and/or that we do not approve of, hazards that disturb our forecasts...) pass through us and set us in motion, without distorting us.
Faced with the fear of denaturation
One of the obstacles to flexibility is precisely the fear of being distorted. This is particularly sensitive in the context of diversity and inclusion : it often seems to us that welcoming " different " people into a group of people will transform even the identities of the members of the collective initially formed.
For example, when we " feminize " the governing bodies, some fear that we will effeminate power and the men who exercise it. When we are looking for a common grammar to bring together people from different geographical areas and for this, we rely on " globish ", we fear an Anglo-Saxonization of society and we worry about the disappearance of the French language (forgetting that Globish is not quite English). When we work to allow everyone to live their culture and religion in the space of secularism, some see it as a threat of " replacement " of one culture by others.
We would thus be ready to take the risk of a break (the mediatized notions of " social divide", " generational divide", " cultural divide" are there to show how breaks and apparent irreconciabilities are sometimes already a reality) rather than adapting to the changes in our environments... Even if we adapt, we are first and foremost about preserving ourselves!
Anemomorphosis, a metaphor for adapting to change
Let's go back to our botanical images for a moment to observe the superpower of certain plants : anamomorphosis. Anamomorphosis is an accomodat, i.e. a non-hereditary morphological and biological modification of a living organism to adapt to the constraints of its environment. Let's take the example of a pretty flowering plant called sunrose (helianthemum): from the alpine plains, it can be grown on high grounds. It then takes on morphological characteristics similar to mountain plants: its stem shortens, its leaves are smaller, its flowers display brighter hues. Then sow seeds of this mountain plant on the plains: the seedlings will grow like low-altitude plants, with all the initial characteristics of the plant.
This is what anamomorophobisis is: an adaptation of an individual to conditions without transformation of his fundamental nature! Metaphor is of particular interest to us in thinking about our relationship to change outside the paths of the fear of denaturation, by carefully looking at the way we consider the moments we live.
Psychic flexibility: a way of being oneself in a situation
Living in the moment
Psychological flexibility is central to ACT (Acceptance & Commitment Therapy) therapies and it starts with a different look at " the present moment". We readily associate the idea of living in the present moment with Horace's carpe diem , which invites us to care about the future as long as the moment to be lived is satisfying. It is a bit short, let's admit it, to understand the question of change in a twenty-first century of all challenges. Also, we can understand the " present moment" rather as a set of conditions and contextual elements to be taken as data that are primarily informative but over which we do not necessarily have control, or at least not in the short term of the decision and the actions to be taken.
Concretely, when I observe the effects of climate change around me, I can be tempted by the reflex of thinking and discourse on the causes of it, the responsibilities of each one in the situation, the measures that should be taken to stop the disaster. It will be useful and necessary to do all this, but it is not a priority : if I start there, I risk becoming rigid and exposing myself to the brutal interaction between my thought and reality that will weaken me.
I have to start by listening and understanding what it does to me (what emotions it provokes me, what values it touches in me, what personal " demons " it sends me back to...), what it produces in my context (in what discomfort it places me, how it impacts my daily life and on my projects...) and what it produces in others (their emotions, their reactions, their adaptations...). Not easy, isn't it, if what others experience is very different from what you experience yourself ? This is the whole point of empathy : it is not a question of adopting the point of view and ways of doing things of the other, but of " understanding " them in the literal sense of the term, that is to say, of including them in the corpus of data to be taken into account in order to read one's environment.
A " self-acting being"
It is from the acceptance of the " present moment" as a context in which one evolves without necessarily having a grip on everything that constitutes it that one can build and exercise one's power to act. The flexible individual only acts where he has levers and where he can create room for manoeuvre. In other words, flexibility starts with identifying your movement capacities that can be immediately mobilized and then developing new movement capacities.
Let's start at the beginning : identify your mobilizable movement capacities. It's knowing your areas of adaptation, knowing where you know you're safe enough, competent enough, capable enough of accepting what's different, what's unexpected, what's making a difference. We forget principles, we reason according to what is effective and especially what corresponds to what really matters to us. Let's take an example from everyday life : my child refuses to eat his green vegetables. Maybe what really matters to me is that he has a balanced diet. In this case, I can offer him another source of vitamins. Unless what matters to me is that he forges his taste by trying various flavors. I can give him to discover the taste of the bean in another preparation. Or what matters to me is that we don't waste it. Maybe there are some around the table that it tempts, some more vegetables ! To use one's psychological flexibility is to multiply the field of possible solutions to a problem by asking oneself the question : deep down, what do I really want, what is really the most important thing for me ?
It is also by answering this question of values that we can deploy new margins for adaptation. Indeed, it is not really worth trying to change your behavior if it has no meaning or resonance for yourself. On the other hand, if there is a sincere issue for me, I am naturally more motivated to change my habits, diversify my range of reactions to certain situations, renounce certain behaviors and adopt new ones. Example : I want to quit smoking. But why ? I will rid the basket of my motivations of all the reasons, rational or not, that only half belong to me to find out why quitting smoking has a deep value for me. For some, the key value will be health. For the others, freedom. For still others, money. Or love. Other values are still possible. The fact remains that it is around this main axis of my key value that I will align my actions with a view to quitting.
Your flaws, the keys to your flexibility
Well yes, but... I have my addictions, my neuroses, my weaknesses, my flaws, my traumas and wounds. And all this prevents me, despite all my good will, from acting to change. I'm never going to make it... Nope ! The first acceptance of being flexible is its share of flaws and vulnerabilities. Let us no longer regard our twisted branches, our damaged leaves and our apparently badly finished bark as defects that would stop our ability to act. On the contrary, they are privileged ways to develop our ability to be flexible. Everything we take for imperfections in our individuality is actually evidence that we have been able to adapt (we have compensated for a lack or a handicap) or shown resilience (we have been able to regenerate and continue to grow after being affected by storms and subjected to droughts).
In these areas of weakness, we undoubtedly have fragilities that persist, but we have learned to find the resources to survive and reconnect with fulfillment, in a different way. Also, whenever we would be tempted to rigidify ourselves to face change, it is in our best interest to go and question those parts of us that have been able to move forward despite adversity to ask them how they did it. They will most likely tell us that they have adapted and they will give us some keys to do the same.
