Plan B: When Resiliency Matters

Sheryl Sandberg, author of Leaning In and COO of Facebook, unexpectedly lost her husband Dave Goldberg this May in an accident while they were on a vacation together in Mexico. The couple were very close and shared roles as breadwinners and parents. She has just become a single parent with the task of finishing raising their son and daughter by herself.

In June, she finished sheloshim, the first thirty days of mourning for a spouse called for by their Jewish faith, and she is reentering many of her normal activities. Sandberg released an essay she posted on Facebook about her experience losing Dave, what motherhood means to her now, and what she has learned about how to respond with sensitivity when others experience loss. It's well worth reading.

I was particularly struck by a brave comment Sandberg makes about making plans for one of their children to go to a father/child event with a family friend who offered to step in for Dave. She wanted Dave, but their friend pointed out that Dave was not an option, so they needed to go to plan B. Sandberg discloses feeling so much loss at Plan A for her life not working out and grieving it deeply, but now committing herself fiercely to Plan B. I honor her resiliency.

The ability to come back from loss, disappointment, rejection and failure is one of the most essential character traits we need to develop and we need to help our children develop. I've been counseling individuals and families long enough to know that there is a random distribution of bad things that happen in life, even if you're making your best effort. Your partner can die prematurely. You can work hard in your marriage to be a faithful and loving partner and still see it end in divorce. You can have an infant or a child not survive. You can lose your home or your business. You or a family member can become disabled which can dramatically alter what you had planned. What are we to do?

Being resilient and going on after loss and disappointment takes courage, bravery and spirit. You have to make the decision to go on, rebuild and go for the joy again, despite what has happened. Life is full of unexpected things, and sometimes the best we can do is to experience and process the feelings of loss, work towards acceptance and throw ourselves hard into Plan B. Sandberg's essay includes thoughtful insights on what has just happened to her family, and also the tenacity that she expresses to go forward for herself and her children.

There are lessons here, too, to be shared with our children about not just striving to achieve and accomplish great things, but also the spirit to come back from difficult things. Perhaps we should celebrate most of all when they try again following challenges, failure, loss and disappointment. Encouraging our children to be real and also be strong and resilient are some of the best values we can role model or instill. We can't bubble wrap our children to protect them, but we can encourage and honor their lessons in bouncing back from adversity and not giving up.

Raising strong, kind and resilient children is a wonderful legacy to leave behind. Being a person and a parent who lives in this resilient way isn't easy at all. 

Loss and disappointment can open us up in the most amazing ways to the importance of living life well and cultivating close relationships. Loss makes us realize how fragile we are all, what's really essential and how precious life is. Significant losses can tenderize us and open our hearts even more than before. Being resilient, and going forward despite how we are changed, is what takes real courage.

Your Social Circle: How Big is Too Big?

Here's a fun question in the age of social networking, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram: how many meaningful relationships with people can the average person have? The answer: about 150. This number was derived from the research of British psychologist and researcher, Robin Dunbar. This research has been coined “the Dunbar number.” This week's issue of Bloomberg Businessweek magazine (Jan.14-21, 2013) has a nice, concise write-up about Dunbar's studies, and how they apply to most of us, written by Drake Bennett.

Dunbar grew up in Tanzania, and has an academic career in England, where he teaches at Oxford. He began his research career studying the behavior of monkeys. He found that primates’ behavior changed based on the size of their social group. The larger the size of their social group, the more they seemed to exhibit behaviors to be seen favorably by other members of the group.

Dunbar went on to study brain size and look at the advantages and complications of animals that evolved into having larger brains. The complications of large social groups include competition for resources, like food, as well as the data that must be processed about the relative hierarchies and relationships with all the others in the social group. Dunbar’s research eventually led him to hypothesize that larger brains (and therefore higher intelligence) led to the development of larger social groups.

However, even the smartest primates have limits!  While there are individual variances for personality, and particularly extroversion/introversion, Dunbar theorizes that for most human beings, the limit of meaningful relationships a person can have is 147.8. In the Bloomberg story, Dunbar deftly describes that number as “the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you bumped into them at a bar.”

Dunbar networks with his colleagues in a wide variety of disciplines to focus on the social brain hypothesis, including linguists, computer scientists, physicists, classicists, economists, archeologists, anthropologists, and literary scholars. He's spoken at TED conferences, and written several books for non-academics, including The Science of Love (2012).

Dunbar has been invited to consult with a former Facebook executive, who left to co-found Path, a mobile photo-sharing and messaging service, which began in 2010. After consulting with Dunbar, Path founders decided to limit their site’s users to 150 friends. Basically, Dunbar suggests that we, as humans, have an upper limit in the number of meaningful social relationships we can have, and beyond that is something else— perhaps marketing, or acquaintances, but probably not meaningful relationships. Dunbar recognized this pattern of 150-person limits across the world—many companies, clans, and even military units are often capped at 150.

No matter how technology expands, human beings have a finite number of intimate and meaningful relationships. Digital technology doesn't change the fundamentals of our biology and neocortex. I found it interesting that Dunbar, although well-liked by colleagues across disciplines, considers himself on the shy side. He doesn't use Facebook or Path, and says he got a LinkedIn account only by mistake.

Dunbar's research actually suggests other numbers as well. Most people, he believes, have an innermost circle of 3 to 5 people. The next circle has 12 to 15, and their loss would be difficult for us.

I found it interesting that Dunbar believes most friendships can survive only 6 to 12 months without face-to face contact. His research suggests that women can have 2 best friends, including her romantic partner, while most men have only one.

Dunbar's research has critics, but I found the Bloomberg article by Drake Bennett great food for thought and discussion about social networking, genuine intimacy, and the gaps between the two. It’s fascinating that Facebook allows 5,000 friends. Or maybe that’s just acquaintances.

Alone Together:Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other(book review)

Just this week,I have been meeting with parents of teenagers and discussing how technology is changing our relationships with our children and each other. A recent study showed that the average American teenager sends or receives 3,000 text messages each month.I have noticed that most of my patients under age 40 prefer to e-mail me to schedule appointments, rather than leave voice messages.I am talking in session with adults who feel ignored by their partner's relentless obsession with their Droid, Iphone,or Blackberry.Children and teens bemoan parents who seem unavailable or scattered as they multi-task parenting with clearing e-mail and messages,instead of giving their full attention. What is the blessing of technology connecting us all the time doing to our relationships?

I am currently reading Sherry Turkle's new book,"Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other"(Basic Books,2011).Turkle is a clinical psychologist,the Rockefeller Professor of Social Studies and Technology at M.I.T, and the Director of M.I.T.'s Initiative on Technology and Self.She is also the mother of a teenage daughter,and has personally experienced the technology dilemmas that modern parents must bravely face.It is a whole new world in terms of communication, and we are the parenting pioneers who get to navigate adolescent development combined with facebook,texting,skyping and all the rest.Turkle reports on her fascinating research on how all of this is changing our relationship with ourselves and others.The world has changed, and we need to begin the converation on how we integrate the technolgy without losing intimacy, real friendship,and being present and available to those we love the most.

Turkle's research findings about adults in relationships with robots raises interesting questions about people who get their needs for connection met but are,in fact, alone. Think of the movie from several years ago,"Lars and the Real Girl". It may serve a purpose, but what a self-absorbed and reductionist view of relationships.For all the ups and downs,real relationships are more interesting, and help us to mature and grow more accepting and loving.Even though, as Turkle writes,"People dissapoint;robots don't".

Turkle also studied people who spend more time,and get more enjoyment,in their alternative life and identity in on-line games than they do in real life. One has to contemplate what will happen to our planet if this level of social withdrawal increases.As parents, we need to make sure we launch young adults with social skills and the ability to successfully communicate,negotiate,and relate to other people.We need to require face time,volunteering,family interaction at meals and other times. No texting at the dinner table,please!

Turkle explores how real intimacy is messy---real partners and friends also come with their own needs. You can't just relate at your convenience. Many teens enjoy the speed and effectiveness of texting,and it provides for timed,witty statements and the ability to disconnect at whim and stop interacting.None of these aspects are available in real-time face-to-face conversations.We have to be careful about how much technology is good, and where the limits need to be. I like the title of the book, because I think "alone together" is the perfect desciption for a lot of family and couples interactions I see. One only has to watch Modern Family on ABC Wednesday nights,as the New York Times deftly pointed out recently,to observe how family interactions are twisted up in technology use and misuse.

And what about the need for silence? And being still to think or daydream? One huge loss with unbridled use of technology is living so plugged-in that we miss out on moments with others and important time alone.Remember when noone could reach you as you ran arrands? When did we all become so indispensible that we musy always be reachable?

I heartily recommend this thought provoking read. Connectivity does have its discontents. Finding reasonable limits is important to preserving real intimacy, with all its fears and complications.

Facebook, Texting, And Your Marriage

To have a wonderful, deeply intimate, and lasting marriage, both partners have to "close the exits". In our parents' generation, this might have been not ignoring your partner by reading the newspaper at meals, instead of conversing with your partner. Or, it might have meant don't zone out watching television next to each other every night. Mix it up, and keep the relationship fresh by having some high-energy fun together. Get out together to date nights and to do active things frequently. Pay attention to the sexual relationship you have with your partner. Be fun, and don't take the many available exits to intimacy.

In the past several years in my counseling practice, I am seeing more marriages hurt by social media, and the availability of secret texting,to create dangerous detours to the marriage. When old flames can become your Facebook friend, and a veil of secrecy hides hurtful secret messaging, the temptations abound. Some couples are beginning to discuss these dangers, and how they want to handle potential boundary violations to the marriage, which may hurt your partner and ultimately end the marriage. These are important questions couples should discuss. What do you and your partner feel about recognizing each other as partners on Facebook? Some couples share their passwords. Others discuss it with each other when an old romantic interest surfaces and makes contact. There are no easy or universal answers, but each person should be mindful of the terrible risks involved and the temptation to the middle-aged ego.

Couples therapists across the country are noticing the same trend and risks with social media and technology that I am seeing here in Newport Beach, California. On November 2, National Public Radio ran two related stories by my AAMFT colleague, therapist Jennifer Ludden. NPR's program All Things Considered ran a story on "Can Social Media Break Up A Marriage?", and one titled "I-Phone Makes 3: Marriage In The Digital Age". The world is clearly changing, and relationships and marriages are trying to figure out how to navigate these uncharted waters. Both of Ludden's articles and her interview can be accessed through NPR's website, http://www.npr.org and look for All Things Considered, under programs.

Here's what I know as a couples therapist for these last 20 years. Be careful. Be mindful. Things can start innocently, and go very wrong. Be aware of how lies, secrecy, and confiding emotionally in someone else, besides your partner, can distance and undermine your marriage. Be conscious of not interrupting your sacred time with your partner to do business on your I-Phone. Protecting the special bond between you and your mate is each partner's sacred responsibility, or you cheapen the value of what it means to be your partner. Temptation is more available----and more secret----- than ever before. And a deep and enduring marriage, with a marriage partner who loves and cares deeply for you, has never been more valuable. Closing the exits to secrecy and betrayal means protecting something more real and more lasting than flattery. Real intimacy requires real boundaries.