Years ago, I was invited to be the main speaker for a family retreat in Santa Barbara. They wanted me to address family systems theory for the group. At the time, I was teaching family systems theory for Pepperdine University at the Graduate School of Education and Psychology (GSEP). This seemed like a very simple request for someone with my background and expertise. The zinger, and you know there was one coming, was that my audience would be anywhere from – seven to seventy. Wow!

Personally, I love challenges to do things differently. Well, this was a wonderful opportunity. I knew I had to keep it simple and I had to engage the younger audience right away. So, I asked for six to eight children to come up front and help me with a demonstration. The young folks came forward and were happy to “play” with me in the front of the room. I asked each of them to engage in a physical activity that could be done in the space we had available. The variety of activity included: running in place, spinning clockwise, spinning counterclockwise, walking back and forth across the space both diagonally and side to side, and standing still. At my instruction, they would begin their physical activity and then I would ask them to stop. They were ready and the room was filled with curiosity and anticipation.

I signaled them to begin and the chaotic activity and fun began. After about thirty seconds, I asked them to stop. The audience still did not “get” what I was trying to do. For the second part of the exercise, I asked everyone to do the same exact thing as before, except with one minor modification – they had to be holding hands. Once they were all connected, I asked them to repeat their activity. It was priceless as the chaos and laughter of the group ensued. Now they got it! In family systems theory the belief is that we are all connected. We are all influenced by each other in the system. This worked so well at the family retreat; I adopted it for graduate school!

From a systems and/or ecosystem perspective, we are all connected. We see it in nature, politics, business, our communities and our families. So often, we have thought and acted as if we weren’t, with very terrible intended and unintended consequences. I think that we are beginning to realize what the children realized when they held hands: we are all connected and therefore I cannot pretend what I do/we do, does not impact everyone. We are not separate from the rest. We are all part of a whole. As Albert Einstein said, it is “an optical delusion of consciousness’ to think otherwise.