The Creative Solution: Newton and the Natural Laws of Relationships

The Creative Solution Table of Contents

Summary:

Chip Rose’s chapter, “Newton and the Natural Laws of Relationships,” applies Newton’s laws of motion to the dynamics of interpersonal relationships in mediation. Rose uses analogies like a pen dropping to illustrate his “Newton’s First Law of Relationships,” highlighting the futility of trying to change others. He also discusses Newton’s Third Law, emphasizing the equal and opposite reactions in relationships, and the importance of maintaining perspective. The author ultimately proposes that understanding these “natural laws” can lead to more successful and strategic relationship management, potentially reducing the need for mediation altogether.

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Chapter 12: Newton and the Natural Laws of Relationships

\One of my favorite daily comic strips is Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis.  Recently, he cartooned a dialogue between two of his regular characters, Goat and Pig.  Pig bemoans having to turn down an invite to check out a new burger place explaining that they give you too many French fries.  When Goat suggests that he simply doesn’t have to eat them all, Pig responds by describing Newton’s Fourth Law: A mouth in motion tends to stay in motion.  The cartoon struck a responsive chord with me since I have been incorporating into my mediation process the concept of there being certain natural laws that impact relationships, using the discoveries of Newton, the 17^th century English physicist, mathematician and founder of modern science.  One of the most obvious applications of his genius to the dynamic of relationships is his Third Law of Motion:  For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction.  Mediators see the proof of this law played out every day.  A reaction is an emotional (as opposed to a rational) response to an action, when the subjects are human beings rather than physical objects.  

Some time ago, I found myself immersed in an amazing book titled The Clockwork Universe—a dramatic and compelling history of the brilliant and competitive relationship between Newton and Gottfried Leibniz for the honor of being the first to discover life-altering mathematical formulae and constructs, such as calculus and gravity. While reading the book, I began looking at interpersonal relationships patterned on the manner in which Newton approached the physical world.  Please note that I said

“patterned,” as I claim nothing in common with his genius other than I seem to recall getting hit in the head with an apple sometime during my childhood.  In the course of observing the dynamics of the troubled relationships I was mediating, I started to see certain principles at play that contained a kind of scientific truth to them.   The first of these truths speaks to the role that individuation plays in facilitating relationship negotiation.  The “truth” is that every human being on the planet is a kind of thumb print—unique, distinct and individual.  In an earlier column, I wrote about my concept that I call “eggs in space.”  Each of us has a hard exterior that keeps all the parts contained, and a soft interior, and the only thing that holds us in the same place is gravity (nods to Sir Isaac).   It is physical gravity that conveniently keeps us all from floating away into space.  A different kind of gravity—“relationship gravity,” or “emotional gravity”—causes people to be inextricably drawn to one another.  When two people stay in the gravitational pull of one another for a sufficient period of time, they will experience the inevitable growth of another emotional characteristic, which we call intimacy.  With the advent of intimacy, some people begin to substitute awareness of their individuality with their increasing perception of being a “couple.”  When the balance between the self-perception of one’s individuality is overshadowed by the self-perception of one’s identity as a couple, there is a tendency to lose sight of the personal boundaries that were present when gravity first brought them in contact with one another.  At such a point of imbalance, several personal tendencies can emerge which completely ignore the scientific fact of their individuality.

The first tendency is the insatiable desire of one or both of the parties to want the other person to change or be different from whom they actually are. [In fairness to our clients, is there any of us who has not experienced this desire?]  It is our own egocentricity that causes us to want our relationship partners to think, or feel, or want something specific, just because we want them to.  This violates what I am calling Newton’s First Law of Relationships:  None of us has the capacity to make another think, feel or want something, just because we want them to.  As a demonstration of this “scientific truth” to clients beginning the process, I will hold a pen in the air and say: “I really want this pen to float when I let it go (and letting it go as I say this, it predictably hits the table).  I just think how cool and magical it would be if it would float the way it would in zero gravity.  But, every time I let it go (demonstrating again), it hits the table.  So, I have a choice, based on the scientific truth of the reality of the existence of gravity.  That choice is: Continuing to let the pen drop and deal with my constant frustration that it falls to the table, which is so-o-o-o annoying, or accepting the truth of the law of gravity and gently place it on the table so that it doesn’t break, or fall to the floor and frustrate me once again.”   

The lesson for clients in this physical metaphor is that they, too, have a choice in how they take advantage of the opportunities that the facilitated process gives them:  Choose to continue to set themselves up for annoyance and frustration by hoping and expecting that their partner will magically become different, or choose to accept the scientific truth of who the partner actually is, and consider a strategic approach to negotiating an agreement with that person in a manner that maximizes one’s selfinterest, and is the most mutually beneficial.  Once explained, I have never had a client fail to see the truth in this concept, and, in the course of “getting it,” almost all clients agree that they definitely will choose to act strategically rather than emotionally while working through the process to resolution.  It is helpful to remind them that, as mediator, you do not underestimate the challenge that such a goal entails, and that you offer your support for their success in achieving it.

The second tendency is appropriately described by Newton’s Third Law of Motion: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  I would quibble with Sir Isaac a bit and say that, in our work, the “reaction” can frequently be much more than just equal, but here is where quantum physics and human behavior may part company.  Given the emotional aspect of every human interpersonal relationship, it is only “human” to have feelings and emotions burst forth from that volcanic reservoir in the deep recesses of our humanity.  It is a biological truth (allowing us to stay in the realm of science) that the onset of emotions is countervailed by an inverse proportional decline in rational thinking.  Channeling Newton, let me call this the “Teeter-Totter effect.”  As the emotional end of the Teeter-totter rises, the rational-end plunges downward in direct and equal proportion.    This reciprocal movement mirrors the circumstance in which each of the parties’ emotional reactions spike as their reasoning functions decline, consecutively and concurrently.”  

One of the first intellectual functions to fall victim to the emotional impact of relationship conflict is perspective.  Clients not only come into the process so close to the trees that they can’t see the forest, in many instances they have already climbed a tree and are out on a branch maintaining a death grip on a specific leaf.  For any meaningful progress to be made in resolving their issues, it is necessary for them to climb down out of the tree, take a walk up to the top of the hill, and gain the perspective that comes from being able to view the whole of the forest of their circumstances (what Fisher and

Ury call “the view from the balcony”).  In calm and rational moments, clients generally relate to and accept the wisdom of these suggestions.  One of my most important goal questions is to ask at the outset of the process if they would like to go through the process strategically rather than emotionally.  They uniformly agree that such is their goal.  I then ask them if they will give me permission to let them know when they are deviating from that goal, and they always give me that permission.  By exercising that permission when emotions begin to overwhelm the dialogue, the mediator is fulfilling the request made by the clients that they be reminded to act strategically, by choosing to manage their own emotions.  When the clients make this choice, it is a significant step forward towards making the process succeed.   

It is not only modern science that owes so much to Sir Isaac Newton and his genius for understanding the physical world, but the modern family mediation movement that began in the 20^th century can look at his discovery of these natural laws made three hundred plus years ago and find parallels that exist in the world of 21^st century interpersonal relationships.  Awareness of these natural laws of relationships can aid our clients in choosing to embrace these realities, thereby significantly enhancing their ability to reach resolution. In the larger context, however, such awareness holds the potential for changing our strategic behaviors in relationships, making them more successful, and thereby avoiding the need for mediation at all.

The Creative Solution Table of Contents

Chip Rose

Chip Rose is highly experienced divorce mediator previously based in Santa Cruz, California and recently moved to Bend, Oregon. Chip founded The Mediation Center in Santa Cruz in 1980 and is certified as a Specialist in Family Law by the State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization. In a client-centered… MORE