THE DONATION OF DRAMA
We all know the rollercoaster of life, whereby one thing happens, and all the details wash over you, swamp you, and dump you, just like waves on the beach.
Then you stand up and turn around and before you can move, another dumper comes along and sweeps you off your feet.
Life can seem like that a lot of the time, particularly growing up, where it’s not just you but your friendship group that has its trials and tribulations.
Something happens between two people, others have their allegiances, and whole groups can be split by those who side with one and the rest that side with another.
But somebody else’s drama is not your problem.
By making it your problem, you are doing two things:
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You are not getting on with what you need to do for you, in your own life, and
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You are judging them as being incompetent to work out their own mess.
We all have challenges in life. They are there for us to learn and grow from.
One person might see a lesson as being particularly easy, need it presented only once, while another might find their angle on the same lesson a bit more challenging. Yet another might already have mastery over that area of life, so for them, it’s completely not an issue.
How can you presume to know all the inner-workings of another person?
Answer: you can’t.
It’s as silly as expecting to know everything about someone, when you do not and have not spent every moment of every day with them since birth (even if they are a sibling or you’ve known them since childhood).
And even if you were to spend every moment of every day with someone, you don’t know what is coming into their head at any given moment (even if you ask them, they can always not tell you the truth).
Some of the things that can come up include:
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Relationships starting
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Relationships ending
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The details of the relationship: what he said and then what she said, and then what I said in response…
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Any relationship crush!
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Family sagas
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Problems with teachers
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Difficulty with subjects at school
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What happens at work – with other staff, other departments, with customers, etc
Even just something happening while you are out and about in the street, at the shops, in the park, at the movies; literally anything can be made into a drama.
We have so many examples of drama being entertaining, but really, dramas are nothing short of draining.
Ever gotten off the phone with someone who was speaking to you about something in a dramatic way? How’d you feel afterwards? Thank God we finally got off the phone? Or did you need to go eat something right away to not feel what actually went on?
Sometimes, you feel downright exhausted!
But what makes a drama and what do we get out of it?
The first thing to note is that we don’t actually make a drama, but we can help make any situation into one.
It’s in the tone of how we speak about something, a little more emphasis here, a bit more of a pause there. The inflection of our tone communicates our own 2 cents’ worth (even if we think it is worth more).
The throwaway lines and comments we might make about something actually have a huge impact, and if everyone is throwing their 2 cents’ worth in, that all adds up, doesn’t it!
Someone has to deal with that and it ends up being that we all have to cop it.
No-one likes feeling judged and condemned for the way they do life, in how they react to their challenges or step up to the plate.
Often we might genuinely seek help but those we reach out to might not have our best interests at heart.
Or we seek to be acknowledged or recognised for what is a progression of what could be considered ‘normal’ in your life.
Any need we have that is seeking something from another because we don’t feel whole or complete in ourselves is fraught with danger. I’m not talking about danger, high voltage or danger, do not enter, but a very real but very subtle danger.
Let me set the scene by way of example:
You don’t much like school. It doesn’t capture your attention, it seems pointless, and a waste of time, so you don’t much bother trying.
Yet someone sees something in you, one of the teachers. They start to praise you, and you start to respond. You begin not just to be engaged, but to put effort in, because you want to please that person. You produce for that person and they reward you with good marks, praise, attention.
It’s all sounding quite innocent right now, but can you feel the menace?
Because what happens at the end of the school year, when you don’t have that teacher any more? Or you leave school? Or the teacher gets transferred?
Do you suddenly have no-one to given you that praise and attention? And what do you think about yourself in it’s absence? What happens to you after that?
Do you seek it on the merry-go-round of life, trying and striving to get more praise and attention, for in the moment you received it, it felt good, you were validated, and this whole life/school thing was worth it?
Or do you give up and swing like a pendulum the other way, into rejection? Rebel and stick your middle finger up at life and/or society. Seek consolation in drugs and alcohol?
Either way, we are getting something out of it, and I dare say that is covering up and distracting from the hurt of not simply being held in that acknowledgment of your absolute preciousness.
Thing is, you don’t actually have to do a thing for that. You don’t have to try. Imagine trying to be precious!
Oh yeah, that’s become an insult, just like special, as if there is something wrong with you.
You don’t have to know stuff, and you are not a failure if you don’t know, even if the results of tests, assignments, projects or exams come back to say you apparently have. Those things are outside of you. They are not you and they don’t have to define you.
Attention is something you have to compete for, with behaviours good or bad, whereas you don’t have to do anything to be yourself. Literally. Nothing.
Problem is, it’s not that common. Once we get past a certain age, our behaviours and patterns kick into a momentum and can seemingly carry us away. But if we get carried away, where are we taken to, and what are we taken from?
These questions are well worth pondering… as well as:
Is there another way?
The answer, obviously, is that there is.
Because YOU can begin to… you guessed it… honour yo’self!
That means that YOU are the one who hears and reconnects to that innermost spark of your essence and YOU give it permission to be seen and heard and felt in the world.
In my experience, this is not always wanted or welcome, but that says more about where others are at than where you are.
Further to that, if those others reject you yet they are close friends, or family or whatever, then the potential for hurt is all the greater.
Which means that the steadiness you must have with yourself must become absolute.
So where does drama fit with all of this?
Frankly? It doesn’t. One can’t be absolutely steady and dramatic at the same time.
Steadiness means focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, step by step, doing exactly and only what is needed.
Drama, on the other hand, is creating a whole lot of fluff and stuff that doesn’t need to be there, creating delay and distraction from what is otherwise the task at hand.
It has to be said that the way I have walked my way out of many challenging situations has been one step at a time.
Literally asking the question of myself what is the next most important step to take has been well, part of how I came to be a doctor, actually.
But that’s a story you can ask me another time.
For now, it suffices to say that when I have added drama to a situation, I have added complexity rather than simplicity, delay rather than getting on with it, confusion because the clarity has been lost.
Oh, and did I mention that I get a whole heap of attention for it?
We all get attention for drama, it’s like the bleating lamb or the squeaky wheel. These things get the attention. But not all attention is created equal and what you get sometimes may not be a) what you want or b) in your best interests.
I talk about that a bit more in an open letter to the women of Australia.
Attention as a proxy to being met deeply with another who is also in their essence is a poor cousin and will never compare.
It’s the top up that never fills the cup.
In fact, it pales into insignificance once you have felt what it is like to hold and be held together, in what is in actual fact, love.
That’s what we all want, to connect deeply to each other – in and with the real deal – not the things we call love, but that are so needy, emotional, fake, and abusive that it’s really a wonder we fell for them in the first place.
But if that is all that’s on offer, it is completely understandable.
But who and what is going to cut this cycle?
I for one.
It’s enough that we have had an essence-drought. That once we grew past a certain age we don’t hold our value as precious beings – you know, the ones we were born as? Note: not born to be, but actually born precious.
So when you get together with your friend(s) or your boyfriend or even your family, let’s get real together and examine what it is you are actually bringing to the table.
Are you being you, full of yourself?
This is a great thing, by the way, completely different to being up yourself.
Or are you bringing drama, unmet need, expectations, demands, complication and delay?
Do you make it easier for someone to see that they are love too? Or harder?
What’s the mirror you hold up by way of reflection?
