Three Steps to Dissolving Your Drama
Dump, doodle and dream…
Drama can be a wonderful thing
Once you know what to do with it
Until then, drama’s an all-day-long-mare. And a mardy* mare at that.
Drama in the ‘negative’ sense, that is.
*(spoiled, sulky — North England colloquialism)
Drama is a mardy mare
Until we know differently, an upsetting drama drives us into that triad of despair — we’re adopting personas that really, really suck.
We flip between Persecutor (You’re to blame, do better!), Rescuer (You’re needy — I have to fix you,) and Victim (Woe is me! I neeeeeed…); then back to Persecutor again…
We’re feeling powerless and ‘someone should really DO something about that!’
It’s ok. It’s only human. Drama is par for the course.
The question is, once we’re in drama like that… what happens next?
Rage, on a hair trigger… sounds bad, but it’s not
I was so, SO angry this morning.
Fury. Rage. Resentment. Like flames, they flushed my cheeks, filled my body with hatred.
Hatred. Pure, stinging, spite-filled, hatred.
It took my breath away.
You’d say it was a totally disproportionate reaction. Logically, I’d have to agree. Fortunately, I know logic’s irrelevant once I’m ‘in drama’; in drama, emotions hold sway.
What actually happened?
A potential client booked a session… I prepared, got up early, made ready and then… he didn’t show.
He just…
didn’t…
show!
I felt SO disrespected!
A train load of past dismissiveness — put-downs and sniping and worse; every experience of being a ‘nothing thing’ — exploded inside me in that moment.
How DARE he!
Raaaarghhhhh!
It sounds bad, doesn’t it? Like I’m a teeny tad unhinged?
Rage, on a hair trigger… surely I should be a far bigger person than that?
It may sound even worse when I tell you that in my rage I was celebrating!
So good to REALLY feel bad!
Let me qualify… as an Enneagram 9, I’ve spent a lifetime suppressing all emotion for fear that it might make me angry. Incredible Hulk syndrome was all I knew. Until lately.
Stressed, exhausted, all of life became beige in my efforts to avoid feeling the downside of drama… I was trying to keep myself safe. And others too. Who knew what would happen if I unleashed my anger? What harm might I do if I lost all control?
In the past, I wouldn’t have noticed the rage. I’d have squashed inside me SO fast. I’d have stuck a positive post-it on the top of it. ‘No big deal! Move on…’
Not doing that any more. No more smiley-faced stickers to hide the truth underneath…
Now, how I celebrate the raw vigour of emotion; ‘positive’ or ‘negative’, they’re all good with me! It feels so good to let myself feel… any and all shades of emotion!
Even as I felt the bile rise in my body this morning, the fury brought a smile along with it.
Yes! I said to myself, YES! Well done me for noticing this feeling! Where’s this emotion guiding me?
Ten minutes after spitting expletives about my no-show, I was grinning and thrilling in the expansion he’d brought me.
I am so much greater for this drama now!
This no-show showed me what I was expecting. The mix of my vibration on the subject of how clients find me. I’ve been beating the drum of previous ‘no-show’ experiences and more.
This encounter, or the lack of it, made me realise — I’ve been reacting to ‘reality’, focusing on unpleasant past moments, instead of focusing on a future I’d like to create!
Time to beat a different drum. There are so many great moments to relish! So many wonderful clients to appreciate! My emotions guide me to the opposite of all that rage and frustration — to the joy overflowing from the clients I serve.
Of course, it’s harder when the drama is more significant, but the greater the impact, the more we stand to gain by releasing it.
Here are three steps to dissolving your drama; with practice they will bring you delight.
Three steps to inner peace, right here, right now
Step #1 — Dump
We’ve got to let ourselves start where we are. For all those positively-biased folks out there, give yourself permission to be mad as hell. Especially when you think it’s not warranted.
You don’t have to justify your emotions to anyone. But suppressing them will only serve to make them into more.
I have two notebooks always at the ready.
In notebook 1 — titled Dump — I do exactly that.
When even the slightest little niggle arises, I dump all the thoughts I have about it out onto the page. I exaggerate. Dramatise. No tempering allowed. I make it sound like the worst thing ever!
When I guide others, I tell them to…
Swear. Be outrageous.
Don’t be truthful, be rude.
Do whatever it takes to pour the bile onto the page. Or the fear. Or despair. Or whatever…
If you like, use a list of every negative emotion — do a thorough, thorough dumping; make sure ALL the grot’s expunged.
Be vile and nasty and petty and vengeful.
Be mean and hateful and worse…
Go on. I dare you!
Why?
Because none of it’s true.
None of it’s you.
I know that if I don’t find a way to discharge it, pain-filled emotion will sink into my cells.
Why is it we overreact at times so intensely? Because a tiny trigger trips all those cell-soaked emotions.
That subconscious express train of long-suppressed fury is always in motion in the thought-field around us. It’s waiting for us to hitch a conscious ride…
And that’s ok.
It’s ok.
It’s ok.
It’s more than ok to feel all that you feel.
Feel it.
Dump it.
Celebrate.
Step one is done.
Step #2 — Doodle
After I’ve closed the Dump, I find a good place to doodle. Scrap paper does just fine.
It’s delicious to move a pen randomly; allowing one continuous line to make its mark on the page.
Sometimes I close my eyes as I doodle.
It’s easy, it’s downloading, it’s free…
Like Dumbledore’s pensieve, the doodle transfers thoughts like soft, silken threads from inside me; out onto the page…
I allow the doodle to settle me gently, to slow that puppy-dog mind. I doodle til I feel drama has softened inside me.
I doodle for as long as I like…
Step # — Dream
Now I’m ready to embrace my expansion, to get up to speed with who I really am!
Here’s where I revel in emotions I love to feel. A rampage pours forth now — it’s easier each time I do it.
An alphabet of resourceful state’s a great way to go, if you want structure as you head onto your waiting Dream page.
I love to feel agile and brilliant and clever!
I love to delight and feel eager!
I love feeling focused and glad to be here.
I love feeling inspired and joyous and knowing…
I love feeling Loving, come what may!
On and on I go until I am smiling and delighted.
I’m reminding myself of who I am, at my core.
No muting of emotion needed these days…
These days, there’s no muting my emotions in the moment. It’s a bit of a shock to some who’ve known me from of old. They’re surprised when I pull back the covers in my blogging and confess, that yes, I feel fury that easily now!
Dumping negative thoughts and feelings doesn’t mean I believe in them. In fact, they are the opposite of the truth of my being. And yours.
Dumping them on a page means I am less likely to dump them on you, or anyone else for that matter. I love that.
When I dump, doodle and dream, I can Love Mr No-Show.
When I Love, I bring myself Home.
You do too.
All emotions are valid — they all have their place
Pain-filled emotions are valid, no question. It takes a while to know how to embrace them. Knowing they all have their place is a start.
Their place, in my world, is a private place.
A place of allowing their full, pure purging.
Of opening into the Love they usher in...
Here’s to the power of embracing all emotions; becoming more and more sure of the brilliance at our core.
Wherever you are, you are beautiful and beloved.
You are worthy and loving and more.
I salute you!
Acknowledgements: My blogs, my coaching and my life are founded on many wondrous teachings, most particularly those of Abraham-Hicks
