Drama In Your Life

When you look at your relationships, the people that surround you, the people that you let into your inner circle, are they helping you become a better version of yourself, or are they creating drama?  

Have you heard of the drama triangle, which was originally conceived by Steven Karpman, and then published by Eric Burne.  The drama triangle involves three aspects, the victim, the persecutor, and the rescuer.  When a person begins the process, such as being the victim, “poor me”, they must involve other people to keep the fires burning so to speak.  They will usually bring in a rescuer to get someone to feel sorry for them or bring them in to “fix” the problem.  The only problem with that is that it only perpetuates the problem as it enables the victim to remain in their position. Should the victim not get what they want from the rescuer, then the victim can change roles over to the persecutor, and blame them for not fixing the problem, or not doing what they want as a form of control.  Now should the former rescuer decide that they didn’t do enough, or feel like they are getting blamed, then they can now change roles into the victim, and looking for someone to take care of them, which then in turn will go looking for another rescuer, and the dance continues. 

As people move from one role into another, it never really solves the problem, as they never take full responsibility for their own actions. It’s like wiping your rear end with a hula hoop, there is just no end to it.  The energy is always moving outwards to an external source, and never inwards as to how they can change themselves to solve the problem.  I believe that everyone has their own best answers, and until they take 100% responsibility for what happened, they will never to get to that inner source of problem solving.  If you take the approach of its someone else’s fault, you are powerless to change it, and thus engage in the dance. 

So, when a situation has occurred in your life, whether it is something that you did, or something that occurred outside of yourself, how did you approach it?  Did you go, “look what happened to me”, “look what you did to me”, or “it’s all your fault”?  Any of these approaches, at any time automatically puts you into the drama triangle.   Stop and think about it for a second.  Think of the last time a problem occurred, what did you do?  It’s easy to make excuses, and say “but they cheated on me”, “they lied to me’, they ( fill in the blank here), and as soon as you take that approach, you are powerless to solve because it’s not your fault, or so you think.

So, what is the answer to getting off of the drama dance floor?  It’s quite easy actually, you don’t get on the dance floor in the first place.  You take 100% responsibility for what happened, no matter what it is.  You have to look at your role in what happened, and then and only then, can you change it.  Even if someone did something to you, you cannot change them, or what happened, but you can change what you are going to do about it.  If you stay in the drama, the wheels on the bus go ‘round and ‘round. 

Take 100% responsibility, stay in your power, put your energy inwards, do what you can solve the problem for you.  Don’t drag other people into it, unless it’s merely for getting something off of your chest. Don’t tell the story looking for comfort or solutions from the other person, let them know how you solved it as well. 

Drama is futile, it solves nothing, and is exhausting.  Do, you have any of these people in your life? Do you have any people inside your inner circle?  My suggestion, just stay outside the triangle, ask what they have done to solve the problem?  If they keep engaging in this fashion, it’s time to let go.  People are either helping you become a better version of yourself, or a lesser version, it’s up to you to decide.  That simple.