The drama theatres we won't enter
I am guilty of subscribing to more things than I can genuinely engage with. Especially with online courses which tend to multiply their touch points beyond the course material itself, through podcasts, online groups, and so on. A few months ago I received a notification email from a course I had purchased signalling that the teacher had started a new thread on the forum asking: What is your best piece of life advice? I would have normally deleted the email. I didn’t, not straight away at least. I paused and asked myself: What would my answer be? Genuinely, not overthinking it, right then, end of April 2023 at the time.
I logged in to the forum with the intention of answering as quickly as possible and I typed: “Do not enter the drama theatre. This doesn’t mean not to participate with life but simply don’t entertain the drama”. Concise, precise, satisfying. In my (not so) humble opinion.
Not entirely satisfying in fact. There was a missing link: the process. What brings us to some kind of self acquired wisdom to live by? Why this one piece of advice, at this point in time, and not one of the many others that came before?
The metaphor of the drama theatre had recently become a recurring subject of conversation between me and a friend of mine. There was a theme in the energy we were sensing which made us aware and talk about “drama” a lot. It was as if we needed to discuss the theatres in which drama takes place to ensure we don’t enter them and, if we had inadvertently, to leave promptly.
We laughed at some elaborate strategies to handle situations and people in our own personal lives that had been taken over by “drama” and labelled them (the strategies, not the people) quirky names such as “the missing toe”. There are many ways we can end up being caught up in drama. What we agreed on at the time of these conversations was the importance of not entertaining ourselves with other people’s drama and by doing so, to not give their drama an audience (no time, energy, or thoughts). By not taking anything in, by not entertaining the drama, we practise detachment and protect ourselves.
Why, though? Because drama is draining, it depletes us and it can simply be damaging. It runs on inflated, exacerbated and volatile emotions and perceptions due to the self identification people have with it. It tells stories that are often inaccurate and highly biased upon which the ego clings on. It’s often anchored in victimhood, immaturity, attention seeking, obliviousness and avoidable bad decisions. It negates facts and pragmatism which ruin the show.
About the avoidable bad decisions. There is something about drama emerging from poor decisions made out of thoughtlessness or reactivity. It is uninspiring and irritating to witness people creating difficulties for themselves and others when it could have easily been prevented had they first paused for a moment. There is an inherent lack of self-control and accountability in this process which often goes unsaid.
In my household and family at large, the expression “drama queen” often comes out. Even the dog gets a special mention in this category. On occasion, the callout has the tone of a joke, but it’s rare as my tolerance for drama is admittedly low. For the simple reason that it doesn’t solve anything. A pity party is welcome but it has to be time bound. Realistically, when has a ‘poor-me serenade’ ever made anyone feel better or improve the situation?
This doesn’t mean we stop caring, it means we aren’t carrying, we aren’t taking it on. The nuance makes a huge difference because that’s how we protect the integrity of our systems (emotions, physical body, energy and so on). That’s a critical life and, in my case, professional skill to have. Without it we can make ourselves sick as the world has no shortage of bad news, catastrophe hungry media, narcissistic people, takers, victims, vampires or leaches who, like back holes in motion, happily suck life and light out of anything and anyone. All we need is to look at the world around us in a certain way to then spend our day in absolute despair and outrage at what’s happening to it and in it.
So in essence, drama is a response. It is a chosen response to life, to others, to our expectations - met or unmet. Drama is a point of focus. Therefore it has less to do with the circumstances and a lot more to do with how we chose to perceive and live through them. As responsible adults, we have free will and agency regarding how we respond to events, to people and to ourselves.
Some will argue that free-will works best when we are regulated at the nervous system level. Otherwise our choices and responses are in line with our survival stress and trauma. The reality is that not everyone is going to seek to heal and regulate their nervous system or even acknowledge it needs attention in the first place. So I would counter argue that it starts with self-awareness and then a willingness to know and do better. Otherwise operating and acting out from a dysregulated nervous system becomes an enabling excuse to be a wrecking ball.
Drama pairs itself with the notion of imbalance, in whichever direction. Whether it’s in the extremes of too-muchness or complete deprivation or somewhere in between on the spectrum, where there is drama there isn’t peace nor balance. Not for the person who originates the drama and not for the people around. Saying this, it’s worth remembering that drama can take many forms and isn’t always full of tears, whaling and anger. In addition, it can be insidious as opposed to overt. It can be manipulative. To be able to recognise it, we need to practise emotional intelligence and learn how to read the room and the people, the energies and dynamics in it. We are intuitive beings, we all have a level of intelligence that goes beyond what’s visible. When we feel tension, heaviness, secrecy, unease, when there is no peace, that’s a solid clue that there is underlying drama at play.
But where does all this drama come from and why do we feel surrounded by it? There is a book I recommend by Steven Stosny called Soar Above: How to Use the Most Profound Part of Your Brain Under Any Kind of Stress. He talks about the Toddler Culture whose hallmark is victim identity. Many factors contribute to the Culture of Toddlerhood and among them: entitlement (ever-expanding perception of “rights” and demands), self-obsession (inability to see perspectives that go beyond personal experience), splitting (good or bad, angel or demon, all or nothing), the cult of feelings (elevation of feelings over values), intolerance of disagreement and uncertainty, and finally, substituting power for value (reacting to diminished self-value with exertion of power).
Let’s say we spotted drama. Red flag: drama in sight. Then what? First, let’s not engage with other people's theatrics, let’s not play an alternate role in it, let’s not do what I call “shadow dance”. It’s a disservice to us and them. If there is no getting out of the situation quickly, let’s ask clarifying questions of the other. E.g. Are you saying that…? Do you mean that…? Am I understanding this right, that…? The purpose is to clear out all suppositions, assumptions and misinterpretations about what’s going on and instead get a true picture and bring back transparency and honesty to the centre stage. Finally, let’s hold onto our values and respond in alignment with these. This might require us to leave the situation, to assert some boundaries, to say “no”, to say “enough”, to say “I see you and I am not part of this”.
To avoid falling into the traps of drama, according to Steven Stosny, we need to train ourselves to transition from feelings to values. And stereotypically, it could look like this: “I’m disappointed, but I am okay. I can and will improve, appreciate, connect, protect.” Said another way, we need to be able to regulate our negative feelings internally and learn to self-regulate, what I personally also call “self-parent”. This is something we teach puppies. If you’ve ever adopted a young puppy, you’ll know that they have to learn to self soothe. And as a new puppy parent, it’s very hard, because we want to step in and rescue. Humans are no different and if we fail to regulate our own internal experience, we tend to seek external regulation and validation; someone else has to calm us down and cheer us up, as with toddlers.
Life isn’t linear. It has its cycles and tides which we learn to navigate through experiences. Over time, we also learn to pick our battles. Then comes a point where we can extend this wisdom to the drama theatres we decide to enter or not. We won’t be able to always avoid drama but we can choose wisely and above all, we can favour peace and responsibility for self.
If we value peace and see it as a right, then this right entails the responsibility to respect the peace of others. So let’s place the emphasis on peace as we and the world need it very much.
Thank you for reading.
Mahé