Embrace Your Drama
It happens all the time in workshops, coaching sessions, and conversations about shifting out of the Dreaded Drama Triangle (DDT). People are excited to learn more about how to stop living in their drama roles. The…
It happens all the time in workshops, coaching sessions, and conversations about shifting out of the Dreaded Drama Triangle (DDT). People are excited to learn more about how to stop living in their drama roles.
The question usually sounds something like this: “Now that I know about the drama roles, how do I stop going there when I get triggered by situations or other people?”They are often surprised by our response. “Drama is not a problem to be solved. Embrace your drama. When you do, you will learn how to live more fully in TED* (*The Empowerment Dynamic)®.”This answer really surprises people because it is a common human trait to judge ourselves as flawed and want tips on how to “fix” oneself. You may feel guilty that you handled something poorly and may have made the situation worse. If you are like most people, you do not want to add gasoline to a fiery situation, so it’s counterintuitive to recommend embracing your drama.
Drama is an inescapable part of the human experience. The DDT roles live inside each one of us. The key is to understand why they have surfaced. Often, they are “friends in disguise” and have much to teach us.
Acknowledging your drama is where your power lies as a sign that you are open to some aspect of yourself that you want to recognize and transform. When your drama arises, and if it is not looked at and worked with, the pain that caused your reactive drama will go underground. It will stay there until there’s another triggering moment when it arises again, often with more power and force.
To deny drama works against your desire to transform it. If you reject those parts of you that sometimes play the roles of Victim, Persecutor, or Rescuer, and to label them as bad just gives them more power. Remember, these are roles you play, not who you truly are.
You cannot change what you cannot see. If you can observe and embrace the roles when they arise, you can shift your relationship to those parts of yourself. You then open the door to being at choice as to how to respond to the drama you are experiencing.Learning is a process of change that comes because of experiences and interactions with the world. Your drama moments are opportunities to learn and expand your capacity when you feel stuck—when you feel you are not learning anything new and just repeating old patterns.
Embracing your drama as a normal part of learning gives you energy to try another approach to what is challenging you in the moment. When drama hits, rather than become self-critical, simply pause, notice, and inquire: “What just happened that triggered me to go reactive and act out of that role?”Many times, the drama roles are seeking to protect you from something that you fear or you are worried about. Rather than push those fears or worries away, view your reactivity as a Challenger that has surfaced to teach you what you are now ready to learn.
Life is a learning laboratory. Embracing your drama with curiosity expands your ability to anticipate when you may be triggered, and experiment with new choices. Be flexible. Experiment. Pay attention to what works more than what does not work.
Embracing your drama patterns in this way opens you to consciously living from your Creator essence. You no longer need to deny, minimize, or make your DDT parts wrong. When you embrace—and even love—your drama, you are learning and expanding your capacity to live from TED* amid this mysterious and magnificent human journey.