My motto for a long time has been: do not create drama and do not feed it. Yet why are we so addicted to it? Why do we put ourselves in positions that we know will add drama to our lives? Is it the instant gratification of a situation that feels really good at the time, even though you know it will cause pain and suffering to yourself and others in the long run? Is it always a conscious decision or do you make choices based on some sub- conscious message? Is it easier to live with drama than to create a life without it? No matter what the answers to these questions are, the bottom line is that more often than not you know when you’re creating drama and sometimes you still do it.
As I think about all the times in my life when I’ve either created drama or allowed myself to become entangled in someone else’s drama, I have to wonder…what was
I thinking. Or maybe the better question is– was I thinking at all? And that to me is the heart of the matter. Drama can only occur when you’re not paying close attention to what kinds of thoughts you’re entertaining. It can only happen when the ego is in charge and you haven’t taken the time to step back and be the observer. Because once you do that and analyze your thoughts and actions from an objective perspective, you can’t help but realize that engaging in drama is really a no-win situation.
So, what has the Universe presented to me this month in order for me to learn how to manage my thoughts and emotions? About a ton of opportunities to become embroiled in drama – my own and other people’s! Let’s see: there’s a friend who is going through an ugly divorce, another friend who calls me daily to get advice about dating, a friend who is unemployed right now and struggling with what to do next, two friends who are butting heads and calling me to talk about the other one and then posting random comments on Facebook to irritate each other (I should write an article on just that…social media drama), and I can probably list about ten other situations.
You can take any of these and see how one can get totally caught up in the drama if you don’t make a continuous effort to watch your thoughts.
Let’s take the situation with my friend and the dating advice because you can’t get much more drama than what goes on in the dating scene – well, maybe the friend going through the divorce has more, but we’ll save that for another article. I find that most people either love dating or they hate it and just want to hurry up and find someone they’re compatible with so they can avoid the whole process. I happen to think it’s fascinating – especially to watch your friends go through it. The stories I hear never cease to amaze me about how people interact and treat each other as they’re just beginning to get to know one another.
So, this friend of mine is dating a man that she’s really interested in. He’s appearing to be a tricky one. One week hot and heavy with her, the next week it seems she’s out
of sight, out of mind. Of course this allows for a never ending stream of phone calls to me with the topic of discussion typically being – you guessed it, what he’s thinking/ feeling/doing. Here we go with the drama… in my friend’s own words, “do you think there’s someone else, why doesn’t he want to spend more time with me, how come he appears to be so interested one minute and not the next, maybe he has a girlfriend, is he just not that into me,” and on and on. Now I could easily feed into her drama and spend hours on the phone analyzing his behavior of the week and I have to admit…sometimes I do. But most of the time I’m trying to get her to disengage from this thought process and spend more time focusing on herself and what she wants vs. worrying about him. one, because I really do believe that you can send positive and negative energy to people and whether they realize it or not, they can pick up on that; and two, because talking about it every day is making me crazy! Drama has a way of sneaking up on you, causing your head to spin with all kinds of negative thoughts and before you know it, you’ve spent hours creating imaginary situations in your head of the worst possible outcome. In her mind, she’s been getting dumped by this guy every other week for the last two months in a myriad of awful scenarios.
We just had a conversation today because this is one of those weeks where he’s disappeared and she’s freaking out that he’s decided it’s over. I told her that she has two choices, she could either choose to live in fear, worry and anxiety about what’s going to happen next, or she could choose to be peaceful and happy and hold the space for him to come to her. If he has decided he doesn’t want to see her again, then there will be plenty of time to cry and feel pain. Why put yourself through it now, when you don’t even know what the outcome is yet. She spends so much time wondering what he’s thinking and whether or not he likes her, that she doesn’t even give herself the opportu- nity to really evaluate what he can offer her and if she is truly into him. I know it’s easier said than done. We all let our thoughts and emotions get carried away sometimes, it’s human nature. But when it gets to the point that all you’re doing is working yourself into a frenzy because of some potential negative outcome that may not even happen, that’s creating drama and that’s where you need to draw the line. That’s when you need to take a step back, listen to the voice in your head objectively and become the observer. We’re all going to have negative thoughts, and it’s next to impossible to stop them when they come, but the difference between becom- ing consumed with them or stepping outside the ego into a peaceful place is what will allow us to live our lives free from drama. It’s a conscious choice that you can decide to make. The question is… will you eliminate the drama?
Submitted by Dr. Diane Hindman. Don’t miss her presentation on “Dating, Marriage and Divorce with Dharma not Karma” at the Natural Nutmeg “Empowering Me…Natural– ly” conference on November 12, 2011 at the Connecticut Convention Center. Visit http:// empoweringmenaturally.eventbrite.com.