What Is REALLY Going On Here???

     Drama. Ugh. It’s a life sucker. Is it the full moon last night? Is it something I’m doing that seems to be drawing it into my experience? Did I somehow get tele-ported back in time and I’m in Jr. High again??? 
I always wonder when it’s going on in a kind of steady pattern around me – “How did I get here? How did I attract THIS into my experience?”

     Sometimes drama is just choosing to see things in a painful way. It's a pattern of behavior that happens when you don't pay attention to your emotions when they first come up and then they mushroom through overactive thinking. Drama is making someone else responsible for your own feelings and it doesn't express REAL feelings. That's why they call it drama - it's an act.
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     I've felt on the receiving end of drama recently and my strong guess is that it is showing up to help me learn how to have and honor my own boundaries because I am letting someone else put the responsibility on me for how they feel AND I am then doing the same thing back to them in return as a result of the drama they laid on me. Crazy eight.

     It’s not the conditions or the person who creates the drama in our lives. It’s our own choice of focus that fans the drama embers into the flames of Jr. High bullshit. What if instead of amping ourselves up about a person’s behavior, choices, or conditions – we looked a little closer and asked “What’s REALLY going on here???”
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     My favorite system or sort of how-to for questioning my own drama is The Work, by Byron Katie….

     Usually, just the first question will be enough to slow down my high speed drama thoughts and the story I am making up in my head. It’s really the MEANINGS we put on things that causes our suffering.

     Here is a super simple way to figure what's really going on... state out loud "I feel ____________". Name what it is you are feeling because we humans often have no idea how we actually feel. Sounds overly simply, but just naming the emotion is a drama reducer because it forces us to dig down and get real.
     Follow up the answer to how you feel with another question: “What am I REALLY seeking with this story I’m telling myself?” Might be acceptance, being seen, being understood, being recognized, being included/loved. 

     Once I answer this question with brutal honesty, with this drama/victim story I am telling myself… I am FREE! Because once I know the answer, I can give it to MYSELF. Whatever it is I am trying to get from someone or something else, I can just give it to me and now everyone is free. When I think someone needs to give/do/understand/change in order for me to be happy, well, I am screwed. Prepare for BIG drama if this is the mental outlook you choose.

     So let’s go even one step deeper… What is REALLY going on here? What am I seeking? Now notice... what are you are expecting or wanting someone to do or be a certain way or give you a certain something. Are they actually CAPABLE of giving you what it is you are expecting??? For example, let’s say I tell my friend that I need them to understand me. What I’m REALLY seeking in their APPROVAL. This is not actually something we need and the person may not be able to give it. If I can take that info and realize that I can give MYSELF approval of me – not only am I then free, so are they.

     So often we are seeking something deeper than what it appears on the surface. Usually what we are looking for is what we are refusing to give to ourselves. We often replicate this inner refusal by seeking something from a person who can’t or won’t give it to us – we play out our relationship that we have with ourselves in every other relationship we are in with others. Often what we are seeking is approval, because we don't approve of ourselves.
     This is why that even when we get the approval of someone, it's not sustainable. What we must do to really be happy in life is to fill OURSELVES up to overflow and then spill out into others with that fullness. When we don't, we have to go back to that same well of other people over and over again because we aren't filling the void ourselves first.

     So! Once you see the REAL deal on what you are looking for or from another, the next step is to just love. Love yourself, love the other person, love the situation or condition. Love, not as a way to GET something, but because it feels good to love. Do it because it’s who you are.

     Love & place your focus on what you appreciate. It's really human and easy to focus on the people and things in your life that are drama filled or skewed to the negative. Gently pull your focus back to the people and things that are solid, feel good, and make you feel SANE! Even if it seems 80% of the people in your life are trying to stir up drama or even making YOU the villain in their drama... focus on the 20% that aren't. Be gentle with yourself and breathe.
     Drama can feel like energy, like your making something happen - but your energy can be used in a way that feels a whooooole lot better! Remember that you are a spark of the Divine and you don’t need anyone or anything to be different in order to fan that spark in to a flame. When we use our energy to fan our own spark, now you've gotten down to the core of what is REALLY going on here.

XOXOXOXO
Sandy