Drama Addiction!

When someone you care about feels upset, or has a major problem, do you feel the need to step in and sort it out for them? You just can’t stand seeing them suffer and get hell-bent on working out the mess they are in, because you are good at that stuff.

This is a clear example of taking responsibility for somebody else’s feelings (and their life).

I get it, you care and most of us are raised to to be considerate and mindful of other people’s feelings and situations.

Tricky situations come and go, they challenge us to become more resilient and hopefully a little wiser. How we let them make us feel, is an internal response that we create.

Feelings are created by the thinker! And no matter how hard we try, we can NOT reach into some else’s minds and fiddle around with their thoughts. That area is off limits to you and the only access pass lies with the person doing the thinking.

Perhaps you know someone who always seems to have a drama in their life, be it a relationship issue or work or family. There is always that freaked-out, mega crisis drawing you in to help them feel better.

Problems, after all, are the biggest addiction on the planet (and a good juicy drama is just too tempting!) And we jump right in and get fully coated in that ‘drama goo’ and work it out as our friend-in-pain sits by in a helpless heap.

In doing so, you are keeping your friend in the behaviour pattern of helplessness. They don’t get to learn how to sort it for themselves. We all have different life lessons and if you keep being their “knight in shining armour” they don’t get to overcome that problem and grow.

You deny them the opportunity to gain important life wisdom. It’s more than a bit selfish to deny someone you care about, that valuable growth.

Your role is to help them discover their strengths.

For example, if you are a parent, you may see your child struggle but if you keep intervening they do not learn anything for themselves. You deprive them a chance to learn a valuable skill.

Instead, we could get to guide them to discover for themselves, how they might tackle the problem. We encourage them to bring their strengths to the surface and use them. Could we not do that with our friends as well?

So instead on putting on the shiny armour, or getting over excited at a new drama, step back and let your friend take the reins of the white horse and discover their own capabilities. Be there to comfort and encourage them, but stop doing it for them. It’s not actually your responsibility to live their life. (And if living their life is far more interesting than living your own - you might want to address that!)

Be their friend not their saviour. Help them become stronger in themselves, instead of enforcing them to stay in victim mode.

Support, have heart felt compassion, listen, love and supply the tea and biscuits when they need to chat. Be the calm in their storm, someone they can anchor themselves to when it feels impossible. If each of us did that, we’ll actually have a lot less drama to contend with, and a lot more joy.