There's a triangle called Karpman's Drama Triangle. In it, there are three positions: Persecutor, Victim and Rescuer.
The idea is that most of us operate within this triangle and thus keep creating or participating in drama. A Persecutor is judgemental and talks in blame language: This is your fault! A Victim feels very sorry for themselves and feels stuck: Why does this always happen to me? A Rescuer presumes the role of hero, of friendly helper and all-round 'good guy' and says: I'll fix this! You may see why the first two pose a problem. Who has ever walked away from a fight, enjoying feeling blamed? And who hasn't been around people who complain all the time and yet does nothing to change their situation? Such drama, right? But the Rescuer? How is that a problem? Surely, the Rescuer IS the good guy? Jumping to rescue means feeling superior. It means presuming you know best. And maybe you do, but do you think it'll empower the person you're rescuing, or make them feel like a victim? Often rescuing comes with the added benefits of ignoring your own sense of 'why does bad things happen to me?' while busy rescuing others as an avoidance technique. Why not try the Winner Triangle? Become the non-judgemental Assertive over Persecutor: I feel that.... Become the honest Vulnerable over Victim: I accept me as I am... Become the Nurturer who doesn't need to be needed and only offers help when asked over Rescuer: What do you need? Try it and see your word and your relationships change... Until next time, stay safe - and sane - and make kind choices!
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 I was learning about shadow work (the parts of ourselves that we deny or ignore and but which shows up when angry with or judgemental towards others).
I was angry but I couldn't figure out what my shadow was trying to tell me, so I complained about it to a friend: "I know a life coach who lies to get clients and it's making me so angry." "Why does it bother you?" My friend asked. "It's wrong!" I declared with superiority. "Why is it wrong?" I was challenged. "Because it hurts people." "How does it hurt people?" "People are spending money and making life decisions based on a lie." "And why is that a problem?" My friend goaded. "Because it's unkind!" I said with anger. What was he not getting?! "And what's your number one value?" "Kindness!" Duh, I felt like adding. "Do you think this coach thinks they're lying and deceiving people?" I paused. "I'm not sure. They say their number one value is honesty." "So, do you think, they think, they're being dishonest?" "I think, they think, they're being honest," I concluded. "So, is it kind to judge them like you have? Even if they are lying, is it kind to judge them on that?" "No." "What do you think the shadow is that got triggered by the coach's lies?" "The trigger was their unkindness and my shadow is a judgemental, superior bitch that I don't like existing within me. Being a judgemental, superior bitch isn't kind." "What do you think would happen, if you accepted your judgemental, superior bitch as part of you, just like everyone else has their dark sides?" Often when we judge, it's due to whatever part of ourselves that we're denying, hiding, feeling shamed or embarrassed about, or that we're supressing. Acknowledging your shadow isn't about becoming a saint who doesn't judge or gets angry. It's about becoming honest of your own dishonesty of your hidden self, and then treat that shadow with acceptance and love. As my friend said: We're all just flawsome human beings. Until next time, take care - stay safe - and make kind choices.  Do you ever correct people's spelling online or their pronunciation when talking?
Who benefits? What will your action achieve? Is there a hope they will walk away, happily enlightened and grateful? Is there a chance you make them feel not good enough? Do you do it for them? Or for you? Perfectionism is such a toxic poison - be careful when spreading it. Until next time, take care - stay safe - and make kind choices!  "Curiosity is love and caring in action. It's the most powerful relationship creator. (...) It's the opposite of fear." So says life coach Steve Chandler.
AA calls curiosity the adventurous side of uncertainty. For me, curiosity is the opposite of judgement and life changing to our relationships (professionally, personally or intimately) because it stops us from presuming the worst about other people's intentions. You can ask, with pretend curiosity, why someone did or said what they did, and maintain judgement. Or, you can ask, with genuine curiosity - allow me to see the world through your eyes - and during that period of listening, you can't also judge, because then you're not truly listening, nor truly being curious. Being curious opens the world up anew, reinforces or creates new connections, reduces harmful presumptions and judgement and unlocks new learning and growth for you, as a person. What's not to love? Until next time, stay safe - and sane - and make kind choices.  My friend said to me: "No one has been in touch to ask if I'm ok."
She was hurt. She'd been battling anxiety since the beginning of the first lockdown, and as that was eased during the summer of 2020 and some people returned to the offices, she got signed off sick - too panicky to go. I asked: "Have you asked any of your colleagues how they've been getting on, working through a pandemic in an over-filled office, never knowing if today would be the day they would catch COVID and bring it home to their families?" She had not. Who takes the first step? Whose responsibility is it? When we feel hard done by, is it possible someone else has experienced it differently? Until next time, stay safe - and sane - and make kind choices!  Don't under-estimate the power of needing control and don't mock those who seek it.
Humans are not designed to enjoy uncertainty. Uncertainty is not good for the genes survival. When people stockpile toilet paper during a pandemic, show them kindness and empathy. They're more scared than you. When people protest against 5G, don't laugh and scowl. They feel far more powerless than you. When people stick around in bad relationships, don't call them stupid or shame them. They're far more worried about being alone than you. When people criticise others relentlessly, don't call them bullies and turn away. They dislike themselves far more than you and are filled with pain. Conspiracy theories and unkind or irrational actions are signals of fear, pain, disconnect and a sense of such great uncertainty, that certainty is being creatively created to feel in control, be that via actions or beliefs. Don't fight back. Don't play the eye-for-an-eye game. Don't belittle or get angry. Make generous presumptions about their personal struggles. Offer them compassion. They're as human as you. Until next time, stay safe - and sane - and make kind choices!  Have you ever left a conversation, or interview, or party, or date and as you walk away, you think: "THAT'S what I should have said?!"
That's the Spirit of the Staircase, or Escalator Wit (translated from the French: L'esprit de l'escalier). It's perfectly normal and it happens to everyone at some point (if not all the time!) Our brains are not fans of multi-tasking - in fact, it can't. You might think you can but every time you turn your attention away from one thing to do the other, like checking your messages during a conversation, your brain shuts down one function to attend to the other. We live in a society obsessed with multi-tasking, and it's making us slower, dumber and less connected. And it's making our brains more stressed and anxious. When we're at a party, or interview, or date, and we're thinking about how we're coming across, while trying to pay attention to what's being said, while also wanting to pre-prepare a witty or intelligent answers, meanwhile scanning the room for what's going on in our surroundings, while also attempting to have the appropriate body language (or worrying about the sweat building on our foreheads) - our brains are overworked and we will perform more poorly at one of these tasks, if not all of them. Once we're walking away, and our focus is less stretched, our brains will naturally do it's magic and come up with the perfect reply. It doesn't matter so much when it was a witty comeback at a party that you failed to deliver, but what when it's your children's sense of feeling seen and heard because you're busy checking your work email as they tell you about their day? What when it's your partner's feelings being hurt because you're not paying attention to them, busy scrolling through Facebook? What when it's a safety critical aspect at work and you're only half focussing, distracted by the argument you had with your partner that morning and the project deadline ahead? What would life look like, if you stayed focussed on what's important in the here and now? That bit is up to you. Until next time, stay safe - and sane - and make kind choices!  We were one of the weakest animals roaming the world, so evolution gave us the gift of our pre-frontal cortex and the ability to create fantasies and fiction from nothing.
This ability allowed us to plan ahead, to predict dangers, to image the worst case scenario - all in the quest for survival. It made us able to create something from nothing. To be inventive. To strive for more. For growing beyond our caves and eventually beyond this planet. Evolution, likewise, gifted us with our negativity bias: Seeing dangers were there are none. Rather jump at a branch 100 times than get bidden by a venomous snake even once. These gifts have become modern day curses, as we overthink ourselves into stress and anxiety and we allow our negativity bias to overshadow all the good that we have. The awesome thing about our brains is that we can change them. Use the gift of this magnificent mass to predict what will be good, what will turn out wonderfully, what will work, and take charge of your focus towards what's worth being grateful for. Until next time, stay safe - and sane - and make kind choices!  If we don't lean into our fears we won't get far and we'll die slowly in our comfort zone BUT this doesn't mean that every time you feel scared it's a call to action.
1) Know what's good for you, what's healing and joyous. 2) Note the fear 3) Lean into it and take as many small steps as possible, and needed, to not get overwhelmed or become paralysed by the enormity 4) Have good intentions, take action and create a new comfort zone 5) Keep doing this - keep going It's not about 'feeling the fear' of getting into a car with a driver who's been drinking - and doing it anyway. It's not about giving into peer pressure and going against your common sense and gut feeling. It's about growth, not careless risks. Not giving into peer pressure is feeling the fear and doing it - by saying no and risking rejection or mockery. Feel the fear of growth, expansiveness and creating - and trust you'll survive the leap! Until next time, stay safe - and sane - and make kind choices!  When someone says something mean about you - especially if it's to your face - it's hard to not to take it personal. What else could it be?
I'll tell you: It's not about you. It's about them. I promise! It's a manifestation of their own issues, projected on to you. You now has a choice whether you take hold of this projection as if it belongs to you, or you reject it. Likewise, when you react to someone - if they make you feel annoyed, for example - it's not actually about them, but you. How can I know? Because what you find annoying, another person won't. What someone finds disgusting, someone else won't. What you find unacceptable, someone else won't. Why do you take it personally then? Because whatever has been projected your way, has hit a nerve. If you know you're hilarious and feel confident in this, you won't care if someone calls you not funny. However, if you feel insecure about your looks and someone calls you ugly, you'll take it personal because it hit a nerve. But for someone to judge you as ugly, they'll be struggling with their own issues around societal standards of beauty and they're projecting it on to you. If they did not have their own issues around physical appearances, it'd never occur to them to call you ugly. It's a 'them' problem, not a 'you' problem. But if you're taking it personal, it's because you're making it a 'you' problem. Until next time, stay safe - and sane - and make kind choices! |
