“Drama is life with the dull parts left out” ~ Alfred Hitchcock
We all have a little drama in our lives. We maybe even want a little drama in our lives to make us feel like we’re fully living it!
But what we need to consider drama the willful exclamation point that we apply to our lives.
Applied artfully and sparingly a little drama can help amplify the issue for ourselves and for others. An attempt to give greater voice, intensity, tone or clarity to an important issue worthy of attention that has failed to garner it.
And let’s just face it sometimes it’s downright exhilarating even cathartic!
But overused, drama can mislead, confuse, and actually thwart productive efforts to resolve important matters.
Sometimes we can get so wrapped up in dramatic expression that we lose sight, we get distracted from the essence of what we wanted to draw attention to.
To be a little more controversial, sometimes we get attached to the sensations, to the drama itself and in the process give up the opportunity to ever reach resolution, to have the need expressed and met. We get caught dancing in the smoke, forgetting about the fire that burns below.
And why is a very good question to ask ourselves.
What would we lose to distill the issue down to its simplest expression. What if we freed ourselves from the distraction that drama a brings and realized: “That hurt me.” “That was scary.” “I felt unimportant.” “I was hoping for something else, more, different and I’m disappointed.”
What if dared to express the heart of the matter?
Imagine how things would change if we focused on putting our finger on the real matter and expressing it!
A little scary right?
But also powerful! Imagine the potential for deep and gratifying relationships, fresh starts on our life’s ambitions, on our capacity to be and to give, if we could only express what’s real, we could disperse the smoke and reveal.
So how?
Realize that drama is a choice. Things happen and we feel. But we can choose how we express.
“Difficulty is inevitable. Drama is a choice.” ~ Anita Renfroe
Find another dramatic outlet. If dramatic expression is a creative outlet for you – maybe you could channel that elsewhere. Don’t thwart creativity but don’t let it get in the way of having your real needs met either by distracting yourself and others.
Practice putting your finger on it. When you feel the urge to launch into a diatribe stop, think, write, recruit help as needed to distill it to the essence. What’s this really about? You were hurt? What was hurtful? What do you really need to express? Find the simple but not easy message underneath the drama.
Summon up the courage to express the real message. When you express the real simple message it’s scary. We leave ourselves open and vulnerable but when we courageously express the core it’s hard for us or for others to argue, object, deny that simple message.
And if you put it all together? You remove all the noisy distraction to uncover the heart of the matter and you run the risk of being heard.
Sounds pretty tantalizing! Maybe even as much as your most recent dramatic performance.
“We do on stage things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.” ~ Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
happiness contagion mission 