How To Avoid Drama

We have all met people who constantly have drama in their lives, but quite often people create their own drama. The Urban dictionary defines drama as

Making a big deal over something unnecessary.

There are many reasons why people create drama, boredom, attention seeking, a love of excitement, to name a few. One of the things that helps to create the problem is that people who overcome difficulties without any fuss are ignored. None of us likes to be ignored.

This is nowhere more evident in our culture than on Facebook where large numbers of people rally round the poor person who is complaining about their lot in life. It can be something as simple as waiting in a long queue on the motorway, how nasty someone was to them, or how their latest idea was rejected at work.

The responses all feed the ego because those comments bring out a queue of people waiting to give their commiserations, ‘Poor you hun,’ ‘How could they be so unkind to someone as wondeerful as you. You are such a star,’ or, ‘I really thought triangular bread (or whatever idea was that was rejected) was such a wonderful idea.’

What many of the comments overlook is that every one of us has the opportunity to react in goo ways or in bad ways; in ways that help us to grow or in ways that leave us more self-pitying and introspective. The people who help our growth the most are the ones who help us to find a way out of our drama, not push us further into it.

Of course we cannot deny feelings because it is normal to be disappointed at failure, or to be hurt or angry at nastiness, or frustrated in queues, but we need to learn to reframe situations so that rather than creating a drama around ourselves, we look at every difficulty with a new perspective.

When a real drama arises, such as we used to have in hospital ; for example with a cardiac arrest, there is not time to announce it on facebook or play the drama queen, the inner self has to take over from the ego and perform tasks, as taught, in order.

We need to learn not to pander to our own egos but instead to learn to embrace stillness. I used to be awake half the night worrying about a situation that ultimately never materialised. (I still am if I have multiple problems at one time.) Learning to live up to the challenge of what is actually happening in the ‘now’ is a step towards overcoming difficulties as they arise, and avoiding the make-believe ones that create drama.
As Eckhart Tolle, quoted on the website Tiny says,

‘When you are not honouring the present moment by allowing it to be, you are creating drama.’