98: Drama Stories
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Stephanie - Overdub: [00:00:00] Hello, my friend, and welcome to another episode of Radiant You. As the Light Coach, focusing on radiance, the word light is obviously something that I'm really passionate about, but not just because it captures so many symbolic things and what coaching can actually do to your life, but because I've always been drawn to it in nature.
~I've always been drawn to it in nature.~ Anytime that I see light reflecting in different ways, it makes me stop and just soak in God's love and God's power. ~One of my favorite things is, ~One of my favorite things is driving over a bridge next to a lake ~every morning when I take my It's ~every morning when I take my son to school and seeing the beautiful morning rays of sun bounce off of that water and just taking a breath and soaking in that light. It just resets my morning and helps me start on the right day.~ And ~Because I love light, especially in nature, I was really excited about an opportunity that [00:01:00] I had recently. ~You see, my father in law is an astronomist. ~
You see, my father in law has always been fascinated with astronomy. Every family reunion, he brings telescopes and his little laser pen and points out the stars and the constellations to his grandkids.
~And~ It's one of the things I love about him and he is someone who just has my heart. I love that man so much. ~And~ His health has become poor lately ~and we were talking to him at a family ~and we were talking with ~him at a family gathering and the Northern Lights came up. And when we, and the Northern, we were talking to ~him at a family gathering, one of my sister in laws shared that ~she got to see the Northern Lights and a trip that they went, ~she got to see the Northern Lights while they were on a family trip.
~And~ When my father in law heard this, his eyes just lit up with excitement and wanted to see all the pictures. He was so excited. And My husband watching this reaction in my father in law turned to me and said, "We have to take dad to see the Northern Lights before his health is too poor to travel." So with that bug planted in my husband, ~we've been planning for a long time and we recently got to go to Alaska to see the Northern Lights. ~we recently got to go to Alaska in hopes to see the Northern [00:02:00] Lights.
~Well, obviously, as an enthusiast of light,~ Well, obviously, as someone who loves light in nature myself, ~I was so excited to see the beautiful colors in the sky and the photos that I had seen. I was so excited to see the beautiful Northern Lights in all of its array of color and dancing.~ I was so excited to see the beautiful Northern Lights. I had seen images and videos of how colorful and bright and just breathtaking they could be. But unfortunately, nobody told me that in person, the Northern Lights are actually seen differently than on camera. You see the human eye doesn't see color the same way at night. And so a night vision camera will be able to pick up all of the colors of the Northern lights, but the human eye only perceives some of those colors. ~And~ I had this belief inside of me of what it was going to look like because of the evidence that I had been given in the past that was completely false. ~And we got there and the first night we, we, and we got there all excited to see it. And ~
The ~first night we get there. Well, that first night we got there, we, well, that ~first night we got to Alaska, settled, woke up in the middle of the night so ~we could go and see these beautiful display of the northern. ~We could go see the beautiful display of these colorful Northern [00:03:00] Lights. ~But ~When we got there, all we could see was this little bit of silver in the sky that was barely distinguishable and ~almost looked like a cloud. Gratefully, someone~ almost looked like a cloud. And we kept looking around thinking, "Where are the Northern Lights?~ What are we, where are the Northern Lights? ~I don't know what we're even looking for." ~And ~Someone who was there pulled out their camera on their phone and held it up to the sky. ~And~ And Once the camera was looking through the night vision, the whole cloud looked green. And I had this heart sinking moment where I thought, "Oh, no, you can't really see the Northern Lights." All of a sudden I had new evidence that there were no Northern Lights, that you can't actually see the color. ~And ~I was so worried that we had come all this way and we weren't really going to see anything beautiful. ~Not because I want, not just because I wanted to see it, because I knew how desperately my husband and my father in law wanted. ~But I knew how desperately my father in law wanted to see them and my husband and I wanted him to have that experience. So we're all standing [00:04:00] there squinting, trying to make out the Northern Lights, and unfortunately, my father in law's eyesight is pretty poor right now because of his health. So even that little cloud that we could see, he couldn't even make it out. ~And it, my heart just.~
~dropped and my heart just dropped. I started feeling so worried about it.~
My heart just dropped. I felt my mind start spinning out in all of the different stories that we came all this way and it wasn't going to happen. We weren't going to have him see ~that. ~the Northern Lights. We weren't going to check that box off of his bucket list and that the trip had been a failure and that this was my father in law's last chance to travel because of his health and just started feeling so frustrated.
~Well, we even looked it up and the night before to make matters worse, we lit it. ~To make matters worse, we did some research and it showed that the night before we got there, the Northern Lights had been a very bright display and that the prediction for the rest of our trip was that it was going to be really poor visibility.
As I was taking in this information, I felt myself start to be pulled into [00:05:00] drama. I really, really wanted my father in law to have this. And I was worried that what I thought was possible wasn't actually possible.
*Have you ever experienced that moment where all of a sudden your reality shifts and things that you thought were real all of a sudden aren't true anymore?*
Maybe you've been telling yourself a story about something, but now you have new evidence and everything kind of shifts. and you don't really know what's true anymore.
The reason that this happens is because the stories we tell ourselves and the evidence we gather become true for us, and it creates a focus that we zero in on building evidence and even creating a reality that makes that true.~ And~ To make matters worse, our default brain is wired to keep us safe. ~And ~So it's constantly looking for things to worry about because if it worries, it thinks it can predict unsafe [00:06:00] situations ~and,~ and proactively protect us from the possibility of those problems.
If our brain doesn't have information to fill in the gaps to know what's going on, it just will ~make stuff up. And it will tell stories to see, and it will, it will just ~make stuff up to try and make the whole story make more sense.
*This process of filling in stories and trying to make sense of the world often gets us stuck in what's called the drama triangle.*
The drama triangle is what happens when we think~ the drama triangle, the drama triangle is what happens when we think ~our stories are true. This triangle has three different points. The persecutor, the victim, and the rescuer. Let's break down those three.
First, the persecutor. ~ Persecutor is when we have something happen in our life where we take the role of blame. We want to blame somebody else. We have something in our life where the stories we're telling ourselves put us in the where the stories that we tell ourselves about our surroundings, where the storyline that we tell ourselves about our surroundings and about our experience, write us as the persecutor. This is what happens when we think, uh, when we think our stories are true. And the three, the three points. The three points of this drama triangle are persecutor, our persecutor, victim, and rescuer. The persecutor is the role in the story. The persecutor is the role in the story where we take on that role. The persecutor happens where ~When the story unfolds, we take on the role of blaming other people. It's their fault that this is happening to me and they're causing this. We often will blame or punish other people and then we take it out on others because it's their fault. The result of taking on the [00:07:00] persecutor role in any storyline of our life is that we damage our relationships and we disconnect ourselves from truth and from the other people ~around us. Now, persecutors~ around us.
The next role that we often take is the victim. This is a fear based role where we're worried. We whine and complain that we're stuck and that life is happening to us. We think thoughts like, "I just, I have to do this. I don't have any choice." or "There's not enough time or energy or money or support. There's just not enough!" That scarcity mindset. Or there's too much. Too much to do, too much attention, too many people asking things of me. It's just too hard. That victim fear based mindset ~creates role, ~creates a result in our story of being stuck and feeling overwhelmed. And We have this pattern over and over again that exhausts us.
The third [00:08:00] role we often take on is a little bit sneakier, ~this is the rescuer. And this play, ~this is the rescuer. And Many people feel like if they're the rescuer in the story, that they're doing something right, that this is the clear place to be. ~But a rescuer is still not in truth. It's, but a rescuer happens when you aren't. ~But a rescuer is still not supporting truth. Because the rescuer mentality is, "I have to fix this." This is a control space where we want to solve other people's problems or minimize them so that we can get past it and not have to deal with it.
This could be your own problems or other people's and trying to solve them often leads us to feel like we either are right or we have to find the right answer, until we feel like it's resolved. The results of the rescuer role is that we often neglect ourselves and we enable poor behavior in others because we do things for them, they actually can do for themselves and it's only providing temporary relief for us and for [00:09:00] them. ~It's not really the. ~It's not really based on what's clearly best for everyone.
*Now I want you to take a moment and think about which of these three storybook roles *~*you tend to slip into when you*~* you tend to slip into *~*when you feel like you're not quite*~* when you feel like you're not quite clear. *~*Do you tend to get frustrated and blame others in a red? *~
Do you tend to get frustrated and blame others in a persecutor energy?
Or maybe you pull in and worry and whine and feel just worn out like a victim that life is happening to you?
Or like me, you may be a doer where you try and fix all the things and minimize it and it's okay and you've got this, ~you, ~you're going to solve this problem?
You see, I spent most of my life being a rescuer of my family, thinking that I was being helpful. ~Swooping in and swooping in and lifting the bib. ~Swooping in and lifting my victim mother and other family members, solving the problems for them. ~But when I was the victim, ~
*But when I was the rescuer, I was teaching victims that they were victims... that they needed *~*to be rescued. I was teaching the victims that they were victims needing to be rescued. It took lots of therapy needing *~*to be *[00:10:00] *rescued. *
It took intense therapy to teach me about this drama triangle and how our stories muddy up the truth and why getting stuck there is so damaging. Instead,~ but luckily ~there are ways to get out of the stories to really see truth and to drop the drama so that you can be clear and purposeful in your relationships with yourself, with God, and with others.
There are two main tools that help you get to that place that I want to share with you today.
*First is getting clear about the facts.* Facts are neutral and boring. They are the things that people would agree on. ~And ~If you were to bring it to a court of law, it would pass that that is the truth. ~This is the weather that happened. ~This is the temperature in the weather or actual words that someone said, not what you made those words mean. ~ Actual words, actual actions someone did or words that someone said, not what you made those actions and words mean. ~When we can neutralize [00:11:00] and get down to the truth about what the facts are, ~it helps us clean up a lot of the drama triangle. ~it helps us clean up those drama triangle roles so that ~we can clearly see our part and have a path forward on how we can, and have where we can, where ~we can clearly see our part and how we can move forward to create a better result.
One of my favorite resources that taught me how to do this is actually a children's book. ~And ~I know that's silly, but it's great for kids too. It's called "Captain Snout and the Superpower Questions: How to Calm Anxiety and Conquer Automatic Negative Thoughts." ~I have some links in my show notes that you can get. ~I have some links in my show notes for this book, so you can check it out. But I love using it to teach my children and to remind me about what my brain is automatically doing and how to get clear. They call the automatic negative thoughts, the ANTS in your brain. ~And ~One of the best ways to overcome the ants and not have the ants be in charge is to use powerful questions. ~Is to use powerful questions. The questions that they. ~The questions that this book teaches ~are this, am I 100 percent sure, no, the questions, the two questions, the, the two main questions the book focuses ~are these: [00:12:00]
*Is this thought true? Am I 100 percent sure it's true? *
Because when we think, is this thought true? Our brain comes up with all of the evidence that made us have that thought in the first place. ~That story that we've cracked, that story that we've crafted to tell us. ~That story we've crafted to help us feel justified for the way that we see it. ~That evidence will pop up when we ask when it's true. That evidence will pop up when we ask if it's true. ~But when we take a moment to honestly reflect, am I 100 percent sure that it's true? Often we'll get humble enough and see clearly enough to find our piece in the story and let go of the drama about the other pieces.
Let's apply this so that we can get our heads around it a little better. For example, with the persecutor who blames other people, the thought, is it true that it's someone else's fault? Am I 100 percent sure that it's 100 percent their fault?~ That~
[00:13:00] When we ask that powerful question, it helps us create space to see it from other people's perspectives. It also creates more humility to see our part and prioritizes both sides of the relationship, ~not just our own desire to. Not, ~not just our own desire to shift away from any of the responsibility by blaming someone else. That question can help pull out of persecutor.
How about with the victim? ~When we say, when we ask ourselves, like, is it true that I'm stuck? When we ask, when we,~ When we ask ourselves questions like, is it really true that I'm stuck? Am I 100 percent sure that it's true? That gives you space to remember the places that you have choice because you always have choice. And when you remember that accountability, it gives you the power to change.
It's hard sometimes to look at that and remember you're responsible for that. It's why a lot of people get stuck in victim. They don't [00:14:00] want the responsibility to change, but really it's so miserable to live in a victim mindset. So asking that powerful question, "Is it true that I'm stuck? What can I actually do to change?" It can be a life changing question when you have a pattern of being a victim.
And lastly, the rescuer in the drama triangle. ~When you ask the powerful question like, ~When you ask powerful questions like, is this actually my problem to fix? ~And is it, ~and is it a hundred percent true that it's my problem? It helps us look at the pieces that we really can't control and invites that surrender ~where we give it back to God, let him control the things that are his,~ where we give it back to God, acknowledge that we really don't have as much influence as we think we do, and then proactively get clear about how we want to act, instead of react. Letting go of the need to be a rescuer [00:15:00] is ~one of the most relieving things that I ever felt. Once ~one of the most relieving things that I have personally felt in my life, finding ways where I can authentically support people instead of support them because I need to control or fix it, or so that I feel like I'm a good enough person because I helped.
*That's all story, not fact. That's the first tool of helping get out of the drama triangle and into a clearer place is recognizing what's really true. What are the facts?*
~Is getting clear about what is really true. What are the facts?~ Tool number two is to decide what you want to make those facts mean. ~Now, it may be true that someone said some words to you, but you get to decide. ~It may be true that someone said some words to you or that a situation can't be changed, but you get to decide the meaning that you attach to ~anything you are going through.~ anything you are going through. ~Any facts, any,~ Any facts, situations, circumstances, no matter what it is, you get to [00:16:00] decide how you want to experience it.
*Because your thoughts or stories about those facts are just your interpretation of the world and you are crafting your own narrative. *
Sometimes we can't really get down to what the true facts are. We don't have enough evidence for that. In those moments, you get to decide what you want to practice believing. Do you want to practice ~seeing the good and having hope and ~seeing the good, having hope and believing in people around you, or do you want to practice ~negatively judging, ~negatively judging, pulling in and hibernating or trying to control and fix things?
*No matter whether you know the facts or you've found the facts,* *you choose the meaning by the story you rehearse.*
In that moment, when I was in Alaska with my father in law, I felt my automatic brain wanting to attach all [00:17:00] sorts of drama to the meaning. The persecutor side of me wanted to blame so many different things, blame other people for not telling me that the Northern Lights look different in person than they do on camera, so that I could have warned my father in law to have different expectations. Or blaming God for the timing that the day before it was good, but the rest of the time we were there, it was supposed to be poor visibility or for the poor health of my father in law that made it hard for him to travel and even see the lights in front of him. ~ And~ That bleeds into the victim mentality too, ~where things can't change. And I'm such a victim ~where things can't change and for us, for having this being our situation, I can't change the lights. I can't make it be a success. I can't make them look a brighter, but I can make myself miserable feeling like a victim or miserable, trying to control it ~like a rescuer where we go. Or like a rescuer where I can swing from trying to, ~like a rescuer where I naturally want to make sure everybody's okay and nobody's disappointed and ~excuse away any feelings that might be there or an ~excuse away any hard feelings ~that might be there. But I, ~that [00:18:00] might be there.
Gratefully, I caught myself in my drama and I gave myself space. First to feel disappointed that we had come all the way here and we may not see the Northern Lights. And that my heart was breaking because I love my father in law so much and I love my husband who was desperately wanting to support his dad. In that moment, I asked myself the question, "What's true?" What's true is that ~God is good and that God can be in charge of what, what's true ~God is good and that He is able to show whatever it is that He wants to show. And if we didn't see the Northern Lights, then it was okay because there was a bigger picture here. That didn't stop me from pleading with God and asking in faith that He could perform a little miracle for our little family. But it also came with a surrender that I didn't need [00:19:00] to control it or blame or feel victimized by it.
Once I got to that surrender space, I was able to refocus on what I actually could influence: my own attitude, my relationship with the people around me, my space to connect with them and look for ways to still make it successful, not to try and control ~and not to try and control or to fix, but to genuinely connect with them. Even,~ but to genuinely connect with the people I had gone with, ~no matter what the outcomes, ~no matter what the elements around me were doing.
~So that night, as we finally got to bed at four in the morning, after trying, after, so that night after we finally got to bed around four in the morning.~ So that night when we finally got to bed around four in the morning, because we waited forever, trying to see the lights that never showed up, I turned to my husband and just said, let's see how we can create a beautiful day tomorrow, "No matter what happens with or without the Northern Lights." The next morning actually was the 51st wedding anniversary for my in laws and they were both there. And so we looked for ways [00:20:00] to make it a special day. We visited fun sites. We took them to a nice restaurant for dinner ~and we laughed and just made it worth it. The memories ~and we just laughed and hung out and let go of any of the worry about the Northern Lights and it made the trip worth it. ~Honestly, if nothing else had happened except for the things that we went through that day, It was, I would have considered it a, I considered it a fulfilling trip that was worth, ~ I considered it a trip that was worth going all the way to Alaska to spend time with them. Well, that night we had a council and we said, "Okay,~ it looks like it's going to be really poor visibility again. Every, all the signs, all the signs. All the predictions online, all the predictions online point to the, ~ All the predictions online point to the possibility that we won't see it ~even if we stay up and~ even if we stay up and exhaust ourselves again tonight. We took a poll and we decided we're here, so we might as well try, especially because the next two nights were predicted to be cloudy. So this was kind of our last chance to really see it.~ As we were discussing this, I had a little prayer in my heart asking God to please, please open the heavens and give us the possibility of seeing the Northern lights. And I had this. As we were discussing this, I was pleading in my heart for God to open a way for us to see these Northern Mites, but I was in a place to see the Northern Mites while being in a place of surrender. And while I was had, while we were discussing this,~
While we were discussing this, I was silently pleading for God to make a way for us to see the Northern Lights. And that pleading came with a sense of peace where I was surrendered and was able to just let go whatever happened. Because I was in that place of peace, I had [00:21:00] space to feel guidance from God. ~And a thought came to my mind.~ And a thought came to my mind: Leave at midnight. ~Now, the night before we had left it.~
Now, the night before we had left in the middle of the night, because we were told that that was going to increase our chances of seeing it to be around three o'clock in the morning. ~But I felt that ~But I felt that little pull say leave at midnight to drive the 45 minutes to the lookout point.~ I casually, and I casually brought, and I casually brought up the idea to go a little bit earlier and everybody decided that. I casually brought up the thought to go a little bit earlier in our discussion. ~ I casually brought up the thought in our discussion to go a little bit earlier and everybody thought that was a good idea. ~So we,~ So we hung out for a bit and then headed to the Northern Lights. Once we got to the top of this hill, that was our lookout point. We looked up and the sky was so beautifully clear. The stars were just bright. The moon was bright. We could see a beautiful, normal sky. Gratefully, there weren't any clouds, but there also weren't any Northern Lights.~ And I felt any Northern Lights. ~And although I felt disappointed, I didn't feel my heart sink. ~And I overheard my husband talking to my, ~And I [00:22:00] overheard my husband talking to my father in law. ~And he said, Dad, I'm really sorry that we didn't get to check this. I'm really sorry.~ And he said, "Dad, I'm really sorry that we didn't get to check this box off your bucket list, I really wanted you to see the Northern Lights."~ And ~ His sweet father was reassuring him that it was okay and he was so grateful for his effort and that it had been a wonderful day either way. ~And after that moment of peace and reconciliate, and ~
After that moment of peace and surrender and reconciliation, literally 30 seconds later~ the whole light, literally 30 seconds later, ~the sky lit up with the Northern lights. It was seriously like the heavens parted and someone switched them on and they were there bright and beautiful, ~and even a little bit green, which And even a little bit green, which I was really excited about because my camera showed more color than that, but I was grateful to see the beautiful color in the sky. ~and even a little bit green, which at that point I was excited about seeing color instead of being disappointed that it was dimmer or less colorful than I had expected.
*For about 20 or 30 minutes, we just sat and basked in the beauty of this miraculous moment that we *[00:23:00] *felt like was a personal gift from God.*
~And ~ I will always cherish the sight of my husband sitting next to my father in law, listening to his favorite song, Claire de Lune, watching the Northern Lights dance in the beautiful Alaskan sky. ~ And~ In that moment,~ My gratitude was so deep for the possibility, and in that moment, my gratitude was so deep and~ my gratitude was so deep and my joy so tangible that it tops some of the best moments in my life.
Now, I would not have experienced it at that level if I had just gone to Alaska and seen the Northern Lights. The journey of the experience was what made it so powerfully beautiful in more than just what I visually witnessed. And that was only possible because of the "failure" of the night before. ~And If I had believed that failure story the night before and thought that, and ~If I had believed that story that the colors of the Northern lights weren't actually worth it, ~or that the prediction was,~ [00:24:00] or that the prediction that it wasn't gonna be visible was true and didn't even try, ~I would've missed it.~ I would've missed it entirely. ~Especially if we had gone later. Especially if we had gone later than, ~
Especially if I had been full of blame and victim and control and not had space to feel guided about what time to go, because we would have missed it. ~It was only there for like 20, 30 minutes. ~ It was only there for like 20 minutes,~ but I didn't let~ but we didn't let the failure story keep us stuck in failure. ~And even if other people hadn't gotten stuck in failure, ~And even if other people hadn't gotten stuck in that and I would have been drug along in my drama, ~I wouldn't have had the space, I would have, I would have been I, ~I wouldn't have been emotionally available to connect in the way that I did, even when they did appear. I would have been distracted by the shame of my poor behavior if I had pouted all the day before or blamed God for not letting it happen. And I definitely wouldn't have had space for the immense gratitude that I ended up feeling.
*Now, every story does not end with a beautiful display *[00:25:00] *of the thing that you desire most. But these principles still hold true.*
When we get pulled into drama and tell stories that embellish on blaming and victimizing and controlling our surroundings and other people, ~we lose the chance. We choose, ~we lose the chance to choose our experience and to enjoy life.
*So this is my invitation to you, my friend, practice recognizing when you slip into drama.* ~Take a moment right now and reflect, take a moment right now to~
Take a moment right now to reflect on the past week of your life.~ What have you been believing about your life? ~What have you been believing about this phase of your life? Or maybe about yourself or your loved ones or even your future?
What are the facts and what is the story that you've been writing?~ Is it a drama? ~Is it a drama happening to you? Where you're showing up as a [00:26:00] persecutor or a victim or a rescuer? ~Are you, ~Are there things that you're currently believing are true that are keeping you stuck that aren't useful?~ You have agency to choose what you believe. You have,~ You have agency to choose what you make things mean. Choose meaning that connects you to yourself, to others, and to God.~ When you do, you'll have more capacity to see your own light, to feel the empowering, loving light from God. And to share that light with the people in your life, ~
*When you do, you will have an increased capacity to feel God's love in your life, to share that love with others and to recognize that love and that light within you and in the world around you.*
~You might not be looking at the, ~You might not be looking at the Northern Lights, but there's beauty in your life just as tangible, that's waiting for you to see it.
*Take time to drop the drama and *[00:27:00] *witness the light. *
Keep shining my friends. Have a blessed day.
You are radiant! But some days it's hard to remember that truth. If you're ready to live lighter and shine brighter, then head over to www.thelightcoach.com and book a free session to discover what's possible. The radiant you is within your reach. Let's find her together.
