The drama is not the problem. It’s the gift when you find the places for it.
Even if you don’t think you have drama, you do, we all do, it’s the nature of being alive in an f-ed up world.
When I see housing ads seeking, “peaceful, mindful, drama-free roommates,” I chuckle inside. Those peaceful, mindful zen folk are fantasy robots. They don’t exist! No one has ever lived with one!
If you think you know any, you’ve never lived with them. In fact, if any of my readers can find one of these drama-free people in the flesh, I will give them a free intuitive Tarot reading.
The tarot and all ancient traditions and practices of integration or even religion, recognize that being human is a drama filled affair.
Drama exists in all of us because we have many parts, and the current state of the world asks us to fragment ourselves and put our parts in neat boxes. And we can’t.
So we have huge raging monsters inside.
We have rebellious catatonic mutes who are unwilling to speak. We have babies who are crying all day.
We have the homicidal, suicidal, escapist, rapist, confrontational, all within us.
Rather than shut it all down and show up for “work” like society asks us to, I recommend you find some outlets, some stages, pages and playgrounds to enact all these dramatic characters.
Humans love drama, just not in their kitchens. They want it safely on a screen, in the pages of a book, in a live performance. So go create that art, where you can use all your craziness to expose the underbelly you’re being told is a mental illness.
Ideas for where to keep the drama:
laughter yoga (just tried the yesterday, wow it really works)
improv
writing
painting
theater
vocal improv
ecstatic dance
board games
sports
See? All of our favorite “fun” activities give us an arena for our drama, to fight, to have a “safe” space to defy normality, to escape mental conformity.
Unfortunately, more people sit on their couches watching sports or movies or listening to music, rather than using outlets for their own drama. There’s nothing wrong with being an audience member for drama, but don’t forget you have your OWN drama.
And if you don’t find a stage or page or playground, it will show up in your life. Which is fine, if that’s what you prefer. But, even if you want a dramatic personal life (which may be inescapable-darn it), the more drama you can discharge elsewhere, the less you will need to bring into your “real life” arenas unnecessarily.
Dreams are another arena for drama. More evidence that we all have it, we’re all crazy, no matter how normal.
I took all the photos in this post while lying down laughing, after my first laughter yoga group. If the clouds are doing this, I thought, we are meant to have some drama (and fun) too.
P.S. There are times when life forces us to face drama in our actual lives, no doubt. (I hate these times!)
Yeah, I chuckled, too, reading that on dating sites a few years back. They also advertise, “I don’t sweat the small stuff.” Gee, isn’t sweating good for you? And what’s small? It’s relative, and it depends on one’s priorities. I found that those who claimed they did not sweat the small stuff were about the same as anyone else. Also, those that claimed they were drama-free had just as much drama as the rest of humanity. Without drama we’d be bored. Frankly, I find drama, in my own life and in that of those who choose to inform me of the nature of theirs, incredibly funny. This is what plot is made of, this is what got writers writing, from Shakespeare to Dickens to Agatha Christie, and I daresay, laughing.
Maybe those who want to live with lots of drama should go into politics, eh? Life is a stage and we are but players. Or, life is a baseball field. Go play ball!
🙂 🙂 haha Julie. Yeah. I wonder why it is considered a virtue to be “easy going” and no drama. Did psychiatry impose this value upon us inadvertently? Drama shaming is a good way to silence cries of injustice, and then offer “treatment” for the “symptoms”.
Chaya, I think on those dating sites all the “profiles” advertise:
1) I’m not overweight
2) I’m not mentally ill, so don’t worry, I won’t kill you.
3) I have a nice fat wallet and steady income so not to worry about financial drain.
4) I come without baggage, such as kids or ex.
5) I am healthy so won’t die on you.
They want photos of women to see what our breasts look like. And to ensure we aren’t lying about our weight. One of these days I’ll get a petition going to ban offensive weight bias in dating sites and also to ban ableism.
Once I applied for a dating service and they started questioning me over the phone about “Do you have a disability?” I told them this was against the ADA and I refused to answer. Apparently I was wrong if they are a private club. But who wants to join such a club?
I agree, the “No drama” is a false value instilled by our over-therapized society. Whatever happened to, “Artists are crazy”? Apparently, it’s not even okay to be eccentric anymore.
Julie