The Gift of the Drama Queen

Last week was filled with lots of personal drama – unusual for me.  A misunderstanding with a friend and a very expensive e-shopping misrepresentation left me upset and frustrated.  I wondered why this drama queen aspect of myself was rearing its ugly head when it’s usually tame and dormant.

While drama makes a good story, it doesn’t feel very good when you’re in the middle of it, and I didn’t like the place where I found myself.

Drama involves conflict and opposition, and as such, usually a lot of physical and/or emotional pain, along with physical and/or emotional struggle.  So why do we bring it into our lives?  Why do we love dramatic stories, whether they come from books, TV, movies, our friends, family, or even ourselves?  Why do we both relish listening to, and telling about, our dramatic adventures even when we must experience pain and struggle to get the story?

The drama queen is someone who steals energy from others by always having a dramatic story to tell.  The more dramatic the tale, the more attention (energy) it’s likely to draw.  We are compelled to listen, compelled to find out what happens next.  And many of us, myself included, have worked hard to try to perfect the telling of a good (dramatic) story.

Drama does serve us in important ways.  But like many other things that are beneficial, it can be addicting, is often abused, and feels horrible when we’re in the middle of it.  So we often overlook its benefits.

Drama is first about feeling.  It helps us get out of our heads and into our hearts.  Pain is uncomfortable, but it is nonetheless a feeling, whether it’s anger, sadness, frustration or grief.  When we tell our stories however, we experience the opposite.  The listener pays attention and provides an energetic emotional connection that is healing and sustaining.

We are drawn to drama because it compels us to feel, and to come from our hearts to really connect with another person.  This connection happens because of the need of the teller, and from the attention, compassion, empathy, help or simple blessing of the listener.  In a world that values physical activity and mental prowess, drama helps us connect to our emotions, and to other people.

Drama is also important because it almost inevitably leads to struggle, and therefore to challenge and the human need to make up, to reconcile, to go beyond, to understand and to learn from adverse and painful circumstances.  When this second aspect of drama is initiated, we are inspired and uplifted.  Our success in this initiative then becomes important not only for ourselves, but also as an example and standard for others.

The dramas of last week are behind me now, each having gifted me with insights I would not have had otherwise.  My heart hurt deeply until my friend and I reconnected, and then it was such a joy to renew the deep commitment to our friendship.  The shipping episode is still puzzling, but I now realize I could have handled it better (from the heart).

So the next time you encounter a drama queen (either externally or internally), consider the gifts he or she may be bringing you – the chance to feel, the chance to come from your heart, the chance to really connect with others, and also the opportunity to reconcile, overcome, move beyond, expand your potential, and in so doing, to inspire.

If we choose only the pain, and not the struggle, we don’t pay back the energy we steal, even though we may be reconnected to our emotions.  When we choose both, however, we give back more than we have taken.

But the ultimate gift of drama is the discovery that we don’t need pain and conflict to really feel, to come from the heart and to connect.  We can do that any time.  It’s simply a choice.

Neither do we need anger and frustration to force us to overcome challenges and expand our potential.  Rather than allow external drama to determine our challenges, we can choose them for ourselves.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could all grow with joy rather than pain.  After all, joy is a feeling too!

For more on energy and energy reality, see my book “It’s All About Energy:  Adventures in Expanded Reality”, available on Amazon, at local bookstores and on my website:  wwwtransformationalexpansion.com