Only You Can Prevent Drama, Llama
Table of Contents
Second Arrow Business
A man, his son, and a horse
Equanimity
Journaling
Meditation
Language Matters
Book List
Some Context
Recently I had a couple of weeks where I just couldn’t shake the dramatic feelings I was having. They were really dragging me down - in the form of mood but also productivity and inspiration. This led me to restarting my mindfulness practices: journaling, meditation, and generally trying to let things go as they happen.
A few years ago I bought this mug off Etsy that says: “Only You Can Prevent Drama” and it has a llama that is dressed up in sunglasses and a hat in the style of Smokey the Bear. I love this mug. I use it quite regularly, and eventually bought the T-shirt and the PNG to have it printed as a HUGE poster I have in my studio.
It’s goofy, yes. But it’s also very true.
Here’s a fact: You cannot control others. People try. It’s what leads to a great amount of conflict, angst, and slows down progress.
We have a much better chance at controlling ourselves, our reactions, and how much we let something effect us.
Disclaimer: I’m not a therapist. This information is based on my personal reading and experience. For expert advice and guidance, I highly recommend finding a professional to work with and use as a proper sounding board. This is meant more as a “why I did it” and inspiration for others to maybe do it to. By no means is it comprehensive and the only way. It’s just a way. Take it or leave it. And there is way more to it all than a simple blog post. At the end I have some books listed for more details, more neuroscience, more credentials.
Drama Prevention
Second Arrow Business
One of the most impactful stories and metaphors that has stuck with me over the years is that of the “Buddha’s Second Arrow.” If you Google it there are loads of resources out there, but the general idea is the first arrow we are hit with is the event / thing that happens. A trigger, if you will. The second arrow is how we react, how we judge, the story we tell ourselves around the first one. We don’t see the first arrow coming / can’t control it. We can change and handle how we react.
This metaphor aligns well for me with the psychology around triggers and habits. We all have these. I truly believe being self-aware enough to know my own triggers and my own habitual responses to those triggers are what help me be just a little more compassionate and a little less reactive in day-to-day interactions. Not every day, not every interaction, but trending to a better place.
This metaphor also reminds me not to take things personally. That guy who cut me off driving maybe just made a mistake, which I have most certainly done also, and likely didn’t say to himself: “Imma cut this lady off just to be a jerk.” A company I used to work for had a corporate culture training, and one of their main tenants was “Assume Positive Intent.” This changes things like tone of an email or a message, discussions in meetings around difficult decisions, and giving / receiving feedback. If I start from the default setting “this isn’t personal” and “what is happening is coming from a positive intention” then I can better handle my reactions.
The “first arrow” includes small things. I see it as being anything that generates emotion habitually. It doesn’t have to be a hugely traumatic event. In fact, I feel like it’s more the small traumas that come out of those larger traumatic events that are harder to see, recognize, and pause during. When someone passes away, I’m overly heightened to how I’m responding and am extra-sensitive to how I’m interacting. Those tend to be the moments for me when I’m acting with the most mindfulness because I know everyone is running on emotions so it’s a minefield to maneuver.
For me it’s way harder to catch myself in my day-to-day “first arrows”. Getting my cart smashed into at the grocery store on a random Sunday afternoon, having someone say something to me that triggers my insecurities about anything, or a hawk picking up his lunch in my backyard. They’re small. They happen, and most of the time reactions occur with little mindfulness.
Working on analyzing: “X -> Y, but why?” is a project in of itself. I dig into it, though. Journaling helps. I’ve recently restarted my meditation practice, and that has been a bit fascinating.
The goal has become: “X ——>Z, because Y is no longer serving me.”
Right now I feel like I’m at: “X —Yish—>Z, because I’m still working on myself.”
I can’t control X. I can pause after it, though, and think “Assume Positive Intent” and tell myself a story, if that’s what it takes, that changes the Y (which tends to be a knee-jerk negative reaction that I ruminate on for hours) to a Z, which typically is “remove myself (if possible) and let it go.”
This shift in my handling of not only major life events, but also the smaller things, helps reduce the drama in my head. It’s always a work in progress, but I feel the progress having a positive change.
A man, his son, and a horse
Another Buddhist story that sticks with me is this story about a Zen Farmer. This is another one, if you Google it, it’s everywhere on the internet.
High level, things happen to this farmer that seem good or bad, and each time the farmer responds with: “Bad luck. Good luck. Who knows?” As the story progresses you find that something happens, people label it as “good” or “bad”, but then the next thing that happens is a direct result of the “good” or “bad” thing and usually results in the opposite judgment.
The first part of the story is his horse ran away (“bad”) but then later the horse returned with a whole pack of horse friends, so now the farmer has more horses (“good”). And on and on. Eventually circumstances lead to his son breaking his leg (“bad”) but now his son isn’t called to fight in a war (“good”).
I learned this a bit early on, well before this story parable-ized it for me. I want to say when I was a teenager. I was always struck how things all happen, felt intertwined, and in ways that felt so complex it didn’t really matter if they were “good” or “bad” because they just were. It led to a lot of my decisions and my overall mentality of trying things. It might be “bad”, but the only way to know is to try, and it’s not really “bad” so much as it’s a chance to change course and try something else.
The way I see it, much like this farmer, is I don’t actually know what’s going to happen or come out of a situation. I can have hopes and expectations, but I find those just make the judgments and feelings during and after-the-fact so much harder to deal with. Kind of like when you go on a first date with high hopes and then feel crushed after when the date was a total knob. It’s hard to not have expectations or goals, or really any sense of attachment to a decision. However, I’ve noticed the situation in and of itself is not a huge deal. There’s not much drama. It’s all the emotional judgment around the situation that causes my drama (see above, Second Arrow Business).
I decided to quit a job (a few times, all the same general outcome so this story extrapolates). The act of leaving the job, in its purest form, is not complicated. Write up a notice letter, talk with the boss and explain “it’s not you, it’s me”, and the plan the logistics for an exit strategy. What needs to be done, handed off to a teammate, stopped altogether, who has access to the files, what meetings need to be covered, etc. Once the logistics are handled, I hand in my hardware, and walk out (or sign out) and then that’s it. Then it’s done. From a purely technical perspective, it’s not difficult.
Emotions are bound to rise. I felt genuine sadness and grief leaving most of my jobs because there is a certain connectedness that will no longer be the same between me and my friends from that job. It’s no one’s fault. Just is. Letting those emotions flow through are simple enough. Just letting myself feel sad, acknowledging it, and noting - “yeah, sucks I won’t get to go for water walks with that person anymore”, helps me to process those emotions.
Add in the layers of ego, perception, judgment, “what are others going to think?” and things become dramatic for me. What causes me the most angst when I leave a job is this made-up feeling like I must succeed in my next endeavor so as to avoid judgment from my peers. Like I can’t show a moment of weakness or doubt. Like I can only put out perfect communications and messaging because people talk and I don’t want a crack in the facade to make it’s way through.
The amount of drama I cause myself trying to control others’ perceptions of what I’m doing, whether or not I’m enjoying every single moment of every single day, and whether or not I’m making more or less money, is overwhelming. My therapist recently said to me: “It’s your life. Why does it matter what they think? Why do you even have to tell them?”
If that Zen Farmer didn’t have neighbors labeling every event in his life as “good” or “bad” he’d just be living with his horses and his son with a broken leg. Just doing his zen-like thing.
I guess the takeaway here would be to not get caught up in the labeling of events. Others might be keen on it. My task might be to be more conscious of replying back: “Good. Bad. Who knows?”
Equanimity
This word is one of my favorite words. I learned it when I started practicing yoga years and years ago, and I just love it. I feel like it embodies everything I want to be in the world. When I read “equanimity” I immediately envision the flowly-pant-wearing, no-shoes-beach-walking version of myself that is living by the breeze of the ocean.
That version only exists in my head except for the occasional walk around my paved-road block with a mug of coffee and AirPods.
Equanimity has a formal meaning, in the dictionary, as being mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in a difficult situation.
The way I define it, visually, is that of a roller coaster of a curved line graph with an Average line that cuts across it. I want to be the average line from a mental-drama perspective. Life is the curved up and down. Things happen. Good / bad. High / low (see above A man, his son, and his horse). Can I get my mental state, my reactions, to be the average line? Just even-keel. Just being.
This I think it my life goal. To be drama free. That’s what all that means. Drama free is NOT the same as emotionless. Drama isn’t emotion. I have been letting those get entangled, but let’s untangle them. Emotions are necessary and help us process things happening around us. They’re natural and generally, let’s not repress them. Having them, acknowledging them, and letting them be are a key part of working through our shit.
Drama is the junk that comes after emotion. It’s the gossip. It’s the resentment. It’s the energy I use to continue to be mad at someone for something no one even remembers. It’s the anxiety and worry about something that hasn’t happened and likely won’t even. It’s the judgment of “good” or “bad” when frankly it’s none of my business. It’s the continuing to do something because it’s what people think we “should” be doing, when I don’t want to anymore. It’s the constant re-messaging and filtering of my public facing front in order to [attempt] to control others’ perceptions of me.
The Drama is what I want to let go of. Not the emotions. Emotions add to our humanity. They’re what make us compassionate. Drama is what drags us down. Wastes energy and ruins relationships.
Equanimity, driven by self-awareness and mindfulness, is how I get there. I believe this. Being self-aware - what triggers me, what is my habitual reaction, and how can I adjust the habits that no longer serve me - is step one. Admit you have a problem and notate what that problem is, when it arises, and start brainstorming ways to adjust. Troubleshooting 101. Being mindful - this is a trigger, instead of habitually responding in this way that no longer serves me I’m going to take a deep breath and try this other path - cuts the drama cycle right off. Now I’m breathing, [removing myself if possible], and letting shit go.
Don’t get me wrong - this is hard work. I think I’ll be doing it for the rest of my life, and likely the hard way. But I see great potential and benefits
Practical Tools
This section aligns well with the How-To around Mindfulness I wrote in 2022. Link is here.
Journaling
I find journaling to be a great way to work through those first-arrows with something that isn’t interrupting, isn’t judging. Journaling just accepts what you say, gives you a place to get it all out of your head, and start to analyze your feelings, emotions, and habitual second-arrow judgments and reactions.
This is an on-and-off process for me. I can go months without it, and then jump back in. It’s okay if you’ve never done it before, or only use it as-needed. As a society I feel like we get carried away with “must-do-this-every-day-for-it-to-work-or-you-might-as-well-forget-it” mentality. Don’t let this notion that “I don’t journal every day so I can’t journal today” get in the way.
It also can be simple. Write stuff down, and if you never want it to be found or read again, immediately delete or burn it. Journaling, for me, is the act of getting it out of my head. Not the act of storing historical record. It’s about running through a process, with unorganized thoughts, on paper (or the screen) and then tugging at the threads of patterns.
I’ve been using simple prompts of late, and the guy I got them from (I don’t remember who…) said they’d bring the warm and fuzzies to me. He’s not wrong. May have been Jonathan Fields How to Live a Good Life.
What was the most impactful thing that happened today and why? I write about the details, how it made me feel, etc.
3 things I’m grateful for, but be very specific. Not “sunshine”, but how the sunshine makes me feel.
I’ve been doing that lately, and it really does help me sleep at night and helps me feel like I had a good day of comforting feelings. I usually also throw in any problems I had during the day and how I felt and how I handled (or didn’t). I do still think it’s important for me to work out the hard stuff using journaling and words before I take it up with anyone else.
Meditation
Betcha you didn’t see that coming, right?
Really though.
If you have an Apple Watch, the little flower in teal blue, they call it “Mindfulness” in 2023, but it used to be “Breathe”, will coach you through a few minutes of breathing. I use the Calm app. I love it. It doesn’t have to be a whole big thing. I used to do it between calls when I was working. I sometimes do my Loving-Kindness (Metta) meditation on a walk or a kayak when I’m by myself. Lately I’ve taken to using my yoga bolster, blanket, and having a whole set up of it. It really depends on where you are and what you can fit in. But doing it helps.
I think the summary of “why meditate” can be found from a couple of quotes from the Buddha’s Brain book I read years ago. The gist is: our brains have evolved a certain way, which is why we have triggers > reactions. They’re survival mechanisms from a very primitive evolutionary period. Also, but, also we have neuro plasticity. It’s possible to change how our brain fires in such a way to serve us peacefully. We don’t HAVE to have those trigger > reactions, if they no longer serve us, from an evolutionary standpoint.
“The brain evolved to help you survive, but its three primary survival strategies also make you suffer…The path of awakening involves both transforming the mind/brain and uncovering the wonderful true nature that was there all along.”
Another one. As I’m compiling this I feel inspired to re-read this book.
“Mindfulness leads to wisdom, and the best way to increase mindfulness is meditation…Besides its benefits for productivity, learning, and health, meditation concentrates the mind for contemplative practice; concentration supports deep and liberating insight into both the causes of suffering and the causes of great happiness and peace.”
Wisdom. Happiness. Peace.
Language Matters
How we talk to ourselves (and others) matters. People used to say body language is something like 80% of our communication. I’m not sure how much of that is relevant these days, post-COVID and with so much remote communication. I don’t want to dismiss it entirely, but I often say, when I’m fighting a trigger from someone who said something, to myself, to my husband, to whoever will listen to me: “language matters”. The words we use to describe something matter. They set the bias. They set the mood. They can transform emotions. Words are powerful.
Example:
“I should go for a run.” For me, those words trigger procrastination, dread, “I don’t wanna, but I have to” feelings. They also trigger guilt and shame if I don’t.
“I’d like to fit a run in today, if I can.” Less pressure. Slightly more positive language. If I don’t, it’s a shrug-off. Now… those of you with serious running goals might frown upon this methodology, but you’d be coming at this example from a different headspace than me. I have no running goals.
Replace that example if you’d like:
“You should do X.” Unsolicited advice (typically). Implies judgment if the person doesn’t follow the advice (“I told you…. should’ve done X.”) Dismissive of the nuances and difficulties going through others’ heads as they work through their problems.
“Personally, I’ve found X helped me in a similar situation. If you’d like to hear more, I’m happy to share.” Let’s them decide if they want your advice. Let’s them know there’s personal experience. Leaves the autonomy with them, instead of the speaker asserting control.
Or even: “You could do X.” Empowers them. Offers it more as an option, but not a “should”.
I hate the word “should” in short. I’ve been working hard at eliminating it from my language. Regardless, there are ways of saying things that offer empowerment, choice, flexibility, support. There are ways of saying things that are dripping with drama, control, assertiveness where it’s not welcome, and triggers.
“Language Matters” applies to communications with people in the world, but also, most importantly applies to our inner voices. Typically I find myself talking to myself in ways I’d NEVER talk to anyone else. Language matters there too. I do believe a simple shift in language and tone can really transform how (or whether or not) we trigger various emotions and dramatic responses.
Book List
If you want more detailed motivation and inspiration, a nice little book list (I’ll try to update this as I go; in no particular order):
Buddha’s Brain (the practical neuroscience of happiness, love, & wisdom) [Rick Hanson, PhD, Richard Mendius, MD]
10% Happier (How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found a Self-Help That Actually Works) [Dan Harris, a journalist / Nightline anchor]
Emotional Alchemy (How the Mind Can Heal the Heart) [Tara Bennett-Goleman MA, a psychotherapist]
Conclusion
While this all is a spin-off from a novelty mug that says “Only You Can Prevent Drama”, I feel like the implications, the symbolism it brings in my day-to-day life, is meaningful. I often think of this mug (and poster and shirt) and think: “It’s true. Only I can prevent drama.”
It’s empowering. I don’t have to feel the drama if I don’t want it. I can keep the initial emotions, bring awareness to them, and mindfully decide to let things go. I can live in equanimity. It’ll take practice, but our brains can be rerouted and retrained to not react from a primitive point in our evolution. I can have the warm-and-fuzzies and true compassion for others, even when they manifest emotional triggers for me, because I know they’re acting from their own triggers. They have their own shit they’re dealing with, but I can show compassion and not let their shit become mine.
I can have boundaries. I can assert those boundaries and choose to not let that which doesn’t serve me continue to suck the energy and power out of my day. This frees that energy and power up for the things that DO serve me and bring me joy.
This is all a massive work-in-progress. I do wonder what the world would be like if each of us, as Dan Harris would say, were 10% happier. Doesn’t have to be life altering or changing. 10% isn’t a huge number. But en masse, that’s a lot of happiness to be spreading around.
