No matter how you describe it, drama is always around. Whether it is from gossip from your buddy at the coffee shop or “news” in the form of gossip websites. We are all about drama.
Many times us men like to point to women and say they like drama, and they do. However, men if you are honest we get caught up with drama too. Whether it is someone we don’t like who is tripping up or someone we like who is having a hard time. Then again we like to talk about the gossip around town too.
We are human we love the emotions that drama creates. We love the power we have while we commiserate with a good friend about those annoying neighbors down the street and their horrible kids. The emotional highs and lows we experience from gossiping with other men.
What is drama?
Now drama can be many things. It used to be another name for plays and theater yet that was because of the heightened emotions you would experience as you watched the play.
These days drama is often associated with the heightened emotions of life, yours or someone else’s. Often is gossip and other sordid telling of other people. Yet drama can be other things too
Buffering
We often face lots of drama when we are trying something new. We find emotions to be a good distraction from the work we know we need to do. Emotional or thought drama is great for this because we often see the drama as being real because it does originate from our minds.
Our brain wants us to be safe. It doesn’t want us to do anything that is out of the norm because there is an element of risk. What if we mess up? We could die. This is what our mind ultimately is thinking when we try something new that is hard, awkward, or out of the ordinary.
So instead of doing the uncomfortable work of doing something new, our mind likes to distract us. This distraction is called buffering, and we often use very indulgent emotions to do the buffering. It is easier to sit and watch television than to make sales calls. It is easier to go eat a pound of ice cream than to lose weight. It is easier to scroll on social media than to reach for your dreams.
So we often start cussing at ourselves and belittling ourselves, and coming up with a whole bunch of should’ve's, could’ve's, and would haves than to be uncomfortable for 30 minutes to a couple of hours. We start thinking that people are talking about us just because we’re doing something we’re not sure of. Our mind starts causing all this drama and starts telling ourselves all these big old fall stories to keep us playing small. I’m doing it because it wants to live. It wants to keep us alive. Out of that need to survive, is actually holding us back.
Our mind uses the strong emotions of drama to keep us from living our ultimate life. That drama keeps us feeling safe so that we don’t do the uncomfortable work of fulfilling our dreams.
The story you tell yourself
No matter, when you try to do something new, something different, or something out of the ordinary, your mind creates a story.
Here is a great example, what is one thing you would like to do maybe it’s make $10,000 a month what’s keeping you from doing that every single one of those thoughts you are thinking out right now is the drama your brain is telling you, so you don’t try to work that hard. Just make $10,000 a month.
Your brain is saying you can’t because of your excuses because of your drama nobody wants to spend that type of money nobody wants to buy for me. I don’t know how I never have from in the past to not being able to see the future our brain makes sure that we play small it tells us all these lies.
Did Bill Gates know how to make $10,000 a month when he first started no but he did it. How about Elon Musk? No. Again he did it. It’s not anything special. You just have to get out of your head and overcome the thought drama that you’re creating inside your mind. All of those excuses you’re telling yourself that is the drama you are attracted to.
Emotional Turmoil
The emotions that come from the thoughts that you have also hold you back. Those emotions are the discomfort that you feel. Fear doesn’t feel good. Learning is an awkward feeling. And all those emotions show up in very messy ways. We do something wrong we feel embarrassed. We say something wrong, and we are ashamed. We tell ourselves more stories to keep us feeling anxious and afraid these all keep us from our dreams. And we like those fears because of their excuses as to why we don’t take the big leap.
Why are we attracted to drama?
So we now understand the main points as to what drama is. We’ve also touched base on the main reason why we lean into drama for our own lives, yet we are surrounded by drama, and all of us like drama. Yes, even you guys who claim you don’t like drama like drama. If for any reason see the section above.
So why do we appear to be attracted to drama so much? Why do we break apart into little groups huddled together whispering to each other about the different drama that is happening around town? That drama gospel yeah, some people don’t care for it but most of us do. So why do we like all forms of drama as much as we do?
To feel important
A big reason is it helps us feel important. We feel like we are in the loop. We’re in the know. And so we feel like we are a part of the community. When we get talk, even if it is crap, about something we think we know something about; we feel connected with the people we are talking with.
When you have some really juicy news about somebody, you wanna share it you are contributing to your community. You’re giving a heads-up that there may be some popcorn-worthy drama going on someplace else. We may also decide that this is something that will keep us safe or may present some form of danger. By sharing this, we are contributing, we are providing news to those we deem important or people that we want to see us as important.
To commiserate
We also use drama as a way for us to share with our close compatriots. Someone who feels as if they were wounded by some words, then we often share some drama about the enemy as a means to help the other person feel better.
To tear down another person
For the same reason, we commiserate, we often use the drama of other people to stir up drama in our own lives. And when we are in the midst of our own drama, to help us feel better, we will often try to tear other people down by creating more drama around other people.
We often show a meaner side when we feel we are trapped we tell ourselves that we have no other choice so to feel better we will often tear another person down. And because we use drama to do that, we often cause other people to spin up into drama themselves.
Mental stimulation
Drama also allows our minds to just spin in indulgent thoughts and indulgent emotions. This is why many times you find people sharing, gossip, and drama when there’s nothing else to do.
We are so afraid to be bored, that we actually make drama. When do you see more people spreading drama and gossip? When they have nothing to do. We all know, drama and gossip don’t help, but our mind loves to jump to drama as a means of mental stimulation.
Draws your attention away from your own problems
With that mental stimulation we also Ord ourselves the ability to turn our attention to something easier to focus on. It’s easier to have drama in our lives than to get the hard stuff done. It’s easier to talk smack about someone who’s getting more done than actually do the things you need to do.
That mental drama, that we face time and again keeps us playing small. All because we would rather face a forest of stories than to attack the bearer of a problem.
The comparison game
We’ve heard the saying comparison is the thief of joy. Yet drama stirs up the comparison game every single time. We are comparing ourselves against the other person. We’re making judgments I guess whether that other person is good or bad. Even though these other people have no effect on your life.
We would rather have the guilty pleasure of casting judgments and disparaging remarks upon someone than actually look at ourselves in the mirror. The interesting thing is though, when we are reveling in somebody else’s drama, when we point at that person there are always three other fingers pointed back at you.
Drawbacks of all that drama
Well, if we like to turn to drama as a means to entertain ourselves and as a means to spread news, why does everybody find drama so bad?
The big reason has been mentioned many times. It causes you to play small. You don’t reach for your dreams when you’re in your drama or somebody else’s drama. But there are other reasons as to why drama is not a great thing.
Wastes energy
One big reason is that drama causes you to waste energy. Especially when you’re spinning in your own drama. Your mind is working overtime trying to find reasons as to why it can’t get the goals finished. Your mind is swirling trying to come up with excuses and stories that you might believe so that you stay planted firmly on your couch.
When you are talking about other people, you’re still wasting energy. You’re doing stuff that has no constructive outcome and you’re not doing what your soul needs you to do. You’re busy talking about other people and being in their business then fixing the problems you have in your life.
Disconnects from those around you
When you’re sharing gossip with your friends, one problem that you’re creating with them is that they now can’t trust that you’re going to keep their drama from other people. Sharing, gossip, and drama so seeds of discontent. It robs your group of joy because of the comparisons.
If your group can’t trust you, you are disconnecting the relationship every time you share a juicy bit of gossip. So gossip doesn’t help us it eventually leads to our ruin.
You lose opportunities
When we are busy gossiping and creating drama around us, we are busy looking at unimportant details. We don’t see the opportunities that appear all around us. Potential partners will turn away because they see us as a source of drama. Business partners do not need any more drama than what they’re already facing. In fact, many partnerships are created because somebody can relieve some drama.
So creating drama in the end doesn’t help.
Tall poppy syndrome
We often want to try to create drama around those people who are becoming successful. These people who start standing out, start having lies, told about them. Drama is the biggest size for the tall poppies. Much like the crabs in the bucket people wanna mow down the taller poppies because of how those successful people make them feel.
Watch how people start saying that so-and-so has committed certain sexual improprieties 30 years ago. All because that someone suddenly became popular.
People try to tear the standout and more successful people down so that they feel better about themselves. When you see somebody successful, that reminds you, that you didn’t do much with your life. Change that and start doing something. Stop judging yourself. Stop judging others and start taking action. Start removing the drama in your head when you can. Nobody said it was easy, but it is possible you can disengage from the drama.
Puts you in the victim position
Ultimately mental drama and being drawn around other people put you in the victim mindset. It allows you to be OK with the failures in your life because you don’t have to take responsibility for your lack of actions. It was so-and-so‘s fault that you didn’t get your goals met. You couldn’t help it you had a mental spin. You had confusion. You had uncertainty. all valid emotions, but they were created by you.
So how do you stop the Drama?
Stopping the drama isn’t easy but nothing worth doing ever is. The big part is creating a no-drama zone. When you’re in your workplace, you don’t deal with drama. When you know you have to do something, go do it. Be OK with feeling out of place. Give yourself grace when you do slip up. When you find yourself deep in the drama voice stop it and then get to work.
If you are with friends who are gossiping, you don’t have to contribute. You can stand there and let them be in their drama all they want. You can also turn off the scuttlebutt when people are talking about other people.
It’s work. and people don’t like it when you call them out for creating drama. Yet many of us men like drama until we’re pointed at the fact that we are like in the drama and then we turn away often in embarrassment. There’s no shame in liking drama. Except that it doesn’t service. It’s just a set of emotions that drain of energy and keep us from reaching our dreams.
If you would like help removing drama from your life, then the best thing to do is to take the next step hit the button below and schedule the consult call.
