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Is it possible to create a drama-free ending to our scripts?
You often hear people in conversations, state that a relation “is not a very nice person”; or “was not a good mother/father”, thus implying that, from their experience and point of view, certain individuals tasked with certain roles in their lives, were not and/or have not carried out their roles responsibly and according to their expectations. Without disagreeing and/or questioning their interpretation of their experience, I invite you to look beyond your own story with the intention of modifying your script.
There are certain childhood memories that are still very vivid in our minds. Memories that invite us to live through the drama, mentally, emotionally and sometimes physically. We tell our story to ourselves to reinforce our belief that the other person is to be blamed for whatever is happening to us now. We portray ourselves as the victim of that story, which by the way, only lives on in our memory, and expect that someone will come to our rescue even when we are not so sure as to how they can rescue us.
Today, I am asking you to look beyond that script that played out in your life months or years ago. I am inviting you to sit back and watch as part of an audience, preferably as the one you blame for inflicting this unforgettable pain on you. Most of all, I am asking you to find the hidden message in the drama as it unfolds. Why, you ask? Because I believe when we look deeper into our story and the experience thereof, we will always find that we added something to our character; something that strengthened our personality. There is a positive lesson from every experience that we often unconsciously decide to ignore, yet take on as part of our personality. I invite you to explore the idea that we consciously and/or subconsciously make decisions that can be changed when we become more informed.
My mother was never one for verbal interaction. I am not sure whether this was by choice or simply for her to use her long, silent pauses for maximum effect. I can remember as a teenager making cheeky remarks to her face about her parenting methods. I can still see her very clearly, in our tiny living room, sitting on the couch opposite me, listening in silence while I gave her a lecture on who a good parent is. She listened, quietly to my discounted view of her as a parent. She listened, while I basically told her, her communication style was flawed and that she should make an effort to interact more with me verbally. I can still see her listening quietly, without interrupting, rubbing her hands together with a broad smile on her face. And, I can still hear her in response, right at the end of my long speech, make a sound that neither indicated to me, her approval or disapproval of my opinionated ‘words of wisdom’.
As I narrate this story, I can still feel the frustration that her calm attitude created in me and I can hear the 17-year old me thinking, why doesn’t she just act like I want her to? Why doesn’t she, as my mother, tell me what is right and what is wrong? Why doesn’t she just tell me what to do? Yeah, I can still see me, sitting opposite my mother, thinking and feeling all righteous, attempting to instruct my mother on how to be ok as a parent. Yet, looking back now I am happy she never gave in or got hooked into my game. I am glad she made the hard decision to allow me to be an adult even at that age.
I also remember at an even earlier age, when I needed my mother to tell me what to do. This was when my family relocated to the city. I remember specifically my first day in that new city school, as a toddler. Two of my siblings and I were attending the same primary school for the first time where, incidentally our mother had also just got a new job as a teacher. So, that morning, all of four of us walked to school, together. My siblings and I walking behind our mother. We all arrived at the school campus, an L-shaped building with a wide open, gravelled area extending into some bushes in front of the building. My elder sister and brother both found, and made their way into their classrooms. For some unknown reason, probably my subconscious mind telling me that my mother should tell me where to go, I made no attempt to look for or enquire which one of these rooms was my classroom. Instead, I stayed outside, played with some gravel and anything I could find interesting as a 4-year old toddler, and waited for my mother or someone to come and get me and show me to my class. I can still remember the feeling of anxiety with each passing minute, as I sat on the pebbled stones, listening to the echoes of children’s voices, chiming in with the teachers’ low-baritone voice, and no one in sight to talk to me and lead me to my classroom.
My mother eventually came out of her classroom, not very pleased that I had decided to stay outside the classroom; scolded me for not being responsible and adult enough to search for and place myself into my appropriate classroom and then, thankfully, took me to my classroom.
That was my mother alright. Typically, never giving you clear instructions as to how to think, be and do stuff but allowing us her children, the capacity to think for ourselves. I found that quite hard to accept that this was her chosen way to bring us up to be responsible adults. I discounted her parenting methods, told myself that as an adult, she was not ok. Yet, I now realise she knew all along that she was ok and was simply permitting and allowing me to come to the realisation that I was ok too.
Yes, my mother generally expected that I should know what I liked and subsequently find positive ways of getting it. By the time that I was 17, I had come to an understanding that my mother’s parenting style was quite laid back, and that, that was ok.
Why am I telling you all these? I know you probably have similar stories and experiences that possibly pop into your mind; stories that tend to take you down the line of blame and thoughts that imply that if your parents or caregivers had behaved or parented you differently, you would have turned out to be a better human being. While that may be true, it is also true that we can’t go back and change the events that shaped who we are today. For so long, I looked back on events and experiences in my life but never, as the saying goes, ‘read between the lines’ of the script. It is only when I started aligning the stories to who I am today that I realised that my mother, consciously or unconsciously had brought me up to be independent; to learn to think for myself and most of all to express my needs openly and with the expectation that these would be met.
I believe our personalities are co-created with the help of our parents and care-givers. But if we focus only on the negative effects they might have had on us during our formative years, we will never notice and maximise the positive effects they are having in our personalities.