At some point during our life time, most of us will find ourselves immersed in some kind of a “trauma drama”.  What is a “trauma drama”?  My definition of it is when there is some kind of trauma that has happened or is in the process of happening, like a car wreck (both materially and psychologically). This is when many difficult feelings like fear, anger, grief can get ramped up to the top of our emotional scale and we are vulnerable to choosing to jump into the center of the trauma with our own parachute of unmet needs, guilt, and fear to compound what is already occurring.

I’ve been writing about the process of going through the end days of a good friend’s life.  I’m learning that all kinds of choices that we’ve made in our lifetimes come to curl up at the end of our beds when our life is ending.  People we’re in relationship with in our life at that time, will show up with all their love  and good intentions as well as their fears, insecurities and anger.  After a tense afternoon of a “family meeting” to iron out the who, what, where and when for helping my friend with her finances and care, I’m happy to report that I listened to my inner guidance when it told me “you’ve done what you can do today, it is time to leave now” instead of staying to jump into the trauma drama when, after the meeting, my friend learned that a close family member had been less than honest with how they were handling her money.  There would have been a time that I would have not only stayed for the unfolding drama, but I would have thrust myself into a starring role!

Like my good friend and mentor/Coach said to me today,” it’s much easier for us to live in the thick of another person’s life rather than to focus on our own.”  Co-dependency 101.  The balancing act is for us to learn how to show up and be there for someone else as well as showing up for our own lives. Or as my Dad is fond of saying, “to fish or cut bait”.

When you find yourself in a traumatic situation, even if everyone and everything around you is screaming that you are justified to throw in your dripping bag of caca too, this is a choice. You do have the choice to throw gasoline on the fire or not.  The good news about being aware of your need to engage in trauma-drama is that now you are aware of your own stuff that needs to be handled so that you can find a therapist, priest/rabbi/clergyman, sponsor, and/or friend to get it handled.

I don’t know about you, but for me I want to be a vessel to be used by the Divine to help however I can rather than becoming that big ole leaky can of gasoline that I used to be in tough situations.  Learning how to put my energy towards positive things in my life is so much more rewarding!

What trauma-drama can you side-step today?