In recent weeks and months, a major theme has been evident in spiritual teachings related to these 'changing times'. Whether in wisdom shared from spiritual teachings of the East, the West, or in translations of Indigenous prophecies, one common thread is the need to 'drop the drama' in our everyday lives.
Few of us might be fully aware of how our 'drama addictions' manifest themselves, usually because our dramas masquerade behind masks of nobleness or righteousness, making it easy for us to feel justified. In some traditions, including some Indigenous traditions, our dramas might be referred to as our 'stories' or 'dreams', with the quality of the stories or dreams living us until we're conscious of them and choose which stories or dreams we want to live into.
In Western cultures, particularly, which tend to be heavily shaped by a Patriarchal worldview and culture, drama-addiction is well-developed and nourished by cultural norms of fear, competition, separation, isolation, suspicion, lack, and victim-perpetrator dynamics. John Lamb Lash, in his book, Not in His Image, suggests (with very strong evidence) that Patriarchal culture has thrived -- and so reinforces -- the victim-perpetrator dynamic.
This means that many of our inculturated dramas have roots in victim-perpetrator consciousness, giving us 'guiding stories' (and dramas) shaped by who did what to us, why someone else is at fault for whatever it is that is lacking in our lives.
Understand that while people are victimized by circumstances, adopting an identity as a victim is a choice. The shaman, author, and teacher, Alberto Villoldo, PhD, reminds us that traumatic experiences may be 'facts', but the stories we shape around them and begin to live and identify by are another matter altogether. And it's these stories that run like programs beneath the surface, leading us to unconsciously draw to ourselves situations and opportunities to either experience healing -- noticing and rewriting the stories -- or perpetual rewounding until we choose differently.
Some indigenous cultures would call these the 'nightmares' that are dreaming us and need to be changed to a new, more conscious dream. Though they may be familiar, and though we may get something from perpetuating them (however unhealthy), there is also a high cost to these unconscious 'nightmare' dreams. Yet we have a choice once we notice the dreams or stories that have been living us. Change the dream, change the world.
Our dramas and stories, particularly those 'nightmares' or 'dramas' that have been shaped and inculturated by wounded people in a wounded Patriarchal culture, can also keep us 'in the storm' and away from our remembering and embodying our inheritance as full, healed, wholed human beings. It is the latter that are needed now in these changing times.
Where are you a drama king or queen? How are old stories, be they adopted or inherited or implanted, living you? Where are your opportunities to notice these programmed stories and choose differently ... choose to release the drama or 'nightmare' dream and more consciously create a new one that is healthier and more whole?
There are various spiritual or shamanic practices that facilitate safely seeing and dropping the dramas, and opening to a new kind of conscious living, engaged spirituality, and living into a healthier dream. As often occurs, our intention to seek opens the way for resources to make themselves known to us via the Feminine Ways of receptivity, intuition, and deep, heartful seeing. When the student is ready, the teacher appears.
A healthy, more whole story or dream is one way of 'being the change' you wish to see in the world, while improving the quality of your own life and ability to bring forth your innate gifts of Spirit as offerings to a world in need of them.
Blessings,
Jamie
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