The Seven Habits of Highly Dramatic People

By Scott Kalechstein Grace

Do gratitude, contentment, and inner peace sometimes creep up on you and undermine your ability to indulge your anxiety? 

Here’s a quick and handy two-step process to make sure you get your M.D.R. (minimum daily requirements) of worry and chaos.

1. Believe and act like your safety, security, and happiness are dependent on people and forces outside of you that you can’t control.

2. Try to control them.

For those of you who prefer to keep it complex, here are seven habits to develop that will help you go deeper into your practice and guarantee a daily overdose of adrenaline. Allow me to be your drama director as we shout out the traditional opening words… “Lights! Camera!! RE-ACTION!!!

#1. Harness The Power Of Negative Thinking- Everybody accentuates the negative on occasion. What if I can’t pay my bills? What if I lose my house? What if I get sick? What if I’m alone for life? What if I’m in this relationship for life? But as your drama coach, I want to inspire you to master 'The Secret' by focusing all of your attention on the most negative possible outcomes all of the time.  When this discipline has been achieved, you can relax into the certainty that you will always find something to freak out about in any situation, and fear will never abandon you again.

#2.  Be Busy Till You’re Dizzy- Being too busy to still your mind and take good care of your body is essential on the path to drama-realization. Temptation is everywhere these days - health food stores, spas, gyms, yoga studios, meditation classes, and it takes courage to maintain abstinence while the whole world is stretching, sweating, chanting, and going organic. Remember, as our parents tried to warn us, engaging in meditation can lead to blindness, losing sight of all the things right in front of you to worry about. So wake up every morning painfully early, splash cold water on your face, brew up your caffeine, and go, speed racer, go!  Have you answered all your emails? Who needs a shoulder to lean on? Is there something on TV? Always make sure your life and your mind are filled with clutter and free of those annoying empty spaces between your thoughts that can disturb your absence of peace.

#3. Have A Swinging Good Time – In the 60's and 70's, a swinger was a person who relieved the monotony of monogamy by attending a variety of extra-curricular relationships. Nowadays, the term swingers has broadened, and is often used to refer to drama majors when they are found swinging like a pendulum from one extreme to another, churning with the thrill of constant crises, skillfully sidestepping the boredom of emotional stability. Would you like to be able to create, at the snap your fingers, a soap opera drenched in drama anytime you want? All you need to do is to stuff your feelings till you can’t hold them in any longer, and then explode without restraint or care for anyone, especially the ones you care most about.  As a practice, try being 100% nice and sweet. Stretch yourself to accommodate someone as much and as long as you can, and then take the lid off and let the steam out, like Mt. Saint Helens does once in a while. There is nothing as satisfying as having a good eruption after being good and silent for a spell.

#4. Leave Your Inner Child Alone Without Parental Guidance - When the child inside the adult gets scared, some really juicy drama can happen, but only if we withhold our compassion, re-assurance, and loving boundaries.  When we can resist such mushy self-help nonsense, our inner children will wreak havoc trying to get those things from others, usually through some very exciting acting out in the drama department.  When two or more people abandon their little kids at the same time, oh boy, that’s when the fun begins. The adults have left the vehicle, and you can guess who’s in the front seat, banging on the horn, flooding the accelerator, yelling out the window, and playing extreme bumper cars.  Yippee!

#5. Set Huge Goals, Maintain Unrealistic Expectations  - There is nothing more beneficial to your lifestyle than the habit of reaching for the stars, falling short of your lofty goals, and feeling like a colossal failure. Taking big leaps and falling flat on your face is paramount for maintaining healthy low self-esteem, which is the foundation of all good drama. Go for the mountaintop, and don’t look down at your feet on your way. One step at a time is for people satisfied with proceeding at a snail’s pace, always leaving behind a slime trail of serenity, gentleness, balance, and other dismal downers that drama kings and queens take royal pains to avoid. You can do better than that!

#6. Judge Your Judgments – Every human being judges, but only the ones who have learned the art of judging their own judgments excel in creating melodrama. Have you ever been known to shame and blame yourself for feeling afraid and stuck, telling yourself that there is something really wrong with you for not moving forward? Good! You are on the right track. Now, take your next step. Judge your judgments! Tell yourself that you should know better than to shame and blame yourself.  Heap truckloads of guilt on yourself for stooping so low to the curb of self-criticism, yet again. This will make you quite an energetic downer that can’t help but suck energy from those around you. You’ll be the lifelessness of the party!

#7. Get Grounded In The 3 B’s…. Blame, Blame, & Blame  -  Blaming yourself has already been covered. But don’t rest there. Blame everyone else too.  Life’s not going the way you want? Blame, blame, blame! Blame first, ask questions and take responsibility later, if at all. Appropriate targets are Mom and Dad, friends (if you still have any), your mate (if they are still around), the Bush administration, the Clinton administration, big corporations, small minds, and, of course, God.  Self-responsibility can lead to issues finding solutions, which flushes good drama right down the drain.  Instead, be generous with the blame dispenser, letting it overflow on everyone, uncontained, uncensored, unedited. Blame, Blame, Blame!

Affirmations For Good Drama

Every day in every way I am stressing out over everything, real or imagined.

Everything is working together to conspire to bring the worst possible outcome to my doorstep.

Life is against me and I am doomed.

This, or something worse, is now manifesting for the highest cost to all concerned.

I no longer have to work to create drama. Drama happens effortlessly and naturally, all around me.

Whatever calamity I can conceive, I can achieve.

I always have everything I need to manifest everything I don’t want, and all is hell in my world.

Copyright 2008 Scott Kalechstein, All Rights Reserved

Scott Kalechstein Grace is the author of Teach Me How To Love, A True Story That Touches Hearts & Helps With The Laundry!  In addition, he is an inspirational speaker, a transformational humorist, a life coach, and a modern day troubadour. He makes his home in Marin, California and loves presenting at conferences, giving talks, concerts and workshops. Visit http://www.scottsongs.com for more.

Impotent and Frigid No More

By Scott Kalechstein Grace

“We don't realize the big secret in our midst - which isn't how little power we have to change things, but rather how much power we have that we aren't using! We're like birds that were never informed, or have forgotten, we have wings.”
- Marianne Williamson


Lately I’ve counseled several people who were quite dis-couraged (removed from their courage) by the greed, violence, and destruction going down on the planet these days. Depression currently exists in epidemic proportions and many of us have lost our hope and vision for humanity.

I have not.

I have discovered something that gets me bouncing me out of bed in the morning without a need for caffeine and fills me with joy and enthusiasm all day long. It’s a safe and natural alternative to Prozac, and Viagra as well. It gets me up, inspired and ready for action, 24/7. Its potency is off the charts, and now so is mine.

It’s not a pill, however. It’s a point of view.

My point of perception is that I am an honorable member of God’s Reconstruction Team, here on a lifelong mission to penetrate the world with love. That’s my viewpoint, and I’m sticking to it. I used to worry that it was arrogant, and that I was suffering from delusions of grandeur. Then I immersed myself in the study of A Course In Miracles, which points out, “Without you, God’s Plan would be incomplete.”

Now I understand that I actually am recovering from delusions of impotence!

I once lived in New Jersey by a well-traveled road. One winter day there was a huge storm, and the cars right outside my home were gridlocked for many hours, not moving an inch. This was before the days of cell phones and laptops, and the drivers had plenty of time on their hands. I left the shelter of my house to observe the variety of responses to their situation. Some spent the entire time grumbling their grievances, stressing the stress of their missed appointments, clutching their powerless steering wheels, never accepting, always at war with their predicament. Others surrendered and got out of their cars to greet their new neighbors, making the best of things, laughing together at their shared helplessness. Children got out and played in the snow, blustery chaos a treasured playground.

A few people went from car to car to take orders for coffee and snacks. They braved the elements to walk an eighth of a mile up the road to the 7/11, and then graciously delivered the goods to their fellow stranded motorists. I noticed that the ones choosing to serve were enthusiastic and happy. The external temperature didn’t bring down their internal thermometers. They got it up for life, radiating the warmth of their love, dispelling the frigidity around them.

The day the Twin Towers went down I was glued to the television, like so many of us, trembling and weeping for our world. Later in the afternoon I wrenched myself away from the small screen and tried to tune into the bigger picture.

After some moments in the silence I heard my inner guidance say, “This event is an evolutionary quickening, bringing about an increase of both the dark and the light. Be of good courage. You came here for these times. Despite the tumult, the choice before everyone remains abundantly simple and abundantly clear: it’s love or fear. The media will mostly report and distort the reasons to fear, supplying the drugs for those with an adrenaline habit. You needn’t go there, and don’t curse those who still believe that attack will make them safe. Light your candle and find others who are illuminating the earth with love. Focus on the building of a new consciousness and a new world, even as this old one stumbles and falls. Be a stand for personal and planetary healing and you will live in the warmth of your loving no matter how frigid the climate around you.”

This is not summer vacation time on classroom earth. The curriculum is demanding, the lessons intense. The most fearful and aggressive people seem to have the most power. Certainly they have the most volume, being given a large megaphone by the media.

Is cheerfulness these days synonymous with denial? Are hope and optimism opiates for those with a lack of intelligence and an abundance of naivety? Will the meek really inherit the earth, and if so, where are they hiding? Ringo Starr has a CD called Choose Love. Could he be on to something, or did our beloved Ringo do too many drugs in the last millennium?

Humanity is at a fork in the road. What will we choose as a species? We’ve got some pretty big toys that can blow each other up in an afternoon. If we don’t raise our emotional maturity to match our advances in technology we might not be around much longer. Everybody on earth is aware of that on some level. We know the stakes are high.

It’s easy to lose heart, or to close the heart to protect it from the rawness of grief and pain. But as Yoda said to Anakin in the last Star Wars movie, “The fear of loss is a sure path to the dark side.” Anakin’s refusal to experience loss and face his grief led to the construction of Darth Vader: a black mask and armoring around his true self.

Take heart, fellow Jedi’s. It’s an honor to serve, and even our tears are a part of our contribution, so long as they do not come from believing we are powerless. Let’s revel in what we can do. We can do small things with great love each day, letting go of any attachment to outcome. Was Martin Luther King discouraged because he might not see his dream made manifest in his lifetime? I don’t think so. Planting the seeds and growing a dream is fulfillment enough, in and of itself.

It is a joy to serve God, but it is very stressful to play God.

I’m sure you’ve all heard the story of a man who encounters a lady on the beach. She is picking up starfish one by one and throwing them back into the ocean after a storm had dumped millions of them onto the shore. Her behavior is disturbing to him, as it holds up a mirror to his feelings of impotency. “Look around you! How can you feel what you’re doing matters, saving just a few, in the face of such overwhelming tragedy?” “It mattered to that one,” she replies as she happily tosses another starfish into the sea.

To curse the darkness when you could be lighting a candle (or saving a starfish) is quite a waste of vital life energy. To put it bluntly, it’s time for all of us to get it up - for God, each other, and our planet. It may be our darkest hour, but some of us can see dawn coming, and there’s truly something beautiful on the horizon- a new world waiting to be conceived and birthed. Your heat, your potency, your hands and heart are needed. And it is quite a pleasure to serve.

SHOW THE WAY

By David Wilcox

You say you see no hope, you say you see no reason
We should dream that the world would ever change
You're saying love is foolish to believe
'Cause there'll always be some crazy with an Army or a Knife
To wake you from your day-dream, put the fear back in your life...

Look, if someone wrote a play just to glorify what's stronger than hate,
Would they not arrange the stage to look as if the hero came too late
he's almost in defeat
It's looking like the Evil side will win, so on the Edge
Of every seat,
from the moment that the whole thing begins…

It is love who makes the mortar
And it's love who stacked these stones
And it's love who made the stage here
Although it looks like we're alone
In this scene set in shadows
Like the night is here to stay
There is evil cast around us
But it's love that wrote the play...
For in this darkness love can show the way


Scott Kalechstein Grace is an author,  a minister, a counselor and coach, a modern day troubadour, and an inspirational speaker. He makes his home in Marin, California and loves presenting at conferences, giving talks, concerts and workshops. In his phone counseling practice, he is a relationship specialist, helping both individuals and couples heal, manifest, and awaken into conscious relationship. Call 415-721-2954 to schedule a session, or email him at scott@scottsongs.com. You can visit www.scottsongs.com to read more about his workshops, to hear his talks or to sample songs from his nine CD’s. Send him an email to receive writings like this one on a semi-occasional basis.