You’ve seen it before: someone you know is being a “drama queen.” You might be told that you yourself are being melodramatic, and often enough the feedback isn’t very polite: “Save the drama for your mama!” So here’s a quick introduction to the “drama triangle,” a concept from Transactional Analysis.

Here’s how it works: if you are being a so-called “drama queen,” you are playing one of three roles. You’re either the victim, the persecutor, or the rescuer. The thing is, if you are playing one of these roles, soon enough you’ll end up playing one of the other two. A victim might over-identify with his victim status and end up persecuting those who are trying to help him. You’ve seen this before. Someone has been hurt or wronged, and instead of healing and moving forward with life, she acts out in her relationships and can’t seem to stop hurting others with her unresolved anger.

If you find yourself in the role of rescuer, you’re not off the hook. In the drama triangle, rescuers aren’t the wonderful, altruistic saviors they might appear to be. They have mixed motives. Their rescuing behaviors are to some extent self-serving. In their effort to help the victim, they could start playing the persecutor role by overprotecting and hovering over the victim, or attacking the original persecutor in acts of revenge. Overprotecting a victim prevents the victim from recovering from the injury and letting go of the victim role, so if you’re the rescuer, you’re now harming the victim by getting in the way of his recovery. And teaming up with the victim to get revenge on the persecutor…well, it’s easy to see how you yourself can become the person you say you hate.

The drama triangle helps us see how one person’s dramatic behavior is actually part of a larger system. Sometimes I say it this way: “everybody is bringing the crazy!” Even if only one person has serious emotional or behavioral problems, family and friends around that person can get caught up in the crisis. It’s helpful to see it this way because it gives us a bird’s-eye view of what’s going on, and that means we can come up with more possible solutions. Let’s say you see yourself as the only sane person in your family. (And who knows? Maybe you are!) Well, if that’s true, then begin noticing how you get caught in the triangle, and experiment with your own behaviors. If you’re the rescuer, for example, you can practice stepping back from the victim and allowing him to cope with his problems as an adult. You can still be loving and nurturing with the victim, but start setting up some healthy boundaries. Even if you’re not thanked for it (and you won’t be–people in the drama triangle don’t like it when you stop playing along), you are blazing a trail away from the triangle, and others might choose to follow you.

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I often work with people who are facing really hard decisions. There’s the common “Should I stay or should I go?” decision — do I want to stay in this relationship? Or the workplace version: “Should I stay in this job?” Sometimes people have agonizing choices to make, choices that pit one important part of their life up against another. For example: “Should I stay where I am now and be closer to family, or follow my dream to a distant city?”

In grad school, one of my professors counseled me to tell clients to flip a coin. Seriously! The idea was that when the coin landed, how you reacted to the result would tell you a lot about what you really want. You called heads and it landed tails … so, how do you feel? Often times, people realize (silly as this sounds) that they really wanted the coin to land the other way. It’s not such a bad idea.

But here’s another way to approach life’s hardest decisions. Ask yourself this question: What does your best self want to do? It’s not hard to hear the siren song of your lesser self (or lesser selves). If I stay close to family, your lesser self might tell you, I won’t rock the boat. Families like that! I’ll be rewarded! (Though I might feel a little miserable…) Or if I chase a dream — maybe not a real dream, or a true-desire dream…maybe an escapist dream — I won’t have to face the hard realities of my current relationships and problems. (Fun! Yet … what do I do when the fun wears off?) Or your lesser self might tell you, if I stay in this troubled — and maybe abusive — relationship, at least I’ll have the security of everything in my life staying stable. Or your lesser self might say, don’t worry about working on this relationship. Look! There’s someone new!

Your task is to learn how to listen to your best self, the part of you that is usually found in moments of quiet and serious reflection, or sober and bracing self-confrontation. The hard truth is that your best self doesn’t always have “good news” for you, if by “good news” you mean a comfortable or pleasant path out of your dilemma.

When you’re facing a tough decision, take time to tune in to your self. Take time to ask the question, “What does my best self want to do?

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I’m happy to say that my sister Elizabeth reads my blog. She read my recent post about being fully present at work and in relationships, and had this to say:

“Hey, I really liked your blog about differentiation. Coincidentally, I’ve actually been working on this all week! I am constantly thinking of a hundred things, none of which include the task or thing I am doing at the present moment. For instance, I went to the store three times to buy garbage bags and forgot to buy them every single time. So, I am trying to live in the moment and concentrate only on the task at hand instead of the five tasks I am going to do after I finish the task at hand. I’ve only been ‘practicing’ for a week, but already notice a relaxation difference, and a difference especially with Natalie. I would be playing with her before and run off to start the dishwasher or change the laundry or check my email. She would get frustrated and start saying ‘Momma’ 1,000 times. I would get frustrated and be annoyed that she was so ‘needy.’ This week, I sat down and played with her and focused only on what she wanted to do. Read books? Sure! Play with a puzzle? Sure! Use me as a jungle gym? Absolutely! We had such a great time, and when I said, ‘Can we go downstairs and you watch Dora while I fold laundry?’ she said, ‘Yeah, momma!’ I got an entire load of laundry done and the afternoon was enjoyable and relaxed. Not one crying or sad moment all day! So thanks for the reinforcement on this!”

Well, it’s always my pleasure to help out my little sister! And I’m glad she put this into practice in such a great way. “Differentiation” is about being more fully present in your life. Turns out it makes life lots of fun, too.

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People often say that they need to take a certain amount of time off after a breakup. “I’m not ready for someone new,” they say. “He’ll just be a transitional man [or woman]. I need time to heal.” Usually your friends will agree with you if you take this tack. (Your best friends have probably been with you during your breakup, and could use a break themselves, right?!)

And I say, sure. Take a break. Take time to soothe yourself, grieve, express your anger, own up to your own part in the breakup, focus on work, take the dog for a long walk… You need this time.

But you may soon notice that those same friends who agreed with you that you need a break are now trying to set you up with “this great guy I work with,” or they’ll say, “She’s really great! You two would be perfect for each other.” Or—to turn the tables a bit—you may soon notice that it’s you yourself who’s noticing the guy at work, or wondering if you would be perfect for someone new, and your friends are still saying, “No way! It’s still too soon!”

How do you know if it’s too soon, if you’ve waited long enough, if you’re already missing out on your next relationship because you’re “on a break”?

This is where a little self-awareness—along with self-care—comes in. The reason there’s no hard-and-fast rule about getting into a new relationship is because it’s about you, not some outside influence or process. Here’s what I mean: when I had minor surgery last fall (I am now appendix-free), I was ordered to follow a strict six-week regimen of rest, and told that I would notice mild symptoms of pain for up to six months. But breakups aren’t like that. There is no bankable six-week rest period, and your emotional pain (I’m sorry to say) has a mind of its own. You may be happily partnered or married for ten years and feel a flash of pain or regret about something you thought was ancient history. Or you may recover really fast, and feel just fine in what seems like no time at all.

So—back to the “it’s about you” thing. Here’s how to know if you’re going too fast, or too slowly, into your next relationship. If you are going out with someone new, can you notice why that is, and be honest with yourself about it? Usually when we do it for the “wrong” reasons (such as, “It’s awful to be alone, I’m going crazy being alone, I’m desperate!!”), we can figure that out with just a little time of silence, breathing, and simple self-awareness. If it feels too fast, stop for a minute. Notice yourself. Notice your heart rate. Notice your thoughts: are they racing? Do you feel like you’re acting from your core self, from your best self?

This is hard because everyone knows that a new relationship always increases your heart rate, and in a good way! It’s tremendously rewarding (and just a lot of fun) to be attracted to someone and find that the attraction is going both ways. If you’ve been through a recent breakup, it’s more likely—but not a foregone conclusion—that you might be jumping into a new relationship rather than doing the hard work of self-growth. But check it out. Take that little break I mentioned. Notice what’s going on inside yourself. Notice your feelings. Even if it feels like you haven’t been single “long enough,” you might actually be ready to get close to someone new.

And even if it turns out to be another disaster, know this: you’ll survive it. And you’ll learn from it. No matter what choices we make, we can learn and grow from the choice. So don’t force yourself to follow a mandatory “post-op” rest period. Feel free to approach this time in your life with more flexibility, and more self-awareness.

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I recently posted about the concept of “differentiation,” which is being fully present in a relationship, or an unpleasant work situation, or really anywhere in your life, without losing yourself in anxiety, or daydreaming, or other kinds of resistance. I didn’t mention one easy (and very common) way people lose themselves: substance use.

The “disease model” of alcoholism and drug addiction has helped many people get clean and sober, and stay clean and sober, by giving them a way to name their problem: I have a disease, they say to themselves and to others, and it’s called alcoholism, or drug addiction. But another way to look at substance use—another way that can be helpful for a lot of people—is to see it simply as an escape mechanism, a way to check out of your own life. Some people want to overcome substance abuse not by seeing it as a disease and quitting altogether, but by seeing it as a coping strategy, an escape hatch.

Right now I’m reading and beginning to use a book on creativity by writer Julia Cameron. In the book, Cameron talks about how she used alcohol in this way. She would work all day and try to cram as much creativity into her day as she could, because her routine each night was to escape in what she called a “cloud” of alcohol.

If you think this is true about yourself—that you use substances to escape your life, and need help building a new lifestyle that keeps you out of that “cloud,” I can help you do it. We can talk about your “poison”—which could be food, or “workaholicism,” or porn…it doesn’t have to be alcohol or drugs!—and how you can be more fully alive, more focused, and more free.

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Have you ever been bored in a staff meeting at work? Some of you might answer, “Have I ever not been bored?!” In one of my “office” jobs, I sometimes found myself drifting off during staff meetings, and for a long time I didn’t think there was a different way to deal with staff meetings.

Then I learned more about the concept of “differentiation.” (I actually don’t like the word “differentiation”—it’s a Therapy Land kind of word, not something normal people use in conversation.) Here’s a plain-English definition of it: differentiation is being fully present, but not losing yourself. And here are some examples:

—In a partnership or dating relationship, to be differentiated is to be close to the other person emotionally, but also flexible, and grounded. The other person is freaking out? You might feel upset by that, but if you’re differentiated, you’re taking care of yourself—and soothing yourself—while the other person deals with their issues. You’re not running away and hiding. You’re staying fully present. But you’re also not losing yourself by anxiously trying to fix the other person or diffuse the situation.

—In a boring staff meeting (which sounds like something worlds away from the above example, but it’s really not!), to be differentiated is to notice your own resistance, which usually takes the form of daydreaming, or talking to your neighbor, or doodling, or checking your email, or…you know the drill. If you notice what you’re doing, you are then conscious of it and can try something different, something new. You can decide to turn your attention back to the person who’s speaking. Or you can listen to what’s being said and respond verbally with your own opinion. Or you can interject a comment like, “I think we’re getting off track. I’d like to go back to what we were discussing before.” You’re being fully present in the meeting, and not losing yourself in a cloud of daydreaming, restlessness, and exhausted frustration. You might notice that the “new you” in the staff meeting is much happier—and effective—than the old one.

I mention all this because our resistance—our lack of differentiation—can really cut into our enjoyment of life, work, and relationships. It’s hard to re-engage in a staff meeting, and even harder to stay fully present in a dynamic and sometimes-scary relationship. So take your time with it. Be kind to yourself. But also challenge yourself to notice your resistance, take a deep breath, and try something new.

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Your problem might be as simple as this: find out what your “monster” is, and face it. To explain what I mean, I’ll introduce you to Stella*, our older dog. Stella is not usually a fearful dog. She’s never been traumatized, and the care she receives from her humans is—well, let’s just say her humans are your typical eccentric dog maniacs! But Stella is afraid of bicycles. One day, as we were walking near a park, a young girl came toward us on her bike, saw Stella, shrieked, and braked to a stop inches from Stella’s front paws. Imagine this from Stella’s perspective: she’s a 24-pound Shiba Inu, so the girl on her bike looked to Stella the way a braking semi would look to us.

Ever since then, Stella has been terrified of bicycles, and a little nervous around children. Since we have neither children nor bicycles in our home, it hasn’t been enough of a problem to warrant extensive training. (And I want to stop here for a brief commercial break and endorse this dog trainer: Ahimsa Dog Training. They’re the best. Don’t go anywhere else!) *ahem* So, back to my blog! Bikes and kids (but mostly bikes) are what our trainer calls “monsters” for Stella. Big scary beasts that frighten her.

I mention all this because the “monster” metaphor is useful when we’re talking about human relationships. I recently asked a client, “What’s the ‘monster’ you’re avoiding?” The monster could be almost anything, and here are a few examples:

—If I am honest about what I want in the relationship, she might dump me, and I don’t think I can handle that.

—If I assert myself about something important, it’ll start a shouting match.

—If I tell my partner something really true about myself, something I don’t think he’ll like, he will reject or judge me.

Think about what your “monster” might be. It’s the thing that’s holding you back, the thing that you fear will happen, the thing you think you can’t handle. It’s easier to face it if you have a better idea what it is.

I’m willing to bet that your monsters are seriously holding you back. They really need to be faced if you want to feel more fulfilled in your life and relationships. You can keep avoiding them, keep managing your behavior with your partner to avoid the thing that scares you, and in the short term you will keep the peace and avoid pain. But that’s not the full you. It’s not the life you really want to lead. Facing and overcoming your monsters can be really painful, really frightening. But on the other side of the pain and fear is a fuller, richer life!

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*True dog lover’s confession: I’ve been trying for months to figure out a way to talk about my dogs in this blog, and am happy I found one! Look for our younger dog, Hoshi, in a future post.

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I’m on a “definition of terms” kick, I guess! I recently worked with a client who was trying to help someone deal with a difficult situation and needed to sort out the differences between empathy, sympathy, and compassion. I’ll define them here, and tell you why it’s helpful to notice their differences.

First, empathy. Empathy is just this: noticing and understanding someone else’s experience, or situation, or perspective. Empathy does not mean you agree, or share the feeling, or see it their way. It only means you get it, you get how they see their problem. If someone you know is going through a hard time, you might be relieved to hear that all they really need from you is empathy. They don’t need you to feel their pain, and they certainly don’t need you to solve their problem (even if they ask you to!). It really helps for you to say, “I can see how hard this is for you. I can see why it’s so upsetting.” It also helps to simply repeat back to them what they said. “You’re mad at him because he betrayed you. I totally understand!” That’s an empathy statement.

Next: sympathy. Sympathy is not just understanding another person’s perspective. It is also feeling the same way the other person feels about their problem. This is why I don’t like “sympathy” greeting cards. If my friend’s mother just died, I don’t feel sympathy. I might empathize with them—my mother died 11 years ago, so I absolutely understand what they’re going through—but I am not going through it myself. I am not grieving like they are. If I open a greeting-card shop someday (which isn’t such a far-fetched possibility, by the way!), I will have a section called “Empathy Cards,” not “Sympathy Cards.” The good news for you—if you know someone who’s going through a hard time—is that they don’t really need your sympathy. They don’t need you to experience their loss the way they are experiencing it. They just need your empathy.

Finally, compassion. Compassion is empathy-plus-help, or sympathy-plus-help. Here’s what I mean: if I empathize or sympathize with someone, I haven’t really done anything yet, at least anything active or concrete. I might be offering them a helpful presence, just being there, just listening. But I haven’t really tried to assist them in their recovery or anything. Compassion adds this part to the transaction. Compassion means that not only do I empathize, not only do I sympathize, but I want to do or say something that will help them. I want to work with them on their problem. To take the above example: if my friend’s mother just died, if I am choosing to offer my friend compassion, I will invite my friend to go with me to a grief workshop, or I’ll ask my friend if she would like to visit her mother’s grave, and if I could tag along to support her, or help her with a ritual of some kind. The good news for you—if you know someone going through a hard time—is that they might not need very much compassion. Again, most of the time the best gift we can give others is simple empathy.

I say that this is “good news” just because sympathy and compassion are not the kinds of things you can just conjure up out of thin air. When someone you know is hurting, you might feel anxious, and helpless. You might love them, but feel lost about what you’re supposed to say, or what you’re supposed to do. Don’t worry! Just offer simple empathy: let them know that you understand what they’re going through. That’s enough. You can offer to help with something specific if you like… You could say, “I’m bringing lasagna over tomorrow, how does that sound?” And they can let you know if they want that. But don’t worry about easing their pain, or solving their problems.

Just let them know that you get it. You understand that they’re going through a hard time. You know what? They will probably be relieved that you aren’t anxiously trying to fix them!

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Recently a client asked me, “What’s the difference between guilt and shame?” It’s a good question, if only because so many of us experience both of these emotions. Here’s my take on it.

Guilt is the emotion we feel when we have done something we regret, something that we think (or know) was not a good thing to do. Guilt is about things we do that we aren’t proud of.

Shame is different. Shame is the emotion we feel when we think there is something about ourselves that is fundamentally bad or wrong. Shame is about things about ourselves that we aren’t proud of.

Sometimes we feel guilt that is really over the top—excessive, even obsessive guilt. Maybe we are involved in an accident, and someone else is hurt or killed, and we feel what’s called “survivor’s guilt”. That’s an example of unjustified guilt, or guilt that isn’t really about a conscious choice we made. It’s guilt run amok.

Shame (I think) is humility run amok. It’s taking humility so far that it becomes its opposite. Here’s what I mean: a person with healthy humility often feels very good about herself. Unlike shame, healthy humility is not self-deprecating or self-denying. Healthy humility is simply an outward orientation, a way of living that is other-directed. But shame is self-directed, and self-destructive. Unlike guilt, I think shame is a useless emotion. It’s a way to shut yourself down, to withdraw from relationships, to step back from your life.

Shame leads us to forget that each human person has intrinsic value, and no matter how much sorrow (and guilt!) we feel about the choices we’ve made, we are not fundamentally broken.

Bottom line: guilt—most of the time—takes us somewhere. Shame—not so much! Both have a way of getting into our lives. Counseling helps you sort all this out, look at yourself with compassion, and respond to these difficult emotions in a healthy way.

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I sometimes wonder if the one thing I deal with in my work and in my own life—the one dragon I keep slaying, and helping other people slay—is fear. I’m not a big-theory-to-describe-anything kind of person, but consider some of the evidence:

—An individual comes to counseling because he’s feeling lonesome, unloved, even unloveable. “I don’t know,” he might say, “maybe I’m depressed.” But as he talks about the difficulty of being on his own and ‘unlucky in love,’ he starts seeing how scared he is—scared to approach others, much less ask them out. Or scared to face his own demons, the thoughts and beliefs that keep him stuck, and maybe keep him single. Our work together helps him do the things that scare him, and find the love and intimacy he longs for.

—A couple comes to counseling because they’re screaming at each other and don’t know how to stop. Turns out they’re both afraid, maybe even terrified: afraid to tell the truth to each other, or say what’s really bothering them. Afraid to be honest with each other about their own contribution to the problem (”If I tell him I know I’m a part of the problem, I’m afraid he’ll just walk all over me!” one of them might say). Our work together helps the couple talk honestly, listen carefully, and—scary as it is—ask each other for what they really want.

—An adolescent comes to counseling because, well, usually because some adult who’s able to make life hard for him told him he had to! But he comes, and it sounds like the topic is behavior problems, truancy, impulsive (and maybe illegal) behaviors, unsafe sex, you know the story. But it’s not a cliche to say that this is a really scared kid, scared and maybe even panicked, trying to make some sense of his life, gain some sense of control. Our work together helps him breathe, learn how to calm himself down, and learn how to navigate his complicated life.

Right now, if you’re thinking about getting some counseling, you might feel (in no particular order) angry, upset, enraged, sad, confused, or just plain exhausted. You’re probably a pretty resilient person—after all, just thinking about getting counseling takes a little grit, to say nothing of coming in! You may be highly accomplished in your life, or feel pretty secure in general. But it’s highly possible that there’s something going on right now that frightens you. The area of your life that brought you to my site, whether it’s a relationship problem, career angst, grief, or something else entirely—if you reflect on your feelings about it, I’ll guess that fear is in there somewhere.

I help people notice their fears, understand them, and respond to them in new and life-changing ways.

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