Part 1
I was reflecting during this week on this useful tool that could help us be more conscious about our behavioral patterns, called drama triangle. And I really tried to see it from a different perspective. I hope you will help me to add new meanings to this concept, so feel free to share your thoughts.
So…what do we mean by drama triangle?
The drama triangle is pointed to a victim, it’s direction is downwards and the entire process maintains the status-quo of the world. Without it, any humanistic or ecological campaign would be meaningless, because it won’t be anything left to solve and any tension would be relieved from the world. We would be in Paradise (it seems like Heaven has sacred geometry, not victim geometry). Nevertheless, it seems like this triangle becomes like a never ending circle, because usually the process ends up in the same point, recreating itself. The only difference is that we change a victim with another one. Every time in history has a persecutor that builds a different type of rescuer. But the narrative is the same.
But what are the hidden gifts of this triangle? Why do we need drama in our life?
First of all, because we are humans and we have to play this game called life. The rules are harsh, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but in the end you know that you were a part of it. Otherwise, all of us would live and an ideal world, where we are just observers of another planet’s game. God watching soap operas because he or she misses the human fun. This is the savour of the savior: you can see your qualities and your bravery when a victim offers you this opportunity. I think also that the persecutor is a very generous being, because it is a great courage to take all the blame on yourself and be „the bad guy”. The savior has a very nice-crafted mask, but in the end, he has the same purpose: to take all the power that belongs to the victim. And of course, the victim is the protagonist: all this structure will fall apart if the victim disappears. Imagine a movie without victims. Titanic will be gone forever.
So, thank you drama triangle for all the movies, songs, stories, music, literature, art, that was inspired from your precious and simple shape. Thank you for being a Graal that contains life, with all it’s effervescent conflicts. I will transform you in a glass of champagne and I will drink your bitter-sweet lessons, celebrating the fact that I’m alive.
The most interesting thing of all is that we can also create useful triangles.We can change the game. To understand what I want to explain next, you MUST watch this short video (it’s like an initiation ritual, you can’t move forward without it). How can you create a new mental model?
So, instead of Victim, Rescuer and Persecutor, we can have Survivor, Teacher and Challenger. You can create your own empowering roles and you could replace the initial triangle.
I realized then that I used to play very often the role of the rescuer and I wanted to get rid of that. But wait… the shadow of the Savior has a gift, and that gift manifests itself through my professional role. Psychologist and Savior are not synonymous.
In the end, I ask myself: what if we replace the drama triangle with the Dalai Lama triangle, whose gifts are self-trust, compassion and evolution? Maybe, in the end, we will see our reality like a multifaceted diamond.
