The older and wiser I get, the more I find myself distanced from drama.

There’s a biological reason for this. Are you ready?

If you closely analyze drama, it looks a lot like a sympathetic nervous system response: fight or flight. Drama is one person attacking another person, and that other person either fighting back or changing the subject, leaving, or being passive aggressive: Fight or flight.

Think of a roommate/lover drama situation you’ve found yourself in. You felt attacked. At that point you have a choice: let your “instincts” kick in – fight or flight.

OR………..

You can exercise option number 2: Listen, Love, and Problem-Solve.

Love is the only solution to drama.

I had someone admit to me recently: “Yeah, I’m having a lot of drama with my roommate, but it’s whatever, because I don’t care about her that much anyway.”

BINGO!!!

That admission is the source of all your drama with that roommate. Even if you haven’t said it straight out to her, she senses you don’t care about her. People are more sensitive than they like to show. She can tell by your actions and reactions that you don’t care about her, so she can’t give you a “Listen, Love, and Problem-Solve” response to anything you say, because she knows it won’t be returned. Instead, you get a fight or flight response from her.

And you get drama.

Someone told me recently that I appear “strategic” in my responses to people, as if my intelligence allows me to navigate personal conflicts. No! It is my COURAGE, not my intellect, that allows me to remain calm and not get caught up in drama.

You see, it is SCARY when someone appears to attack you with their words, or their silence! They may accuse you of something, they may say hurtful things, they may seemingly tell you they don’t love or care about you by what they say or do.

But if you truly love and care about a person, you have the COURAGE to look past their words and find the kernels of truth and the love behind what they are expressing. Always look for the good in a person, and you will find it.

It takes COURAGE to believe that you can get along with anyone. That you won’t be rejected by anyone. That you will never lose someone’s love. You must always act AS IF you will never lose someone’s love in order not to lose someone’s love. Understand?

It takes COURAGE not to go on the defensive when someone goes on the offensive against you. That’s why they say fools defend and offend.

The wise remain calm and look for creative ways to love, creative ways to solve problems. Getting caught up in drama taxes your nervous system and wastes your energy. And you don’t have energy to waste, right?

Keep calm and carry on.

And have the COURAGE to love, the courage to care, to look past our most primal nervous instincts that once kept us alive, but now keep us apart.

Walking past Civic Center tonight, I’m wondering what the heck is going on there. There are all these strange-shaped temporary buildings up for some kind of event that looks interesting but I haven’t even heard about it.

It seems like the internet has past its point of usefulness to me. Once you have access to all the events and all the parties all the time, you somehow again find yourself with no access to the information you need to make a decision, as it’s all buried in the other information. You then find yourself relying on talking to people again to find out stuff. “What? You didn’t see that on my Facebook page?” No! I never see anything useful on Facebook anymore, unless someone directly brings it to my attention or they just happen to be in my fab five algorithm or however the hell Facebook is promoting status updates these days.

Sometimes, less IS more.

“Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.” David Augsburger

I have learned a few things in my dating life that I thought I would write down for the young-ins.

First thing is, it takes a few dates to get to know someone. In my estimation, it takes about 5 dates to figure out if a person is the kind of person you want to spend a good amount of time with. Once that is established, it’s important to find out what the other person needs, if you haven’t already. This can be an awkward discussion, but it is critical to have this talk in the beginning. Go ahead and ask them: “What kind of relationship are you looking for right now?”

Most people don’t want to ask this question because they are afraid of what the answer might be. Fear ruins everything.

You can’t love someone unless you know what they need. Period. You can’t truthfully say that you love a person, in the sense that you can take care of them, unless you know what that means for them. You might have strong feelings for them, they might make you deliriously happy, but if you don’t know what they need or want, you can’t really love them, and you are not ready for any kind of partnership, much less a commitment.

Having said that, let’s move on to cheating. This word has to be my least favorite relationship word. It implies that someone has set a black and white boundary line and the other partner has crossed it intentionally. What an awful thing this is. I love the way I heard it put on Dr. Phil a few years back: A yogi was asked what he would do if he came home and discovered his wife in his bed with another man. He answered, “I would tell them that when they are finished, to please come downstairs, I will make a pot of tea, and we’ll all talk about it.” Why would he do this? Because he wants information. And getting furious will not get him information. Violently injuring someone will not get him information.

Someone who is a victim of cheating will always be a victim as long as they never sit down and have this discussion. A cycle cannot be broken unless one has information needed in order to change it. What could one possibly learn from having a discussion about an infidelity? Most people are too afraid to talk about it, assuming that it will reveal that the partner doesn’t really care about them, doesn’t find them attractive, that they will lose the relationship they have invested so much time and security in, etc. It is a fear of loss that prevents people from talking about their needs generally. But what is there to lose except the mystery around the situation? You cannot solve problems in a void, but with information, you can move from being a victim to being a problem-solver.

And not talking about your needs/problems only perpetuates them and makes them harder to solve. There is a saying that if you are not moving forward up a hill, you are moving backward. That is, by not addressing the shortcomings in your relationship, you think you are really just keeping yourself in a static comfort/safety zone, but actually your relationship is sliding backward. Best to talk things out before you hit rock bottom and have to suffer enormous amounts of stress.

Love means understanding what the other person needs, even if that means hearing that what the other person needs right now is NOT YOU. If you can accept that, that is true love.