The Martyr & The Drama Queen

I observed both my own inner Martyr and Drama Queen squabbling with each other in public, just the other day. 

My long suffering Martyr after slamming my head stoically claimed "Oh it's nothing, I'm fine", to my unconvinced Drama Queen who verging on hysteria after placing my hand to my head retorted....  

"No, No I'm not, oh my God I am bleeding, my brain is probably ruptured and I am about to die"!   All this happened in the space of about five seconds!

If I make it to October 12 next week without picking up a drink or a drug I will be able to put a flag in the earth and claim 15 years living clean and sober. 

Although I may not get drunk on booze or high on drugs anymore these days, my Drama Queen can still get tanked on the heady elixir of catastrophising life to create drama.  Not to mention my inner Martyr still likes to take a long hard drag on the numbing joint of denial and minimize the things in life that really do matter and require action and attention!

It was interesting and I must admit humorous, to have the capacity to observe with compassion rather than harsh judgment my first two knee jerk reactions kick in after I hurt myself. 

I had just finished conducting my session in a two day workshop.  I have been on tour for the last few months with the Indigenous Director of a large counseling organisation, as we are rolling out a Cultural Fitness Training Package for their clinical staff. 

I had a full room of workshop delegates set up ready to view the movie.   We need to 'unpack' some pretty challenging subjects for clinical staff working with the Indigenous community, like White Race Privilege, Entitlement and Birthrights and excerpts from the movie Avatar is a great way to get this part of the workshop underway.  The lights had dimmed and the DVD was ready to roll.  At this point in the workshop I take the opportunity to sit at the back of the room and observe reactions and also to catch my breath before the next segment commences. 

I had just rested the weight of my ripe, round Rubinesque bottom onto a trestle table so I could sit up a little higher than a chair allows, to monitor the room.  The trestle table was one of those ones that flip up sideways for easy storage, however this one had not been locked into place and as soon as my bum hit it, it flipped me over. 

My head came down hard on the metal foot of the table and I heard my skull crack!

The room was dark but people came rushing over after hearing the crash at the back of the room.  As I tried to stand my first reaction was to minimize what had happened. My ego was bruised and I had fallen quite ungracefully as one does at middle age for falling is something we don't do as often.   I had heard my head crack, and I felt really woozy, but very uncomfortable with all the attention. 

Anytime people are overly supportive and caring it is like disinfectant on my hearts old wounds and I wince and get awkward.  So to deny care and support becomes a more comfortable option for me for in the past care from others meant I had incurred an emotional debt that I would have to repay at some stage on their terms .... so my Martyr commences her well rehearsed dialogue in order to minimize this attention.  Like taking a long drag on a mind numbing joint, I just want to get out of it, turn the volume down on the outside world and have everyone to go away and leave me be.   A Martyr's core belief is that self care is selfish, emotionally costly for it incurs emotional debt and indulgent and one should be judged harshly for ever considering their own needs first.

I remember hearing the philosophy behind airline travel firmly told to me when I mentioned to someone early in my recovery that it felt wrong to honour myself before others.  I was reminded that when one flies on an aircraft they are always reminded to put their own oxygen masks on first before they attempt to help others. 

Self care I now understand is how we maintain emotional balance; turn down the volume on the world so we can draw on our internal wisdom.  I embrace it in my own life, and educate others how to incorporate it into their lifestyle, as it is simply a smart and responsible practice and essential to maintaining emotional health and wellbeing.

As the lights were turned on and I looked at my hand that I had over the wound behind my ear I saw blood.  That is when I observed my Drama Queen knock my Martyr to the ground and begin to panic. 

I didn't say out loud "No, No I'm not okay, oh my God I am bleeding, my brain is probably ruptured and I am about to die"!   But I thought it and adrenalin started flooding my body once I knew I had opened my skull.

What I am most happy to report is that the Wise Wonderful Woman within me (and within us all as we access her with self care, she is just asleep in some of us, blokes included) then stepped in between the Martyr who was minimsing what had just occurred and the Drama Queen who was ready to catastrophize and became the voice of balance and wisdom.  So I then could calm down, assess the situation without panic or denial, and call my husband to collect me so I could go to a hospital and just get checked over.

Before I started to work on building my levels of Emotional Fitness I was ruled by either one of these two imbalanced states.  I had no emotional centre of gravity, no inner loving elder or wise adult to call upon within myself to remind me to self care, remain calm and take the actions I need to and feel the feelings I need to feel. 

My darling hubby came to pick me up and drove me to the hospital to get checked out.  I felt so grateful that I have finally arrived at a place in my life where there are people I can call who will down tools and come to support me if I need them.  And I would be honoured to do the same for them.

I did need to have my skull closed up and instead of stitches I was offered the option to have it glued up.  I had never heard of that before.  It was like a glue stick with a roll ball at the end of the tube.  Mr. Delicious (my hubby) was a little concerned and likes to make me laugh when I am sad, so he couldn't resist the opportunity to ask the doctor if perhaps I might like to get a take home tube and could perhaps use it as lipstick from time to time!

So my head was bruised for a few days and my wrist where I took the weight of my substantial Rubinesque body as I fell was very sore, but I was fine, and so pleased to be able to observe my behavior and choose to respond with the grace of a woman to this incident.  My Martyr and Drama Queen are loved components of my character these days by the Wise Wonderful Woman within me (who now runs my life, most days), and reminds me often that I now have a choice in dealing with life.  I can either react and hide, panic or respond and honour myself.  I don't always respond with honour, sometimes I still react in fear but those times are few and far between, and I am a work in progress.

How is your relationship with your internal Wise Wonderful Woman who I also like to call our internal Queen? 

Regardless of our gender it is my view that the internal Queen, (she only wakes with emotional maturity) is the gentle, protective but firm maternal voice every heart needs to navigate life and master the state of being and feeling necessary for emotional nourishment. 

It is also my view that the Giant Gentleman (our internal King) is as necessary for all genders as the gentle, protective but firm paternal voice that every heart needs to navigate life and master the state of doing and achieving necessary for emotional growth.

I have found that the Wise Wonderful Woman within us all is bloody wonderful because she comes up with solutions to life's problems that the Drama Queen and Martyr are blind to in their fearful states.  When we pause and check in with her, we often wonder why we never thought of such a simple solution before.   

The joys of maturing in life just keep on coming if we can continue to self care, stop critisizing and terrorizing ourselves.  Our humour and wisdom keep evolving.  It's nothing short of wondrous!

Just a quick news flash before I sign off today.  For those of you that are going to be around the Sunshine Coast during the festive season I have just been invited to speak at the Woodford Folk Festival.  This is an event of international standing I am told, although I have never been before.  Held over six days and nights from December 27 2010 to 2^nd January 2011 it presents more than 2000 performers and 400 events with concerts, dances, workshops, forums, street theatre, writer's panels, film festival, comedy sessions, acoustic jams, social dialogue and debate, an entire children's festival, art and craft workshops, late night cabarets and special events including a spectacular fire event.  In its promotional material it states this Festival features the cream of Australian performers and a generous gathering of special international guests.  To find out more on this event go to www.woodfordfolkfestival.com and if you decide to come along I am speaking on Wednesday December 29^th at 9.30am so come up and say hi, I would love to meet you.

I will send reminders as the date gets closer but just wanted to let you know in advance.  I am also working on an exciting new suite of Emotional Fitness services I will be offering in 2011, so I will post them on the blog site once complete.  Please keep your comments coming I love hearing from you and would like to leave you with these Word Vitamins to ponder as I sign off.

"A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life."   William Arthur Ward