Animals have it easy. The experience something, they look at it, licks their wounds and move on. But people! They experience something, look at it, become totally upset, add to the story, lick their wounds, keep on licking, get other people to look at it, get other people to say that it’s really a pity and too bad, and if at all possible, continue to wallow around in it. Then what happened becomes a part of one’s life that one just can’t get rid of. It’s called “dramatizing” or “reliving” and is one of the greatest handicaps in a person’s life, one that causes illness.

When drama is still necessary

People ask attention for their problems by creating drama. If no one listens, or nobody really listens, people embellish the story about the situation. They add drama. “It’s really bad!” and make it worse than it really was, so the other person has to listen. People who make a habit of this and often do it are called “drama queens”, or even “professional victims”. These people are used to coming up with all kinds of reasons for something happening to them and work themselves into a corner. The real reason, the deep reason they keep doing this, remains hidden under a thick layer of words and hassle.

Be honest with yourself

This is one of the most difficult steps in your life, for you to stop embellishing things that happened in the past. Realize that your mother is a straight-talker and sometimes hurts people. You don’t need to take it personally; this is just her awkward way of communicating. Maybe your father never said, “I’m proud of you”, never gave you any signs of appreciation because he never learned how to deal with his emotions. It’s just what it is. It can’t be changed. Accept it or forget it.

What are you really trying to say?

Behind all the drama, all of the exaggerated behavior, a profound, intense longing is hiding! You want someone to understand you! And that longing is for love, attention, security and connection.
What you actually want to say is: 
“I’m very unhappy. I want to feel understood. Would you please listen to me?”
“I miss being close to you. Would you come to me?”
“I feel like such a failure and I long for your support. Would you give me that?”
“The grief I feel about not really being in contact with you is killing me. May I tell you how I really feel about you?”
“I feel so alone and miss real contact with other people.”

Reliving is bad for your health

The more you talk about your problems, the stronger they become. Dealing with something has adverse effects when you are constantly reliving your old situations. Your brain then has to remember the images, words and feelings. That strengthens the connections in your brain about this. It’s just like a path through a field of grass, on which people constantly walk. The more you train your brain’s connections, the stronger they become. You become really good at picking at old grudges. This also happens with drama. If you keep bringing up old painful memories, you strengthen them and become more entrapped in them.

Stop this, and you can free yourself. That was in the past. That was then. It is no longer a part of your NOW.

Brain connections become stronger

I’m worried about people who go to therapists for long periods of time, who continually have you go back to the past and relive your memories. If you strengthen these brain connections, the memories become stronger and more intense. You can’t rid yourself of them. 
For this reason, a MIR-Method coach won’t talk for long about your past, but rather gets to the core of the problem by using muscle tests and erasing old emotions with you. Usually the coach doesn’t even try to find out what your whole story was. That’s a waste of your time and not a good use of your brain. You can read more on my thoughts about this in article 141, “Disagree with Your Thoughts!”.

Become more resistant to stress

If you do the MIR-Method, it’s possible that you become calmer and more “mature”. With “mature”, I mean that you become more flexible in dealing with setbacks. You can cope better with them. Your mind calms down more easily. “What actually DID happen? How bad is it, really?” You can put things into perspective more easily, shrug your shoulders and not become entrapped in what happened. You shake the stress right off yourself!

And how about you? Do you recognize this? Are you less dramatic about things that happen and better able to see what really happened? Do you recover more quickly when something bad happens, or from stress? I’d love to hear about it! Please write about it below. Thank you!

My wish for you is that you can keep your brain wonderfully light!
Sincerely, Mireille

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P.S. Are you not yet familiar with the MIR-Method? Please go to the homepage: www.mirmethod.com. You can watch the video there and also the instruction video. Register on the homepage to receive the newsletter and 6 weeks of free coaching e-mails for extra support!