EP 166 The thing you dread

You do hard things every day. You run a home, you carry other people's needs, you handle complicated things most people never see. You have so much more power than you realize.

So why can one small, ordinary thing still fill you with dread? Having people over for dinner. A phone call. A visit you keep putting off. Something that should be simple, and somehow just is not.

What's fascinating is that the dread is almost never about the thing itself. It is about the story you are telling yourself. Which means you do not have to keep dreading it. Once you can see the story clearly, you can change it, and show up as the you you want to be.

Resources from the Episode: 

• Mothers of Creation - Provo, Utah - September 26th

AI-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT

Episode 166: Creator Orientation, A Panel Discussion

Introduction

AUDREY: Welcome back to the podcast. I am Audrey Rindlisbacher, author of The Mission Driven Life and founder of The Mission Driven Mom. Today I am joined in another wonderful discussion with Tracie Hyde, Lindsey Wright, and Cadie Hatch. We are preparing for our upcoming Mothers of Creation celebration, and it has been such a joy to meet, to discuss, and to read more resources together as we look at the kinds of things we will cover that day. We are also preparing the women who will attend in our online community, which is really wonderful. If you are interested in joining us, the link is in the description below.

We have been returning to a few themes leading up to this event, and today the theme is creator and creation. We have talked about victim types and victimhood and why understanding them is helpful. But what is the reverse of that? The opposite of being a victim is to be a creator. So let us start simply. Will one of you give us a high level overview of Karpman’s Drama Triangle, who the players are, and what a problem orientation looks and feels like?

The Drama Triangle and Its Opposite

LINDSEY: I can do that. The victim orientation has three components. First the victim, who needs a persecutor, someone to blame the problem on, someone they believe is causing the problem. And then they need a rescuer, the knight in shining armor who comes to save the princess. Those three components collude together and feed on each other. Often we switch places within it. We start out as the victim and then become the persecutor. It is a fluid circumstance, this drama.

On the other side, we have the opposite. The opposite of victim is creator. The opposite of persecutor is challenger. The creator sees the problem not as something to blame, not as the source of the bad feelings they are having, but as a challenge, something that can be overcome and that has something to teach them. And the opposite of the rescuer is the coach. The rescuer just takes away the consequences and smooths out the problem, but the victim does not get to learn anything. The coach does not solve the problem for you. They help the creator solve it themselves. They ask questions, they provide support and resources, but what they want is for the creator to have the experience of solving the problem and reaching the outcome they want.

AUDREY: Thank you, Lindsey. That is so helpful. So we have two orientations, two ways of being. We will get into a lot of detail at the event and help you understand the nuances and why they matter. But fundamentally, to talk about being a creator, we have to juxtapose it with who a victim is and who a creator is, and the players in their life.

We Choose Our Orientation

AUDREY: Most of the time, in most of the circumstances we find ourselves in, we have a choice. But most of the time we organically show up as one or the other. Let me give you a good example. My husband has incredible health. Optimal health. And it is not just good genes and a good constitution, though I am sure he has that too. He has a way of being in the world about his physical body that is creator all the time. If he gets sick, his first thought is, I will probably be better tomorrow, or this is not a very big deal. He is not looking for who got him sick, or why this always happens to him. Even when he gets something small like a blemish, he sees it as a challenger. He tells himself, that is probably going to go away, I am going to figure out how to get rid of that. And then he always does. He is always looking to coaches to understand how to eat better, build stronger muscle, and live longer. He is currently reading three different books on how to be as healthy as he can be. When it comes to his health, he is in a creator orientation almost all the time.

I think all of us have at least one area of life where being a creator comes so naturally it is like the air we breathe. Some people are like this with money. It may be hard for a lot of us to believe, but they have always had a positive reference point toward it. They expect it to come, they are comfortable with it, they spend it wisely and grow it, and there is always more than enough. But most of us also have a weak point, an area where we show up as a victim a lot, maybe in several areas. We talked about that in our last group discussion, about victims and victim types, and how we can show up as different types in different areas of our lives.

When something happens to us, we determine the orientation we choose. Two different people have cancer. Two different people declare bankruptcy. Two different people get divorced. Two different people lose a child. And we will see radically different responses to the exact same circumstance. Often, when we are uncomfortable with something, we think that surely anybody in our situation would respond the same way. And the answer is almost always no. There is probably at least one person who would choose a creator response, who would look at themselves and their situation differently.

So I would love to hear from each of you. Where in your life are you tempted to show up as a victim, and where do you show up as a creator? What are the thoughts and emotions around those two experiences? To go back to my husband, the other end of his spectrum was his pornography addiction. For years he was the victim of it. He could never figure it out and believed he would never overcome it. And then, with the right principles, tools, and orientation, he found sobriety. So we know that with the right tools we can conquer even the hardest circumstances of our lives. Give our listeners some reference points from your own lives.

Tracie: The Dinner She Used to Dread

TRACIE: This is one I can share. It is not a deep problem in my life, but it is something I have observed, where I can be in drama or choose to be a creator. It is having people over for dinner. It seems like that would be easy to do, but for many years it has been something I dreaded.

We have a lot of people over, especially on Sundays. Family, extended family, friends. We can have up to seventeen or twenty people for dinner. My drama side looks at everything as a problem. The meat is not going to be done exactly right. The people coming may not really want to be there. What if someone feels left out, or no one talks to them. All these things that are out of my control, I worry about and see as problems. I dread Sunday as it comes around. And while people are there, I feel anxiety, so I am not able to minister to them or think deeply about what they need. That is the drama side.

It has been so helpful to recognize that I have been in drama in this situation. Because if I can flip it into creator mode, then I can ask, why am I having all these people over? It is to create an experience we can have together. My drama type here is the perfectionist, where nothing can reach the goal, because it is just a nebulous idea I have never thought through clearly. It is never enough, and that is why I dread it. But in creator mode, I can have a vision of what I am actually creating. Maybe the food is not perfect. Maybe someone is dreading coming. How people interact is out of my control. But I can feel satisfied that I invited them and provided an experience where they can feel connection, where we can have time together as family and friends. When I focus on what I am creating, it becomes less about me and how I am being perceived. That anxiety leaves, and it becomes fulfilling instead of something I dread. I still lapse into the old pattern every so often, and I have to work through it and exercise that muscle to be a creator. But I can tell I am coming out of this dreaded rut I have been in, and I am finding a lot more joy in it.

AUDREY: That is wonderful, Tracie. Those details help us see it. At the event we are going to give women a lot of specific tools to parse this out, and vision is a key component, which we will talk about on another podcast soon. One of the things you said several times was the focus off of yourself and onto others, and instead of reacting, taking ownership of your thinking. In our discussion about victims, one of the key words was responsibility. One of the biggest responsibilities we can take on is responsibility for the way we are thinking, and choosing to think differently can change everything. You are being intentional to recognize a pattern and to use the tools and principles you have been given, and it is turning what could be a bad experience into a really beautiful one.

Can anyone else give an example of how this creator orientation is blessing your life and pulling you out of difficult circumstances?

Cadie: Strong in One Place, Stuck in Another

CADIE: I loved how you said your husband just has areas where creator orientation comes naturally. I do not know that I had ever thought about it that way before. I certainly know where my victim orientation comes naturally, but where does my creator come naturally? For me, one area is education. I do not tend to feel overwhelmed by it. I have educated my children at home all their lives and have helped with a charter school here locally. Education does not intimidate me to take on, even though for other people it can feel really intimidating and scary. It is neat to realize that is just a natural orientation toward creator that I have in that area.

But my victim orientation almost goes hand in hand with it. It is difficult for me to make visits to people, to go and talk to them, because I get so caught up in what if I say something wrong, what if I hurt their feelings. It becomes a focus on my own inadequacies instead of on the positive outcome I want. In education I think, there are so many wonderful things we could do, let me tell you all of them. But with a visit I think, what if I say something wrong. In most of those circumstances I would say I am acting like the dummy who cannot quite figure out what to do or how to make it work. It is nice to recognize what that is, because there is an antidote for it, and I can move forward and have positive experiences.

AUDREY: You can choose to be the creator of a new vision. And it is interesting, because I had not thought about it quite this way until you said it, Cadie. Recognizing your strengths, which is something we really focus on in the Academy, can give you the confidence to become a creator. I have to go make this visit, but I am an effective teacher and communicator, I have strength in this area, so how can I lean into that strength here and create a different outcome for myself and for others?

Blazing a New Trail

LINDSEY: What creators are really doing, in so many ways, is re-blazing a trail. We get into these habits of victim. A circumstance arises, and my automatic response is all the victim trails I have worn into my brain, all the reasons this is not going to work. So when I move into creator, I have to make a new trail in my mind for how this is going to go. And it is so empowering to realize that it can change.

Thinking of the areas where being a creator comes naturally for me, I feel like I can learn anything, and I am not afraid of leadership positions. But those are not only natural strengths. I have also practiced. I have put myself in those situations and gotten the practice. So in the areas where I am more likely to show up as a victim, I can know that if I practice, this too can become a strength.

AUDREY: Yes. We can rewire those neural pathways. We can use principles to change the way we fundamentally show up, and eventually notice that we are showing up differently, more naturally, more of the time. That is empowering to see in ourselves.

What the Flip Feels Like

AUDREY: As we finish up, one last question. In a few words, what is the difference in how you feel as a victim versus as a creator? What does it feel like inside when you are in a creator orientation?

TRACIE: I will tell you what the flip feels like, because I have been noticing it over the last few weeks. When you recognize you are in a victim orientation and then you make the switch, to me it feels like an exhale. I see what is happening. I can choose to let it go, choose a different action, choose a different response. The pressure has been released, and I am free to move forward in so many positive ways. I am free to create what I want to create. I can breathe now.

AUDREY: I love that.

LINDSEY: I would totally agree. Mine is slightly different but very similar. I feel like chains have just dropped off and now I can move again. I had felt very stuck, very entrenched in negativity, and now it is gone. I can move, and it feels fantastic. It is very liberating.

AUDREY: I love that.

CADIE: For me it is a closed heart versus an open heart. I feel like my heart opens up when I move into creator mode.

AUDREY: I love that. I see all of those emotions in myself and others, a sense of new opportunity and new hope. I feel a lot of new hope. The focus comes off of myself, and I can focus on what actually matters instead of on me.

Closing Thoughts and Invitation

AUDREY: For those and many other reasons, it is so worth it to do the work to understand this. It is one of those things that does not feel urgent. If you are familiar with Covey’s quadrants in The 7 Habits, it is in the important but not urgent category. It is very important, but unless we are in a state of emergency, we feel like we can put it off. But making it a priority can have far more impact than you would ever imagine.

When our speaking team first started working on our own problem stories, it was so interesting. Several of us said, this is my problem story, and I do not really see a way out right now. I do not know if I could get out of this. That is so often how it feels when we are in confusion, overwhelm, and frustration in an area of our life. And this is an incredible tool to get out of that and to be liberated.

Thank you all so much for joining me today. It was a joy to talk about creator orientation and why it is so empowering. If you feel so inclined, keep listening to these podcasts around these themes and share them with a friend. And we would love to meet you in person at our fall event in the beautiful mountains of Utah. There is information about that below in the description. Thanks for joining us, and we will see you next time.