They Won. Now What? Understanding Division, the Drama Triangle, and Empowerment Dynamics

“They won.  Now what?”

This was the title that popped into my mailbox the morning after US election results were announced and I was suddenly pushed to zoom out way back.

Who is “they”?  I mean, I know who “they” are but….  What if there’s no such thing as “they”?  What if it is just “us”.

But the division continues and from a distance it all looks like a scripted show.

Cue and they cry, another cue and they fight.

No matter what, hold the tension, keep them engaged.  Evoke fear.  Distract them.

Me: distract them from what?

Them: As long as they are distracted by drama, they are not attending to their own business, their own personal evolution, their own power, their own growth, their own enlightenment.

Sounds like dark forces are at play.  It doesn’t matter what side they are on, as long as they are distracted, as long as they are afraid for their own survival they have no power.  This technology worked for thousands of years and it is still going strong.

And even if people unite and learn to cooperate within one country, we’ll show them that they are better than another country and that will keep the game going…

I don’t know who pulls the strings and who benefits from this dance.  From my mere mortal perspective it looks like a pointless squabble.  The solutions will never be found inside the squabble, it is not possible.  To find the solutions we will have to get out of the squabble, slow down, calm down, observe and think.

Nothing is going to change until each of us, on an individual level accepts simple things like:

“You are not better than me and I am not better than you.”

“We are all different and unique and there’s a place for every one of us here.”

“You are allowed to exist, so am I”

“There’s more than enough for everyone… if we stop hoarding.”

All the political campaigns run on people’s emotions, they all evoke sense of fear.  The thought underneath the fear is “we have to fight for our survival” or “it is not safe” therefore pushing people to believe into their separateness and belief that there are inherently bad and even evil people.

But what if it is a false belief?  What if there is no inherently evil people.  There’s no baby that is born with thirst to hurt others.  Babies just want to be fed, loved, held and taken care of.  They want to explore the world, they want to grow and giggle and be happy.

Isn’t it what we all want?  We want to be happy.  We want peace.  We want to feel joy.

But at some point children get introduced to the idea of right and wrong.  And then they become convinced that there’s only one right way to be happy, “my way is right and your way is wrong”.

Then there’s an urge to dominate and push “my right way” over yours.  And so it goes.

The fear itself is an indication that underlying belief needs questioning.

The fear is an indication that we have fallen into a well versed Karpman drama triangle.

Karpman drama triangle has a Perpetrator, a Victim and a Rescuer.  For example, the economy is bad, people fall into a victim mode hoping that a certain politician will save us all, the politician becomes a rescuer and the opposing party is suddenly a perpetrator on a country scale.  And perpetrators never see themselves as such, they feel like they are victims too.

On October 7, 2023 Palestine attacked Israel.  So here, Israel was a victim, Palestine was a perpetrator and Western Countries were the rescuers by sending aids etc.  Then it quickly changed when Israel invaded Palestine and the roles switched.

The drama triangle plays out exactly the same way on a much smaller scale too, in families, at work and other social interactions.  It is very intricately woven into our society’s way of being.  For example, a kid is bullied at school.  The kid is a victim, the bully is a perpetrator and there are many people who might become a rescuer: a teacher, a friend, a parent.  Interesting enough, bullies don’t see themselves as such.

But, it is possible to flip the triangle into a model suggested by David Emerald, which is called the Empowerment Dynamics.  In this model the Perpetrator becomes a Challenger, the Victim becomes a Creator and the Rescuer becomes a Coach.

The Creator takes full responsibility of their life and asks questions like “what can I create with all of this?”

The Coach instead of saying “here’s how we are going to do this”, listens and asks questions like “how are you going to create this?”.  The Coach respects autonomy of the other person and helps the Creator find their own way forward.

The Challenger speaks the truth (even if it is not popular truth), but focuses on the issue, not on the person.

So, why the heck do I bring up all this about the Karpman Drama Triangle and The Empowerment Dynamics?  That’s because as I mentioned before, if we really want CHANGE, we need to get out of the squabble.  How?  By refusing to participate in any way in the Karpman Drama Triangle.

I think we can’t change things on a country level or global level until we change on individual level and that requires a massive shift of consciousness.  It requires things like taking full responsibility for individual’s own life from this moment on, it requires trust into individual’s own wisdom and also wisdom of others.  It requires the individuals being in their own integrity.

I wonder if that is what it means when all the spiritual teachers of today talk about transformation of consciousness of the humanity that is meant to take place…