The Script
I talk a lot about the Script, because it’s one of the foundation elements of Broadband Consciousness, which is the method I use the most with my clients.
So what IS it, anyway?
The Script is what we call the negative voice inside your head. You know the one…it tells you you’re not good enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough. It tells you that you really ought to rest and not go to that fitness class, and then the MINUTE it’s too late to go, it tears you apart for being lazy and not going! It holds you back from new things because they might be scary. It keeps you small, and quiet, and unsure, because somehow that is “safe.”
I remember one of the very first times I really spotted the Script myself and was able to laugh at it and call it out. I’m tall at 5ft 8 ½” (yes, that half an inch is vital!) and I spent much of my life feeling “too tall.” The Script would convince me that this was why I was clumsy and unco-ordinated, and that it would be much better if I was shorter and more graceful and lithe. Then one day I was out in London with a friend of mine who is 6ft. And that same voice was whispering to me how it was amazing that she was so tall and wouldn’t it be much better if I was that tall too! It had spent YEARS telling me I was too tall, and now suddenly I was too short?? And honestly, it’s not like I could do anything about it either way! Thankfully I’d been told about the Script at that point, and so I was able to really laugh at it. But what if I hadn’t?
We call it the Script because just like an actor follows a script to tell them where to go, what to say, how to react, so does this Script. Have you ever had an argument with someone and wondered who was saying those nasty things coming out of your mouth, because surely it wasn’t you? Have you ever reacted negatively to something relatively innocuous? Have you ever wished you had the courage, the confidence, the ability to do something? That’s the Script.
The thing is, it isn’t really you. It’s a hodge-podge of all the Stuff you’ve been handed from society, parents, peers, school, media, and so on. It’s all the Stuff you’ve taken on board in an attempt to fit in and belong. Because belonging is hard-wired into us. It might not be the standard version of belonging, if you’ve been fortunate enough to find an alternative, but for many, we try desperately to belong in areas where really, if we had the choice, we’d have walked away years ago.
Think of school, as an example. Many children don’t function well in the social hierarchy that is school, and struggle as a result. But while you’re there, you have very few options. You are put together in groups and expected to just get on, regardless. You might not even be able to choose the after school clubs and sports you’re allowed to take.
As adults, we often have more options. We can, if we are very unhappy, walk away from a job if we are being bullied by other staff or management. It might not be immediate, and we might not know how to start with, but we usually have SOME options. We can decide ourselves to join or leave a group or club, pick up sports and leave them again if they don’t work. But sometimes, because we’ve been put in that situation as children, we don’t know how to walk away as adults either. And sometimes, we lose that ability later on too. That’s ALL Script.
Essentially, there is the Real You – the person you would choose to be if/when you could choose, and then there’s the Script. Any time you’re not actively being the Real You, you’re likely in the Script.
And it’s super easy to slide into! A lot of personal development will tell you that if you’re unhappy, you’re choosing that. But who on EARTH would choose to be unhappy? From our perspective, the difference is you’re NOT choosing. You’ve slid into one of the easy, comfortable paths that runs in your head, and they can be incredibly hard to break out of again.
If you have a lot of experience thinking one way, reacting one way, feeling one way, then that’s a nice wide smooth path! Creating a new one when you want to change can be just as hard as forging a new path in the forest – and sometimes even harder! Because you can at least see the path (or lack of it) in the forest! In your mind, you’re forging a new path in uncharted territory! You’re practically a pioneer!
It’s also important to recognise that feeling bad sometimes is entirely normal, and part of a truly balanced life! If everything is amazing all the time, then amazing becomes normality and boring. You’d need more and more amazing to feel the same way. So having some bumps on the road simply give you perspective and allow you to really enjoy the ups again! It’s completely okay to not be okay, and you don’t need to beat yourself up over it. Allow it, let it out, and THEN make a different choice later on.
Have a think! What does the Script tell YOU regularly? Mine really likes to go to town on the “not good enough” line, even though I know full well it’s nonsense. And sometimes, it catches me out and manages to make me feel bad. For a little while. But whereas before I’d feel bad AND beat myself up over feeling bad, now I let that out for a little while and then shrug it off, find something I’d rather feel, and choose that instead.