life script tagged posts

July 13, 2021,  Family, Life, Love, Relationship, Script  No comments

For many reasons, somewhere along the way you may decide to live your life based on an alternate set of values, beliefs, attitudes, and rules. As I believe was my experience, you then have the capacity to create a new script. And in so doing, you can make new decisions about whom you might wish to have as a partner.

Rightly or wrongly, questioning your script generally only happens in the event of some crisis in your life, and then maybe only for the duration of the conflict—after which you simply go back to how it always was. Some people, though, come to question their scripts simply because they have grown in maturity. For many the experience results in a mid-life crisis, when they begin to ask, “Is this all there is?”

Of course, one must have a certain maturity to quest...

June 15, 2021,  Family, Life, Love, Relationship, Script  No comments

We learn about our sexuality—acting male or female—from the parent of our own sex, but we learn about our sensuality—being feminine or masculine—in our relationship with our parent of the opposite sex.

Let me add what is actually an inconsistency in this theory. That is that while my siblings, male and female, were exposed to the same qualities in our parents, what they decided for themselves regarding their roles as adults, and how they would be sexually with their own partners, may actually have been quite different from me. This is where genetics actually plays more than just a small part in forming who we become as adults.

As I’ve noted, your own personality will impact on how you actually turn out, but as a general rule, if you are a female you are more than likely ...

May 20, 2021,  Family, Life, Love, Relationship, Script, Sex  No comments

Let’s apply this notion to the concept of being a couple. Your script for life, which influences your values, beliefs, and attitudes (and consequently, what you think, feel, say, and do), also contains rules, or guidelines, about being a couple in a relationship.

Because your script (and therefore your rules for being a couple) was first given to you by your family, you will most likely grow up and live out their relationship rules accordingly.

The relationship rules in your script tell you how to communicate with your partner, how to express love to each other, and how to interact with each other sexually.

So, if your parents showed you that it was OK to put each other down, then you will have that in your scripting as well – either as the person who puts others down or as...

April 21, 2021,  Family, Fundamental Human Needs, Life, Love, Relationship, Script  No comments

Here’s an example from my own life story. My father grew up in a very large family during a difficult time in history. He was born in Europe just after the First World War and was the second youngest of eight children.

Needless to say, he would have had to make his presence known fairly loudly to have any of his needs met, which probably included having to speak very loudly to be heard over all the other people in his family.

I also know that my grandfather was a very successful businessman before the First World War, but that it was very difficult for him to continue to provide for his family afterward. I can only imagine how difficult and frustrating it must have been for my father’s parents at that time to raise their children while struggling with the aftermath of war.

March 19, 2021,  Counselling, Family, Fundamental Human Needs, Life, Love, Relationship, Script  No comments

So, if Dad got mad when something went wrong, you might get mad and respond in the same way he did. Or, maybe your mother got sad when something went wrong, and depending on your personality and your closeness to each of your parents, you might respond that way instead.

It could be worth noting here that your personality is already there at your birth. This phenomenon subsequently influences how you respond to events in your later life, and it also influences which parent, if any, you are most likely to imitate in your behaviors, thoughts, and feelings when confronted with a particular situation.

The way you choose to respond to circumstances could be the topic for a whole other book, but suffice it to say here that your personality, your gender, the environment you grew up in, ...

February 17, 2021,  Family, Life, Script  No comments

We also know the power of the subconscious mind, since every day we do so many things without even thinking. We shower, get dressed, brush our teeth, have breakfast, and get ourselves to work and home again without even giving it a second thought. We just trust our unconscious mind to take care of these things, and it does.

How Did I Get Here?

If you’re skeptical, let me ask you this question: have you ever driven your car or taken a walk and suddenly realized you didn’t remember how you got where you were?

Your subconscious mind got you there, and you can trust it. If you had come across a stop sign or something happened that needed your attention, your conscious mind would’ve taken control in an instant.

This ability is really very helpful: it means that you don’t ...

January 25, 2021,  Family, Life, Relationship, Script  No comments

Family and Cultural Scripts

When you were born into your family, you were presented with your script for life. The script is the programming you undergo that defines how your life will be lived out—it’s not much different from a computer program, really. It contains the set of instructions for how to be a girl or a boy, a son or a daughter, a woman or a man, a wife or a husband, a parent, or even a member of your family, workplace, or your community. The set of instructions contains the values, beliefs, and attitudes that will flavor everything you think, say, and do in your life until you replace it.

Your script’s values, beliefs, and attitudes symbolize your fundamental needs: your physical, safety, feeling, love and belonging, and spiritual needs, as described earlier.

September 26, 2019,  Counselling, Family, Games People Play, Life, Script  No comments

Berne, like many others studying human behaviour at the time, suggests that a childlike stance is more likely to occur in a person’s third or fourth decade of life, after the skills to ensure survival have been fully developed.

By then, you have learned from experience that your subconscious mind will take care of many operations: practicing social niceties are now a matter of habit and you know you’re socially safe. You can now enjoy special moments in life without inhibition or fear.

To maintain the autonomous state, however, requires constant vigilance as you move away from the programmed script that influenced your past behaviour patterns.

If we lived in Utopia, we wouldn’t have to learn social survival skills, but we don’t...

May 1, 2018,  Counselling, Games People Play, Life, Love, Relationship, Script  No comments

Many years ago, people believed that a healthy relationship looked like this: two complementary halves making a whole. Now we understand that a relationship that looks like this is far from complementary and where generally one person in the couple dominates the other.

People need first to be whole within themselves in order to be happy with another person.

If we look at this issue from a Transactional Analysis perspective, according to that theory, we all have a mixture of personalities; we don’t just have one way of being. Instead, in different places with different people, we can actually relate quite differently as well. Berne described these different personality styles as “ego states...

February 26, 2018,  Family, Fundamental Human Needs, Life, Love, Relationship, Script  No comments

Please speak my language

In general, if you aren’t showed love the exact way you imagined love looks, it doesn’t at all mean that you aren’t loved. It has nothing to do with lack of love, but with the fact that we all of us have been scripted not only to value ourselves and others in particular ways, but also in the way we prefer to be shown love. We tend to create a picture of how we see love and this turns into the language of love that we speak with our partner.

Although you experience the expression of love from another in many ways they broadly group together according to the five senses. In the early stage of falling in love our senses become extra sensitive when we’re close to someone...