Escape the Grip of Life s Drama The Power of TED* (*The Empowerment Dynamic) 10 th Anniversary Edition By David Emerald This book changes lives. That message has been communicated countless times over the past decade through emails, during workshops, at speaking events, in on-line book reviews, and in casual encounters when people learn that I am the author of The Power of TED* (*The Empowerment Dynamic). And countless times I have been left almost speechless. I will share the reason why in a minute. From all reports, TED* has impacted marriages, improved relationships between parents and children, informed pre-marital counseling, and healed multigenerational family drama. It s been used in middle school and high school curricula, in college social work and psychology classes, in addiction treatment programs and groups, in diabetes education and other chronic health challenge situations, in community poverty outreach and training programs, and in church youth and book study groups. It s been beneficial for the community of Rwandan immigrants who fled to the United States after their country s 1994 genocide and their work of reconciliation between Hutus and Tutsis. TED* has been widely deployed in leadership academies, by leadership teams in organizations, and has become the cornerstone of company cultures. And these are only examples that have been brought to our attention. There are others we do not know of. Here s one illustration. A gentleman who looked to be in his early 40 s stopped by our book table at a recent conference. I have been looking forward to meeting and thanking you for writing this book it saved my marriage, he said. He proceeded to tell me a story of sitting in a hotel room in his home town, estranged from his wife. He had a copy of my book that a friend had given him, recommending he read it that night. He laid down on the bed and didn t get up until he was done reading The Power of TED*. The next day he called his wife, apologized for his part in the drama of their marriage, and said he wanted to create a new relationship. I didn t know what to say or do, so I did and said what I have so many times: I stood, shook his hand, put my hand on my heart and said, Thank you, I am so grateful that TED* has touched your life. Beyond that, I am nearly speechless in such encounters because I often don t feel worthy of the praise simply because, like everyone else, on a daily basis I too am seeking to live the principles and practices contained in this story. 1
The Power of TED* is self-leadership fable about how to escape life s drama and get control of your life. In the story, David, the main character, talk with Ted and Sophia as they walk along the shore where surf meets sand and where the human experience meets our spiritual essence. You see, the ways of thinking, relating, and taking action contained in this book changed my life as well and continue to. For me the old adage is true: we teach what we most need to learn. The Story Behind the Story I would like to share a little of the genesis of what eventually became The Power of TED*. At a critical time in my life, I faced all of the realities that the character David faces in the story. While working with a psychotherapist (a healthy choice when facing such challenges in life), I learned about the Karpman Drama Triangle and its roles of Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer. In the TED* work, we call the interplay of these three roles the Dreaded Drama Triangle (DDT) because these roles can become very toxic, like a poison. The titles are pretty common-sense, but just to review---the Victim is the person who is always complaining and suffering, feeling they are powerless over life. In short, life happens to them. The Persecutor is the person (or situation) who is traumatizing the Victim. They are scared to death of becoming a Victim so the Persecutor uses control and domination to take charge. The Rescuer is the one who always jumps in to be helpful by intervening when not asked. They want to be the hero and fix the suffering. By being pleasing and accommodating the Rescuer has a zillion suggestions for both the Victim and the Persecutor about how to solve their problems. Families, friends, co-workers, and just about everyone, can get trapped in that DDT and so entangled that they end up switching roles the Victim pushes back and becomes the Persecutor, the Rescuer becomes the Victim when their good suggestions are not followed and on and on. Thus The Dreaded Drama Triangle becomes a never-ending toxic brew of relationship drama! As I understood how this drama was playing out in my own life, one fateful morning, as I was engaged in my morning quiet time ritual a moment of surrender surfaced and silently I said to the God of my understanding, I am ready to relinquish my Victim stance in the world, but I need to know what is the opposite of Victim? Immediately the word Creator came into my awareness. While I did not actually hear a voice, I can understand how some could say they do. My eyes flew open and I drew a deep breath. It was an utterly unexpected personal epiphany. 2
That morning began the journey that eventually led to TED*. I realized that learning to be a Challenger is a positive antidote to the Persecutor. The Challenger builds-up and encourages others, rather than tears others down or use control and domination. The positive alternative to the Rescuer is learning to Coach and develop others, rather than viewing others as a problem to fix. Together the three empowering roles of Creator, Challenger and Coach make up TED*---The Empowerment Dynamic. Looking back, many seemingly miraculous meetings and events took place too many to detail here. I can attest to the famous observation made by W. H. Murray (The Scottish Himalayan Expedition [1951]): The moment one definitely commits oneself, the Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision which no one could have dreamed would have come their way. Exploring and Learning As I committed myself to learn more about my own relationship drama, and step into the TED* roles in my own life and with others, I began to ask the question: How does our drama begin in the first place? The simple, yet complex, explanation is that all of us as human beings learn and develop strategies to get what we want as children. As infants and toddlers we are little beings looking up at giant and powerful adults. We all used our innate survival instincts to secure food, sleep, warmth, love and safety. No one can escape the small-child experience of figuring out how to survive and deal with what the child sees as scary experiences. The creative genius of the young, underdeveloped mind adapts in amazing ways. Karen Horney, the highly regarded psychologist who studied human nature, identified in the 1940 s three different strategies that children can use to respond to fears and begin to make their way in the world. They are: (1) Moving toward people to please, accommodate and be helpful. From a child s perspective, if I please others, they will love and care for me. (2) Moving away from others to avoid, withdraw, observe and wait. This is based upon the child s belief that if they isolate and stay above the fray they will be safe. (3) Moving against others by being aggressive. Here the child develops the idea that, if they use control and domination, they will manage their environment to get what they want. 3
When Dr. Karpman developed the Karpman Drama Triangle in the late 1960 s, his three drama roles of Victim, Rescuer, and Persecutor lined-up with Karen Horney s reactive behavior strategies. The Rescuer tends to move toward; a Victim to move away; and a Persecutor to move against. Karpman s description of the Drama Triangle became a useful tool for psychologists, social workers and counselors. In my research I found many descriptions, but the only advice I seemed to be able to find was, Now that you know about the Drama Triangle roles, don t engage in them. They are really toxic. Nowhere did I hear about a positive alternative to these life challenges. The discovery of reoccurring DDT roles has meaning only if there is a possibility of liberating ourselves from the repeating drama and that is where TED* makes its contribution. People are relieved to learn about the DDT roles but want an escape from the grip that drama has on their life. Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the international best seller, Eat, Pray, Love and, more recently, Big Magic, wrote in a Facebook post about the amazing epiphanies she had when learning about the drama triangle. She wrote:. it's important to see how these destructive patterns evolve, and to try to be super honest about how we play into all the drama. That's why the triangle image is so useful, because it's so simple. She went on to write: A guy named David Emerald, has some really smart and helpful information about breaking these life-destroying behaviors, and stepping into a stronger, saner, and healthier ways of behaving. She then provided a link to the TED* website (www.powerofted.com). Fiction or Non-Fiction and 10 Years After Given my more than three decades of community and organizational communication, leadership and team development, it would have been easy to write a more traditional, nonfiction leadership book. Instead, the spirit of TED* intervened. The Call was to write a fable about Self Leadership. For this is what I have come to learn, a lesson I am reminded of almost daily: the way we lead our own lives has everything to do with the quality of leadership we bring to our most important relationships, our families, our organizations, our communities, and now, more than ever our world. I am honored that Dr. Lisa Lahey, of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and co-author of several important books, including Immunity to Change, enthusiastically agreed to write the Foreword to the new 10 th Anniversary book. In it she writes: 4
Help is here, in this gem of a book. In this short, fast-paced and wisdom-packed parable, Emerald takes us by the hand and lovingly shows us how our psychological default is to operate unconsciously from a state of fear and to take on different dramabased roles as a result. He helps us to see how living out of fear not only keeps us small but creates a dynamic in which we keep others small as well. So read this book. Let Emerald take you by the hand. Remind yourself that he has walked this very path (as have I). If we could develop our capacity to plan and live our lives fully, we would feel less like victims, helpless to solve the problems other people make for us. We would no longer feel so exhausted from fighting, feeling badly about ourselves for not fighting back, or for believing that we are not good enough. We would have energy to create more of the life we want. As I write, our human family seems to be careening toward the ultimate choice point: will we continue the downward spiral of fear, reactivity, and drama or stop, pause, and choose to upgrade the way we relate with one another? Will we choose to be Victims of life s challenges or Creators capable of honoring and respecting our essential unity with all its splendid diversity? It starts with me and you and how we lead our own lives. My prayer is that TED* touches and enriches your own life so that, in turn, we can touch the lives of others as Co-Creators. 5