People love stories. We flock to the cinema to experience vicarious thrills, we seek the escape a novel can provide, and we find ourselves glued to the television, mesmerized by scripted drama or unscripted “reality.” We are fascinated by the dramatic journeys portrayed. Too often, however, we fail to take the same avid interest in the story narrated by the party with whom we are in conflict.
True, the typical opponent with whom we wrestle has not taken the time to fine-tune and polish their “script.” They have not worked out the dramatic beats in their story so as to provide us with an engaging drama. And most times we had better not refer to their account as a “story” or we risk suffering their anger and scorn for inadvertently implying their personal narrative contains even a hint of fiction. Their words, their feelings, their concerns are a serious matter. Not something made up for our entertainment or amusement.
Yet when we take a second look we discover we all participate in a personal drama. We play the role of a hero on a mythic journey. Dramatic storytelling appeals to us because it faithfully mirrors the way we experience life. Often without realizing it we have set out on a journey—we are on a quest to satisfy a goal, to obtain riches, or to discover a magic elixir. And on our journey we face villains who oppose our efforts.
We struggle (sometimes heroically) in our search for ways to overcome or circumvent the villains who counter our intentions or we seek creative solutions and new paths that will take us to our journey’s end. We constantly redraft our script insuring our continued forward motion in spite of all odds.
When we are asked, we willingly share our narrative. We chronicle our triumphs and our misadventures, we recount victories garnered and defeats suffered when villains blocked our path and countered our ability to be, do, or have what we needed or wanted. Our narratives speak to our striving and our sacrifice, they reveal the heroic effort we have expended in our reach for a worthy goal and they explain failures our opponents brought upon us.
Most of all we want to talk about the villains, the antagonists, who trample our dreams and engineer our suffering. With little coaxing we recite the saga of a protagonist (the character we play) who has been injured by antagonists and beleaguered by fools who fail to understand the importance of the quest.
Mediators, typically aware of the important role these narratives play, launch the reconciliation process with a simple question: “What happened?” They invite the party to provide a narrative account of events that led to the dispute.
Frequently the parties have not spent adequate time fleshing out the story of “what happened;” therefore the mediator facilitates an exploration of their narratives and assists them in shaping a cogent account that sheds light on how they view the events—the dramatic “beats” of the story—that led to conflict. (See chapter two in Taming the Wolf for a discussion of how to prepare your narrative account.)
In most disputes, however, we do not want to wait until conflict has escalated to the stage where a mediator must be summoned. Instead, we seek to defuse the situation on our own. One approach we may use is to entertain the opposing party’s story with the same interest we ordinarily give to carefully scripted and staged dramatic presentations. To perform this task we first must be willing and able to listen—which is no easy task when our opposition casts us in the role of a villain in their story. Nonetheless, if we can “tame” our emotions sufficiently, we can pull up a chair and listen.
If we are familiar with the “story elements” at work in a drama we may even assume the role of an ad hoc “script consultant” and, using questions to guide the opposing party as they simultaneously script and relate their narrative, we can explore what it was they set out to be, do, or have. We can learn to admire the hero in their tale and genuinely seek to understand the quest they have undertaken. If we possess the gift of being present with compassionate stillness, we may even explore how they see the villain in the piece—the character they have scripted for us to play.
Listening and showing genuine interest in our opponent’s story can move the process a considerable distance toward reconciliation. At times the other party, seeing our interest, will allow us to co-author the next act in the play. If we maintain respectful communication, they will eventually enlist our collaboration in writing “how this story turns out.”
When we understand the story elements that go into crafting a drama, we automatically become more interested in life going on around us—we discover a world rich with drama we had previously overlooked. As we become skilled in recognizing and even admiring the hero’s journey on which others have embarked we become more compassionate toward them. We may even applaud and encourage them, when previously we viewed them as actors loitering on the stage where we performed our life story.
While we do not always possess the self-control needed to stand back and view life as a Shakespearian drama playing out on stage, if we gain the ability to respect the myths and stories that inform our own performance, we may also come to respect the dramas performed by other actors on a hero’s journey.
For more on the role of the dramatic arts and the mythic journey in our lives see: The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler and Your Mythic Journey by Sam Keen and Anne Valley-Fox. Other more technical works include Story by Robert McKee and Shakespeare’s Game by William Gibson as well as Lajos Egri’s The Art of Dramatic Writing.
