Are you guilty of script writing? (We all are to a certain extent, but some moreso in some areas than others).
The vast majority of us develop the habit of script writing our life – we will have magical childhoods, we will experience fun and abandon in our teens and young adulthood with only mild consequences, will may have minor heartbreaks but that will only lead us to an ultimate love where we find deep fulfilment, respect and sexual satisfaction. We will have children that reflect the best of ourselves and they will grow into well-rounded adults. We will live out our days in comfortable finances, surrounded by friends and family and then die, quickly and comfortably surrounded by those we love.
What we don’t script write is the disasters and pain that inevitably come for all of us. We see is something that has gone ‘wrong’ that interrupts our scripts, rather than the script itself.
And every day we script write on a smaller scale – the perfect Christmas Day, a wonderful date night, a great birthday, a fun-filled weekend with the kids, and so on.
So when you meet someone you really like and fancy, you script write what should be because you like them so much – they will be attentive and respectful, they are a good person and will develop deep feelings for you, your interactions will be romantic and meaningful and lustful and, above all, your feelings will be mutual. And you do this scripting because you’re looking for all of that in the bigger script of your life – which may or may not have gone to plan and that you may be trying to correct, because in some ways it may have gone ‘wrong’.
It’s all subconscious of course, so extremely difficult to counteract. But there is no script. The only lovely things you see in your future are projected by you and don’t really exist – they may happen by chance or because they are influenced by you.
It can be helpful to consciously recognise when you might be doing the above. When you say you think about them 24/7, what are you thinking about? Are you daydreaming of ideal interactions together, and then looking forward to them happening? (And then inevitably disappointed when they don’t happen?). Ask yourself in the moment whether you are script writing and casting this man, whoever he is, in that role (but you don’t really know him, so he can’t actually fulfil that role). Then try to actively recognise that the only thing that really exists and has really happened is the now and the past. If he isn’t fulfilling what you think he should be NOW, then whoever you have projected doesn’t exist.
Because you like him so much and have written this script, you will be tempted to give them and yourself do overs, or multiple takes, to get it right, to fulfil your script.
If you do this, you are not really influencing your ideal script to come to pass, you are only influencing yourself to repeatedly accept ‘unscripted’ behaviour and teaching him that you will continue accepting it.