I found the four life positions as too static initially. The miniscript model put in a little perspective. To recall, a person’s life has a theme, which then plays out with sub plots, games, rackets. And the mini-script.

What is a mini-script?

In the context of Transactional Analysis (TA), a mini-script refers to a specific recurring pattern of behavior or interaction that an individual engages in. It’s a smaller, more focused version of the broader life script that encompasses a person’s overall life patterns and decisions.

Mini-scripts can be thought of as repetitive scripts that individuals enact in their daily lives, often in response to specific triggers or situations. These mini-scripts are shaped by a person’s deeper beliefs and early life experiences, much like the larger life script. However, they are narrower in scope and may apply to particular situations, relationships, or contexts.

For example, someone may have a mini-script that involves withdrawing and becoming passive-aggressive whenever their partner criticizes them. This mini-script might stem from childhood experiences or early relationships where they learned to respond this way to criticism.

Understanding these mini-scripts is important because it allows individuals to become aware of their recurring patterns and make conscious choices to change them if they are no longer serving their well-being. By recognizing and modifying these mini-scripts, individuals can improve their communication, relationships, and overall life satisfaction.

What insight did I get out of this? Most people go through life with the position “I am Not OK, You’re OK“. To feel OK, most will adopt a conditional OK, e.g., “I am OK if I work hard, hurry up, please people, am strong, or am perfect.” Each one of those conditionals is called a driver. They act as counter-injunctions to injunctions that we internalized from seeing and hearing our parents when we were little children. Some of these injunctions include:

1. Don’t exist. “These kids drive me crazy.”
2. Don’t be yourself. Your parents preferred a boy rather than a girl, or vice versa.
3. Don’t be a child. Be a big brother and take care of your younger siblings.
4. Don’t grow up. This is sometimes manifested as the Peter Pan Syndrome: permanent immaturity.
5. Don’t be close. “You’re too old for that now.”
6. Don’t belong. “Stay away from your poor classmates.”
7. Don’t be important. “Don’t stand out.”
8. Don’t be healthy. Some children only received attention when they were sick.
9. Don’t succeed. “There’s no point in trying; the system’s rigged.”
10. Don’t think. “Just do as I say.”
11. Don’t feel. “Boys don’t cry.”
12. Don’t have needs. “Your younger siblings first.”

We take that first driver, say “I am OK if I work hard“, and reword it as “If I work hard then I can be myself” to better show the pairing between injunction (all different ways of saying “You’re not OK“) and the counter-injunction.

The problem with a conditional OK, however, is that, well, I will not always be able to work hard. Or having worked hard I will not always win. With no counter-injunction I go back to feeling that I have no right to be myself; this part of the mini-script is called the dropper. My confidence evaporates with my self esteem.

Conditional OK ness is itself a script, a life them. This is one way people set themselves up for failure. Not only might our friend go back to feeling that he has no right to be himself, he might then shift to blaming other people (I’m actually OK, but everyone else is mean!), and then later end up in despair (Everyone is a loser!). Thus a mini-script plays out in this typical fashion: driver –> dropper –> blame –> despair. Each of these acts in the mini-script comes with typical racket feelings, or fake feelings, the ones we show if we are not allowed to express the genuine feelings.

The solution out of this unstable life position is to feel oneself unconditionally OK. Coming from a position of Not OK, such a shift in the life position is called a redecision: I do NOT need to be in control to feel I am OK. I do NOT need to be the best, to be applauded, to get published, to get all of those kicks.

Where does that unconditional OK ness come from? The fact that I am alive proves that I can solve problems in the here and now. Whatever failures I might have felt I committed, or whatever weaknesses and losses of strength that I now experience, I am here right now solving my f*****g problems the best way I know how!

It would be tempting to recommend people to get rid of their drivers and just be unconditionally OK. Apparently this is not as easy as it sounds. Drivers keep people afloat. If they are carelessly removed without building a support in good habits, the injunctions could step in and drown the person, sometimes with fatal consequences.

(Tagaytay, 230903)