How is our Life Script Formed?

In my previous post (3, April, 2020) I have discussed about Life Scripts. As per Transactional Analysis, a life script is a plan you made for your life, in all probability, by the age of six and obviously it was made without maturity and awareness.

How does a Child Form the Script?

The Script is formed based on the experiences that the child has with his parents or caretakers in his childhood. Based on the experiences and the way the child has been treated, the child makes certain decisions about his life.

Some of these decisions can be:

• I will end up being a loser
• I will be a loner (a lonely person) all my life
• I will live a life without love 
• I will work hard all my life (I will never enjoy life)
• I will go crazy (i.e. mad)
• I will be successful whatever the struggles 

The Parent's Role in Forming the Script

The parents provide the experiences for forming the script. The child comes to certain conclusions about itself based on the interactions with its parents.

For example, if the parent rejects the child repeatedly when the child attempts to approach the parent for a hug or consolation, the child will form a belief, "I am not worthy of love" or I am worth nothing." Based on these experiences and similar experiences in his life, the child builds a 'Loveless Life Script' or  a 'Loser's Life Script'.

The Role of  Parental Commands in the Formation of Script

In the course of bringing up the child, the parent (i.e. both parents) unknowingly gives certain commands or directives to the child. These commands have the power of a curse or boon on the child. These commands are powerful  for the child because the parent is like a Fairy God or Goddess or all-too powerful Witch. These commands can be compared to the curses given by our Gods and Goddesses or Sages who were inconvenienced or irritated. It is like a curse given by Goddess Bhoodevi (Goddess of Earth) to king Karna in  Mahabharat ( a Mythological Epic in India).



Some of the commands can be:

• Kill Yourself 
• Be a Fool or Dud
• Go Crazy (mad)
• Don't be Happy in Life
• Don't be Successful (You will never be Successful)
• Work Hard all your life
• Become a Drug Addict
• Don't Be Close to People (Never have Close Relationships)

In the course of time, the child collects evidence to reinforce his Script Beliefs in his interactions with others. Whenever someone does something like its parents did, it will strengthen its beliefs and reinforce it script.

Thus, based on the experiences and the commands given by the parent, the child builds a script and these beliefs and the decisions of the child get reinforced with later experiences as the child is inclined to collect evidence which supports his script beliefs and reject those experiences that do not match its script beliefs.  Ultimately, one lives one's a pre-determined life and meets one's pre-destined end or death as decided in the script.

Can we Break the Script and Rewrite it?

Yes. our Script can be broken and rewritten to live a life of autonomy. Transactional Analysis offers the tools and techniques to break one's script and live a script-free life. Eric Berne, the originator of Transactional Analysis came up with a tool called Script Analysis. Using Script Analysis, one can become aware of one's script and take action to break the script and live a script-free life.

To learn about Script Analysis and Transactional Analysis Therapy, the readers can approach the author of this blog @: karunakararaobotcha@gmail.com.    

We Write our Life Scripts by the Age of Six...Really?

Our Life Scripts

A Movie Script

Have you ever seen a movie? Does a movie run on a pre-decided script or the plot changes while the movie is being played out?

We all know that the plot of a movie runs according to a script written before.  

What if I tell you that each one of our lives is like a movie and the script of this movie was written by us by the time we were six years of age? The most important thing about it is that you are author of your script. This is true because that is what most schools of psychology vow to.

The Script in Real Life

In concrete terms, it means that our personality and behavior patterns are formed right when we were children, in all probability, even before we were six years of age. It practically means that we run our adult lives based on the decisions and beliefs we formed in our childhood.

This is shocking to believe, but this is true in real life. Let me give you some real-life examples:

• Ravi is a 30 year-old software engineer in a reputed company. However, people mistreat and insult him every time. If we ask him why he allows people to treat him that way, he says it's OK and the underlying belief is that he is not important when it comes to others. So he bears all the insult and mistreatment because it was written in his script that he will bear all mistreatment.   
• Rajni is a  student studying 10th standard. She hardly studies and fails in most of the subjects. If you ask her why she does not study, she says she will fail anyway in the exam, so why study? The underlying belief is that she is destined to be a loser, anyway.  This happens so often because she has written a script of a loser for herself.  

The people above are acting and behaving from a belief and behavior pattern that they developed when they were young.

Can we Change our Scripts?

The answer is yes. The fortunate thing about the whole process is that it happened without awareness when we were young and we can change that with awareness.

Transactional Analysis (TA)

TA (Transactional Analysis) is a psychotherapy model which predominantly subscribes to the concept of life scripts. TA says that as children, we write a script for our lives and we run the rest our lives according to the script. It says, we write the script to the extent of:

• Whether we will be winners or losers,
• Whether we will get love in life or not,
• The kind of job we will do, 
• The kind of person we will marry, 
• The kind of feelings we prefer, and 
• Even how we will die.  

How to Break our Script?

We can break our script by becoming aware of our own decisions and beliefs which are the underlying cause of our script and then understanding the circumstances under which we made those decisions about our life.

TA therapy provides the tools and techniques to break our script and write a new script for our lives so that we can live life to its fullest potential.

In the upcoming posts, we will discuss how a script is formed and how to break it.