Rewriting Life Scripts

Fr. Dale Matson

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2, NASB).

“Life Scripts” is a concept from Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis. A life script is a life plan developed by a child based partly on feedback from the child’s parents. The script is usually completed by the time the child is about seven years old. The script then becomes a template that is unconsciously imposed on and distorts the reality in which he is immersed.

For example, if the child is repeatedly told by his parents that he is a loser and will never amount to anything, it can become an identity that would find ways to steal defeat from the jaws of victory. He could later be the person who would enter a job interview and in so many ways, tell the interviewers not to hire him. He really knew the outcome because he helped make it happen.

Unlike the schizophrenic who struggles to establish an identity, these people establish a negative identity. They are the reverse of the Peter Principle because they allow a negative self-concept to defeat their natural giftedness. This scenario is actually more common than the Peter Principle. They do not become who they could be because frankly, they feel they don’t deserve success. It would not fit the unconscious template. They are like the famous Marx Brothers line, “I would not belong to any country club that would have me as a member.”

Again, they are like the tailor joke. Because the tailor didn’t want to fit the suit, he convinced the customer to contort himself to fit the suit. When the customer left the store, wearing his new suit, people on the street commented sadly that he looked so crippled but…..his suit fit well.

I have a good friend who as a child overheard his father say to his mother, “I wish the bastard had never been born. He will never amount to anything.” How’s that for part of a life script? He is only happy now as an actor in plays and lost a year of work to depression. Theater only provides vicarious scripts, not real ones.

So many life scripts are self-destructive. So many scripts short circuit careers and destroy opportunities. So many scripts destroy relationships. How many children have internalized the fears, anxieties or limited expectations of their parents? How many scripts are simply deaths by installment scripts?

If people could only understand that God Himself died to free them from these scripts. If they could only understand the love He has for them and the grace He wants to bestow upon them. If they only knew themselves like they are known by Him. If those who see themselves forever stuck in the trajectory of a descending rut could only understand that they are free to change. They are free to live a new life through Christ Jesus.

“I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”(Philippians 4:13, NASB) Amen.