The last part of the ECHO process is determining who the other players were in this drama.  We are always the star of our own movie, but who were the supporting actors and actresses, and how did they affect the plot of the movie. Were they heroes or villains?  And what was the effect of their actions and dialogue on your character’s self-evaluation and actions?

So when you are listening to the sharer, list:

O – Others

• Who are the other key characters in the narrative?  Were they parents, siblings or other relatives? Were they authority figures or peers?  Who was a positive influence and who was negative?
• What is their significance in the participant’s life?  How high on the billing would their name be as the credits role on the movie screen?  Were they a cameo or a recurring role?  Or would they be a regular cast member on this series?
• What role was the other person expected to play in the situation?  Were they expected to be a friend, but turned out to be an enemy?  Should they have been a protector, but they turned out to be a perpetrator?  Were their twists and turns in the plot, or was it just a story of a cycle repeated over and over again?
• What were the actual characteristics of this person at the time of the event?  Were they friendly and helpful? Were they damaging and critical? Were they pretty and intelligent, or ugly and stupid?

Just because the speaker sees these people in these ways doesn’t mean that they actually were that way.  As I look back at some of the bullies or jerks, I realize from an adult perspective that they were just stupid, bored and acting out. They probably had their own set of problems in life, like trying to keep up with the people around them and never lose face.

Some were like sheep led to the slaughter, just blindly followed what the ring leaders did because they didn’t have the backbone to stand up and say that’s wrong.  They weren’t evil, they were weak and scared that they might end up in my shoes if they said anything, and suddenly find themselves on the receiving end of what their friends were dishing out.

But how the speaker sees them will affect how they see the event and the movie.  Perhaps when you mirror back the ages of the children, or statements about what was going on in the lives of these characters, they will see the story more in 3D, with not such flat 2 dimensional characters.  When we realize that all of the characters have some level of brokenness, and that many have badly developed coping mechanisms, we realize that what they were doing was more about themselves than about us, and we just figured since it was happening to us, it must be about us.  Honestly, we were probably so insignificant to the bullies, we were momentary blips on their radars when we were around.  But at the moment, that’s now how it felt.

RESET ASSIGNMENT:

1. Who did you share the marquee with in your story?  Who were the major players, and what were their roles?  How did their story line affect yours?
2. When you look back, is there a possibility that, from your younger eyes, the story may not have been exactly as you remember it, and the other characters maybe not quite as black and white as you remembered?