But has anyone ever bothered to ask the dragon why it's there at all? I mean, there must be better dragon-y things to do than to stay put guarding a tower with a princess inside. Has anyone ever considered that the dragon doesn't see itself as the princess's monster, but rather as her protector? What I'm saying is not original. In fact, credit goes to Hazel Gale and her work on surpassing self-sabotaging behaviours. I'll try not to repeat her content, but you can find her here.
If we take fairy tales as metaphors for our lives, then we must think about our dragons as more than an evil obstacle to be overcome. Our dragons (our limiting self-beliefs and the behaviours that spur from them) are there for a reason. At some point in our lives our brain decided we needed a dragon to protect us from something and voila! the dragon was born. Now, more often than not the premise itself is faulty; either our brain got it wrong from the beginning and just ran with it based on the wrong assumption, or those things the dragon was born to protect us from are no longer there. But the dragon is. You can't erase your dragon. Once it's born it's there for life. It's part of who you are.
So you can't kill the dragon, you can't exactly pretend it's not there, you can't tell it that the reason for its existence is gone so it can just bugger off. What are you supposed to do then?
The answer is you have to tame it. Slowly and patiently. I believe that once a dragon stops being useful, the only way to move forward with your life is to dedicate yourself to taming it. After all the dragon is part of you. It's not for me to say how exactly you do that. Personally, I find Hazel's approach to be the one that's brought me the most results and that's been kinder to me (and my dragon).
My dragon exists because of a primal fear that if people see me for who I am, flaws and all, that they will leave me. This wasn't too bad when I lived on my own, but living with someone means there's only so much you can hide your pre-caffeine, morning breath, no make-up self. It means that person will see you when you're vulnerable, sleepy, hangry, when you can't be bothered to do the dishes. Yikes! And if that person is not related to you by blood, then there's nothing permanent tying them to you, so they can leave. They will see you with your unshaven legs, unholy obsession with having the toilet paper facing a certain way or your bad habit of not checking recipe ingredients before you do the weekly shopping and they will leave you. My dragon believes this and anything to the contrary acts as spears trying to pierce its hide. My mission in life isn't to say what its beliefs are stupid and to get over them, but rather to show it how our reality has changed since its birth. For ages those two statements felt the same, but actually the not-so-subtle subtleties make them worlds apart. The former means fighting its belief system, the former means patiently changing it. The first will offer resistance, the second will foster acceptance.
Because here's the thing I learned from Hazel: you can't fight your dragon and win, because the dragon is part of you. If the dragon loses, you lose. So stop fighting it. Become a mother of dragons instead (sorry, Game of Thrones fans, I couldn't resist!) Teach your dragon that you'll be alright without its protection. That life is different now, the world isn't as threatening and bleak as it see it still. That there is joy. That you are a badass with your own set of wings and tough hide. Set your dragon free. Set yourself free.
