What is that one thing in your life that you cannot seem to resolve? Is it the feeling you will never be good enough? Maybe you are resisting secret desires for power or violence. You might feel a deep stubborn resentment toward people who have wronged you. Or you feel a constant anxiety or fear about life. You might struggle with an addiction, a disorder, an illness, a failure, a loss, a darkness that seems to overwhelm your very existence. Whatever it is, and we all have one, I call it your inner dragon. The undefeated demon of your life. If you could overcome it, defeat this dragon, you might find immeasurable peace and joy.
I believe that our inner dragon is not meant to be defeated. In other words it CANNOT be defeated. It is a part of us. We kill the dragon, we kill ourselves, in a sense. The goal then is to befriend this inner dragon. To discover its power and harness it for some usefulness in our life. Rather than slay your dragon, tame your dragon.
So how is that done? My own experience dealing with my inner dragon is all I have to offer in the way of guidance.
My inner dragon is currently showing up as a body image issue, including excess weight. But that is just the mere surface. Underneath the weight and the feelings of ugliness is a sleeping monster. The voice of my dragon sounds something like this: “No one will ever truly see you for who you are.” I put on weight as a means of becoming visible. But that visibility and attention was almost always negative. I did not feel like a fat person on the inside but that is what others saw. It reinforced this belief that people couldn’t see me for who I truly was. I was deeply afraid of being thin, and of being okay in my own skin. It felt like I would shrink into oblivion. That I would disappear. Better to be seen in a costume than not at all. But it is a vicious cycle that always ends with me feeling ugly and unseen.
So how do I tame this dragon that seems intent on punishing me forever?
The first thing I did was to look inward, to turn the voice of accusation “no one will ever truly see you for who you are,” into a personal message to me. “You do not see yourself as you truly are.” It was not a cruel dictum of fate but an urgent message from a powerful voice within. If others cannot see me for who I am, perhaps I do not see me for who I am. This dragon, this painful belief is turned on its head and now acts as a guide and a source of direction. I look at myself with curiosity. What is it that I have yet to learn and understand about myself? Who am I? What part of me needs to be seen by me?
As soon as I began hearing the truth of my inner dragon’s voice, it calmed down and lay quietly at my feet. When I need it, I can call on it for perspective. It can push me to look deeper, to see clearer and to honor the truth of my experience. But sometimes I find myself fighting my dragon again. I have to remind myself that it is my friend and not my enemy. Then I can lay down my sword, to listen more carefully and see the gift in what I once considered my enemy.
There is a great deal more to say on this topic but this is the general idea behind taming your dragon rather than defeating it.
