Once Upon a Time there was a Dragon Living in Your Head

Now every one has heard the familiar story about a princess that is imprisoned in a cave by some monstrous fire breathing dragon. Now the Dragon sits guard over her as its body is coiled around and on top of huge pile of gold and treasure. So what does this have to do with anything, even though it is a famous scenario that appears all around the world from Greek mythology to the Hobbit. I know there is no Princess in the Hobbit, but that is besides the point. The point is, who is the hero who saves her.

In fact what makes her so damn special that you might want to actually save some aquatic water tart any how? Well the hero is yourself and that amphibian is the part of your brain you lopped off years ago!.Well not figuratively, or is that not literally, any how it is the instincts you were born with to think for your self. Now Nietzsche spoke about a great dragon covered in a billion scales, all blazoned with the words "Thou Shalt". Transactional Psychology describes this with these phrases;.

"Don't be (don't exist), Don't be who you are, Don't be a child, Don't grow up, Don't make it in your life, Don't do anything!, Don't be important, Don't belong, Don't be close, Don't be well (don't be sane!), Don't think, Don't feel.".In addition there is the so-called episcript,."You should (or deserve to) have this happen in your life, so it doesn't have to happen to me.".

So you could tell yourself to;."Be perfect! Please (me/others)! Try Hard! Be Strong! Hurry Up!".The scales of the dragon say this and Billions of other thing in your ear. Do you stop in mid action to think what some one else would do in this situation? Some of us hear the voice of our mother, father, mate, or boss in our ear. Maybe it is the scorn from your peers you fear? But where is your voice in this decision? Stuck in the cave.So What is the cave.

The cave is subconscious content that you repress out of fear of survival. So what does that mean? It means that everything you disliked happening to you emotionally as a child was ignored and swept under the rug into the cave. Either it was the bully in the sand box, the scorn of your mother, or the fear of your father; at one time you formed a lump in your throat that just did not make it into words of resistance. Which in turn you just swallowed back into the pit of your stomach.

Some children had it worse than you, they were faced with the question if they run away they might be beaten worse. So they decide to stay in the cave and hide in the corners and try not to be seen by the dragon. Even after that abusive dragon is dead they still hide in the cave. For they allowed a multitude of others to take its place. For at any time, if that abused child was to speak up or stand up for what it knows to be right, fair, and descent, there is a real fear of death.

These children get stuck in conversations that are either like a parent talking down to a child or child talking up to a parent. Very rarely do the have the ability to talk to another as equals. Much less themselves.Now the princess is that part of you that never grew up. It is your inner child which is usually feminine, for it deals with the undeveloped or misdeveloped emotional side of your thinking.

For these people, everything is a flight or fight response. Granted in the workplace these people can apply logic to achieve the greatest accomplishments of the modern world. Some might rival Einstein himself. But like Einstein, they can only handle the extreme joys and melancholy of life. From tedium to boredom with quick rushes of ecstasy and equal dips into sorrow.

They believe there is nothing besides the extremes. Not Bipolar which can be long bouts of depression lasting weeks to be followed by the same amount of time in mania. No these people are more borderline with there moods altering at different times in one day. For them it is easier to hide their fluctuation. The princess is the hope of something different. It was the part of you that knew what truth and justice is.

It is also the part that hurt when those words were not known by your parents. Survival taught that side of your brain to be silent.The side that would say "No!" to you being harmed, talked over, ignored, or directed. It is your genuine life that you hid away so it would not have to feel, or think, or to be. For it was easier to be that little league star for your father, that lawyer for your mother, or that provider for your wife.

Your opinions, comfort, joy, and thoughts will be lost, by your own choice. For anything different will bring on fear of death by the dragon. For you only have to be whipped with the belt buckle down or told something a million times what you think before you believe in no other way.

So you are stuck in the cave, while your clone goes about in life.The treasure and gold is all that child learned to give up. The instincts to know truth and justice. The right to be. The right to be a child.

To strive and grow your opinion. But most important to feel your own heart. The treasure is your self respect. It is the belief in your talents that will make your gold to survive. It is your bliss which you will learn to follow.

It is what you are, will be, and always have been. It is the light that shines of the gold. The gold being the symbol of your soul and the power of the sun that it contains within. Its is your gumption to be yourself. It is what makes you take the chance in front of overbearing opposition. It is the directive in your life.

It is the free will which is the chink in the dragon's armor. Why do you think politicians and big business spend millions to alter what you think so you vote for them or buy there product. Every dollar they spend to get one more customer, proves the worth of the individual. Free will is the chink in their armor as well. As in the vampire myth, you only can be harmed if you invite harm into your house. We are born knowing thyself, but the world soon makes us forget.

Forget their is another better way to life. We adapt for survival. If you desire something you fear its removal.Now the hero is the part in you who can not take any more. It is Popeye when he says "I have taken all I can, and I can not take any more!' It is that special something that is like eating that spinach.

One day it happens to us, an boy look out. We just bust in that cave and yell at that Dragon "We ain't going to take it, anymore (Just imagine Dee Snyder singing in the background and a father figure being slammed into a closet.)!" He rushes in slays the dragon and frees the princess and take her gold and treasure and calls it a day.

Or is it more.Well great you are empowered in life. Do you treat the dragon as you have been treated all these years. The funny thing about westerns is, soon as the guy kills in the white hat kills the guy in the black, he is seen wearing the black hat himself. All rebel leaders who sink to the idea that the ends justify the means, always turn into the next enemy the next rebel must fight. Is there a better way than becoming the Parent talking down to the child dragon.

For in truth that dragon was a child who never got past its terrible two's. It might be six foot two and forty years old, but that is not to say if it ever became an adult.So what is the other way? To go out of the cave and find the light of what the world and yourself is in truth.

This was the initiation right of our ancestors. They sent youths into a dark slimy narrow tunnel that emptied out onto a large cave. In the cave the youth, on their way to becoming adults, was taught all what is expected of them in the tribe and how to do it as an adult. In other culture like the Native Americans, they chose to abandon children in the light of the moon and the sun for months in a pit to decide for themselves what their path was.

Plato spoke about the man who ventured past the shadows in the cave to the land of the light. This man reached enlightenment and returned to the cave to share it. Some may listen, but fewer will hear.

But it is for every one to give that chance to the Dragon to free its own inner child. All stories talk about the return. The return is the at one moment with the father or the healing of the mother. But to do so, you must free and heal yourself from the cave.So you might think this is all hooey after all! But that is your right.

Your right to think for yourself. For that is what really matters.

By: Christopher Jon Luke Dowgin