Written by Anthony Meindl
Just like the movie, if you want your inner dragon to work for you then you must first know that you have one!
In countless fairy tales and myths we (humans) were given a travel companion to guide and help us navigate through the journey of life. As we grew, so did our Ego Dragon: by processing information, evaluating situations, making judgments based on experiences, remembering the past and making plans.
It had a useful purpose. It helped shape our identity and carried us through the world avoiding things that it registered as dangerous and unknown.
But as we grew, so did our Dragon. Feed me! Feed me! And so we did. We gave it unsubstantiated information based on past experiences. We avoided things that were unknown to us because the Dragon said it was unsafe. We repeated things our Dragon overheard: You’re a loser. You’re fat. You’re ugly. You’re so cool. You’re the shit. (It wasn’t his fault. These were things he heard others say, so they had to be truthful, he thought.)
Our Dragon ended up spawning lots of little Dragons (He is actually a She and a He) and now we really had our hands full. (More than three thousand years ago, the BHAGAVAD GITA portion of the longest poem ever written, the MAHABHARATA – stated that we had 100 formidable “Dragons” that would fight us on the battlefield of man’s body.)
That’s a lot of freakin’ Dragons!
Now if you had 100 little babies to tend to – not unlike OCTOMOM – what would your life be spent doing?
Feeding all of our little Dragons: maintaining and defending untruths that seemed real; and cleaning up all their s***!
Walking around aimlessly (Dragon), lost (Dragon) and confused (Dragon), feeling like THIS, you bumped into a long-lost friend: your Inner Warrior.
This being Los Angeles, he took you to boot camp where you not only got toned and buff but also looked really, really hot in your dragon-slaying outfits. For MEN and for WOMEN.
Like Thor, through awareness and perseverance you gained insight into a whole other part of yourself you never new existed.
You met your Dragons on the battlefield – and some of them from the Gita you immediately got rid of (meanness, cruelty, ill-will, conceit, pessimism, bitterness) and others you negotiated with (impatience, worry, laziness).
You began to see that you are not alone. Since time began, the real battle every person fights is the battle against the enemies within.
They are conquerable. They’re unreal. They’re there to help us cultivate another part of ourselves that is much larger, much grander and seeks the adventure of the unknown.
So thank your Dragons. Without them, you wouldn’t be able to experience who you truly are.
But for goodness sakes, stop feeding them.
Anthony Meindl is an award-winning writer, producer, director and actor whose first feature screenplay, THE WONDER GIRLS, was the Grand Prize Winning Feature Screenplay in the Slamdance Film Festival Screenplay Competition in 2007. Prior to this accomplishment, Meindl was responsible for the production of an array of award-winning projects. His background in acting, training, and performance has afforded him the opportunity to create what has become a thriving artist community in Los Angeles.
