The Mind Body Project
The Mind Body Project
MM Ep 34: Pet The Dragon
We share a children’s story about a growing dragon to show how ignored problems swell and acknowledged problems shrink. We end with a simple practice—pat the dragon—to keep challenges at a size we can manage.
• using a children’s book to frame avoidance
• the dragon as a metaphor for problems
• why denial increases stress and scale
• how naming shifts fear into action
• a step by step “pat the dragon” ritual
• applying the practice at home and work
• a gentle challenge to try it this week
So I challenge you go out and pet your dragons, pat your dragons, and watch how things start to change with your problems
Welcome back to a mindful moment. Thank you for taking a moment to join me. A couple weeks ago in our book club, we read a book, we were kind of in between books. And so we're about to start another one. And so I decided to read a children's book. And I discovered this book and I thought it was wonderful. And so I said, hey, I said, since we're in between books before we start another one, I said, let's take a week and read this child children's book. So I took it upon myself to read them. The children's book is a short, but it's called There's No Such Thing as Dragons. So I read it to him. And basically, in this book, young Billy has a pet dragon. And he's trying to tell his mom about the dragon, and his mom keeps telling him there's no such things as dragons. And the dragon gets a little bit bigger, and then he Billy's having to, you know, eat underneath the table because the dragon's getting bigger. And and you know, the dragon grows and and butts him out of his room. He's trying to tell his mom about this dragon, and she's saying there's no such thing as dragons. And eventually the dragon gets so big, fills up the house, and it carries the house away. And Billy's dad comes home and he can't find the house. And he searches the neighborhood, he finds it, the dragon's hanging out. And when the dad finds it, all of a sudden mom said, Where'd this dragon come from? And then they start talking about the dragon, and the dragon started getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And so what I shared with our book club is that the dragon is problems. When we ignore the problems, when we enjoy it, ignore the things that are going on, they get bigger because they want to be acknowledged, they want to be noticed. And that's all the dragon wanted to do. It wanted to be noticed. And mom kept saying there's no such thing as dragons, and she kept ignoring this dragon, this dragon that was obviously hard to miss. And so it grew and it grew and it grew to an unmanageable thing because it was ignored. And as soon as she acknowledged it, acknowledged the dragon, acknowledged the problem, it started getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And then she kept talking to the dragon and kept noticing the dragon. And even when her son Billy was with the dragon, she noticed it. And so it stayed little, it stayed at its manageable size. And that is so often what happens with us with problems. We think if we ignore them, they'll go away. But in actuality, is what they get. They grow and grow and grow to be unmanageable. And so I left the class with pet the dragon. Pat the dragon, whatever you want to say. But I said, you know, pat the dragon, pat it on the head, say, I acknowledge you. Look at the problem and go, I acknowledge you. And then once you acknowledge the problem, you acknowledge the dragon, it will start to change. It won't get bigger, it will be more manageable, and you'll be able to deal with it. It'll get smaller because you simply patted it on the head. You acknowledged it. And that's all it wants. Just problems are no different than the dragon. It just wants to be acknowledged. So my challenge is to you if you have some problems, you have some dragons in your life, pat them on the head, acknowledge them. And once you acknowledge them, it doesn't always make it easier, but it starts to make it better to deal with them so they don't grow over oversized and run away with the house, run away with your life. So I challenge you go out and pet your dragons, pat your dragons, and watch how things start to change with your problems. Thanks for joining me on this week's Mindful Moment. I look forward to seeing you right here next time on Mindful Moments.