Slaying Dragons

Everybody has a personal dragon they battle with every day. Whether it’s a physical disease or your own mind, we all battle something within ourselves. Our dragon can seem so insurmountable and huge that we have given up fighting, or we have been with the dragon for so long that we begin to see that dragon as a part of our identity. I’m writing today to tell you that you are not your dragon, and that it is possible to shrink that dragon down if not slay it completely. You are actually that consciousness behind it all, observing every belief at attitude you choose to have towards that dragon. Notice I said “choose”?

I know it is my choice on how I approach things in life now, but I wasn’t always aware of this fact.  There was a time when I had several huge dragons taking over my life, one of which was named Gluten Intolerance.  (It’s funny how when you name something, you actually give more power to it!)

Anyways, Gluten the big fat dragon had taken over my life. Emotional stress had made it grow to such an enormous size and it was starting to block out the sun.  The fact that I felt trapped into the stress (another illusion) made it grow bigger, and the fact that I had started to plan my meals and my life around it made it grow even bigger. I was miserable because I assumed that I would have to live with this huge dragon for the rest of my life.

At one point, I was so gluten intolerant that if I accidentally ate a single bread crumb it would ruin my short-term memory for an entire week, I would break out in a painful rash (imagine glass shards erupting from the skin) and I won’t even get into the horrors of what it did to my digestive tract. Between not being able to carry on a conversation and living in the bathroom, I became very fearful of this dragon. It was ruining my life!

During one of those incidences of gluten poisoning, I thought to myself, “This is absolute bull s*&%! This is not how I want my live for the rest of my life!” And from then on, I set out to find an answer. My attitude shifted from victim to Joan of Arc that day, and everything was different from then on.

Of course, it helped me greatly that I had found a way to finally eliminate much of the stress from my life, and I had found an absolutely kick-ass tough-loving partner who agreed with the absolute bull s*&% factor.  He saw the dragon in my life for what it was- fully capable of being diminished if I brought forth the warrior within myself.

So I let go of being a victim to this overgrown dragon, and with an open mind, I fought back by researching everything I could about my condition.  I began to realize that it would take just as much energy to bring it down as it had taken to grow this beast.

As it happened, I found a solution: milk kefir.  (If you don’t know what kefir is, imagine a seriously hard-core version of probiotic yogurt.) Milk was scary to me since it was notorious for causing me pain. All the articles I read contradicted by belief that milk was dangerous, but they reassured me that if I put my energy into cultivating the real homemade stuff, I would be able to gradually build up a tolerance and start healing.

I think it was my determination to heal that enabled me to bravely take a leap, and I started with miniscule amounts of this supposedly magical substance. To my amazement, the dragon began to shrink! After a year of putting my energy and self-love into cultivating my homemade kefir, and drinking increasing amounts daily, I was a very different person!

Two years later, I can actually go out to a restaurant to have lunch with my partner and even have a beer!! (Before this eating out was a nightmare!) I just take my enzyme to help with digestion and it feels amazing to be participating in life like a normal person again!

Now, I’m not going to sit here and guarantee that kefir (or anything for that matter) will work for you. What I will say is that no matter what your dragon is, I am convinced that you can shrink that dragon immediately with a 180 degree shift in attitude. If (with an open mind) you make calculated changes in your life, maybe it will shrink some more.  If you maintain that warrior disposition and truly feel your life improving *on every level of your whole being*, maybe, just maybe you will fully succeed in actually slaying that dragon.

This is the meaning of mind over matter, my friends...mind over matter!