Do you feel the hot breath of self doubt on your neck?

Part 2 of 3

I am as passionate about the nature of business as I am about the nature of the body and spirit. For me, a card carrying entrepreneur and risk taker, I devour books on business trends and strategies with equal pleasure as I do ancient spiritual teachings. I am as fascinated in how to develop a new market as I am how to reveal the inner spark of creativity. Actually its all the same to me.

Over the years my business has taken me into boardrooms with very powerful and wealthy corporate leaders. I have prepared investor memoranda, participated in corporate mergers, and facilitated strategic plans for integrating acquired divisions into a new corporate whole. I have witnessed a lot about business and learned more about human nature. One thing in particular.

And what was that? Everyone. Let me say that again. Everyone has a dragon breathing down their neck. I am using the example of business because we in the West have a notion that the rich and powerful are somehow also imminently confident and self assured. That as long as someone is at the top of the food chain, they have no social higher authority. No fear. No dragon.

Problems, challenges and disappointments aren’t dragons. In the dragon’s teeth, we are firmly gripped in the fear of exposure of our unworthiness, inferiority, humiliation, shame, and guilt. None of us is any different. It is just the degree of our public display as we grapple with our own beasts of self doubt.

Often people in the public eye – entertainment, business, politics actively seek out power, wealth and influence as an armour against the dragon. We may even believe that the dragon is ‘out there’ – the shareholders, the CEO, the constituents – the ones we have to assuage. The ones we have to stand up to with bravado and fearlessness. Never let them see the whites of your eyes, no fear, no weakness. We furiously brick up a fortress of protection – walls high and thick – fame, wealth, reputation, status, authority, even deception and coercion – only to find that – oops, the dragon is inside.

We may not know it until we are about to go on stage – take the podium or meet the new chairman. The dragon snorts and the fire is in our solar plexus. Our place of will and self esteem. The fire spreads down into our gut and reaches up to set our heart drumming and sears our mind. In that instant – before we repeat the affirmation, take the pill, shoot the Stoly’s, or otherwise submerge the dragon, we are caught aware of our own incompleteness. But – so what?

Dragons wreak havoc. When they are awakened and come out of the cave, snorting fire and swinging their spiked tail, destruction and incineration decimates the landscape. Just look at the recent banking debacle. Who hasn’t been effected by that melee of greed and avarice. Dragons on a feeding frenzy. But how can dragons be on the inside and the outside at the same time?

Dragons start out small. A little piece of misinformation in the psyche. Something your mother said when she was tired and you felt unloved. Something the kids said to you because you were different and you felt humiliation. Your teacher made an example of you in front of the class and you felt angry and powerless at the same time. Your father shouted and hit your brother and you knew fear. Someone you trusted touched you when you said no and you felt shame. Emotions. Potent currents of electrical and chemical surges through the body lodging in the cells and recorded in the brain. And like tiny magnets of energy they attract similar emotions. The event is over. Come and gone. Maybe not even witnessed by another. But its effect remains and gathers strength.

Shame, fear, humiliation, anger, powerlessness, unworthiness. Tiny dragons. They wake you up in the night. They begin to feed on your happiness. When ‘feel good’ things happen, they eat them up and ask for more. More food, more things, more attention, more control. Even dragons get quiet when they feed. So we keep feeding them, trying to keep them quiet and under control. But they are just getting stronger and bigger and they burst the seams of your psyche and create a life outside of you as well. Dragons poke you in your ‘wants’ and drive you forward. “A bigger house and I’ll be quiet.” “A higher position and I’ll be quiet.” “A faster car and I’ll be quiet.” “A younger lover and I’ll be quiet.”

But of course, dragons are too clever to let you see them first thing in the morning, scales, smoking nostrils and all. No, dragons outside of you act through your wife, your boss, your children, the media. Here is the secret to reveal the dragon. Anyone who you feel you need to please is the voice of the dragon. Material avarice is not the only language of dragons. Dragons roar equally loudly through the morally superior, the pious, the self deprecating, the intellectual.

The caveat is that the voice of the dragon is not the actual dragon. It is the magnification of the dragon. Its projection on the big screen. The real dragon is still safe, growing teeth and scales deep inside your soul. It will remain safe while you are distracted with slaying the dragon of your outer world. While it grows unimpeded within, it will never – ever – be vanquished without. Ultimately the dragon will lead you to the fullest expression of the seed that spawned it – humiliation, loss of love, shame, ruin. Just like the parasite it is, the dragon will feed on the host until the death of both.

To lead an epic life – worthy of heroes and heroines – is to slay the dragon once and for all time. Once this predator of happiness, self worth, pleasure, accomplishment, creativity is gone and no longer a fearsome ruler, you can enjoy all that is truly meaningful to you. Your light – the elements that make you uniquely you will be revered and loved. The truth that you speak and the love that you share will be all you need to attract a life you truly desire. A life that allows you to share your wisdom, creativity, and knowledge – your joy and happiness. A life that may be expressed in simplicity or in grandeur. You may be a monk or a king. A sculptor or mother. A CEO or a postal courier. You might build a school in Malawi or a corporation in Silcone Valley. But you will do it from the heart.

For it is the heart that is imprisoned in the cave of the beast. A heart pulsing in full expression of love, light and creativity dissolves the dragon. The damsel in distress is the frail self – our own innocent heart – beautiful, sensitive, loveable, – the spark of the Life itself, the promise of all that we can be.

How do I know this? Because yesterday the beast showed its face to me. In outer appearances I have it all. A beautiful home, my own business, regard amongst my peers, a loving relationship, two amazing, creative sons, and a deep spiritual life. But for all that I have accomplished and all that I enjoy, my default when I was tired or stressed was to anxiety, fear and self doubt. There are no actual facts supporting that. So where was it coming from? And what is the gain in maintaining it? There is no conscious gain. The dragon lives on unconscious acts. As soon as you begin to make conscious choices the dragon is threatened. As light floods in the dragon fades.

Once the dragon is released from the heart we truly do live happily ever after.

Please follow me on twitter for upcoming posts on my experience with various therapies and other thoughts on Life.

If you enjoy my writing – I welcome your comments!

If you wish to be notified of future posts – click on the RSS button at the top of the page.

If you want to enjoy optimum health and wellness – please join LightBeam Community.

Visit LightBeam Community

Related posts:

1. The Dragon Dies! Toxic patterns of the soul steal our joy and health....
2. I Planted a Rose but I Desired a Fig! Does your life reflect your heart's desires? How do you...
3. Eating Artichokes Whole is Prickly! How to take the good of Life's lessons and dispose...
4. My Mother Didn’t Cry – She Wept. How to let go of depression and other saboteurs of...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.