Slay the Dragon • The Dragon Within

YOUR HAIR IS BRISTLING ON THE BACK OF YOUR NECK. You feel the
heated flush of anger shoot up through your body. The urge to
throw something seizes you. Perhaps you’re on the phone with an
annoying client, and you feel your muscles tensing and preparing to
slam down the phone. If you are a mother or father you find yourself,
almost without warning, ready to scream at your kids. What’s
going on?

The dragon in its physiological form as the reptile brain has been
activated. This primitive portion of our brain is governed by the
innate fight-or-flight response to stress. Either avenue is an attempt
to survive. The reptile brain is geared to seek pleasure and to avoid
pain. The sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system
takes over. You are prepared to fight or flee from a perceived danger.
Rapid, shallow chest breathing begins. Facial muscles tighten.
Eye muscles tense and you focus your gaze into a fixed stare. Your
large skeletal muscles tense up and the small, smooth muscles
around your blood vessels constrict. You are ready for danger.
All this physiological arousal is fine if the threat is physical: you
need to jump out of the way of a speeding truck. But most stress is
emotional. You are stuck in traffic and are going to be late for work.
Or you’re having an argument with your spouse or kids.

Once the dragon in you has begun to sink its teeth and claws into
your heart, you constrict your heart, your feelings of love. You are
angry, anxious, or depressed. On the one hand, you may feel like
striking out verbally or physically. On the other hand, you may
want to emotionally withdraw and give up or run away.
You know the scenarios. A potential for violence erupts. A mother
hits her kids. A man attempts to hurt his wife. A soccer mom
with a van full of kids screams at a man in his BMW: he just cut
her off and made her swerve, endangering her young passengers.
In its drive to seek pleasure and avoid pain, the dragon within us
sends us on the outer quest to find something external to us to
relieve our stress: an argument, a cigarette, a drink, a piece of candy.
To stop the dragon in its tracks, we must go on the inner quest.…