How to Train Your Dragon

My sweetheart and I rented a cute movie yesterday How to Train Your Dragon. Originally I just enjoyed it because the animation was great; it had cool dragons in it (one of my favorite creatures) and a good story line. 

But this morning, as I was thinking about it, I realized this movie was really a metaphor for my life. Now before you click out of this blog thinking I'm getting too deep, just stop. It’s actually pretty illuminating.

So the story is about a teenage Viking boy who clearly is not like anyone else in his village. He's skinny, dreamy, sensitive, creative and good with his hands. And he has absolutely no aptitude for fighting, warring and killing dragons, which continuously demolish his village. He's the disgrace of the clan, and more so to his father who is the village leader.  He keeps trying to fit in, and be like all the other Vikings, but it never works out and he's constantly creating chaos around him as he tries to be like everyone else.

One day, he accidently injures a dragon during a fight, and when he goes to try to kill it to prove he is as much a Viking as everyone else, he recognizes himself in the scared injured creature, and realizes there's got to be a different way. 

He learns how to communicate with the dragon and tame it, and finally learns how to ride it and teach it how to help him, and without giving away the entire plot, he comes to the aid of his family and village by sharing this knowledge.

As I thought about that movie during my morning meditation and cup of coffee, I realized that my life was very much like this teenager taming this dragon. 

I have been haunted and hounded by painful experiences, horrible people, and situations that have brought me to my knees in surrender. And all this time, I've been cursing these experiences, thinking it should never have been this way. 

But I now realize these life circumstances are my very own dragons; torturing, pillaging and creating destruction in my otherwise ho-hum world. Instead of cursing them, and trying to kill them, I can use them as a way of changing my life into something better, something more alligned to my gifts and temperament. I can use my experiences to help those around me maybe see a different way of living and reacting to the drama in their own lives. 

So how have my "dragons" transformed my life? I've learned through adversity that there is always another way through. That by listening within, and trusting my inner voice, truth and guidance, I can look at what is blocking me, haunting me, causing me no end of pain and torment, and I can train that dragon, tame that dragon to teach me, to help me, and to guide me to a better place. 

This realization so stunned me that I had started laughing as I was thinking all this. Who would have thought that a simple children's cartoon could be the impetus to look at my life in a different way? But there it is. And I feel blessed and grateful for the realization. My dragons can be my pets, my teachers and my guides. By stepping back a little and asking "why are my dragons so vicious today?" I can get a different perspective and change the way I react to whatever is pissing me off or driving me nuts. Just that simple shift in consciousness allows me the space to see a better way through.

May your own dragons guide you to a better place today.