What a great story... I love parables I can see how our "comfort zone" is like the buried coin. We don't want to lose it... so instead of using it, risking the loss, we protect it and shelter it.. but sadly, we lose so much more because of our fears.... We've been hurt so many times before, we foresee the same experience... sure we protect ourselves, but sticking our neck out is sometimes neccessary to see the better view.. My dragon wants to say "If we lived in a more healthy society, one where effort was as valuable as winning, we wouldn't be so afraid."

It's not simply fears of embarrassment that keep our neck tucked in. A serious financial loss can take life as you know it away in the blink of an eye.. bankruptcy, friends turning thier backs, credibility damage and so forth does in fact make life challenging... sometimes avoiding risk is the best way to go it seems.

Maybe our emotional experiences could be compared to a bad investment on Wall Street. Not enough information, the information was false, we were inexperienced, and as children, our choices were limited. I'm sure many who don't succeed at investing will give up... find another way.. but probably more difficult and less quick.

Have we done the same with our emotional investments? Did we get stung, and pull ourselves out of the market? Bury our coins?

I think one reason it is so hard to apply what we know to be true about healing and feeling good everyday, is those old memories. I was surprised to remember the one about waxing my car, but ask me about what depressed me, it's on the tip of my tongue. The thing I'm always trying to forget... reminding myself to forget... won't go away partly because I'm busy remembering to forget it. I think it won't go away, or be forgotten until there is closure. So we are back at the dragon, aren't we?

I want to clarify something I said above. It's in response to the first of the nine questions I've designed to guide me thru the process of healing the dragon.

How did the dragon come to be?

I feel a need to emphasize that unwittingly, in a way, we harmed ourselves with our initial rush to heal ourselves. I know this will stick in your throat, but hear me out. I forgive myself too, it's natural to clean the wound and apply a bandaid. Our first instant of realization that there was "something wrong" with us was an inner acknowledgement that we were "not right". I don't think we should underestimate the amount of damage done to our self-esteem at this moment. This is the moment in time we looked at ourselves and created the division between who we wanted to be, and this other thing that wanted to share our space. What if.... what if we had looked at this thing in ourselves and merely said.. oh, where does that come from, and rather than treat it like a ugly blotch on our skin, said.... hmmmm... another aspect of me, how should I make use of this new part of myself?

Maybe I'm only speaking for myself. But, the realization that I had an "ugly blotch", caused me to react like I'd just seen the spider of my soul.... It was this division that set me on the course of "healing" which further divided me from an aspect of myself. Does a mother reject her infant because snot runs out it's nose? Or because it has messy diapers? Why then, did I do this to myself? That's another question though.

For me, this is how the dragon came to be.

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but rising every time we fall." Confucius