A CANDLE, A MAGNIFYING GLASS AND A SMALL DRAGON

Or:

The way we usual cope with our problems,
and how we have a choice just by simply changing our focus.

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You know something?

What strikes me most lately is that so many people seem to heave a lot of problems. And that they are so attached to them, that they don’t seem to be able to stop talking about it to others.

I was asking myself: “What may the reason behind this be?”

To share you my thoughts on this matter, I will start with a short story which happened to me.

Some time ago one of my friends called me. He sounded clearly as being in panic and distress!

What happened?

He had applied for a job as a Biology teacher. And you know what? To his own surprise they also had hired him!

So, happy to finally find a job after a considerable period of unemployment, even though this was not the profession he really dreamed of, he had gone to his first day at work, earlier that day.

A bit unprepared as it later would show…

His first day turned out to become a real disaster! Being the first day of the school year , he found himself all of a sudden in front of a class filled with teenagers whose hobby, (as we all know since we all were once young ourselves) seemed to be putting the new backed teacher fully to the test.

That very day must have been a truly hellish experience, since the minute he came home he had to call me.

Obviously all stress parameters had gone in one single day into the red zone.

As a result of that what he told me, (and more off, the way he was telling it) it was very rapidly clear to me that he was unable to think clearly, let alone to calm down, not to speak of that he knew how to handle this situation.

He had completely lost himself and strong emotions, of which he probably wasn’t aware of that he had them, had completely taken over.

He almost cried when he told me how these kids in their own, maybe typical horribly way, had put him on the test bench. How he longed so much for this day, maybe his personal “longest day” finally to end. How he couldn’t afford to become unemployed again! How he was so afraid to quit himself, in which case he should with no doubt loose his unemployment check. And so on…

He experienced one his moments which I describe as:

“THE ONES IN WHICH WE MEET THE DRAGON”!

The question is: How was it possible that a person left his house that very same morning, with complete self assurance and inner peace. To only return in the evening as a complete emotional and mental over the top with panic loaded wreck?

To understand this, I have to tell you the rest of the story…

So, first I gently told him to calm down, by telling him that there is a positive way out for every solution.

Something which was seemingly almost impossible to believe in his state of being of that particular moment.

Now, if there’s one thing I learned, then it is that you better not lose yourself in others, or their problems. How easy and even tempting it may be to allow yourself to start resonating with the other one, given your own personality, and the possible issues you carry yourself.
I can tell you: Two people who lose themselves together is one too much in that kind of situations!

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(BTW, small question in between:

Are you aware enough to notice how you may start resonating together with others when you interact with them?

What channel do you usually choose for when this happens: The positive?
Or “that other one”?

AND: Which is the easiest?

The most usual one?

The most fulfilling one?)

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So, I reached the point with my friend where I explained him what according to me his options were.
I told him that I was not aware of any situation (except maybe in the movie: The silence of the lambs) where any given person was, eaten alive during a conversation.

So, I advised him to go talk with the school director who hired him the next day, and to explain here everything in the most honest and sincere way possible. To just simply explain to her that he clearly had made a mistake, and to ask her if she was prepared to find a suitable solution for both parties involved.

Which later also happened, with the result that his contract was simply cancelled, that they hired the second candidate on the list, so that in the end his income was secured.
Not only that, only a few months later he was hired in a lab, where he found (at least till today) he has found a more suitable job for himself!

But the point towards which I am guiding you is this: At some point during the conversation I told him we all carry a candle, a magnifying glass and a small dragon in our emotional and mental pocket.

And that we have a tendency, mostly at times when certain unprocessed emotions are triggered, we instantly reach for our pocket, and we put them right in front of us.

The result is, that we place the small dragon behind the (lighted) candle. After which we use the magnifying glass to enable that our focus gets completely narrowly blinded, obsessed and occupied by the image of the gigantic dragon that is getting projected on the wall.

The catch is, that, once we started doing that, we get completely entangled in some sort of a paralyzing fear, in which there seems to be not any more room left for anything else.

Unable to do anything else, we shiver in fear. And that same fear acts as wind which makes the large dragon on the wall not only bigger; it also gives us the impression that he starts moving...
With the only possible intention, at least without a doubt for our momentarily distorted mind, to completely eat or burn us alive.

In other words: WE COMPLETELY IDENTIFY OURSELVES WITH OUR PROBLEM(S)!

WE THINK WE HAVE BECOME OUR PROBLEM(S) AND OUR PROBLEM(S) HAS BECOME US, SINCE WE ARE NO LONGER ABLE TO DISTINGUISH BOTH AS BEING SPARATED FROM EACH OTHER.

WE FEEL, JUST LIKE MEDIEVAL KNIGHTS, OVERWHELMINGLY ATTACKED BY OUR OWN DRAGON!

AND, BEING IN THAT STATE WE ARE UNAWARELY UTTERLY DISCONNECTED FROM OUR INNER SOURCE, OUT OF WHICH THE VERY SOLUTION FOR OUR PROBLEM MAY ARISE!

SO HEREIN LAYS MY MESSAGE OF THIS TEXT:

WHATEVER PROBLEM YOU ENCOUNTER; HOW SAD, BAD OR UGLY IT MAY SEEM AT FIRST...

OR HOW BIG THE DRAGON YOU MEET MAY LOOK:

ARE YOU COMPLETELY SURE YOU ARE FOCUSING ON THE REAL ONE?

ARE YOU STILL ABLE TO SEE EVERYTHING IN THE PROPER PERSPECTIVE?

DO YOU STILL HAVE THE ABILITY TO RELATIVISE THINGS?

NOT THAT DOING THIS WILL MAKE ALL YOUT PROBLEMS VANISH ALL OF A SUDDEN INTO OBLIVION...

BUT POSSIBLY...

JUST SHIFTING YOUR FOCUS TO THE SMALL DRAGON,

MIGHT DELIVER YOU THAT ONE MOMENT OF OPENING YOU NEED,

TO ALLOW THE SOLUTION TO COME IN,

AND REACH YOU...