You’re right, “Calling these thoughts dragons helps create enough distance to analyze them more carefully”.

“I am incomplete as a single person.” We benefit from discussing dragons such as these in our blogs; by deconstructing the myths behind them we strengthen our intellectual reaction to these thoughts/statements, gradually smothering the emotional reaction.

“We might have done something bad (or self-defeating), yet this does not make us a bad person.” I am too eager to ascribe the label “bad person” to someone who has *acted* bad, as opposed to *being* bad. It’s a bad habit of mine (no pun intended). Getting angry at the foibles of others really only raises our own blood pressure–I *know* that, but yet, I still find myself clenching my fists and mumbling, “*^^@)!..))”

“Happiness requires work on our part, not a cure-all partner”–this is interesting, because think of how often we are told that “good relationships are work”. It’s more accepted to “work” at being happy if you are working in a coupled relationship, than if you are working at being happy as a single person.

–CC at Onely