Are “Mental Dragons” Breathing Fire on Your Emotional Brain?

Are you feeling anxious? Stressed? Hopeless? You may have “Dragons from the Past” running wild in your brain. And they could be stealing your happiness or ruining your life.

These inner dragons breathe fire on the emotional centers of the brain, driving anxiety, depression, irrational behavior, and automatic negative reactions. Unless you recognize and tame your inner Dragons from the Past, they will haunt your unconscious mind and drive emotional pain for the rest of your life.

In my work as a psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and brain imaging expert, I have identified 13 Dragons from the Past, including:

• Anxious Dragons
• Abandoned, Invisible, or Insignificant Dragons
• Wounded Dragons
• Hopeless and Helpless Dragons
• Angry Dragons
• Ancestral Dragons (dragons you inherit from your parents and grandparents)
• And more.

When I teach my patients how to identify their inner dragons, they start to recognize what’s fueling their fears, emotional pain, and unhealthy behaviors. Knowing which dragons are driving their actions and emotions is the first step to taming those dragons.

At Amen Clinics, which I founded more than 30 years ago, we see over 7,000 patients a month, but there are millions more who are struggling with emotional issues due to these mental dragons. And since the pandemic began, armies of new dragons have come roaring to life making people feel sad, mad, nervous, or out of control.

That’s why I wrote my new book, Your Brain Is Always Listening: Tame the Hidden Dragons That Control Your Happiness, Habits, and Hang-Ups. Readers everywhere can learn about these hidden dragons and explore their origins, the triggers that make them overpowering, and how they cause us to react.

The good news is that you can learn to get a handle on your dragons and transform your life, so you can feel happier, more positive, and more in control of your own emotions. When you rein in your dragons, you can break bad habits, stop self-defeating thinking patterns, and shore up your ability to cope with uncertainty.

In fact, taming your dragons is essential for emotional well-being and good mental health. To help you do it, I’ve taken the most effective dragon-taming strategies—the same science-backed ones I use with my patients—and put them in the book. With these simple yet powerful steps you can start taming your dragons so you can overcome past emotional hurts and live the life you want.