Welcome friends to the first official post of my new blog, “How to Train Your Sad Dragon”!

Now… You may be wondering… what on Earth is a Sad Dragon? Simply, it is your inner demon(s). But Inner Demons can take many forms, personalities, and ways of expressing themselves.

I like to call mine The Sad Dragon for a number of reasons, but these are the main three:

1. I am a self-prescribed emotional love bucket  Meaning, I frequently have “all the feels.” I cry a lot, I’m super sensitive, and when I feel something, I feel it HARD. I’m working on being proud of them rather than feeling the need to stuff them down or pretend like they don’t matter. And when I imagine an image or personality for “The Feels” I often see a big, sad, cartoon lizard crying giant tears on a tree stump. Don’t judge, aiight?

2. A Sad Dragon doesn’t seem unconquerable Take a good hard look at that Cartoony Sad Dragon in your minds eye. He may be a big old poop face, but he’s kinda cute, right? He’s approachable! He’s manageable– We tend to get stuck on the idea that our sadness or our difficulties are like these giant, unconquerable mountains of death. But they’re not. They’re just little dragons with big feelings.

3. A Sad Dragon is cute enough that you just want to love the crap out of it  Look at that big, sweet face of your Sad Dragon! You don’t want to kill him or ignore him. And that’s because he is a part of you. He is that piece of your personality that feels and feels BIG. And you should NEVER want to kill that part of yourself. In other words, you don’t have the SLAY the dragon, you have to TRAIN him. This blog is about letting him be sad, but knowing how to kick him in the pants when he’s slowing you down.

This blog is going to be all about the big and little things I have learned or experienced that keeps the Sad Dragon in check. And my friends, my Sad Dragon can get fierce. Sad Dragons (also known as depression— though I really try not to use that word) run in my family. Sometimes it seems like the Sad Dragons are the ones in charge of the people I love the most. It’s hard to get out of that mental head space. But it’s definitely not impossible!

So pull out your excalibur and get in the ring because it’s time to Train Some Sad Dragons! (See what I did there?)