The Two-Headed Dragon of Guilt and Shame

Once upon a time there was a young girl called Lyza, who had gotten captured by the Two-Headed Dragon of Guilt and Shame. The dragon did not capture her in a tower, or in a cave or a lake, but the dragon was always with her, and would attack her throughout her life, so that Lyza never felt safe. She was afraid to make mistakes she could have avoided, because every single time she made a mistake, Guilt would tear up another piece of her Innocence. She was scared to speak out loud or to let herself be seen, because maybe someone would laugh, and then Shame would fall upon her relentlessly, and devour more of her Pride.

She was living a great life, but it was very difficult for her to enjoy it, with the dragon always breathing down her neck. One day, which happened to be the first day of the year, she said out loud: “Enough.”

She had said that before, but never whole-heartedly, because she was always afraid that she would not manage to slay the dragon, but mostly, because she might need the dragon to be a good person. Who would she be without Shame and Guilt?

This time, she meant it. Enough. “I no longer want to be a prisoner! Whatever it takes, I will do it, I just don’t want to be afraid of this monster anymore!”.

Suddenly, a little soft voice whispered in her ear: “Let him devour you, surrender to him, and see what happens.”

The girl was desperate enough to listen and without further delay she shouted to the Two-Headed Dragon of Guilt and Shame: “Give it to me, I will no longer resist or fight back, devour me whole, I will be living my life and doing what I want to do, regardless of you!”

The two heads looked at each other and then dove in obediently.

Lyza followed her words and held out her chest awaiting the hit, expecting to be washed over by hellhounds, but all she felt were ripples of a not unfamiliar feeling of pleasure.

She asked herself: “What is the name of this feeling, I wonder? I remember having felt it before, I just forgot its name somehow.”

She decided to ask the feeling, and the feeling answered:

“That Two-Headed dragon has been shutting me out for ages, it is a waste of time to try and fight it, you found the only way to slay it: by not giving a fuck about its existence!!! You could no longer feel me because you were only concerned with what other people might think and you stopped putting your happiness first. The only power the dragon has is to make you feel like shit about yourself. What good does that do, to anybody? If you made a mistake, just learn from it, that is how you grow. If you did something bad, do something good! Stop punishing yourself by letting the dragon haunt you, that is just a waste of time. Now that you listened to me, you can feel me again. I am Happiness itself, of course, the feeling that everything is exactly and deliciously as it should be. At your service.”

The girl giggled and said: “And I will live happily ever after!”