Know Your Dragons
Name the beasts from your past that breathe fire on your present.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 75%
Dragons are 13 patterns from your past that haunt your present, developed by Amen with therapist Sharon May for his book Your Brain Is Always Listening. Each person has a primary and secondary dragon, such as the abandoned/invisible/insignificant dragon, the inferior/flawed dragon, the anxious dragon, or the ancestral dragon. For every dragon you ask where it came from, what its upside is, and how to fix it, since each one has strategies attached. Amen's own primary dragon is feeling invisible or insignificant, which drove him to build a life around being significant. The ancestral dragon captures inherited, epigenetic trauma passed down through generations.
Origin
While writing Your Brain Is Always Listening, Amen borrowed his friend Sharon May's couples-counseling analogy of dragons and together they identified 13 of them, then he mapped his own.
Core principles
- 01Your brain listens to the past, not just present inputs.
- 02Everyone carries primary and secondary 'dragons' from earlier experiences.
- 03Each dragon has an origin, an upside, and a fix.
- 04Some dragons are ancestral, written into your genetic code by inherited trauma.
How to run it
- 1
Identify your dragons
Determine which of the 13 dragons are your primary and secondary ones, such as the invisible/insignificant or inferior/flawed dragon.
Pro tip Take the free quiz at knowyourdragons.com to surface yours.
- 2
Find each dragon's origin
Trace where the dragon came from in your history, whether childhood experience, upbringing, or inherited ancestral trauma.
- 3
Name the upside
Identify the positive drive each dragon gives you, because all of them have an upside as well as a cost.
Watch out An unmanaged dragon breathes fire on your emotional life when triggered.
- 4
Apply the fix
Use the specific strategy attached to each dragon to keep it from controlling you.
In the wild
As the second son and third of seven in a Lebanese family, Amen felt invisible and insignificant, and built a life around being significant through helping others. When he can't help, the dragon breathes fire, so he has to remember he can't help everybody.
→ Naming the dragon lets him see the pattern and set boundaries rather than be driven by it.
Common mistakes
Leaving dragons unnamed
If you never identify your dragons, their patterns run your behavior unconsciously and unchecked.
Seeing only the downside
Treating a dragon as purely negative misses its upside, which is part of understanding and managing it.
Is it for you?
Best for
People doing deep self-work who want to understand the emotional patterns shaping their behavior.
Not ideal for
Someone wanting a quick behavioral hack rather than reflective psychological work.
From the transcript
“together sharon and i came up with 13 dragons and you know to one degree or another we all have a little bit of them…”
“my favorite of all the dragons is the ancestral dragon that's where the issues you have they're not yours that you inherited them”
From the episode
Dr. Daniel Amen: Brain Boosting Habits
Dr. Daniel Amen