Resources from the Book
How to Slay a Dragon
A five-step guide for the conversation you’ve been trying to have.
↓ Download & Print (PDF)John McEnroe once said his greatest strength was that he had no weaknesses. He was talking about his tennis game. I am talking about what you bring into the room with the person who has been smashing your pickles for thirty years. You’re not going in there to win. You’re going in there prepared. Prepared is your greatest strength. Prepared is how you don’t give the dragon anything to bite.
Do these five steps and the conversation will go differently than it has before. Not necessarily the way you want. Differently. Softer. A door instead of a wall. Most of the time, better. Always, more yours.
What Prepared Looks Like
The real job of a daily practice is to give you space. Space between what is said in the room and how you react to it. Without that space, you keep running the same loop you have run your whole life......same trigger, same reaction, same result. With that space, you get a shot at a new result. Each of these practices does the same job. Pick what fits.
Prepared isn’t a thing you do once. It’s a shape you keep your nervous system in. Below are four practices I do in my own life......not as a prescription, but as a menu. Pick one. Pick all four. Pick something of your own that does the same job. What matters is you have a daily practice before you walk into the lair, not what the practice is.
Meet your own need first.
Before asking the other person for comfort, empathy, or understanding......give those things to yourself. Once you know what you need, it’s your responsibility to give it to you first. This alone bought me more room with my mother than any argument ever did.
Mirror work.
Look yourself in the eye in the mirror. Say I love you. Say one good enough. Do it until it stops feeling stupid. If you can’t say it to the face in the mirror, you’re going to need someone else’s face to say it, which is how dragons get fed.
Gratitude......one thing about the dragon.
Find one true thing you are grateful for about the person you are walking in to talk to. Not a lie. Not a spin. One real thing. Mine about my mother: if nothing else, she taught me to be tough. That’s not small. Then add this. Send them some love. Say to yourself, I choose peace with this situation. Gratitude is the reframe. Sending love and choosing peace is the action.
Breath work.
Daily breathing exercises regulate the nervous system so you’re less likely to be triggered in the moment. Even a few minutes a day. The body that’s been practising slow breathing all week is a different body than the one walking in cold.
Start with my filled-in example below. Better still, put your answers in your own journal or record them as voice memos......somewhere you can come back to them. A digital version lives here at themensdateproject.org/resources any time you need it.
Before You Walk into the Room
Before anything else, get clear on what you’re walking in for. There are two goals here. The first one is to set a healthy boundary for yourself. The second one is to repair the relationship. That one needs both of you. They might not be ready. Dragons are stubborn by nature. You cannot demand it, you cannot expect it, and you cannot give up your own boundary just because they won’t budge. The work is not to fix the person. The work is to name a behaviour so clearly that the conversation has a single target instead of a battlefield. One person. One behaviour. That’s the whole step.
The person:
The one behaviour I am naming:
The person in that room isn’t really trying to hurt you. They’re trying to survive something inside themselves that they’ve never been able to name.
The behaviour I am seeing from them (not the reason why):
What I bring in for them:
What I notice in me when they do the thing:
In the Room
Watch yourself the way you would watch a kid you didn’t want to scare. Slow movements. Soft tone. Eye contact but not stare. Sit down if you can. Get small enough to be safe to be in a room with.
My plan:
The point is both people end up heard. The dragon has to feel seen first, then they can see you. There is a wrong way to do the right thing. The story lets them get there without being put on trial.
If you want to be heard then you have to listen.
What do I need my dragon to finally hear from me? One or two sentences.
When You Walk Out
The point is to have a record of what actually happened in that room, while it’s still fresh. Maybe it went exactly how you hoped. Maybe it didn’t. Both are worth tracking. Voice memo on your phone is probably easiest. Writing works too. Capture the real stuff......what worked, what didn’t, what they said that triggered something in me, what feelings I noticed that helped or hurt. The record is what makes the practice a practice instead of a one-off.
My record:
Before You Walk into the Room
One person. One behaviour. Name it clearly enough that the conversation has a single target instead of a battlefield.
The person:
The one behaviour I am naming:
The person in that room isn’t really trying to hurt you. They’re trying to survive something inside themselves that they’ve never been able to name.
The behaviour I am seeing from them (not the reason why):
What I bring in for them:
What I notice in me when they do the thing: When you ______, I feel ______.
In the Room
Get small enough to be safe to be in a room with. What does that look like for you?
My plan:
The dragon has to feel seen first, then they can see you. If you want to be heard then you have to listen.
What do I need my dragon to finally hear from me? One or two sentences.
When You Walk Out
Voice memo or written. Capture the real stuff while it’s fresh.
My record:
Don’t walk in to win. Walk in to set a healthy boundary with someone you love. A boundary is not a wall. It is not a fence. It is a line you hold inside yourself that the conversation cannot move. A boundary. Yours. Held by you. Repeat as needed.