Dear Anita, thanks a lot for the second post. Your analogy of the lion really rings a bell with me. In my case, as I personalized it when sharing with my friends, I consider it something like a dragon in my head. If you saw the Pixar movie Inside Out, it’s almost as if a dragon slowly took birth in my mind and convinces all the emotions to go haywire and push the wrong buttons in my head, while my rational side screams reason and sense in some corner but is unable to overcome the dragon (sort of like Joy trying to convince the other emotions in the film).

The weapon of assertiveness and practice definitely is there. As is another weapon, a much stronger driving force… my love for Jerry. I truly had nearly managed to change myself last year. After I had stormed off after a fight saying I’ll never return, she sent me such a genuinely sad and apologizing message that it melted my heart and made me feel so much for her. Even after we made up and were normal, I used to go through that sad message of hers just because it made me love her even more, feel more determined to never make her sad again.

Sadly my extreme possessiveness over her and jealousy over her love for her cousin brother made the dragon take over my mind again, stronger than before. Even now, her recent apology to me I had mentioned (“though he hurt me, I’ll always pray for him and think good for him”) makes me feel for her as much as I did last year. Before she had sent this message, the dragon was totally rooted in my head, making me think wrongly and say words I’d never imagine to say otherwise… and once I saw her message, all the negativity simply vaporized and was replaced with affection and guilt. Of course, I feel it needs to be allied with practice, reason and determination in order to succeed in changing myself.