Our Unleashing Your Inner Dragon series is coming to a close, which means that today, we’re discussing the last part of our manifesto:

We believe in love.

When people think about dragons, they don’t often think about love. And yet, love requires ferocity. Love requires boldness and willingness to take chances. Love breathes light and warmth into the world. Your inner dragon can bring out the love that is inside of you. When your creativity is driven by fierce love, it’s unstoppable, and so are you. 

Here at Design.org, we’re all about helping you unleash your inner dragon so you can “create happy” in your life. So…happiness, creativity, dragons…where does love fit in?

The answer: everywhere.

We actually talk about love quite a bit on our blog (see “Love vs. Fear,” “How to Use Love to Hack Your Happiness,” and “5 Ways That Love Improves Your Health”). We really do believe in love and in its ability to help you “create happy,” so let’s break down how love fits in with the idea of unleashing your inner dragon.

“When people think about dragons they don’t often think about love.”

Not to jump to conclusions about every dragon in every story, but at least in Western Culture, dragons are often seen as villains. The hero kills the dragon, rescues the princess, and they all live happily ever after (except, of course, the dragon).

However, in Eastern cultures, dragons are not inherently bad. Often, in fact, they can symbolize good fortune. Depending on what country you’re in, dragons can symbolize any number of things, including:

• Wisdom
• Luck
• Prosperity
• Life
• Growth
• Heroism
• Self-confidence
• Fertility
• Sexuality
• Regeneration
• New beginnings
• Nobility

And yes—sometimes, dragons can even stand as symbols of happiness. 

No matter how you choose to think of dragons, however, we still see connections between unleashing your inner dragon and living a life full of love.

“And yet, love requires ferocity. Love requires boldness and willingness to take chances.”

“If we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls.”

Maya Angelou

A lot of times, when we think about love, we think about heart eyes and roses, or tender memories and sweet expressions. But it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.

In fact, sometimes, love is downright hard. It requires vulnerability. When we love someone or something, we are opening ourselves up to hurt and disappointment. We’re taking the chance that whatever we have to gain is worth more than what we potentially have to lose. 

Not only that, but a lot of times, love requires us to fight. It may be an inner struggle (overcoming our own mental and emotional blocks to let someone else in), or an outer struggle (overcoming distance, circumstance, or resistance in order to express our feelings the way we want to). 

We also defend what we love—often fiercely. We stand up for the people and the causes we care about. When we feel them strongly enough, we aren’t afraid to declare our feelings boldly.

For all these reasons and more, love isn’t for the faint of heart. 

“Love breathes light and warmth into the world.”

In our post about the inner dragon and deliberate action, we talk about how fire, while undoubtedly destructive under certain circumstances, can also be seen as a source of light and warmth. (In fact, you could easily argue that fire is the source of light and warmth for humans, and that without it, our society would look nothing like how it looks today.)

Similarly, love is a source of metaphorical light and warmth. It brings clarity, comfort, peace, and possibility into our lives. 

“Your inner dragon can bring out the love that is inside of you. When your creativity is driven by fierce love, it’s unstoppable, and so are you.”

When you create from a place of love, your creations are more powerful. You use the fierceness of your inner dragon to put something positive and purposeful out into the world. It’s the best way to “create happy.”

And when you create from a place of love, you’re unstoppable. Creating from a place of fear is likely to cause you to back down or step away at the first sign of trouble. But when you’re creating with love, you’re willing to fight for what you want to create. You’re willing to fight for the reality that you’re trying to bring into the world. 

Love brings out your inner dragon, and your inner dragon keeps the fire of that love burning bright. 

Creating with love

So how can you create from a place of love, so you can unleash your inner dragon? These tips might help.

Know what you want

What does the happiness you’re trying to create look like? How will your life be different when you’ve made the changes you need to make? What is it that you want to get out of this process? When you create from a place of love, you’re pushing toward something you want, instead of away from something you don’t. The energy is positive and productive. But in order to use that type of energy, you have to know what it is you want. If you can keep that in mind, you’ll be working to lovingly “create happy.”

Acknowledge and reject fear

Pretending you aren’t afraid isn’t going to help you in the long run. Instead, be willing to face your fears, and to actively reject them. Once you do that, you’ll be able to approach your creative efforts with love. You’ll be able to recognize fear when (not if) if pops up, and you’ll be able to deny it any power it might have had over you.

Stay positive

Love is a positive emotion. Frame your goals and intentions in positive ways. Focus on what it is you want to create. Have hope, and believe that those ideas could become your reality. 

Have a “why”

Knowing the purpose and key motivation behind what you’re trying to create will help you stay in a place of love. Why is living a creative life important to you? What bigger purpose do you have that will help you move forward when things get hard?

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As we wrap up this series on Unleashing the Inner Dragon, it’s important that you recognize something: your inner dragon is waiting to be unleashed. Yes, it’s there; yes, it’s powerful. The change you want to create in the world and in your life—that’s what your inner dragon can do. 

It’s time to stop keeping it inside.

You might think that you can’t let that inner dragon out, but you can.

You might say that you aren’t the right person to “create happy” in your life and in the world, but you are.

It might feel like you don’t have what it takes, but you do.

You can, you are, you do. 

Let your inner dragon out. It will prove it to you.