Symbolism of the Dragon Scroll

Today's blog is written by Irvin Burton, a personal trainer and champion martial arts competitor based in Santa Clarita, California. Check out our special offer to promote weight loss and fitness at the end of this essay!

Hey everyone, Irvin here again. Today, I am a guest blogger for Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. and I wanted to write something that would resonate with her audience. While fitness and martial arts is my expertise, I know people have various concerns in their life outside of fitness and martial arts training. The other day during my workout, I was thinking why not start with a metaphoric story that can apply to anyone? So today, that’s where I’m going to start; it’s a movie I’ve seen many times. In the movie a martial arts enthusiast is chosen to be the recipient of the coveted “dragon scroll,” which allegedly holds the secret to limitless power. After intense training, the martial arts master hands him the scroll and the character opens it up and finds nothing but a blank scroll. Surrounded by other masters who are eager to witness the great unveiling, they are shocked and disappointed that the masters of previous generations would hand down an empty scroll claiming it had limitless power. What a disappointment!

Later, as the martial artist returns to his village embarrassed and disappointed, he speaks to his father who happens to be the town’s top chef. His father, empathizing with his son’s situation, decides to share the secret ingredient of his famous “secret ingredient soup,” a popular dish in town. The father leans in and says to his son, “the secret ingredient is…nothing!” Puzzled, the son asks if he heard him right and the father says, “You heard me, nothing!” The son asks why he didn’t add any extra ingredients to the soup. The father says, “Don’t have to, for something to be special you just have to believe it’s special.” The main character pauses for a second and takes out the dragon scroll. He looks at it closer this time and sees his own reflection in the scroll. He says to himself out loud, “There is no secret ingredient.”

What I like about this scene is the message it is sending to its audience; that “the secret” is essentially you and how you think. Whether you’re looking to become successful in a career, graduate from college, or start your own business, your success depends on you! How do you become successful? Well, you learn, you implement, and you stay consistent! Think about this for a second. Let’s say you want to learn how to cook. The first few times you may not get the meal right, but after 10, 15 or 20 cooked meals, it will probably come naturally to you! They say practice makes perfect, and after 12 years of martial arts training and many championship trophies, I can certainly attest to that.

The problems arise when you half-heartedly commit and don’t see any progress. Most people don’t stay consistent when they are trying to achieve something. In fact, most people stop at the “education stage.” They learn something but never implement what they’ve learned and certainly never stay consistent! I’ve found that most people are pretty educated on how to obtain their goals, however few take the necessary action to achieve them. Instead, they become the “guru” and tell everyone else how to achieve their goals. Would you ask someone who is poor how to be rich even if he DID have all the necessary education? Neither would I!

In short, your success (or lack thereof) is your own fault. No it won’t happen overnight;  and no, it won’t always happen the way you want it to. However, if you educate yourself, implement what you learn, and most importantly, stay consistent in what you do, you’ll succeed. People will take notice of your success. They will ask for your advice. They may even pay you to keep them accountable. Either way, there is no secret ingredient, it’s just you!

Thank you for reading blog today. I hope that I inspired you to take ACTION on your goals today. Remember that there are really no secrets to success; it’s just about getting started. The Famous comedian Chris Rock once said, “When I was stopped on the side of the road, no one stopped to help me. But when I got out and pushed my car, three of four people were always helping me.” People respect hustlers! Again, thank you for reading and special thanks to Sara Fogan for having me as a guest on her blog!

Irvin Burton is a personal trainer and martial arts instructor in southern California. He holds several college degrees related to fitness as well as a fitness kickboxing certification and is an international martial arts kickboxing champion. Irvin Burton is the CEO and founder of Tiger Crane Martial Arts and Fitness, a business that teaches kids confidence and discipline through martial arts training.

The Ultimate Venting Dream

Image courtesy of Flickr

The Wizard of Oz is the ultimate venting dream.

Readers who are familiar with this story know that it features a myriad of fantastic images. In addition to those magical ruby slippers, there is an army of flying monkeys, the constant threat of a vindictive witch intent on exacting revenge for her sister and a city made entirely of emerald. Dorothy Gale’s new friends are not even human but a scarecrow, a tin man and a lion that not only walk and talk but are also in search of something important to them: a brain, a heart and courage, respectively. Fortunately, the entire Land of Oz is in Technicolor—Dorothy’s home in Kansas was symbolically in black and white—which should make it all the easier for the group to find their symbolic treasures.

Of course, the final portion of their journey to the Emerald City is fraught with new dangers, including having to cross a field of sleep-inducing poppies that seduce Dorothy into much-needed slumber—actually a temporary escape—from her worries. When she awakes, her beloved dog is in the clutches of the Wicked Witch. Dorothy accidentally dispatches the witch by throwing a bucket of water on her, rescues her dog and runs back to meet her friends to find the Wizard. When Toto pulls back the curtain to reveal a little man manipulating various levers and controls to simulate the mystical “Wizard,” Dorothy and her friends are immediately disheartened and disappointed. How could their dreams possibly come true, now?

Fortunately, like the charlatan who correctly warned Dorothy about the storm in Kansas, this wizard can still help Dorothy by spiriting her home to Kansas in his hot-air balloon. But when he accidentally launches the balloon and takes off without her. Glinda the Good Witch makes another appearance at this point. She points out that the Scarecrow obviously has a brain; how else could he have helped his friends find the Emerald City? The Tin Man already has a heart, or he wouldn’t have been able to feel sad and cry when he thought of Dorothy going away. As for the Cowardly Lion, he had so bravely faced every danger with his friends as they made their way to find the Wizard. Of course, he was very brave indeed. And Dorothy only needed to click her heels together three times repeating the heartfelt sentiment, “There’s no place like home” and she would be reunited with Auntie Em and Uncle Henry on the family farm.

When Dorothy next opens her eyes she is in her own bed, surrounded by everyone she knows and loves, the film returned to its original black-and-white from its Technicolor dreamscape. There is no telling how long she has slept, but the pseudo-realistic/symbolic experiences she had in Oz are compelling evidence that she had one doozy of a venting dream.

The concept of the Gales’ home being picked up by the wind and being symbolically dropped in Oz could easily have been triggered by a physical stimulus: the tornado that hit the property and likely knocked Dorothy out in the first place. The similarities between Miss Gulch’s physical appearance and Dorothy’s perception of the woman’s personality as being a witch are very strong to the Wicked Witch. Indeed, Dorothy called the woman a “witch” when Miss Gulch packed Toto into the basket on her bicycle because the dog chased her cats. When the tornado hits, the girl looks out her bedroom window to see her nemesis riding her bicycle as it transforms into a witch riding a broomstick on the swirling wind.

Other people in Dorothy’s daily life were also represented in her dream, including several of her uncle’s farm hands who showed up as the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion, respectively. Furthermore, the things these characters wanted to find in Oz—a brain (intelligence), heart and courage were traits that Dorothy would have needed to run away from home and, more important, find her way back. As for the ruby (red) slippers and Emerald (green) City, these might have symbolically represented what and the people whom Dorothy loved, and the fantastic, trouble-free, “grass is always greener” land she imagined running to before the storm hit. Even the fortune-teller she met before the storm had shown up in her dream as the Wizard of Oz.

Finally, the biggest “tell” that her experience was a venting dream was the representation of Dorothy’s subconscious mind as Glinda, the Good Witch. Although Glinda is only seen a few times, always arriving in a bubble of golden light (Dorothy’s higher self), her gentle counsel and advice are felt throughout. Glinda is the one who sets Dorothy down that Yellow Brick Road to find the way home; which the girl does, even though she really has no idea where this road will truly lead. The love and protective instinct Dorothy has for her dog has her reach for the nearest weapon to hand—a seemingly innocuous bucket of water—to ultimately defeat the Wicked Witch and rescue her Toto. Finally, it is Glinda who reminds Dorothy that she always had the power to go home when she wanted to, all she needed to do was click the heels of those magical ruby slippers together three times and say “There’s no place like home.”

Fortunately, Dorothy ultimately, gratefully understood.

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2016

The Symbology of Dreams

(This blog was originally posted on October 2, 2014)

Photo courtesy of Microsoft

             Dreams always show or reveal what is going on in your life. The circumstances in your dream may be literal, inferred or symbolic. They are also very specific to you and are not transferable to anyone else.

               For example, a dream about flying may represent venting the feeling of escaping to more pleasant surroundings. Or, if your emotions are negative (e.g., sad, angry or fearful) when you wake up from an escape dream, it may represent a fear of loss of control, an out-of-body experience or fear of possession. Frustration about direction may also reflect your inability to make a decision.

                As a general rule, the content of what you have worked through in therapy or experienced during the course of the day will be vented out in an early-morning dream. Some dreams are so vivid that you may (temporarily) believe that the dream is true. However, be careful not to take the content of your dream literally. Rather, it is the message that is revealed to you through the symbols of your dream that is important. The timing of your dream is also very important because it tells you where the dream started or what jogged your memory of an event or situation. Timing of the dream also indicates how far back you must go to interpret its content or meaning.

                Finally, the way you feel when the dream is over reveals where you are in terms of dealing with an issue. “You can have a fairly traumatic dream and feel pretty good when you awaken or have a fairly traumatic dream and feel pretty bad,” said Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D. “The kind of feelings a person has determines if [you’re] trying to let it go or take it back.”

                Your mind will hold onto the dream (i.e., the dream will recur) until it is interpreted, often adding circumstances or elements to facilitate the venting process. Once the dream is expressed, “it starts to decompose” and will not return, Dr. Kappas explained. If an issue is not vented out in a dream, it can be brought up during a hypnotherapy session.

              “Dreams can be very revealing and is an important part of therapy,” the hypnotherapist said.

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2015