Lions and tigers and bears...

When people are in love they often day dream about the things they'll do with their significant other: exotic travels, getting married, maybe having kids.

I have fantasies of an angry bear wrestling my boyfriend to the ground.

This is nothing original. My friend Jen thinks of her husband being attacked by bears all the time. Sharks, too.

Animals attacking my loved ones is a relatively new fantasy for me. I used to day dream of crumbling bricks or loose electric wires nearly missing my beloved's head. Something more realistic than Jaws.

But today the animal attack scenarios dominate my driving-to-work, between-office-emails, and right-before-bed brain space.

Each vignette is about the same. We're hanging out in good ol' nature. All of a sudden the hungry party arrives and goes straight for my boyfriend and all his tasty muscles. Caught-off guard, he finds himself at the will of the beast.

It's up to me to save him.

I pause for a moment to study the attackers teeth and the dexterity of his paws. And then with one swift leap, I mount the beast and wrap my arms tightly around its neck.

Now, in earlier versions of this day dream, an elixir of love and adrenaline gives me the physical strength to overpower the bear, at least enough for him to loosen his grip.

But in more recent versions of this scenario, it's not physical strength that defeats the bear. If fact he's not defeated at all. I don't strangle his neck; I'm giving him a hug.

My two-cents psychoanalysis: the fantasy of saving a person is partly about wanting to feel heroic. But when it's the heroism I crave alone, I often think of saving a stranger, and it really doesn't matter what I'm saving him from. When I dream of saving someone I love from a deliberate foe, it's usually because I'm not feeling especially empowered to protect myself or support the people, things or ideas that matter to me.

This is true now as I'm nursing the bruises of recent personal and professional stumbles. But where I used to believe that I could battle through life's obstacles by summoning enough courage to raise my fists to the world, I'm now more inclined to believe that making peace with my foes--figurative and literal---might just give me the best shot at getting what I want.

...

Like my fantasies, some of my "foes" may be based in reality (hungry bears are real and so are unions that kick you out of your job because you lack seniority), but their immediate danger to my life is mostly an extensenion of my imagination (a bear is not about to eat my boyfriend and being laid off doesn't mean that I'll be out on the street without a job in the future). And perhaps the most empowering thing I can do is stare my foe down, recognize that he is mostly dangerous in my mind and make peace with a reality that I'm certain won't kill me even in the most uncertain of times.