The Hero's Journey: The Call to Adventure

In life, there's the 'Doing' and the 'Being.'

The 'Doing' is the external journey.

The 'Being' is the internal journey.

The internal journey is one that leads into your own inner self.

 "The one you are looking for is the one who is looking"

 - Francis of Assisi

There is a heroic figure in each of us.

We all participate in a life-journey that is a quest for self-awareness and self-development.

We are all searching to discover who we are and why we are here.

The Hero's Journey gives a structure with which to examine our lives, to understand our past, and to indicate where we want to move towards.

The Hero's Journey is a set of symbols we use to describe both our purpose and what each one of us is capable of achieving.

The Hero's Journey helps us recognize the boundaries of our lives and create anticipation of what lies beyond.

 The Hero's Journey

  1. In the ordinary world the hero receives a call and responds by entering an imaginary world where strange powers manifest and unusual events arise.
  2. If the hero accepts the call to enter this strange world, they must face trials and undertake tasks that they may have to face alone or with assistance.
  3. At its most intense, the hero must survive a severe challenge, often with help earned along the journey.
  4. If the hero survives, they may achieve a great gift or "boon."
  5. The hero must then decide whether to return to the ordinary world with this boon.
  6.  If the hero does decide to return, they often face challenges on their return journey.
  7.  He is resurrected and transformed by his experience.
  8.  If the hero is successful in returning, the boon or gift may be used to improve the world.  

 

 

This structure reveals certain character traits and behaviors that give you a better idea of who you are and how you operate – it also underlines your personal values – what you think is important as you move towards your goals.

You discover the person closet to you (aka you!) and this opens up a whole new experience of being. Just like getting to know a new friend, you start to enjoy your own company more, lessening feelings of loneliness. You become more conscious of what your personal values are and reveal how you behave in certain situations - which may not serve you.

Knowing yourself better, you begin to trust yourself more, and you become more sensitive to what your strengths, weaknesses and little quirks are. You become more accepting of yourself. Getting to know yourself in this way makes you appreciate yourself more and it makes you wiser in choosing and navigating relationships. It also puts you in a stronger position from which to direct your life or career or simply decide what activities interest you outside work.

Becoming aware of who we are and how we operate, we begin to find and trust our intuition and to learn to live from the inside out. Sometimes we begin this journey from a crisis point when which jolts us out of our everyday thinking. Using this internal process of discovery can address or even avert a 'mid-life crisis' or 'existential crisis' where we struggle to find meaning in our lives.

Danielle coaches alongside you in this to navigate the way towards better understanding, of what is important to you and what you really want in life.

Jungian Archetypes

Jung believed that people from around the world shared in what he termed a “collective unconscious.”

Here lies dormant all of the knowledge we, as humans, need in order to know who we are and what is valuable and worthwhile in life. 

Although we vary greatly in our individual attitudes and goals, our unconscious minds, revealed through dream studies and psychological research, follow similar patterns the world over.

Jung suggests that these similarities, or archetypes, reflect different aspects of the human psyche and that our personalities divide themselves into these archetypal characters to serve various roles when playing out the drama of our lives.

The Hero's Journey is based on these archetypes which reflect different aspects of the hero’s personality.

As such, if applied to oneself, we can see how these aspects combine to create a rounded character, a whole, fully functioning human being.

Seen as a process of self-discovery and self-integration, it is a way of maintaining balance and harmony in our lives.

The journey can be confusing and painful at times, but, as with any process of growth and change, it presents opportunities to develop confidence, a holistic perspective and self-knowledge.

 

The Hero's Journey is a cultural paradigm with which many of us are familiar and has influenced numerous artists, musicians, poets, and filmmakers, including:

 Homer's Odyssey and The Iliad (8th century BC)

Herman Hesse’ book Siddhartha (1922)

Joseph Campbell's book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)

JRR Tolkein’s Trilogy Lord of the Rings (1954)

George Lucas’ film Star Wars (1977)

Robert Zemeckis’ film Back to the Future (1985)

Walt Disney’s animated film The Lion King (1994)

J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series of novels (1997-2007)

Larry and Andy Wachowski’s film The Matrix (1999)

 And the stories of

Osiris, Prometheus, Moses, Buddha, and Christ, for example, also follow this structure very closely.