Hero’s Journey

How does it relate to your life?

Joseph Campbell has studied mythology across cultures like no one else. He notices a clear evolution in the story, which is similar across cultures, and from that comes the classic Hero’s Journey, a basic model of how the story unfolds, a model given by Joseph Campbell.

Myths, unlike the popular belief of “It’s just a myth” being false and untrue, are representations of universal stories, not historical facts, but universal patterns of characters, and events that have been always there and will always be, and yet never were (factually). Myths are stories told not literally, but metaphorically. 

The stories told in holy books are told mythically, and so the magic and extraordinary events that we see in them, can also be felt in everyday life if we can dare to see ourselves as characters in cosmic drama, and our lives purposeful, instead of perceiving our lives and its events as accidents and co-incidents.

Let’s go over Hero’s journey and how it relates to our lives. 

So first, there is a Call to adventure and refusal to call:

Hero is living a mundane life with nothing heroic or extraordinary, when Hero hears a call. The call can take various forms from very sudden and dramatic events such as an attack on your country, a loved one dying, an accident that changes your life or a divorce. It can be a not so dramatic call, a chronic nagging, dissatisfaction in a relationship or job, a feeling of being stuck, a soft whisper. 

(I’ll use Frozen 2 as an example for these early stages of Hero’s journey, but you can see this pattern in many movies)

In Frozen 2, Elsa is literally listening to a voice.

“The winds are restless

Could that be why I’m hearing this call?

Is something coming?

I’m not sure I want things to change at all”

And that is the trouble with the call that we are not sure if we want things to change at all… Afterall we are safe, we have reliable income, relationships are not life giving but are at least there…. Life is not yummy, but there is nothing horrible, and if we go after this call, nothing will be certain, we don’t know where it will lead, what will we lose… It is unknown…

Imagine a lion kept in a zoo from the moment it is born, now a part of it knows the wild, the open skies, the joy of being the king and hard earned dinner…. and yet it is easy to say, that he should be grateful, he is safe in the cage, being provided dinner every day, has an audience, who comes in and appreciates him.. (half hearted, as it may)

Well, there are times to be grateful, and there are times to know that I belong in the wild… I am a goddamn lion… So many of us spend our lives in glorified cages, because we are told we should be grateful and because it’s unsafe to pursue the path that we yearn to go on…

And so there is a refusal to call in the beginning…Elsa sings

“There is a thousand reasons, I should go about my day

And ignore the whispers, which I wish would go away….”

And 

“I’m sorry secret siren, I am blocking out your calls”

But something in her knows the wild…..

“Or you are someone out there, who’s little bit like me?

Who knows deep down, I’m not where I am meant to be

Every day’s a little harder, as I feel my power grow

Don’t you know there’s a part of me that longs to go….

Into the Unknown?”

 The movie Frozen 2 came  right at the time, when I was hearing this call, and it’s my soul mate movie, if there is such a thing… Oh, how much I have felt “Don’t you know a part of me longs to go… Into the unknown???”

– In what ways is your life calling for a change?

– What aspects of your conditioned self have outlived its usefulness, and needs to die, so that you can be reborn?

– What is your call, dissatisfaction in your job, or dissatisfaction in marriage? Or an illness?

– Or chronic restlessness, aimlessness and senselessness?

– Will you listen to the non dramatic calls, or will you wait for your life to be disrupted in a dramatic manner? Or worse still, would you continue to live your mundane life?

– What glorified cage that you “should” be grateful for is holding you back?

A job that pays very well, or a spouse that makes good money and makes your life look enviable to most people? 

Well, first the hero tries to ignore the call, then the call gets stronger and more persistent, until the hero cannot ignore it any more… (We are called anytime between 35-40 years of age typically, some of us will dare to respond, most will go on to live their old lives, and go on to blame they don’t even know, what?)

But the hero would have to prove himself worthy of the journey, and so many forces become alive and active to stop the hero… Their purpose in the grand scheme of things is not just stopping the hero, it is to test his commitment to the task, to stretch him, to test him…In real life these energies are your partners, bosses, parents who will bring all kinds of pressures for you to stay in your stuck situation… even when they don’t like the current version of you… because this is what they know, this is what has been willing to stay in glorified cages made by them. If you change for better or worse, it threatens the status quo, so everything that benefits from the status quo, will become active, in your inner life as well as outer life. At this stage supernatural or divine help arrives… some one of the qualities of a mentor or guide, in myths it is a dwarf or a goddess, in real life, it can be an actual person, but also a movie, a newly found inner strength, a soul companion who whispers in your ears words of inspiration and encouragement… A dream, a thought…

The first step is passing the threshold (the forces that are very invested in keeping you the same).. and once you pass the threshold you are in the belly of the whale… This is a stage where you prepare for the journey ahead, but for the rest of the world, you die…. You are homebound due to disease or raising kids, or due to a pandemic, or a forced leave from your job… these are the times for you to be in the belly… These are contemplative times… here you have a chance to evaluate what is what? What matters and why?

This is a place and time for inner work, question beliefs, examine your life choices…

The next stage is the road of trials..Here the hero will go through trials and adventures, that will not only make him stronger, but will also call him to use the super powers and gifts, hero did not know, he has and would never know he has, unless he says yes to the journey.

The road of trials has all the struggles. but it is through the struggle that you will become a newer, stronger, bigger and better version of yourself… So after you have done inner work, you will take on new trials and adventures that will force you to grow beyond what you previously thought possible… In fairy tales and mythic stories the help will come in magical and mysterious ways, in real life, we discover our own magical abilities such as intuition, perseverance, resilience, spiritual powers and imagination… In my opinion imagination is the mother of all of these qualities… People who learn to use their imagination well can have a wellspring of emotional and spiritual resources when times get tough..Imagination is no joke, it is the secret weapon of wildly successful people… Einstein has regarded imagination more important than knowledge for a reason.. What’s more… It comes as a package with spontaneity and playfulness and opens the doors to creativity, wonder and awe!!!

Think of the difficulties and suffering you have gone through and how they have made you stronger… Can you see the gift in your suffering? Can you see yourself beyond being a victim of circumstances? Can you imagine your struggles as not the conspiracy of a vindictive Universe and a blessing in disguise? Can you see your story connecting to a bigger story?

At the end of trials, there is a final battle, where the dragon is slayed, and the HIGHER POWER grants the hero the boon… It asks the hero for anything he wants……. I’ll leave to your imagination, what is the perfect boon to ask here… This is kind of a test too, that when you are asked one time by God, how do you use that chance.. Choose wisely..

Now the person is in the White stage… the white of alchemy.. where you have achieved an enlightened state.. You are at peace with yourself and the world… You can be consumed with toxic positivity, refuse to see the ills of the world, because you have reached a state that feels good… There is refusal to go back…. But that is not where the journey ends.. Many people refuse to go back to the real world from here. That is probably the reason that after so many decades of spiritual development and so many enlightened people later, the world is worse…

Hero’s task, at the end, is to take the boon and go back to the community, to the world to contribute, what he has gained in this journey… And what he has gained is usually indestructible, it’s inner resources.. Hero is a bigger and better person with much more abilities than he had before… and he goes on to live his life, until this life becomes too small and probably too boring for him, and there is another call….

What you get from this journey, more than anything else, is the access to the inner resources, that you know that whatever comes your way, you can handle it… That happiness and fulfillment does not lie in outer circumstances but in the knowledge of your own potential to sustain anything.. because you know that when you say yes to something bigger than yourself, help will come from unexpected places…!!!

Will you say YES?