“You may not have signed up for a hero’s journey, but the second you fell down, got your butt kicked, suffered a disappointment, screwed up, or felt your heart break, it started. It doesn’t matter whether we are ready for an emotional adventure – hurt happens. And it happens to every single one of us. Without exception. The only decision we get to make is what role we’ll play in our own lives: Do we want to write the story or do we want to hand that power over to someone else? Choosing to write our own story means getting uncomfortable; it’s choosing courage over comfort.”
Mythologist Joseph Campbell is credited with coining the phrase “hero’s journey.” He claims that the myths, (eternally true stories), of every culture are filled with those who have departed (usually involuntarily) the comfort of their lives for lands unknown to encounter struggles beyond their perceived strength. In the above quote professor and author Brene Brown applies the notion of the hero to those of us – which she claims is all of us – who are confronted with personal/emotional battles that intrude upon our predictable lives, and that test our inner strength and resolve.
The likes of loss, failure, and heartbreak can, and will, bring all of us to our knees at some point, but that’s just the beginning of the story. The next chapter consists of how we choose to deal with those occurrences – whether we write the continuation of the story of our lives, or allow ourselves to become victims of what befalls us.
The catalyst that propels us on the hero’s journey is in one sense unimportant. What matters most is that we take up the task of our lives and live into the often emotional messiness of them. It is this agency that enables us to become the persons we are called to be. Easier said than done, you say, and rightly so. For meeting life’s most significant trials requires that we acknowledge our inability to prevail by our own devices, and allows a deeper, spiritual reality to come into play. It is by surrendering to that reality that we discover who we are and that we are capable of not merely surviving, but thriving in the face of life’s challenges.
Attuned to Soul 