THE HERO’S JOURNEY
The hero’s journey is first about taking a journey to find the treasure of your true self, and then about returning home to give your gift to help transform the kingdom – and, in the process, your own life. The heroic quest is about saying yes to your-self and, in doing so, becoming more fully alive and more effective in the world
Awakening the Heroes Within, Carol S Pearson
In searching for the answers to my own troubles and during the passage of what seemed an endless cycle of the ‘breakdown and breakthrough’ processes that represent the movement from crisis to mental wellbeing, I have become a person very familiar with Joseph Campbell’s idea of ‘the hero’s journey’, and I have developed into an individual neither lightweight in character nor temperament. As a result, when I am troubled by something I will search for answers and I look deeply into the reasons why. The Hero’s Journey essay within Insights from the Big Picture Narrative of a Sewing Machine Activist is the result of one such line of enquiry.
FINDING AND FOLLOWING YOUR ENERGY
We have allowed ourselves to become a culture addicted to the things we think we need to buy and to have – whether it is a drug, a new lounge, a second apartment or shopping for clothes on a weekly basis. But happiness does not come from possessions. Ultimately we need to transcend the business model and consumer culture that has defined us as insatiable partners living in an environment of perpetual scarcity.
We need to build bigger lives in which the desire to consume fashion goods, live the ‘fashionable life’ construct, or to seek our identity through buying into seasonal trends ad infinitum naturally withers away. The bigger life is referred to throughout this book, but I speak more in depth about it in the Transforming the Wasteland, Poverty in the Developed World and The Hero’s Journey essays in Section 3. Some elements of that bigger life might include re-establishing our kinship with the earth, developing and exploring our talents and interests, and re-engaging our innately creative natures towards the hand-crafting of some of our own things.
It might mean shifting our focus from growing our monetary wealth and increasing our possessions, to growing our wisdom and healing our families towards a more consciously led rewarding existence. And then finally getting involved in the push for civilisational renewal through the engaged activism described in Joanne Macy and Chris Johnstone’s book Active Hope: How to Face the Mess we are in Without Going Crazy. And joining the people’s movement for a call to action on both the local and global stage.
THE HERO’S JOURNEY: The healing begins
It is my belief that bringing about the mind states and inner realisations that will enable us to experience and know at the deepest level that we are fundamentally one, is a vitally important step in our journeys towards personal wholeness. And it is a crucial stage to energising the major shifts we need to make to survive our destructive trajectories. Each of us is a world unto ourselves – that is how precious we are. And whole person healing is about integrating body, mind and spirit into a unifying force.
In non-dual belief systems, the essence of transformation involves a shift from seeing oneself as separate from the creative force that animates life, to identification with that force.
Healing occurs when we dismantle the blocks to that natural state of being and it is accelerated when we participate consciously in the process. “If healing means being free from conditioned, pre-programmed reactions to the world”, as I learned from What the Bleep Do We Know? Study Guide by the IONS Institute, “then being healed begins to look like having the capacity to choose fresh, creative responses to each situation as it presents itself.” And this is what our world needs from us now.
WE ARE ALL TRAUMATISED
We are all traumatised to some degree by the dismantling of the extended family networks that came about through the push to industrialise. Even relatively healthy family structures are routinely in the habit of discouraging behavioural urges that are natural and healthy aspects of growing children; and we do this, often unconsciously, to ‘fit in’ with the cultural expectations of modernity.
For example
The healthy curiosity of the toddler becomes frustrated with repeated reprimands. This tends to dumb down the natural intelligence of the child and therefore stunts healthy mental development
Boundless exuberance with the child’s need to express physical joy through movement is often, and in many settings, restricted and put down
Showing a natural pride in oneself can often be serially condemned as a boastful act and discouraged. Similarly standing out or bringing attention to one’s self is compulsively shushed?
HUMAN BEINGS ARE TENDER CREATURES
And so we have generations of psychically compromised and under-parented men and women bereft of both the tools and the time to grow healthy well-balanced children. We now have generations of undernourished adult children of dysfunctional beginnings, struggling to grow their children without the insights borne from growing up in healthy whole structures themselves, and in the dearth of readily available wholesome role models within our culture.
Surely our immediate future lies in healing ourselves and championing our individual journeys, so that we might build strong families that perpetuate such healthy interior lives. If we are to structure a world that honours both its feminine and masculine aspects, clearly this must become our main focus.
The pathways by which we transfer unresolved mental health issues from one generation to the next are no longer mysterious. Children acquire our genes just as they internalize our everyday behaviour
A Lethal Inheritance, Victoria Costello
THE ART OF LIVING
Ancient Chinese wisdom fosters the notion that self-actualising and collective goals should always be integrated. In Confucianism, the art of living is viewed as a way of life in which we synchronise the systems of the universe to achieve both individual and collective fulfilment. As discussed in the Nine Fundamental Needs paragraphs, the most effective method to meet our core needs is through the synergistic satisfier category. This satisfies a given need while contributing to the fulfilment of other needs at the same time.
While healing and inner transformation can take many forms, there are some essential feeling states that are vital to moving toward a healthier mind and body - mind states that we will need to cultivate as we move along in our journeys.
The development of these capacities, or qualities of heart and mind, will assist us to heal past injuries, as well as ameliorate the deprivations that may have occurred in the family home. As we begin to tackle and then transcend the unhealthy or unhelpful conditioning that does not serve us, (perhaps by making use of the tools detailed below), we will begin to build on our much needed, and grievously neglected, emotional literacy.
If you think of the following seven qualities as muscles that need activating and then exercised regularly you get a sense of what is involved to bring this lexicon of personal strengths into the frame of your daily life.
BUILDING EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE
Vital Tools for Moving into New Paradigm Living
BECOMING CONSCIOUS and more self-aware involves noticing inner discomfort when we experience it and moving from unconscious responses to this discomfort in our lives, to conscious ones. This cultivation towards the mindful self-leadership of our inner worlds is the foundation for all healing, as we move onward to become the Abundance Warrior leader in our own lives.
ACTIVELY CULTIVATE MINDFULNESS through contemplative practice, a class that explores self-awareness tools or have a wise and kindly ear listen and reflect back to you what they see and hear. A good therapist or social worker might assist here, or a 12 step program, or a ‘Grow’ group etc. Ongoing and regular participation in such activities is vital. Slow, measured steps are advised. But get going and keep at it.
FOSTERING FORGIVENESS is an essential key to healing the past, and nurturing this quality is of vital importance to moving on. Make amends to others if that is required.
NURTURING KINDNESS within. Acts of kindness are healing for both the giver and the receiver although modernity seems to have permanently sequestered this simple but powerful tool for living. Specifically the meditative practice of ‘loving-kindness’ can be used to develop the quality of mind that is at the heart of forgiveness.
CULTIVATING GRATITUDE plays a significant role in bringing about a sense of wellbeing within the individual. Gratitude enhances resilience and builds a clear sense of the abundance we do have, training us to shape our new world from a more positive perspective. This is the abundance I have spoken about previously.
RECOGNISING HUMILITY as a strength will allow us to revitalise our inborn awe and wonder of the natural world and to learn more keenly from our surrounds. Humility helps us to pay attention to the moment. It empties us of the striving and clutter within, and helps us to cultivate mindfulness. I have also observed that cultivating humility will sometimes switch off the destructive voices of the conditioned self.
GROWING OUR BRAVERY I have learnt from a lifetime of living in the sensitised mode of a skittish temperament that getting brave is a matter of cultivating our inner strength through small measured strategic steps – in a ‘one-foot in front of the other’ style arrangement. And it most definitely builds from there. This is also central to the breakdown and breakthrough process that facilitates healthy growth and builds our inner resources in an incremental fashion. Growing our bravery muscle is almost always about managing one’s fears and being just a little scared – but exercising your courage, in a measured manner, to do something anyway. Excitement and a little fear often sit side by side.
HONOURING OUR EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
If intelligence is a fundamental property of all of life, then it makes sense that the essence of this intelligence is our (and all living beings) capacity to adapt, survive and flourish in our specific environment(s).
As sentientcreatures of choice this will require us to draw from the insights and self-knowledge that comes with focusing on and fully inhabiting our emotional selves, followed by the ability and skill-set to regulate and manage our emotions, for the task of living.
To be effective in whatever we do also requires us to learn to harness our emotions, mastering them so as to be able to bring forth what each situation requires of us… at any given moment.
Psychotherapist Denis Postle in his book The Mind Gymnasium suggests that though the Western world and our Western educational models equate intelligence with the intellect, therefore promoting the the supremacy of intellect over all other aspects of human intelligence, he believes Homo sapiens have at least four systems of intelligence. These are all vital to successfully navigating our world, as well-rounded individuals. These four types of intelligence are Emotional Intelligence, Intuitive Intelligence, Intellectual Intelligence and Physical Intelligence. He goes on to illustrate these four aptitudes with the following: “A good example of shifting through the four styles of intelligence in one day may involve; talking sympathetically to a friend; imagining what you will be doing in five years; solving a problem at work, and sewing on a button.”
RECOGNISING ABUNDANCE
The authors of Active Hope: How to Face the Mess we are in Without Going Crazy, Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone, write that “recognizing the gifts in our lives will be a profoundly strengthening exercise and that activating our gratitude will enhance our resilience and strengthen personal resolve”. We need to locate our personal power, as we draw on these inner resources to manage whatever difficulties come our way.
The authors go on to communicate that “Whilst materialism’s aim was to have us focus on what we don’t have, gratitude will allow us to shift our focus from what’s missing, to what’s there”. Further to this, whilst “gratitude leads to increased life satisfaction, and mental health, our consumerist lifestyles have had the polar opposite effect”.
SACRED SPACE
My experience has also revealed to me that profound healing sometimes requires a sacred witness to bring love and acceptance to those aspects of self that were deprived of love in the initial wounding. It also involves the unconditional acceptance and full attention of the person helping the individual to heal. This might be a friend, or it might happen in the therapeutic setting or without our significant ‘other’; or an elder from our faith or culture might provide us with this opportunity. I can also bring witness to the fact that healing sometimes comes our way via someone we meet for the first time, a stranger in fact, who unconsciously creates a sort of ‘sacred, therapeutic spacial bubble’ with their compassionate presence and caring intent. Certainly such providential encounters have materialised in my own life to provide crucial moments in the healing process; affording me the opportunity to move past the pain that otherwise held me captive.
I can also give testament to the fact that the deft hand of a caring insightful therapist or care worker alongside an able and willing client can be transformative also. Although choosing the right therapist can be tricky.
The role of the therapist is to collaborate rather than to teach, confront or fill holes in your psyche
The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk
TAKING STOCK OF THE INVISIBLE
Taking stock of our lives, and sharing it with others in a group setting, can also be an essential part of the transformative experience. It’s easy to feel isolated in the healing process and it helps to have peers with whom you can share the trials and tribulations of your journey. The 12 steps programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous give explicit instructions on how to do this. The group meets regularly to reflect on what has happened since their last meeting and to support each other’s transformation. In her book Circle of Simplicity, author Andrews shares the insight that to walk through the door of a 12 step program, or similar, and commit to the process can be a life changing transformative step that invigorates one’s entire life.
Unfortunately, we are not privy to this insight at the beginning of our journeys and we seldom make changes without the impetus of some measure of discomfort and suffering within. For many of us it’s only when our ‘backs are to the wall’ that we will admit that something has to change; or some measure of reflection is required. However inner change does not necessarily need to be wrenched from us with some obligatory pain. We can also catch glimpses of our potential through life altering events such as the birth of a child, an intimate relationship, a spiritual awakening or a new insight that brings a revelation of sorts.
People’s lives can also be radically transformed through meditation, a change in diet, a dedicated yoga practice – even an inspiring book or film can bring about meaningful perceptual shifts.
In the IONS Institute study guide they write that to “create new patterns of living within our lives, requires us to dismantle old structures”, and to build new life affirming ones in their place. At the IONS Institute it is further disclosed “Though the (breakdown and breakthrough) process can be painful at times it can also be filled with grace and the sense of being intimately engaged in a miraculous process”.
And I can attest to this.
Failure to understand the dynamics of the ‘inner life’ can retard our progress just as much as if we do not believe in learning to read or do math
The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By, Carol S Pearson
EMBRACING THE HERO’S JOURNEY
This shift in perspective at the individual level is what is needed to fuel the transition towards the simple living lifestyle and to transform our world.
Transforming the world around us begins with transforming ourselves from the inside out and as we embrace the journey within, our path unfolds as the hero’s journey. When we broaden our personal understanding of the world we live in, through the experience of expanded states of mind; or in shifts in consciousness brought about by the therapeutic setting, we open doors to a much broader set of choices. When we alter our perceptions, we will find that the world changes in tandem around us, and expands outward. Just as personal change comes with a shift in our definition of ourselves, a groundswell of individuals, like you and me, each make meaningful, incremental changes in our own lives, brings consciousness to the critical mass; and profound change on the global level will radiate from this.
Change is an inside job. We each have a life on the inside as vast as our outside lives
Catch the Fire, Peggy Taylor and Charlie Murphy
And as the writers of the phenomenal documentary Down the Rabbit Hole: What the Bleep Do we Know express “Whatever our processes are, we are fully capable of healing our past, changing our neural networks, recovering from emotional addictions and living healthier more peaceful lives”. And “never before have we had at our disposal such an abundance of resources to equip ourselves for the journey.”
CONSTRUCTING A MEANINGFUL PATH
In previous essays I have made mention of the core human need to follow through on our personal interests and our passions, and to give them a place in our daily lives. I have also spoken about how precious and invaluable the creative process has been in my life to heal wounds, past and present. I explain how it has helped me move through considerable impediments to healthy living, and then aided me to construct a path that is meaningful to me, as well as unique to my needs.
Having access to a very good public library system, to envision that path, was a crucial component and has helped me immeasurably. Being cognisant of the joys of reading (a gift from my mother, Mavis) has further facilitated a healthier progression through later life.
All of these aspects of daily life are available to each of us, and locating the strength to change our world is also within our means. The timeframe of our steps towards wholeness, however, will be uniquely our own.
Drawing on my own experience from this life-long journey of breakdown and breakthrough, I have put together a simple five step guide to being strong enough to change the world; your world at first, and then the world around you.
BEING STRONG ENOUGH TO CHANGE YOUR WORLD
Your world at first – and then the world around you
Begin by making changes in your own lives. Small ones at first that are life affirming. This will include reducing the hours of paid work per week and the freeing up of time. Read up on the various movements, there is a great deal on the web. The postgrowth.org movement might be a great place to start. Begin mapping out a path for yourself – setting manageable goals that motivate and invigorate. Follow your energy in this regard. It is about liberating oneself from the familial unit. We are all unique in our needs, as are our life situations. One size fits all doesn’t apply to new paradigm living. Consciousness raising might involve having access to the services of a life coach for every individual in every household and a facilitator for the group process. The expansion of the caring sector mentioned previously will allow for this.
Incorporate creative activity into your daily life (take a look at The Creative Force Within essay for more on this) as well as time in nature; for some people this will be the ocean, and water sports such as surfing and body boarding, for others it will be the forest etc. These are core needs for a very specific sustenance that needs attending to, and fulfilling on a daily basis and not put off till vacation or retirement. Creative activity along with time in nature will also provide the healing environments that support inner health; and begin to dissolve the invisible wounds from our history.
Begin to experience the lightened load and the invigorating changes that have taken place in your own lives. Your joy will bring about a natural expansion of your sense of empathy and and generosity towards others. This will also foster the inner development that will be vital to moving on from the old paradigm lifestyles, (and from those aspects of ourselves that have outlived their usefulness) and to begin to experience the abundance that was there all the time.
Become active at the community and/or the national level. Choose the areas that you are most interested in or affected by personally, or as a family, and become part of the big change. This might be signing petitions, writing letters, networking with fellow ‘life changers’ in the community or online, setting up simplicity or abundance circles, getting involved in local or global campaigns, investing time in your local neighbourhoods etc. The New Internationalist magazine is a great monthly read and will be a revelation if you’ve relied on newspapers and the news media to tell you about the world around us. Overall, you will find that as we feel moved to take action in our own lives our natural enthusiasm will energise the shifts in lifestyle for others to follow our lead. Small, incremental changes are sufficient.
Small acts of kindness are invaluable to managing life’s inevitable hardships, and random acts of kindness are often the most potent, strangely enough. Loneliness and isolation are a common malady in our consumer society and making positive connections with others is a vital human need. A smile, a nod of thanks to the bus driver, warm eye contact with the checkout person or the shop assistant, holding the door for someone who needs help or an elder; saying howdy to the council employees as they work in the neighbourhood, connecting positively with the delivery person. I often deliver muffins to various neighbours in my immediate community, leave a thank you message on the serviette at the local cafes I patronise, and frequently nod or say good day to people I pass on the street. The musician Toby Mac croons to us “Be kind. For everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about” and this is so true of life.
THE GREAT UNRAVELLING
The authors of Active Hope convey to us that there are three primary storylines we, perhaps unconsciously, intone to ourselves about how we experience the present day; and that we each subscribe to one, or an amalgam, of the following three quite different narratives to give it a name.
BUSINESS AS USUAL Everything’s OK – just keep working and spending to support the economy.
THE GREAT UN-RAVELLING We are in such a mess and beyond hope. What can I do?
THE GREAT TURNING. We have an opportunity to transform our lives and our world. Let’s embrace that.
Many people are careering between ‘business as usual’ and ‘the great un-ravelling’, and some of us are still holding on dearly to ‘business as usual’. Certainly, this is the narrative that our newspapers tend to preach. The Active Hope authors tell us that the 3rd story ‘The Great Turning’ is held and embodied by those who know the first story ‘Business as Usual’ is leading us to catastrophe, and who refuse to let the second story ‘The Great Un-ravelling’ have the last word. They go on to advise us that ‘The Great Turning’ is about the epochal transition from an industrial society addicted to growth, to a life sustaining society committed to the healing and recovery of our world. Joanne Macy finishes with “the central plot is to find and offer our unique gift of ‘Active Hope’ to the world.”
I believe this is part and parcel of The Hero’s Journey: the journey towards personal wholeness, in which we aspire to embrace each challenge that presents itself, as a call to adventure. It is indeed through this contribution towards our own self-healing, that we will begin to heal our world.
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THE PSYCHOLOGIES OF OUR TWO MINDS
Two Distinct Personalities
Scientists have been studying the functional asymmetries of the left and right hemispheres of the brain for over 200 years. However in the 1960s when Doctor Roger Sperry cut the highway between the two hemispheres (the corpus callosum), in order to assist his patients experiencing severe, intractable epileptic seizures, he learnt that the surgically separated hemispheres functioned as two independent brains, with two very different personalities. In their natural connected state however the left and right brains are seen to complement and enhance one another’s abilities to run the organising system that we call a human.
However, I would suggest that in our yang centric left brained culture in which the feminine (yin, right-brained) values and potentials have been sidelined or demoted, the left brain personality, which is also the seat of the egoistic mind, has become like a resident bully both in our ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ worlds.
The stronger the ego, the stronger the sense of separateness between people
Eckhart Tolle
As the seat of the conditioned mind, the left brain personality has been allowed to use its control of the Left Brain language centres to dominate proceedings, and in doing so it has subjugated the entirely different but vitally complementary grounded, present moment right brain personality, with all the attendant sensitivities and wise non-judgmental knowing to be found there.
Taylor’s flair for articulating her discovery that “the experience of nirvana” (Taylor’s word choice) is never more than a mere thought away from the left brain chatter, was a revelation to me. It deepened my understanding that the profound, almost subterranean, internal peace that so infrequently inhabits my cranium is my true inheritance, not the bullying voices of the conditioned mind that tend to shackle and disturb.
We all (men and women alike) have the capacity to access this place, to cultivate these expanded states of awareness that issue forth from our right brain mechanism, and we don’t have to become seriously ill to do so. Moreover, there are many portals, mentioned earlier, through which we can experience that vibrant ‘nowness’ which is our essence. To hear oneself from the perspective of the non-judgemental, curious and compassionate self, and recognising it to be your home will be a revelation you will want to repeat.
Most importantly, however, it is where we come to experience the felt ‘knowing’ of our interconnectedness to all that is, and on this yang-centric, beleaguered planet we need more of us to experience and know this truth, without delay.
Inner alignment with the present moment opens your consciousness and brings it into alignment with the whole, of which the present moment is an integral part. The totality of life then acts through you
A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle
A REVOLUTION IN CONSCIOUSNESS
The sacred priority of the hero and heroine’s journey is the journey home to ourselves; and the revolution in consciousness we so urgently need, to awaken humanity, will naturally flow on from, and work alongside, the honouring of our personal journeys.
“Following the Left Hemisphere’s path has already involved the destruction and despoliation of the natural world and the erosion of established cultures” declares Dr Iain MacGilchrist in his book The Master and his Emissary. Allowing the Left Hemisphere character’s conditioned self to rule the airways between our ears has been similarly destructive, and it can weary us to the bone. The fact is that the tyranny of the egocentric conditioned self is reflected in the world around us and it springs forth from the prisons of our own perceptions.