the hero’s journey

If you’ve watched the movie/documentary Finding Joe you already know about The Hero’s Journey.

If you haven’t, this is going to blow your mind. Change your perception about your journey, your path, your story. Or maybe not. Perhaps that depends on where you are in your life. On the red path, or the black path.

The Hero’s Journey is a universal story, a pattern or narrative that appears in the myths of many cultures. It was identified and described by Joseph Campbell. He was the guy who coined the phrase: follow your bliss.

The short version of the Hero’s journey has the hero in his normal ordinary world. An unexpected Call to Adventure leads the hero into a strange, dangerous world full of tests, challenges and dragons. The Hero battles these, and survives, only just. While in this world, the Hero finds the treasure/truth. The Hero returns to his normal, ordinary world and shares this treasure/truth with his tribe/people.

Sound familiar? That’s because the Hero’s Journey is the basic narrative behind many Hollywood movies – Star Wars, the Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter.

The longer version is much more interesting, a much richer story. Contained within three main sections – Departure, Initiation and Return – the pattern or story can be used as a framework to inform and describe your own story. Your own journey. For me it helped to make sense of the four years I spent recreating my life, and in essence myself, after being diagnosed with Depression.

I just wish I’d discovered the Hero’s Journey at the start or the middle of those four years, rather than at the end. It would have given me a bit of hope, and eased the feelings of alone-ness. Like I was the only person in the world going through this. Not!