The Heros Journey

The Heros Journey is a natural progression of human development explaining how a person becomes fully transformed. It is a complete loop, usually in some domain of life whereby the "Hero" strips away their old identity and steps into the new "transformed" one. In this article I want to explain how the Hero Journey works, so that I may inspire you the courage to step into your authenticity.

The Normal Village

In the ordinary village, the Hero is just like everyone else. The Hero is ignorant about the possibilities outside of the ordinary village. The normal village can be characterized by being just like everyone else, unaware of the benefits in the alternative "better life."

In the normal village, the Hero's mind is filled with ideology and dogma indoctrinated by those around him in the normal village. In some instances, they are even carrying out the evil work of corrupted Heros from the past! The Hero is trapped in a state of deep unconsciousness.

Action Steps:

1. Explore the possibilities outside of your current awareness. Life is infinity, and anything in your imagination can be achieved. If life feels limiting for you, you are suffering from ignorance.
2. Be curious and scratch your itch. There is a reason why you are curious about it. Take small steps and eventually a world of possibilities will unravel before your very eyes.
3. Question everything around you. Why do you believe the things you believe? Is it because you have a lot of direct experience with the things you are talking about? Or are you a pawn for someone else?

The Call To Adventure

The call to adventure is every opportunity placed before the Hero to leave the village and step into transformation. The call usually comes again and again, which the Hero rejects because of his fear of the unknown. He feels comfortable enough with his existence and sees no reason to risk stepping outside what is familiar. Instead of answering the call to authenticity, he leans on excuses to avoid the uncertainty of growth.

The deeper purpose of the call is not just to summon him forward but to awaken his awareness of the road less traveled. Each rejection plants the seed of temptation that lingers in his mind, reminding him that there is a path beyond the ordinary.

• The Hero is safe within a 9-5, makes just enough money to keep him satisfied with the life he has. Not miserable enough to leave, but not happy either with how he is living right now.
• His social life is ordinary. Dating opportunities come once in a while, but rarely with depth. His friends are decent, but not inspiring. Beneath the surface, he struggles with boundaries, authenticity, and social anxiety. Problems he tells himself he can live with.
• The Hero self-image is average. He is not the “fit” person he imagines himself to be, yet he comforts himself with the foods and habits everyone else indulges in. It is not terrible, but it is not the life he truly desires.
• The Hero suffers with his thoughts and emotions. Often having violent mood swings and uncontrollable spirralling of thoughts. He tells himself that this is "normal" and that it is the "human condition."

With the call to adventure, the Hero now fully understands the treasure and transformation he would receive if he were to depart from the ordinary village.

Action Steps:

1. Reserach more about the path and journey you are about to take. Interview or do reserach on previous Hero's who have walked that path.
2. Manage your emotions and handle your fear of uncertainty. Learn some basic skills so that you can defeat the first Guardian later on.

Accepting The Call To Adventure

The acceptance to the call usually comes after some sort of diaster in the normal village. The comfort of the village no longer satisfies, and the Hero can no longer deny the pull toward transformation.

• The Hero loses his 9-5 job suddenly in an economic downturn. He has 6 months of emergency savings left to feed his family. He is left with no choice but to accept the call to adventure into entreprneuership.
• The Hero experiences a massive breakup or a girl he really likes rejects him painfully. He decides that enough is enough and is left with no choice but to accept the call to adventure into pickup.
• The doctor announces to the Hero that he is going to get type 2 diabetes if he does not change his lifestyle and lose weight. With his life on the line, he has no choice but to accept the call to adventure into fitness.
• In one episode, the Hero suffers from depression severely enough that he almost killed himself. During a moment of clarity before ending his life, he turns around and accept the call to adventure into spirituality.

Action Steps:

1. Where in your life have to countinuously refused the call to adventure? Why do you need to wait for your village to be destroyed before accepting? Is it not better to start now with the current safety net you have?
2. Remove all excuses. If you are honest with yourself, these excuses comes from your fears and insecurities when embarking upon the path. Address the root causes, not the symptoms.

With the acceptance to the call to adventure, the Hero now becomes fully committed to the road less travelled. Just for context, a Hero's Journey in each respective domain takes about 4 to 10 years to obtain the ultimate boon. If you begin at 20 years old, at maximum, to finish all the respective Hero's Journeys will take 40 years, making you 60. You have no time to lose especially if you are starting at an older age.

The First Threshold Guardian

The first Guardian Threshold is the initial major obstacle the Hero encounters on his journey. Its purpose is to test the strength of his resolve and determine whether he is truly willing to work for the treasure ahead. The Guardian stands as both a challenge and a gatekeeper, ensuring that no one may simply pass through without proving commitment.

The first attempt to cross the Guardian Threshold is often unsuccessful. The Hero is still inexperienced and lacks the skills required to overcome the challenge. Failure at this stage is common and serves as a lesson rather than a defeat.

• The Hero must rapidly learn new skills and put them into action to acquire his first customer in business.
• The Hero must face approach anxiety and push himself to complete his first thirty high quality approaches, eventually earning a date through cold approach.
• The Hero must break free from a sedentary lifestyle, overhauling his diet and committing to regular exercise routines.
• The Hero must overcome his restless mind by meditating one hour a day until he experiences his first awakening.

Action Steps:

1. To pass, the Hero must seek out his first mentor, someone who can equip him with tools, knowledge, and guidance. With these new skills, the Hero gains the strength to return to the challenge, break through the barrier, and continue forward on his first major advancement.

With the first Guardian Treshold passed, he is now fully committed to the path. The Hero is now psychologically unable to return to the village after experiencing his first major breakthrough.

Growth I

Growth I often lasts for a year or two and it is charectarized by how the Treshold Guardians are defeated. In Growth I, the Hero is mainly struggling with catabolic energy levels like blame, fear and victimhood. In Growth I, the Hero must adopt an exploration mindset, understanding what he needs to learn and master to countinue to defeat Threshold Guardians in this stage.

Volume is the primary method of growth in this stage. The Hero needs to countinuously perform the same actions again and again so that he understands the epistemology behind what he does. It is the foundational work the Hero lays down to move into the next stage.

Dangerous Traps In Growth I:

1. Ineffective foundation. The Hero might waste his time practicing on the wrong foundation. At this stage, the Hero is unable to diffrenciate between good and bad advice. If he obtains bad instructions and misplaces his trust in the wrong mentors, he will countinue to be defeated by Treshold Guardians.
2. Obsessing Over Results. As mentioned, the Hero in this stage have insufficient skills and knowledge when it comes to the acquisition of results. Although being motivated by results, the Hero should focus more on exploration and refinement of what he learnt.
3. Lack Of Volume. The Hero should not concern himself with making things perfect or meet his idealistic perfections. Skills are made of many different components, and the Hero should focus on one tiny component and perfect them one at a time.
4. Lack Of Patience. The Hero will be doing the same thing again and again because he simply is not good enough yet to defeat Treshold Guardians and get the results. The Hero must be patient while he gets better day by day. Discipline is the most important character trait in Growth I.
5. Attempting To Take Shortcuts. There is no such thing as shortcuts. The beaten path is already dangerous enough and to deviate from it means that you need to be very capable to survive. The most likely outcome of shortcuts means that you will get bitten by snakes. If the snake is venemous enough and nobody comes to save you, the consequences can be severe.
6. Lack Of Forgiveness. You will make a lot of embarassing and stupid mistakes in Growth I. If you are not compassionate to yourself, you just might cry yourself to sleep for months on end. Forgive your own ignorance, as long as it was a honest mistake, do not be too hard on yourself.

Growth I in the spiritual context refers to the acquisition of the Hero's foundation and skills so that he may be able to face the dangers ahead.

Growth II

You step into Growth II when volume no longer helps you progress along the journey and grow. In Growth II, it is very likely that the Hero have achieved some noteworthy results and is competent in that said domain. In Growth II, the Hero have all the skills needed to progress furthur, but lacks the understanding in how he can use them in the right context.

Refinement is the primary method to grow in Growth II. Often the Hero is more than capable to defeat Treshold Guardians in Growth II, but he is applying his skills in the wrong context. A little adjustment and refinement can make a big difference during Growth II.

Dangerous Traps In Growth II:

1. Staying In The Volume Mindset. The Hero must recognize that volume no longer helps him improve his results. The Hero should be looking to analyze patterns and reflect upon what he has done so far. Mistakes here are not obvious, and the Hero lacks the ability to make very fine distinctions.
2. Settling For What You Have Right Now In Exchange For Growth. Some Heros' set out on their adventure and never finished them, causing perpetual suffering. The worst thing you can do is to play it safe and not move forward.
3. Materialism. The Hero might have forgotten why he have embarked on the journey alltogether. He might become too distracted by the external results he is receiving, creating another rat race of suffering for himself by trying to achieve more and more.
4. Believing That You have "Made It". This is confusing the boon for external results. Just because you are receiving a lot of external results does not mean that you have completed your journey. Success often brings you to settle at that layer of comfort, stopping growth to maintain what you have right now.
5. Giving Up. In practice, the Hero can never give up and will eventually return to the path, since he can no longer return to the village. But often the Hero might trick himself into saying he "gives up" due to fustration and lack of progress seen in Growth I and backslides all his progress which may take months or years to rebuild up to that point.

Growth II in the spiritual context is the abuse of his said powers found in Growth I. The Hero does not yet realize that the more he uses his skills to serve his ego, the furthur he is straying from the path.

Journey To Receieve The Ultimate Boon

When the Hero strays too far away from the path and becomes too egotistical, he will meet the Dragon and will enter into the belly of the whale. This is usually marked by the Hero's increasing understanding of his cycle of suffering. For the first ever time, he realizes that his problems cannot be fixed in the external world and turns inwards.

The Hero is then swallowed by darkness and forced into a state where his ego can no longer guide him. If the Hero is successfully able to renounce his ego in the belly of the whale, he becomes a real Hero and receives the elixir of immortality. This description is not symbolic but literal. The Hero totally transforms into a new person which is unable to experience suffering in that domain of life.

The Magic Flight

With the treasure in hand, the Hero begins his return to the village. This time, the path is no longer blocked by Guardians (natural forces and external obstacles that once tested his skills), but by Devils. In real life, these Devils are often:

1. Fallen Heroes are those that refuse to drink the Elixir Of Immortality. Out of fear or selfishness, they conceal the Elixir from others, ensuring that the village remains unconscious so they may continue exploiting it for their own gain.
2. Failed or trapped Heros in Growth I or II, who attack you out of misunderstanding and ignorance. They do not undertstand what the Elixir is about, and have yet found transformation. More often than not, they have been corrupted by Fallen Heros.
3. Villagers. Villagers are enablers of the Fallen Heros. Fallen Heros exploit villagers by appealing to their ego (passive income, no effort but big results, safety, monkey mind appeals). The Fallen Heros exploit Villagers by providing them with safety, in exchange for their freedom.

These three architypes poses a problem for the returning Hero because the journey back is about selflessness. It is about learning how to use The Ultimate Boon to benefit others instead of serving oneself. First the Hero learns by helping the Heros who are already on the journey, and eventually to the massess in the village.

During the journey back, the Hero is particularly vulnerable. The Hero might be weakened or injured by the journey and will require assistance from more stronger and capable Heros of the past to help him navigate or even sometimes, provide direct assiatance in his journey back into society.

The Ending

The Hero successfully crosses back into the return threshold and returns back to the village. He now possess the best of both worlds. He has:

1. Successfully integrated all of his experience and understands how to integrate himself back into the village
2. Ended all his suffering for that particular domain of life. No longer needs "that thing" and can live peacefully with or without it.
3. Can disguise himself as an ordinary villager
4. Can step into the shoes of the Hero whenever life demands of his skills in the future.
5. Has became humble. He no longer flashes the boon in front of other people's faces and chooses ordinary life rather than the extraordinary.

I chased the Beautiful.
With empty hands I returned.
There she sat, patiently waiting,
And I was struck with awe.

If I stayed put, I could not see.
If I searched, I could not find.
Only when I have died,
And there she was.

Like a cat chasing her own tail,
I left the ordinary to find the extraordinary,
Only to find the extraordinary in the ordinary.
Without the journey, I would be in mediocrity.

Conclusion

The Hero’s Journey is the most humbling path you can take. It teaches you how to survive effectively in the world, and then it dissolves the very need to survive. What freedom is greater than that?

Do not cling to money, beauty, or status. These things are shadows on the wall. Yes, it is true that the journey may show you how to achieve such things, but when the Elixir is drunk, they no longer become important. It is exactly because that you no longer need them, that for the first time, they really become yours.

The treasure of the Journey is not what you hold, but what you release. If you are on the Hero's Journey and in need of a powerful guide, check out my coaching page. The products there tailor to Hero's specifically for each stage on their journey.

Cheers,
FriendlyWrenChilling.