The Hero's Journey Always Looks Like This

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"Whatever you have gone through in life or are yet to go through, your experiences are the natural consequences of being a human being.  You are already on the hero's journey.  It always looks like this."      --Mastering Life's Energies, by Maria Nemeth, Ph.D.

In our quests to achieve our goals, 
we often encounter discourage-
ment, challenges to self-confidence, 
fatigue in the will to keep fight-
ing...it's all part of the journey.

       "It always looks like this."  Hmm.  When I read that, it did that echo-y thing, like in the movies..."this, this, this, this..."  And I could hear the air hissing out of the huge balloon of expectations of perfection I had blown up in the course of my adulthood, and hidden somewhere in the recesses of my mind.  What a relief that was.

        I thought about the imperfect journeys of the  heroes I've read about: Ulysseus getting sidetracked with the Sirens and other hostile creatures, yet still reaching his destination; Moses leading the Isrealites through a harrowing journey through the "wilderness" for 40 years, at one point facing near-mutiny by them, but still seeing to it that they got to the Promised Land; Arjuna's famous moment of confusion and reluctance on the battlefield in the Bhagavad Gita.

        Thousands of years later these stories are still rich to us, for good reason.  We get it.  We understand the imperfect paths the heroes walked.  We walk them ourselves every day.  And we yearn for the transcendence those heroes achieved.

"To him who has conquered 
his lower nature by his higher 
Self, the Self is a friend. But to 
him who has not done so, It is 
an enemy." --Bhagavad Gita

        It always looks like this, so I can let myself off the hook for at times being sidetracked, challenged, or confused. I could even feel grateful for dark moments I experience, since they seem to alter my path so that I seek the light all the more dilligently.  I can be grateful for every endeavor I seem to fail at initially because I lack skills I will later develop, even have the luxury of taking for granted.

        And there's this odd peace in knowing that everyone I encounter, even at his or her worst behavior is, nevertheless, on a "hero's journey" too, as entitled to their dark moments as I am to mine.

         Success wasn't just handed to the heroes of old.  They had to fight for it.  It's not going to be handed to us, either.  It just doesn't work that way.  Every hero and heroine arrives at success after battling with discouragement, after getting sidetracked and confused, after endless starts, stops, and restarts ...it's inevitable, there's no way around it.  We never fail from all this; we only grow in wisdom.  That's why we're here.

        If Dr. Nemeth is right, if the hero's journey indeed looks like this, so imperfect and so beautiful at the same time, then maybe I am heading in the right direction, after all.


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Resources:
















Be Your Own Life Coach: How to Take Control of Your Life and Achieve Your Wildest Dreams

The Bumps Are What You Climb On: Encouragement for Difficult Days


Encouragement for Life: Words of Hope and Inspiration

Teaspoon of Courage: A Little Book of Encouragement for Whenever You Need It


Character Makeover: 40 Days with a Life Coach to Create the Best You

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