Last week I began an online class focused on the arc known as the Hero’s Journey. If you’re at all familiar with the mythologist, Joseph Campbell and his work, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about!

Essentially, the idea is that we are all the hero of our own story, and within our lifetimes are invited, encouraged, urged, and sometimes dragged onto a journey of self-transformation.

It all begins with the death of normal.

If you’re sensitive to this specific moment in time, you can feel that this death of normal is both personal and collective. One could even argue that our planet has been in a death of normal for quite a while...

The question is what do we do?

One of the presenters of my class is Caroline Myss. When she spoke about how she perceives this transition, she said that we, as humans, are going from a 5- sense being to a multi-sensory being.

What might that mean to you?

• A deeper listening to intuition or guidance?

• Feeling more interconnected to nature?

• Something else?

Years ago, I remember a spiritual teacher saying that for us to be human and live in this 3-D world, we are required to block out 99.9% of what is happening around us. Perhaps what Caroline is suggesting is that we allow ourselves to open up to experience more of what could/wants to come toward us.

If the idea of an end to what you've known feels daunting or scary, remember that you are not alone. We all feel that. None of us ever feels ready or able to embark on a new journey, discovery or undertaking. It always brings up discomfort and fear. The hero’s journey is an invitation to shift in some way, but we don’t know what or how that looks or feels!!!!

It used to be that when I’d find myself at one of these ending places (because Jospeh Campbell says we experience these journeys again and again in our lives), where something in my life needed to change, I could see across the horizon to where I wanted to go. Only, the thought of undertaking the journey felt daunting and hard. So instead, I’d wish to be instantly transported there.

Have you had that feeling, too?

With the wisdom of age and experience, I’ve come to appreciate the process, the journey, because it truly is transformational. It forges us anew, strips away aspects of us that are no longer relevant or useful.

As TS Eliot writes in Little Gidding,

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”

Often what happens with these journeys is that when we complete them, we see ourselves, others, and the world through new eyes.

So what do you say, are you ready to take a leap into change?

I am.

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Image courtesy of Matt Howard on Unsplash