Your Hero's Journey

The Hero Archetype – The “hero” is an archetype that plays a powerful role in our lives both real and imagined. We are attracted to the hero for multiple reasons, but primarily the dynamic of good triumphing over evil dominates. Carl Jung (1875 -1961)pioneered psychological exploration using archetypes. In American culture, numerous movie plots focus on a hero’s journey. Scripts focus on development of the protagonist relative to an adversary. In daily life, our tendency is to look for everyday heroes, such as the perfect mate, boss, or politician – someone who will make our lives better, possibly save us from loneliness. We are disappointed when our perceived heroes are exposed as flawed humans (every archetype has its shadow). We also tend to disregard the hero within ourselves, which inhibits our own agency in life. Finding the hero within is a path toward empowerment. To start down this path, you might like to explore Carol Pearson’s book, The Hero Within – Six Archetypes We live By (2015) or one of Caroline Myss’ books and audio recordings,  like The Language of Archetypes (Sounds True, 2006). Pearson developed an assessment that you might like to consider to inform your journey. Use the embedded hyperlinks to access these resources. Don’t forget to journal your journey!