EP 56 The Hero's Journey

Joseph Campbell changed my life and I realised recently that I probably ought to dedicate my entire podcast to him because he gave me a non religious framework to explain my spiritual experiences. Who was Joseph Campbell and why should his work matter to you? Joseph Campbell was an American professor of literature and is the author of multiple books; his most famous being the Hero with a Thousand Faces. He was made famous notably by his influence on George Lucas, the director of Star Wars. Why should you care? Because we are all the heroes of our own lives and knowing the twelve steps of the hero's journey can give us a road map to guide us and give us comfort. One of the biggest negative beliefs when we face challenges is the belief that we are alone. In truth, it is very likely that someone has been through something similar to you and could be a great mentor to help you through the ordeal. In the episode I illustrate the twelve steps of the hero's journey with my own experience of losing my job as a corporate lawyer, which I am going to list briefly here. If you would like to hear me talk about these steps and ask me any questions you may have about spirituality in person, sign up for my webinar by joining my author mailing list with this link. I will be running them regularly so if you have missed the date of the 28th of October (2024), or if you can't make the time, don't worry. I will be running plenty more. The twelve steps of the hero's journey are the following: The call to adventure The refusal of the call Meeting the mentor Crossing the threshold Tests, allies and enemies The approach to the inmost cave The ordeal The reward The road back The resurrection The return The freedom to live This framework is so famous now that even Grammarly has a blog post about it. There is a reason for this. Joseph Campbell has become the golden standard to write Hollywood film stories thanks to the popularisation of his framework by Christopher Volger in his best seller The Writer's Journey, Mythic Structure for Writers. The biggest insight that Joseph Campbell gifts us is that the biggest dragon we have to slay on our spiritual journey is not the enemies of this world but our own ego. And in a way, this is incredibly empowering because it brings us back in control. It's not a popular path, as I mentioned already in Episode 48 of the podcast called Dancing in the Light and Playing with the Shadows. It is so much more glorious to slay dragons or enemies of the public. But this illustrates that the spiritual journey is rarely an outer adventure but an inner one. We need to descend into our own darkness and free ourselves from our fear, guilt, shame and other negative emotions because for as long as we live our lives by them, they are our masters and they drive our behaviours in very powerful ways. Don't forget to sign up for my author's newsletter so that you can be informed of when my memoir about my own hero's journey of going from corporate lawyer to spiritual lawyer will be available for sale. Here is the link to do so. To listen to the episode, click here.