Hi Everyone!

I appreciated all of your insights on my personal power writing last month. I love to learn from others’ life experiences. Life is so rich when we share our insights with one another. 

As I continue on my journey to create this current version of myself, I am struck by how important it is that we help one another with what we have learned along the way.

Joseph Campbell, the American writer and professor who studied myths throughout time, coined the term the monomyth. It means there is one narrative within every story throughout all civilizations. Campbell studied thousands of myths and legends to discover that there is a central hero in each adventure who follows a familiar pattern. From Jesus, to Persephone, to Luke Skywalker, we are all the heroes of our own life.

When we think of our life as an adventure and ourselves as the hero in it, it shifts our perspective and creates a sense of wonder. It also gives us permission to follow our instincts and take risks. It is true that we all have responsibilities and cannot take off to sail around the world at a moment’s notice – or can we? We can say YES to more than we think we can. If we have the goal of becoming the best versions of ourselves, we can be adventurers – even without a big life transition to navigate.

As the heroes of our own life, we do not give up or regress when faced with adversity. Instead, we face the challenge, overcome and learn from it. When we expect more for ourselves and from ourselves it takes us out of our comfort zone. The comfort zone is our ego’s domain. Whereas our soul is always calling upon us to grow. The hero’s journey can take place on a battlefield or in an office cubicle. Becoming a parent is an example of a journey. It’s such an important role, and, after time, the demands of that role wane and we need to embark on a new path. 

I mentioned at the beginning of this piece that it is important to help one another. In the third stage of Campbell’s monomyth, the hero returns from her journey she must share what she has learned with her community. This is what elders do. In today’s society, we need more elders. In civilizations throughout time, the wise elder played an important role as the custodians and holders of sacred knowledge. They helped others by guiding and bridging the past, present and future. We all have access to our inner elder regardless of age. Michael Meade calls the first half of life, “Survival Mode” and says that we must take what we learned in survival mode and teach others. If we have learned important life lessons or have specific skills that we are passionate about – we must pass them along. We must not choose idleness.

I have learned so many things about how to take care of myself during a challenging time. How to let adversity shape me, but not own me. I look forward to sharing so much more. I invite you all to to say “yes” to more journeys and to help others with what you have learned. Until next time!

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.

— Elizabeth Kübler-Ross

Blessings and light,

Ellen