Most of us were introduced to the Heroic Journey through mythology. Mythological heroes take great journeys: to slay Medusa, to kill the minotaur, to find the golden fleece. But The Hero's Journey isn't just a pattern from myth. It's the pattern of life, growth and experience -- for all of us. We see it reflected everywhere, from a television comedy to the great works of literature to the experiences in our own lives.
A Mirror of the Rite of Passage
The Hero's Journey duplicates the stages of the Rite of Passage. First the initiate faces separation from his own, familiar world. Once separated, he undergoes initiation and transformation, where the old ways of thinking and acting are altered or destroyed, opening the way to a new level of awareness, skill and freedom. After successfully meeting the challenges of the initiation, the initiate takes the journey's final step, the return to his world. When he does, he will find that he is more confident, perceptive, and capable, and he will discover that his community now treats him as an adult, with all of the respect, rights and privileges which that status implies.
A Map to Experience
Why study The Hero's Journey? Why learn a pattern that dates from before recorded history? The answer is simple: we should study it because it's the pattern of human experience, of our experience, and we will live it for the rest of our lives.
In a sense, every challenge or change we face in life is a Journey: every love found, every love lost, every birth or death, every move to a new job, school or city: every situation which confronts us with something new or which forces us to re-evaluate our thinking, behavior or perspective.
The journey is a process of self-discovery and self-integration, of maintaining balance and harmony in our lives. As with any process of growth and change, a journey can be confusing and painful, but it brings opportunities to develop confidence, perspective and understanding.
Understanding the Journey pattern can help us understand the literature us read, the movies us see, and the experiences which shape your life. By recognizing the Journey's stages and how they function, we will develop a sense of the flow of our own experience and be better able to make decisions and solve problems. More importantly, we will begin to recognize our own points of passage and respect the significance they have for us.
Eight-step transformation
We usually divide the Journey into eight steps, but you must remember that the journey is a single process and an individual adventure towards growth and transformation. As such, the sequence of elements and the duration of the experiences will vary from one person to another.
Separation (from the known)
Initiation and Transformation
The Return (to the known world)
Source: The Hero's Journey [8 Stages]
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