“…you’ve got to have a clue. You’ve got to have a road map of some kind, and these are all around us.” – Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth

What was one of your first board games to play? I’ll bet it was Candyland. I loved that map. Maybe it’s because of the great candy pictures, the colors, and my over functioning sweet tooth, but there’s something about that map that I still love to this day, as I play it with my granddaughters.

So, when I set about creating how I’d teach about the Heroine’s Journey and the journey steps I thought of that Candyland board, and I decided to draw it out in a similar way. I love how it illuminates the basic journey and makes it fun – sort of like a game! Let's talk about going on your personal growth journey.

Having A Map Does Help You Play The Game Of Life

My teaching about the Heroine’s Journey and my map is that life is much more navigable if you know the terrain - the map and the major milestones of the Journey. Knowing the map and the journey milestones turns around so many negative perspectives and changes them to the positive. 

I look back at three instances: my divorce (hell) and the angst I had about leaving two corporate jobs (major stress). Now I can see that leaving, in all those cases, as hard and disruptive as they were, were the best things to have happened. The subsequent journeys I took after leaving the marriage and those two jobs, were tough at times but I grew into a better, wiser person because of them.

If you know about the journey and how it’s designed to evolve you…then even when you’re going through a bad time, you can see its purpose and maybe even in the moment think – this is going to be good for me and for my personal growth in the long run!

Women who tune into me and my Heroine’s Journey work are busy. So much competes with their attention because of their many life distractions and demands. I wanted them to grasp my message quickly (You are a heroine on a time-honored, empowering journey.) and I knew it had to be delivered in an accessible, understandable way. 

Your Personal Growth Journey: Where Do You Show Up On The Game Board? Where Are You On Your Journey Of Self-Development?

Just where are you right now in your life, I wonder? 

Let’s pop into the map, my Candylandish “gameboard” and find out. I’ll take you through the steps and then you see where you think you are. First choose an area in your life you’d like to focus on: career, relationship…

What, no candy on this map? Sorry, no...but let’s be a bit playful…

Let’s start at the beginning – and let’s pretend it IS a game!

There are cards you are given before you even start: Courage Cards, Wisdom Cards, Kindness Cards – all the qualities you have within you that you can bring out any time you need them on the Journey.

And you’re also given a Silver Slippers Card (it was the Wizard of Oz movie that made them Ruby Slippers – L. Frank Baum, the author, wrote that they were silver). Having this card means you have the power to get to where you need to go – at all times, (especially if a wicked witch shows up!) – just remember to believe in yourself and in your dreams – and trust your intuition. 

Ok, Now Let's Play The Heroine's Journey Game Of Self-Development!

Move your game piece to the lower left-hand corner, the My Ordinary Life space. You’re the heroine. You’re the game piece. This is where you begin. You’re hanging out in your “village” you haven’t gone anywhere yet. You don’t even have a clue that you will be going anywhere. You’re just living your regular life. – working, taking care of things at home, most likely taking care of lots of things! (Actually, you look like you’re sleeping in this picture of you on the board. It’s time to wake up, Sleeping Beauty!)

Then, you get a Call Card!  What’s that?  You’ve had them happen to you before. A call is something that urges you out of Ordinary Life. It gets you to leave and go on the personal growth journey. Your Call card can be: a traumatic event like a divorce, a death, an accident. It can be a feeling, like growing frustration with a situation or growing interest in something or someone new. The point being, it can be an internal or external something that gets you to consider leaving where you are, in Ordinary Life.

But oh the forces that exist to keep you where you are! There are many. We call them Threshold Guardians. You are guaranteed to get one of these cards. At any time they can pull you back to Ordinary Life because they’re afraid of losing you – or they’re threatened by your growth and ideas – or jealous - or they just plain don’t know any better than to echo what people often say when someone has an idea to do or be something different:

• You’re not smart enough.
• You won’t make enough money.
• Who do you think you are?
• That’s a crazy, stupid, worthless idea.
• You’ll never succeed.
• You can’t do that!
• Etc.

So, you may pull a Threshold Guardian Card at any time and end up where you started, feeling badly and thinking you failed…IF you listen to them. If not…

Then, you keep going. If the pull of your new idea or your response to what has happened to you is strong enough, stronger than the nay-saying Threshold Guardians…and if you exercise one of your Courage Cards– you’ll keep going and then come to, The First Threshold. (Go ahead, pretend to move your piece there.)

This is where you commit. “You say, I’m going to do it.” I’m going to start this new business; end this relationship; quit my job; travel on my own through Europe…whatever it is for you, you say, “Yes!”

But I must mention another card you could pull or choose in your Heroine’s Journey Game of Self-Development– the Refusal of the Call Card. This happens when you keep hearing the Call to do or be something different, to make a change, to go on your personal growth journey, and you keep ignoring it! Picture you with your hands over your ears or picture you distracting yourself every way possible so you don’t have to face what this call is asking you to do.

I did this for many years before I finally decided to get divorced. I was afraid and usually that’s why we Refuse the Call. The Call has so much potential to evolve us (it’s its purpose, actually) that we can be frightened when we think about our potential future…there are so many unknowns! Yes, answering your call has you always stepping into the unknown, so full of possible dangers. But this is exactly what the journey map teaches us. This is what we must do to move into our bigger selves and develop past our Ordinary Life. It is so worth it. A heroine, who knows about the journey and why we answer calls says, “Whoo Hoo, sure I’m scared but let’s cross this Threshold!”

(And way later, when she looks back at this particular journey – we go on many in our lifetime – she’ll say, that former version of me was so small…I’m so thankful that I took that leap over the Threshold.)

The Golden Arch and The Heroine Mindset

There you are - see the big arch?  The lion is there, a symbolic Threshold Guardian, but you, heroine that you are, cross over. High Five!!

Now you’re on Adventure Road where there are many spaces. People who don’t know the Journey map and Journey language call it “life.” They sometimes describe it as hard, a trudge… “it’s not easy” but the heroine, adventurer that she is, calls it an adventure, a journey into the unknown that yes, is hard, but does it ever pay off at the end.

“But, Susanna, I didn’t choose my adventure. I got fired. I've been left for another woman. I was in an accident that crippled me. “

You can choose how you react, though. You can choose to see it as an event that happened to you that has the potential of making you into a better, wiser, stronger, more resilient – bigger person. That’s the heroine mindset.

Now your game piece moves along the spaces of Adventure Road. In your story there will be ups and downs; dead ends; wrong turns…but you’ll get a Mentor Card, people who help guide you. Some people, like me, even believe in “unseen helpers” or spiritual guidance that can help the heroine on her way. 

Uh oh, did you get a Belly of the Whale Card? This happens on the journey. There are times when you feel so tossed and turned around – not knowing what the heck you’re doing – it’s like you could be in the belly of a whale. But…this is often the most creative and promising time for a heroine. When big trouble happens the heroine taps into all her inner resources and emerges stronger and more powerful!

And then, there’s the Dragon Card. If you get one of these on your journey then something deep and important has come up for you so you can heal it. Maybe you finally face what you’re so afraid of that has bothered you for a long time; or it has to do with why you keep giving your power away to someone else…these Dragon cards are about deep-seated issues or “baggage” that you’ve been dragging around and it’s time to face them so they don’t keep limiting you. 

Now it’s time for the Gift Cards because every journey around the board brings you gifts. They could be healing, transformation, confidence, a new relationship, financial success… They will be whatever you most needed to gain from the journey that was first given to you by the Call (which by the way is sent from your very soul, I believe, which knows just what you need to do to grow).

You now are awarded the Return Threshold Card and the Free to Live Card! Yay! You’re done with this particular journey, and you can return to your “village”, your community, where you can share your more evolved self with others. (Yes, dear heroine, you’d better own it. Every trip around the journey evolves you…you are “higher up” the spiral of self-development than when you started!) You have more freedom because you’ve abandoned those things holding you back because of what you encountered on the journey. You’ve shed some layers, those parts of you that weren’t the real you, the brilliant heroine you.

Personal Growth Journey: What Happens Next?

And what’s next? Well, another Call Card will be coming your way – at some point! But, why don’t you get some rest? Give yourself a well deserved break. Go ahead and put the game and your personal growth journey on the shelf for now. We’ll pull it out again when you’re ready.