We are all Heroines.

 I have always been drawn to heroine and hero stories, and now I know why. It’s who we are! We are heroines through and through. It’s our potential, our hidden reality. Heroineism (yes, that’s a word) lives within our very core.

 We humans are pretty dense. We take a long time to wake up to our starring role in the story - our story. We think we are too ordinary to believe we are worthy of being the star. We put ourselves down. “Who, me?” we ask.

 Many thanks to storytellers old and new who won’t stop telling the hero’s/ine’s story! These stories have drawn us in for centuries. They are so relatable. Who doesn’t see a tiny part of themselves in the unsuspecting hero? Just like us, they feel dissatisfied, they dream of a better life, they are scared to step out of their comfort zone, and they are so frustrated as they struggle.

Maybe you did or didn’t see The Matrix movie. Neo is an office worker existing in an office landscape of cubicles. He is awakened by a series of events that lead him to choose between the dull and listless life he’s living or to swallow a pill that will throw him (in quite an impactful way) into the reality of who he really is, a hero of great potential.

Maybe you saw the film The Wizard of Oz? Dorothy Gale lives in a black-and-white world in Kansas where she is bored counting chickens with her Auntie Em until she is uprooted from her known world by a tornado. She lands (also in a very impactful way) in a brilliant and very foreign world full of color. She, like Neo, is tested and proves herself a heroine.

 …characters who begin in an “ordinary world” are convinced that they, too, are ordinary, and through all their adventures and challenges, are transformed into someone extraordinary.

 Look back, dear reader that is your life, too!

 It is! Think about it. I look back thirty-seven years to my very challenging divorce. Who I was before the divorce -  and who I became - was a massive transformation. Undoubtedly, my decision to leave my marriage upended me (and like Neo and Dorothy - it was impactful) out of a black-and-white existence (because I wasn’t connected to who I really was) and refashioned me into a true heroine. OK, there was no magic employed, no singing and dancing, and no ruby slippers - but a different type of magic. It’s the kind of magic that happens when someone connects with their inner voice and true self. My book, You Are a Heroine: A Retelling of the Hero’s Journey, speaks at length about the journeys of ordinary women who realize they are heroines.

“I call us…  We women going through our own unique and transformative events… We, non-book, non-film women…

 I call us… 

Real-Life Heroines.

Our story hasn’t been featured (yet!) in a film or a book (but I know that many of you are changing that and writing yourselves into scripts and memoirs), but it’s important to note that we are…

 Actively living heroine's journey stories! It’s time we recognize and celebrate that. We tend to minimize how we’ve taken risk after risk and how each leap - or small jump or step - has brought us closer to our true identity.

 Our leaps don’t have to be huge in order to be considered heroic.

Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey.

“ How did I explain that the stories they tell to children, or as a diversion on cold nights spent by the fire, held the deepest of truths…”

Heather Fawcett, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Fairies

 Neo and Dorothy are just two examples of the journey myth arc in storytelling but there are many examples. It was the college professor and author Joseph Campbell, the mythologist who lived from 1904-1987, who introduced us to the journey theme of the hero. (Yes, he said “hero,” and yes, hero implies a male hero, though he wrote that he meant it to be gender-neutral. He used male examples from ancient stories because ancient stories were about heroes and rarely - if ever unless they were a goddess - featured a heroine.) He used ancient stories because his point was that the story of the hero has been around for thousands of years, and it’s found in stories of all cultures. It’s enduring, timeless, and pervasive. 

Another great thing (and there are so many) about this ancient myth is that its universality unites us. We know much conflict and strife is consuming our world, but if we dig down through the stories (as Campbell did) we find a rich underlayer of narrative commonality. The same theme and story are everywhere - it’s the story of a character who thinks he’s ordinary until a wizard knocks on their door, or another who is given some magic beans, or it’s someone who finds a dragon’s egg, or a young man who is sent an invitation to go to wizarding school.

Here’s a quote from another character whom we initially doubted had any hero in him: Tyrion Lannister tells us in Game of Thrones,

“What unites people? Armies? Gold? Flags? It’s stories. There’s nothing in the world more powerful than a good story. Nothing can stop it. No enemy can defeat it.”

Did Barbie take a heroic leap last summer?

So why has this particular story theme or myth survived and thrived? Wait - just one more…If you saw the movie Barbie, you will surely see she’s a great example of the heroine’s journey. She thought she was just a doll, a stereotypical Barbie, no less!

When Barbie Actress America Ferrera accepted the SeeHer Award at the 2024 Critic’s Choice Award show, she spoke about the importance of seeing yourself in these heroic stories. “To me, this is the best and highest use of storytelling - to affirm one another’s full humanity, to uphold the truth that we are all worthy of being seen.”

And why is this Hero’s Journey still with us, the same story framework that the blind poet Homer used in the late 8th century B.C. to tell of the adventures of Achilles and Odysseus?

Because it has a message for all of us through the ages, the message calls to us to pay attention and wake up. We are more than we realize. We are not ordinary. We have a mission to fulfill and won’t be fulfilled by playing it safe and staying in our comfort zone. That mission will call to us, and we need to respond to that call.

The journey theme is a pattern, a path available to all. It’s a way of structuring our experience. The hero’s journey isn’t just for certain people with special powers; rather, it’s for everyone. It’s a map that helps us find our own power.

“The task of the hero is to claim one’s own life and place in the world instead of having one’s life and place in the world determined by others.”  P. Adson, Depth Coaching. 

We are all heroes within the context of this enduring, universal myth. We need to wake up to that fact, and the journey’s call is always ready to do just that – to let us know what to look at next within ourselves, if we but listen. 

You have to know the path to know that you’re on it! You have to know what I call the milestones.  

Campbell calls them the “guide-signs along the way.”: 

Here’s the short version of his heroine/hero myth:

 A seemingly “ordinary” person has something happen to her or him that takes her from her known world to a very different world where she is met with all kinds of challenges that culminate in some sort of monumental task, like dragon slaying (or killing an evil wizard, or destroying a ring of power, or killing a witch to get her broomstick…) and which simultaneously, transform the “regular” person into someone much more – a “realized” person who has a new awareness about herself and what she’s capable of.  The journey has “birthed” her into who she really was all along – a heroine.  Helpers, usually magical, come to the aid of the heroine.  Dorothy has the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion.  Harry Potter has Professor Dumbledore.  Neo in the movie, The Matrix, has Morpheus.  Huckleberry Finn has Jim.  After accomplishing her dragon slaying, the hero returns home, usually with a gift that comes from her new level of awareness, and she now can share this gift with her community.

Our job is to stay awake and listen for our calls. I believe our calls come from our individual blueprint, our soul, as it knows how we need to evolve. Then, we must gather the courage to respond and go on our journey(s) into the unknown and collect the gifts gained from the experience to transform the kingdom.

You are needed now more than ever. Your particular gift has to be shared. Don’t hold back. 

Do you hear your calling? Now Leap!

“It is about fearlessly leaping off the edge of the known to confront the unknown, and trusting that when the time comes, we will have what we need to face our dragons, discover our treasures and return to transform the kingdom.  It is also about learning to be true to ourselves and live in responsible community with one another.” 

~ Carol Pearson - Awakening the Heroes Within