Going on your very own personal Hollywood Hero’s Journey in 12 Steps
Everyone needs to go on their very own personal Hero’s Journey. It’s essential if you want to live your one chance at life fully and be who you really can be, who you’re meant to be.
It’s the template for every Hollywood blockbuster and bestselling novel as well as virtually every story ever told, from the Greek myths to the religious and spiritual texts to plays and ancient legends.
Why did our ancestors so seek to urge us through these stories to take our own Hero’s Journey, how is it that to this day it is a character in a book, play or film who goes on their Hero’s Journey that grabs hold of us so much and makes these bestsellers and box-office successes?
Mentoring people through their own Hero’s Journey is central to my therapy and with phenomenal successes. Knowing it is knowing yourself and understanding life. As the founder of the concept, professor of literature Joseph Campbell put it so perfectly: “The goal of the Hero’s Journey is yourself finding yourself.”
Here’s my latest article for Marbella’s Essential Magazine about why the Hero’s Journey needs to be known and why everyone needs to take this courageous and wondrous journey.
BLOCKBUSTER FILMS SUCH AS THE WIZARD OF OZ, JAMES BOND, STAR WARS, THE MATRIX, THE LORD OF THE RINGS AND SUPERMAN ARE ALL HUGE INTERNATIONAL SUCCESSES FOR ONE REASON: THEY FOLLOW AN AMAZING CONCEPT KNOWN AS THE “HERO’S JOURNEY”. IT’S WHY THEY RESONATE WITH US – BECAUSE DEEP DOWN WE KNOW IT’S THE JOURNEY WE ALL NEED TO GO ON TO REALISE OUR TRUE SELVES AND BE THE BEST WE CAN BE… WORDS DAVID HURST
Virtually all successful stories are the same. From Avatar to The Wizard Of Oz and Charles Dickens to Stephen King, these films and the books by these authors and many more follow an astonishing concept known as the “hero’s journey”. In fact this is why they are so successful. By following the hero’s journey blueprint these stories reach a part of us deep inside that we know to be the absolute truth about how we need to live our lives to find our true self and meaning.
Hero’s journey stories are all about a character we connect with because they’ve suffered some adversity in life, frequently during their childhood. Their present-day life is often drab – and they know there’s something more, if only they could escape from the spiritless confines of their ordinary world…
On their hero’s journey, they find a previously hidden inner reserve of strength to deal with a current adversity. In doing so, as well as helping and often saving their community or even the world, they deal with what’s been blocking them – and it’s often that childhood adversity – from living their life to its fullest potential.
HERO INSIDE
In a hero’s journey film, book or spoken story this all resonates with us so tremendously because the main character represents our own hopes and fears, our own lives. The main character will confront their fears to reach their hopes and become who they are meant to be, who they can be. They find their hero inside.
They are driven to find this inner reserve because their backs are against the wall, the game is up. They realise it was always inside them. In mental health terms those who do the best in their recovery are those who are similarly driven due to hitting rock bottom or after realising that their breaking down can be a waking up… they are given the “gift of desperation”.
Another parallel with recovery is that one of the many rewards for someone who goes through such as the 12 Steps programme is that in transforming themselves from, say, the depressed or constantly anxious person or the seemingly hopeless addict, everyone around them benefits too. There is a hero inside all of us.
CALL TO ADVENTURE
It’s why something stirs inside when Superman tears off his average man’s suit to reveal what super strength was underneath all along… Or when Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz leaves the farm where she is put upon by everyone, the film actually transforms from monochrome into stunning Technicolor. She literally opens the door to a brighter life. It signifies she’s left her ordinary world for an extraordinary world. It’s a world that’s there for all of us if only we can answer the “call to adventure” as it’s called in the hero’s journey.
A professor of literature called Joseph Campbell realised the hero’s journey concept in 1949 with the publication of his book The Hero With A Thousand Faces. He studied stories throughout history, including from cultures that had no contact with each other, and realised that the story structure was the same.
So our ancestors in such as the ancient legends, Greek myths, religious stories, classic bestsellers and more recently Hollywood blockbusters are all trying to tell us the same thing: we must take our very own personal hero’s journey to find our true self.
Campbell’s hero’s journey saw that the main character always answered their “call to adventure” and in doing so left their “ordinary world” for an “extraordinary world”. On their journey they will encounter all sorts of trials, tribulations and temptations that they need to overcome to gain what they need to get.
BECOME THE ONE
A hero’s journey is divided into 12 stages and now a growing number of mental health experts are noting the phenomenal connection to the 12 Steps that are well known in beating addictions. But they are also being increasingly discovered as an exceptional method of living for anyone.
A passage from my book 12 Steps To 1 Hero about this incredible parallel between the 12 Steps and the hero’s journey sums up what anyone can gain: “The 12 Steps enable a realisation that allows you to become the person you’re supposed to be, by going on a journey to find the hero inside. Consequently significantly emboldened, you can now stand tall, even during the worst periods of life: during a relationship or job rejection; as a loved one suffers with sickness; when the world recoils due to terrorism or a pandemic virus; even during the deaths of your mother and father…
“You are the one that is there for the others, you are the strong one, you are the brave and courageous, you are the calm in the storm and you are the one from where the light shines in the darkness. Isn’t that the aim, to be that one?”
Consider the astounding transformations of the main characters in your favourite films and books and from the most popular stories throughout history – and know that their story is urging you to go on your very own magical hero’s journey.
David Hurst is a Wellbeing Coach on the Costa del Sol with four books published on emotional issues & mental health recovery, including12 Steps To 1 Hero – a guide to going on your very own personal hero’s journey. To find out more or contact David, click here.
