It’s all about the journey…
We all live different lives, filled with challenges, triumphs, and what can sometimes seem like failures. There are always enemies to face, both out in the world and within our own hearts, and there are always small, humble beginnings that can lead to magnificent endings if we persevere.
Every one of our stories contains some kind of friction within the fiction. Without that friction, nothing moves, and nothing grows.
About a decade ago, I hired Ryerson University professor Cordelia Strube to help me become a better writer. The lessons I learned from her have paid huge metaphorical dividends in my understanding of the craft of storytelling and, more importantly, in how I see life itself.
Cordelia was the one who taught me the essential truth about friction. A good story must have it, and a great story demands it. Without conflict, there is no transformation.
The protagonist always faces a problem, a person, or a plight that must be addressed. This is the beating heart of the Hero’s Journey, the timeless pattern that underlies all great stories.
Joseph Campbell explored it beautifully in his 1949 classic, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, reminding us that beneath every tale worth telling lies a universal path of challenge and change.
Most great stories follow an arc in which a task or a quest suddenly drops into the hero’s life. At first, it may seem like a mere inconvenience or a small disruption, but as time goes on, the weight of the challenge grows heavier, the stakes rise, and the journey demands everything the hero has to give.
In struggling and ultimately overcoming, the hero or heroine is irrevocably transformed.
In shorter tales, the plot races swiftly toward its culmination. But in the grander stories, there are layers upon layers of complexity: multiple characters, intersecting subplots, and symbols that work on the deep, unconscious level of the reader’s mind.
Think of The Lord of the Rings. Frodo Baggins is given the terrifying responsibility of bearing the One Ring and destroying it in the fires of Mount Doom in Mordor, the only place where its evil can be undone. Naturally, his path is fraught with danger. There are dark forces and treacherous landscapes between him and his goal.
That constant resistance, that friction, is what keeps us engaged and what allows the story to reveal its truth. Because without friction, there is no tension, no learning, and ultimately, no meaning.
The Hero’s Journey is what makes great stories great. Each one opens a doorway into an emotionally rich world that mirrors our own, offering us life lessons that help us face and overcome the friction in our own lives.
When my hypnosis students ask me for a book recommendation, I often point them toward The Odyssey, especially the Robert Fagles translation of that epic from around 700 BC. Everything is there: the journey, the trials, the temptations, and the hard-won wisdom.
As Odysseus struggles to return home to his wife after the Trojan War, every challenge he meets reflects some deeper truth about the human condition.
The metaphors and life lessons in this ancient tale are rich nourishment for the unconscious mind, which is where all good hypnotists spend their time and energy.
So what about your own Hero’s Journey? Have you noticed the story that you’re already living? Are you aware of the characters, the conflicts, and the quiet moments of triumph that define your path?
And what if you could choose to begin a new quest right now? One that would lead you to fresh lessons, new strengths, and a deeper sense of victory when you finally reach its end?
That is exactly what this hypnosis audio track, Journey to the Castle, is designed to help you experience. With a comfortable chair or couch, and a good pair of headphones or earbuds, you can enter a vivid mythopoetic adventure in which the hero or heroine is you.
And it’s free.
- Mike Mandel
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