The Hero's Journey Map
Seventeen stages. Three great movements. One arc that every human life, in some form, travels. Joseph Campbell named it the monomyth. Keith Fiveson mapped it onto the inner work.
© 2019 Work Mindfulness Institute™ · Keith W. Fiveson · All rights reserved
"The hero's journey is not a metaphor for distant adventure. It is a description of the interior life, the movements of the psyche as it attempts to grow."
Campbell's monomyth identifies a single underlying pattern shared by the world's great stories: departure, initiation, and return. In the work of the King, Warrior, Magician, and Lover, these stages become a living map, not of story, but of self.
Phase
Departure
The Call to Adventure
The hero starts in the ordinary world and receives a call, sometimes from another person, sometimes from within. It is an invitation to step beyond the known.
Refusal of the Call
The hero may refuse from fear, indifference, or a sense of inadequacy. Luke Skywalker refuses Obi-Wan's call. It is difficult. It takes work.
Supernatural Aid
A guide appears, sometimes miraculous, sometimes simply a parent, a mentor, a friend offering a thought that lands differently than expected. Sometimes that aid is the resources already within us.
Crossing the First Threshold
The hero enters the field of adventure, leaving the known limits of his world and venturing into an unknown realm where the old rules no longer apply.
Belly of the Whale
The final separation from the known self. By entering this stage, the person shows willingness to undergo a metamorphosis. Something must die for something new to be born.
Phase
Initiation
The Road of Trials
A series of tests, tasks, and ordeals that the person must undergo to begin the transformation. Dragons must be faced. Barriers passed, again, and again, and again.
Meeting with the Goddess
The person encounters unconditional love, a quality the fortunate child knew with a mother, and the wandering adult must rediscover. It is the experience of being fully seen.
The Temptation
Those forces that would lead the hero to abandon or stray from the quest. Not always a person, often a habit, a comfort, a story about why now is not the time.
Atonement with the Father
The hero must confront whatever holds ultimate power in his life, often an internal image of the father, or a father figure who has life and death power over the psyche.
Apotheosis
An elevation, a moment of clarity, death, and rebirth. The audience, having traveled with the hero, experiences the brink of dissolution and then the relief of return.
The Ultimate Boon
The achievement of the goal of the quest. All previous steps prepared and purified the person for this. The scarecrow wanted intelligence. The lion wanted courage. The tin man wanted compassion.
Phase
Return
Refusal of the Return
Having found bliss and enlightenment, the hero may not want to return to the ordinary world. The person may carry demons of doubt that have to be resolved before the gift can be shared.
The Magic Flight
Sometimes the hero must escape with the boon. Glenda gave Dorothy magic slippers. Obi-Wan gave Luke the lightsaber. Dumbo had a feather. The gift is often disguised.
Rescue from Without
Heroes may need powerful guides to bring them back to everyday life. More than likely, it is an emotional wound. The mentor comes to the rescue.
Crossing the Return Threshold
The trick in returning is to retain the wisdom gained on the quest, to integrate that wisdom into daily life, and to share it with the rest of the world.
Master of Two Worlds
Achieving a balance between the material and the spiritual, the outer and the inner. Having reached inside to discover inner resources, the hero learns to live both worlds more fully.
Freedom to Live
Mastery leads to freedom from the fear of failure, which in turn is the freedom to live. Living in the present moment, neither anticipating the future nor regretting the past.
Reflection
Where are you on the map right now? Which stage are you living, and which are you resisting?
