Everyday life is experienced as a heroic quest and played as a game.
Lawrence G. Boldt
Zen and the Art of Making a Living
Category: Hero
Becoming authentic by embracing vulnerability.
At this crossroads, the metaphorical armor we’ve self-forged and worn over the years symbolizes our strength and determination to guard against life’s challenges. Yet, in these moments, we recognize the weight of this armor and how it distances us from genuine connection and joy. Our challenge is discerning when this armor, once protective, now hinders our engagement with life’s full spectrum of experiences.
Echoing through this journey is the profound reminder that we must choose: the safety of the known or the courage to experience the mystery. This choice becomes a dance with what one could call “fierce vulnerability,” a term that captures the valor required to remain fully present to the conviction of a full life.
Steven Morris
Armor Down: A Midlife Reflection on Fierce Vulnerability
We then examined these stories for the seven elements of the hero’s journey. We found that people who had more hero’s journey elements in their life stories reported more meaning in life, more flourishing and less depression. These “heroic” people (men and women were equally likely to see their life as a hero’s journey) reported a clearer sense of themselves than other participants did and more new adventures, strong goals, good friends, and so on.
We also found that hero’s journey narratives provided more benefits than other ones, including a basic “redemptive” narrative, where a person’s life story goes from defeat to triumph. Of course, redemption is often a part of the “transformation” part of the hero’s journey, but compared with people whose life story contained only the redemptive narrative, those with a full hero’s journey reported more meaning in life.
We then wondered whether altering one’s life story to be more “heroic”would increase feelings of meaning in life. We developed a “restorying” intervention in which we prompted people to retell their story as a hero’s journey. Participants first identified each of the seven elements in their life, and then we encouraged them to weave these pieces together into a coherent narrative.
In six studies with more than 1,700 participants, we confirmed that this restorying intervention worked: it helped people see their life as a hero’s journey, which in turn made that life feel more meaningful. Intervention recipients also reported higher well-being and became more resilient in the face of personal challenges; these participants saw obstacles more positively and dealt with them more creatively.
Ben Rogers
To Lead a Meaningful Life, Become Your Own Hero
Leaders who acknowledge mistakes, take personal responsibility and act swiftly to make corrections are generally regarded as heroic. Their willingness to open the door to new information – however uncomfortable that may be – gains credibility for themselves and their organizations.
Yet to become open and accessible, to overcome defensiveness in the moment when bad things are happening, is no small task. It takes a certain level of self-knowledge, empathy, and strength of character.
Dan Oestreich
Following SELF
The ultimate dragon we encounter is to face who we really are and portray ourselves authentically to others.
Daryl Conner
A Hero’s Journey for the Practitioner
We have not even to risk the adventure alone
for the heroes of all time have gone before us.
The labyrinth is thoroughly known …
we have only to follow the thread of the hero path.
And where we had thought to find an abomination
we shall find a God.And where we had thought to slay another
Joseph Campbell
we shall slay ourselves.
Where we had thought to travel outwards
we shall come to the center of our own existence.
And where we had thought to be alone
we shall be with all the world.