The hero's journey - illness as a pathway to self realization

“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”

Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces

The narrative archetype of a hero’s journey can be applied beautifully to our own healing journey. Let’s look at the stages of a hero’s journey and their clinical equivalents:

The Ordinary World

This is where we get to know the hero (or ourselves in this case). The ordinary world is our baseline for where we currently are. How we react to everyday things, the behaviour patterns we employ time and time again, the frustrations, the emotional ups and downs of our daily lives.

The Call to Adventure

“This sets the story rolling by disrupting the comfort of the Hero’s Ordinary World, presenting a challenge or quest that must be undertaken.” In other words, this is where symptoms manifest or become severe enough to disrupt our daily lives and we finally acknowledge that things cannot go on like this. A hero always has the option of accepting the challenge or rejecting it. Are we ready to undertake the quest or will we just carry on as normal in the Ordinary World, frittering away our time with diets and doctors and detoxes and all forms of therapy?

Refusal of the Call

“A Hero Refuses the Journey because of fears and insecurities that have surfaced from the Call to Adventure. The Hero is not willing to make changes, preferring the safe haven of the Ordinary World.” When people dive into German New Medicine (GNM) and they understand what needs to be done, and they begin to see that for something chronic that has been going on for years, their ‘quest’ is to go inwards, they may very well resist doing the work. This is normal. Our ego will always resist anything that shakes the foundation of the carefully constructed prison it has locked us in.

Meeting the Mentor

“The Hero Meets a Mentor to gain confidence, insight, advice, training, or magical gifts to overcome the initial fears and face the threshold of the adventure.” This mentor might be a therapist, a book, an online group or even our own higher self or intuition. The Mentor provides the Hero with resources he will need on his quest.

Crossing the Threshold

“Crossing the Threshold signifies that the Hero has finally committed to the Journey. He is prepared to cross the gateway that separates the Ordinary World from the Special World. The Crossing may require more than accepting one’s fears, a map, or a swift kick in the rear from a Mentor. The Hero must confront an event that forces him to commit to entering the Special World, from which there is no turning back.” This is when we have been dabbling for a while in GNM while still maintaining one foot in the world of alternative/conventional health, but we suddenly have such a severe flare of our condition that we must decide once and for all if we are going to enter the Special World of GNM. We cannot heal if part of us wants to still believe in the holistic/allopathic health paradigm.

Tests, Allies, Enemies

“Having crossed the Threshold, the Hero faces Tests, encounters Allies, confronts Enemies, and learns the rules of the Special World. The Hero must prepare himself for the greater Ordeals yet to come and needs this Stage to Test his skills and powers, or perhaps seek further training from the Mentor.” Once we commit to the Journey of going inwards, we will encounter frustration almost immediately. This looks like symptoms getting better, only to worsen again. This happens because as we process and clear one level (or track), the symptoms associated with that track disappear, but we then reveal another layer that needs to be cleared. This is where the Hero might become disheartened, but the Mentor will encourage him that he is indeed on the right path. The Enemy is always the ego and the Ally will be whatever practice the Hero uses to weaken the ego.

Approach to the Inmost Cave

“The Hero must make the preparations needed to Approach the Inmost Cave that leads to the Journey’s heart, or central Ordeal.” As we clear more and more layers of tracks (remember these can be thoughts, beliefs and emotions which interrupt the healing phase and cause chronic symptoms), we approach THE central theme of our life. THE one thing which lies buried underneath all the other layers.

The Ordeal

“The Hero engages in the Ordeal, the central life-or-death crisis, during which he faces his greatest fear, confronts this most difficult challenge, and experiences “death”.” This is where we are beginning to process and clear this central theme behind our chronic symptoms. It is where for the first time we see and name our greatest fear (see the last blog post). How difficult the ordeal will be depends on how much preparation we have done, how much our psyche or ego has been weakened, so it no longer runs our life, and on our perception of the journey. By now, we have begun to trust the journey completely and so we tend not to think in terms of ‘diffcult’ or ‘easy’. Any resistance we feel is most likely to take the form of “I’m so much better, I don’t need to go there’ rather than a full blown symptom flare. The ‘death’ we experience is the final crumbling of the ego structure of our illness.

Reward

“The Hero has survived death, overcome his greatest fear, slain the dragon, or weathered the Crisis of the Heart, and now earns the Reward that he sought.” This reward is not only the complete healing of the physical body, but also a newfound mental and emotional calmness.

The Road Back

“The Hero must finally recommit to completing the Journey and accept the Road Back to the Ordinary World. A Hero’s success in the Special World may make it difficult to return.” Our healing journey is over but we must now live our lives without our chronic condition. If it is something we have been suffering with for a long time, this transition might be difficult, as strange as it may sound. What will we lose if we are no longer ‘sick’? What might we have to do now we are no longer ‘sick’?

The Resurrection

“The Hero faces the Resurrection, his most dangerous meeting with death. This final life-and-death Ordeal shows that the Hero has maintained and can apply all that he has brought back to the Ordinary World.” Just when we thought everything was ok, something will come along to test everything we have learned from our healing journey. This can be a stressful event which would have triggered the symptoms in the past, or it could be the onset of completely new symptoms. Life is never over until our final breath. We are here to evolve and grow and eventually find our way back to our home, who we really are. So of course we will face new challenges continuously. Now the test is how we react to these challenges.

Return with the Elixir

“The Return with the Elixir is the final Reward earned on the Hero’s Journey. The true Hero returns with an Elixir to share with others or heal a wounded land.” The elixir in our case stands for knowledge. Knowledge of how our body really works according to GNM and knowledge of self. The knowledge of GNM is a gift which is usually only appreciated after healing has taken place and the realization that this can be applied to all ‘illnesses’ has dawned. We can take this knowledge into our families, and our communities and literally heal a wounded land. But greater still is knowledge of self. What we learn about ourselves and our ego along the journey in the Special World will transform our life in this physical form forever and make our return journey to who we really are so much easier.

Quotations taken from an article by Christopher Vogler on Stuart Voytilla’s book, Myth and the Movies.