The Heroine's Journey Part 12 : The Return

Well welcome back or welcome if you're here for the first time and today is a really wonderful day.

We are wrapping up the heroine's journey with the 12th stage of the journey and that is the return and the return is when the heroine brings the boon back to her village.

Back to her tribe and so what I want to do today is talk about that for just a little bit and then I want to give you some journal questions.

So if you have a recording device of some kind ideally a you know a journal or a tablet or maybe you like to record audio I don't know whatever your medium is.

It's a wonderful time to stop and pause,

Really acknowledge what we have completed,

What has been successful and allow ourselves to harvest the satisfaction,

The joy,

The pats on the back and then also look at you know where we've maybe held ourselves back or taken ourselves down and you know of course not looking at that with any kind of judgment but just simply looking at it to gain information and then taking all of that information to craft a vision for what the new that is to come.

So this is ambitious.

I hope we can do it all today.

We shall see.

For those of you who are new here these events tend to be very interactive so I really welcome you putting your comments in the comment section.

You know I'll respond to them best I can and so if you find that this is bringing up you know just difficult emotions or anything that feels like it needs attention and healing please put it in the comments and and we can all kind of rally around and support you with that.

Okay so here we are.

So it's been quite a journey and now the task of the return is to return to the settings,

The set and settings where the call to adventure was born.

So in the movie The Wizard of Oz which some of you might be familiar with you know Dorothy the heroine comes back.

You know she goes on this whole wild journey heroine's journey down the yellow brick road to the Emerald City.

She meets the wizard and then what she realizes her boon that she brings back to her tribe is that she was always home right home was always inside of her all along.

So we bring the boon back to the tribe in the return stage and boon is an English word it's kind of an antiquated word b-o-o-n the good is another way to put it.

So what is this boon?

The boon is our transformed consciousness.

I was listening to someone last night talking about the woman who created the therapeutic technique CBT cognitive behavioral therapy.

I can't remember her name.

As an 18 year old girl she spent two years in a mental health institution and then she left that and you know she I guess educated herself in you know psychology and got her whole degree but then she developed this whole technique of CBT you know which is essentially a kind of mindfulness technique to really just very closely examine thoughts and feelings and if anybody knows more about CBT please feel free to post it because I'm not I'm not going to be that familiar with it.

But then what happened after so and this became quite famous and a very popular therapeutic technique and then 50 years later half a century later she went back to that mental institution and spoke with the people who were in treatment there about her journey and you know did CBT practice with them practices with them.

So that's that's an example of a heroine's return that you go back to where you came from but you go back with the boon of the transformation that you have been through.

Now something to be aware of with the return is your tribe they might not be so interested they might not be so welcoming you know it's not necessarily a happy ending and we could even say that it's not even so much I mean certainly if we have an opportunity to give back what we have received it's a great thing to do.

In the 12-step world you know we talk about step 12 carrying the message carrying the message of the transformation that is possible and ideally the recipients of our message are open and receptive and want to hear it but you know they might not be that interested but nonetheless I think as Ginger posted right at the beginning you know I see how far I've come.

That's the point that is the point of the return is not only do you give back but you can by that sense of contrast where you've been versus where you are now you know deepens has the potential at least to deepen your appreciation for the work that you've done for the woman you've become.

Let me read some comments here yes they don't like that you've changed sometimes that's right that's right and and sometimes a lot of that is because it shows by contrast maybe how they've not changed but in any case the return stage of the heroine's journey is an opportunity for us to be of service whether you return to your original tribe or whether you simply carry the message forward in some other way you can still practice and still be in the return phase of this journey.

So for me personally I have a girlfriend in California you know I used to live in California and she once said to me Marcella you've done the work of like five spiritual PhDs and that might have been true at that time like I you know I've been a student of Tibetan Buddhism for nearly 40 years I've been in 12-step recovery for nearly 30 years yeah I mean I've done a lot spiritual work however I would really say that it wasn't until I sat in this seat and began to teach that you could see kind of like the hockey stick curve you know it's like okay you're making progress you're making progress you're making progress but then holding space for others and supporting the next heroine on her heroine's journey it was like yeah I mean certainly I did a lot of practice of you know kindness loving kindness and all of that but I did not learn to truly truly love and accept myself until I began to work with all of you yeah so you know thank you all so much it's very very humbling and it's very gratifying so I have a quote here from Simon I don't know how to pronounce his last name cynic I think s-i-n-e-k when we help ourselves we find moments of happiness when we help others we find lasting fulfillment okay and then there's also a quote a buddhist quote all suffering comes from desiring happiness from oneself all happiness comes from desiring happiness for others all suffering comes from desiring happiness for ourselves so what does that mean does that mean we should not desire happiness for ourselves no no but the way that I understand that statement that all suffering comes from desiring happiness for ourselves is for myself I'll just say I suffer when I become so preoccupied with myself that it kind of shuts down my world it becomes a very very narrow kind of tunnel vision there's that song by the Beatles I mean me mine you know that song like all through the day it's I mean mine I mean mine I mean mine what about me what about me what about me suffering doesn't come from desiring happiness from yourself per se for yourself but that intense preoccupation with ourselves how many thoughts during a day are focused on ourselves and like what we didn't get or what we're frustrated with or what's not working you know the problems of our life that we try to solve creates a very very small limited life shuts out love so all happiness comes from desiring happiness for others so if you can take your own preoccupation you can take that kind of self-centered preoccupation self-centered fear and you can turn it out like a flower and you could say for all the ways that I worry about myself for all the ways that I might feel bad about myself and for all the ways that I want relief from that may you have it you give it away may you may you be happy may you have peace may you you know be fulfilled in the ways that I want to be fulfilled or in the ways that you want to be fulfilled do you see what I'm saying here I find for myself that there is nothing that gives me more joy than offering that kind of prayer for other people and this comes from precisely filling up your cup with that gift of the goddess that we were talking about a couple weeks ago and that comes precisely from facing the deepest fears you know this is this is these are the darkest times of the year you know here in the U.

S.

We're coming up we've got all these winter holidays Christmas time and so on and you know this is a time of year when one out of two of us experiences depression anxiety grief it's not an easy time of year and you know we're barraged with this fantasy of like the healthy family the happy family everybody gets along and you know the presents are all perfect and I don't know everybody looks good whatever and then we can compare ourselves by contrast and then we come up very short in our own minds so you know if you're feeling that way when I have felt that way I certainly have felt that way through many many holidays that's a wonderful opportunity to think okay there are so many other people who are feeling this exact same way how can I energetically you know send love to them and then maybe there's an action how can I reach out to someone pick up the 500 pound phone and say hey I know you've been having a hard time this year and it's the holidays like how are you doing this quote of all suffering comes from desiring happiness for oneself and all happiness comes from desiring happiness for others is not about codependently abandoning yourself it's actually quite the opposite what we abandon is that self-obsession we fill up our cup and then we share from the overflow what are you hearing and what I'm saying so far I'd like to hear how this is landing for you and also I'm very curious to hear how you might be of service to your world in your heroine's capacity and let me give you a couple of questions for that a couple journal questions here if we can take some quiet time together so beautifully described yay uh-huh love it love that good uh-huh thank you Marcella for sharing this with us well thank you Noah thank you Tanya thank you Marjorie I mean if you weren't here I wouldn't be here so we're in it together let's do some journaling so I want to invite you to just take a moment and just reflect back on this past year what would you say what has been your greatest accomplishment what do you feel most proud of and then where has been your like biggest takedown you know where you've held yourself back and then what have you learned from your experience so let me let's just mute and take a few minutes I want to invite you to reflect and do some journaling on those questions okay great so now what I want to invite you to do is to create a theme for 2026 I'll put it in the comments again the theme for 2026 and this is two words the first word is how you want to feel and the second word is what you want to experience experience my theme for 2025 was passionate commitment I wanted to feel a renewal of passion based on commitment in my life and in my work so I wanted to feel passionate and I wanted to experience commitment and if you like you can put your theme in the comments it doesn't have to be a set in stone you can play with it try one on if you don't like it there you go peaceful self-love oh yes isn't that gorgeous rising grace love this isn't that great now thinking about your theme okay let me give you a couple more questions what do you want to grow and create and then what must you strengthen in yourself in order to bring that about and then this one how will you allow yourself to be supported supported so what do you want to grow and create what must you strengthen in yourself in order to bring that about and how will you allow yourself to be supported now these are big questions you know yeah there we go no self-love and self-acceptance but not giving up when it becomes more challenging when it will be it will become that's right it will become more challenging strengthening what no what I would say is strengthening your perseverance it's not quite the right word strengthening your capacity to remind yourself to come back to yourself to not be daunted by the challenges see through the challenge but come back to yourself how will you let yourself be supported find other people who can remind you like Marcella find other people who can remind you let's just take a few more minutes here and if anybody wants to post their themes okay Carol creating a lighter home environment reducing donating organizing oh I see yeah lighter more spacious mm-hmm good Teresa confident fun oh that sounds great sounds really good Mary Pat is saying life giving presence aren't these gorgeous they're so good thank you so much thank you for your life giving presence thank you for your confident fun and your rising grace and your peaceful self-love yeah excellent okay well we don't have as much time as I had hoped that we would have for this but I want to invite you to well first of all share anything that that is really coming up for you if there's anything that these questions are kind of provoking for you or or unlocking that you hadn't thought about before please feel free to share give space for the magic to show up ha ha ha yes yeah yeah that goes back to the quote at the beginning where I said you know if there's no leisure there's no culture there's you know the magic needs space to be magic yeah excellent Tanya committed to my highest self yes I want to feel inspired when the pacing with pacing okay so the return is coming full circle celebrating your accomplishments and also just as we're doing here celebrating and acknowledging you know the journey as we have done it and then setting our sights for the next heroine's adventure Joseph Campbell said the ideal life is a life that is a continuous heroine's journey ah ladies well it's coming up on time for us to adjourn I don't want to leave I feel like we're just getting started ah even though we're wrapping up so once again I want to invite everyone to go forth as your beautiful brilliant heroine self I love Insight Timer I just think it's such a wonderful place to be and it's especially wonderful because I get to meet all of you here may we all prosper together may we all thrive and flourish in all good ways together we are a lucky community to have you as a teacher well I feel very blessed to have you as a community have a wonderful winter holiday and lots of love to all of you and I'll see you later all right thank you bye