The Heroine's Journey Part 2: The Call To Adventure

Today we are going to continue our conversation about the heroine's journey.

And let's see who else just came in.

Rosie,

Deirdre,

Lily.

I see you all here.

Christina.

Hi.

Hi,

Ladies.

Welcome.

If you're here for the first time,

Let's begin the way I like to begin.

So if you are in a place where it is safe and comfortable to do so,

I want to invite you to just place one or both hands on your heart and let's take a couple breaths together.

And while you are here with your hands on your heart,

I want to invite you to take one more breath.

And on the out breath,

See if you can drop your energy down from your head and into your heart center.

And see if you can feel or hear the beating of your heart.

And while you're here with your hands on your heart,

I want to invite you to consider what is your call to adventure?

Where is the part of you that feels that you have outgrown or you are outgrowing?

Some aspect of your life,

Some aspect of your behavior,

Some pattern,

Some circumstance,

Something.

You're pushing against the edges of it and feeling like it's just getting a little too small.

So whatever this is for you,

I want to invite you to acknowledge and honor what I like to call the blessed discontent.

There's some way your soul is calling you to be bigger.

And I want to invite you to consider and to suggest to yourself that you are worthy of this adventure.

Whatever the road ahead looks like for you,

You are worthy of the journey.

You are worthy of the successes and the victories.

And you are also worthy of the trials and the hardships that develop your character.

You are worthy of the journey.

Yeah,

So I want to invite you to just allow that to land and to extend that same sense of worthiness and welcome and accommodation to the others in this circle today.

We heal faster when we heal together.

Yeah,

So you're welcome if you like to take your hands away from your heart,

Open your eyes,

A little stretch,

Stretch it out.

Okay,

Good morning,

Afternoon,

Or evening,

Everyone.

If you have not been here before,

My name is Marcella Friel and I am a food and forgiveness mentor who helps health conscious people like you heal the emotional and spiritual roots of yo-yo dieting,

Binge eating,

Sugar addiction,

And body shaming.

And I run a program called the Women Food and Forgiveness Academy.

It's a 12-month deep dive into all of these issues.

And the sort of through line or the spine,

You could say,

Of the academy curriculum is that it is based on the heroine's journey.

And the reason why I chose that is because I came to see in my own life and also with the clients that I was working with that all acts of healing are acts of heroism.

You know,

And if you're familiar,

Let me know in the chat,

If you're familiar with the heroine's journey or hero's journey at all.

You know,

There are stages and phases of the healing process that are archetypal,

They're universal.

And yes,

Okay,

Great,

Great,

Lynn.

Okay.

And,

You know,

There are stages in it that we all go through.

And I was just listening to something the other day that said,

You know,

If you look at all the movies,

All the fairy tales,

All the myths,

All the stories,

Every one of them has these ingredients to it.

This is the second part in a 12-step series that I'm introducing.

So what we'll do is I'll talk for a little bit,

And then I'm going to ask you some questions.

And then we will do some EFT tapping based on what you post in the comments.

So please feel free to chime in.

Some of you might just be lying in bed with your earplugs in,

And that's totally fine.

But if you feel inspired to post a comment,

It just fertilizes the dialogue.

So the heroine's journey.

Last week,

We talked about the ordinary world.

And the ordinary world is precisely that place that I was pointing to in our guided meditation just now.

And the ordinary world is stage one of the heroine's journey.

And this is where,

You know,

The heroine begins to feel like something needs to change.

Something needs to give.

Some part of her life is not working.

Okay,

How many of you are feeling this right now?

So you might be feeling that,

Say,

Your marriage has hit like some kind of a plateau.

And maybe it's good.

You know,

Maybe it's not bad.

Maybe it's not a full-blown disaster.

But there's just some way that you feel like it could be a little bit deeper.

It could be a little bit better.

Maybe in your work,

Your service,

Your livelihood.

You know,

Again,

You're earning a good salary.

You're earning a good income.

Everything's fine.

But,

You know,

And the question in the ordinary world phase is kind of like a duality between,

On the one hand,

Is good enough,

Good enough?

Like,

Maybe I should just be contented and satisfied because it's good enough.

Or,

As a friend of mine likes to say,

The good is the enemy of the great.

Do you see?

Like,

Which one is it?

So this is the ordinary world,

Stage one.

We talked about this last week.

Now we are in the call to adventure,

Or what we call,

What I like to call,

The crisis is the crossroads.

So depending on that sense of discontent,

Then there comes a point where something has to give.

Something has to change.

Now,

For a lot of the women that I work with,

That can be looking at the number on the scale and going,

Mama mia,

Holy cow,

You know,

Like I can't believe I'm at that number and I can't go any higher.

I mean,

Something has to change.

It could be a health diagnosis,

Right?

It could be,

You know,

A medical scare,

A health scare.

It could be your partner walks in after 25 years of marriage and says,

You know,

I've been cheating on you for the last three years.

And guess what?

I'm leaving.

I want a divorce.

Like something happens that can shatter your world.

You know,

It just,

It just kind of blows everything to smithereens.

Oh,

Tanya is somewhat familiar.

Okay.

So this could be an external circumstance that comes to you,

Or it can also be an internal,

Emotional,

Kind of like a low bottom that you hit.

So I'm wondering what's resonating with you with what I'm saying so far.

And feel free to just post it in the comments.

I'd love to hear what's,

You know,

What is your,

What is your call to adventure right now?

And the reason why I call this the crisis at the crossroads is because the word crisis actually has within it the same root as the word cross.

So when you think about a crisis and you're standing at a crossroads,

Here you are right in the middle.

There's four directions on either side,

Right?

And what do you do?

You can't go forward.

You can't go back.

You can't go to either side.

You can't stay still.

You know,

It's,

It's a moment where the rug is pulled out and then the floor is pulled out and then the earth is pulled out.

Okay.

So now what I'm painting here is a pretty dramatic picture.

It doesn't always have to be this dramatic.

You know,

Sometimes it can just be kind of a baby heroine's journey.

Let me see what Aina says.

My call has happened and I've begun the journey.

It is wild already.

Oh,

Yay.

Well,

Aina,

I hope you're,

I hope you're planning to come over these next several weeks because this will be very helpful.

Okay.

And Tanya's saying to fully embody my life and my being.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that's your call to adventure,

Tanya.

Is that right?

That's what I'm hearing.

And Sandy is saying,

Rediscovering myself as I move forward with my life.

Yes.

There you go.

And of course the heroine's journey is a cycle.

Joseph Campbell says,

You know,

The life that is best lived is a life that is basically a continuous journey,

You know?

So at the crisis at the crossroads,

At the call to adventure,

There are three options that the heroine has.

You can heed the call.

And when that happens 99 times out of a hundred,

What that is,

What you are heeding,

What you are saying yes to is stepping into some way of being that you've never been before.

So let's say within your family of origin,

You are always identified as the fat girl,

Right?

You know,

You've been fat your whole life and you've really made the decision that,

You know,

After you saw that last number on the scale,

You know,

You've made that decision that like,

Okay,

It's time for me to take care of this.

It's time for me to clean this up.

You know,

I'm not,

I don't,

I'm not a diet coach.

I don't do dieting.

So it's not about like,

Okay,

I'm going to go on the next diet,

But like I'm committing deeply to my wellness.

I am deep.

I'm committing deeply to my self-care.

I'm committing to educating myself and developing literacy around my needs and how I meet them.

And,

You know,

I'm going to learn how to protect myself so that the body weight doesn't have to do it for me,

Whatever it is.

When a heroine steps into that kind of territory,

It's like,

Well,

Who do you become if you're no longer the fat girl?

Who do you become if you,

Let's say,

Have been a failure your whole life and now suddenly you're starting to actually experience success?

When,

When the heroine says yes to the call to adventure,

There can be a death and a letting go and no guarantee of the future outcome.

And I'll,

I'll circle back around to that in a second.

Okay.

So that's the heating of the call.

And let me just look at the post chat here for a minute.

Karen is saying,

I have experienced the ordinary phase and now the health concerns are the wake up calls.

Getting old is not for sissies.

Oh yeah,

Girl.

Getting old is not what,

Getting old.

Well,

Let's say maturing is not for sissies,

You know?

Okay.

And Ina is saying,

Who do I become when I allow my needs to be met by me instead of denying them to please others?

Okay.

Ina,

That is the perfect crisis at the crossroads.

Karen,

What you're saying,

You know,

You're waking,

You've got health concerns.

Who do you become when you step into that space of really claiming my health is my God given right and blessing,

And I deserve to be healthy and I'm committing to my health.

Do you see there,

You have to leave something behind and move forward into the unknown.

One thing that the heroine can do is heed the call,

Follow the call.

The other piece,

The second option is to postpone the call.

And we'll talk about this a little bit more next week,

But postponing the call is like now is not the right time.

Having some kind of excuse.

I can't,

My kids aren't grown yet.

I don't have the money.

Uh,

Maybe sometime later,

You know,

Like,

Oh yeah,

I know I need to do that.

But maybe,

Maybe the call to adventure just dissolves in like a haze of postponement,

Denial,

You know?

So for example,

Like Karen,

For you with your health concerns,

You know,

You're at the stage now where you're at the wake-up call,

Right?

But I'm going to guess,

And let me know if this is true or not,

That there have been little wake-up calls along the way saying,

You know,

It's really time for you to take care of this.

It's really time,

You know,

You're getting out of breath walking up that flight of stairs or gee,

Your knees aren't really as flexible as they used to be.

So when the heroine postpones the call to adventure,

You can buy yourself a little bit of time,

But what will happen is that the call gets louder and louder and louder and louder until you arrive smack at the crisis at the crossroads and then you have to take decisive action of some kind.

And then the third option is that the heroine just denies the call.

She just refuses the call.

And we're going to talk about this next week.

And what I want to say about the refusal is on the one hand,

If the heroine stays in the refusal,

The consequences can be quite grave.

So this is where,

What is that phrase?

Living the life of quiet desperation.

You know,

There can be kind of like a gnawing at your soul where it's like,

Oh,

I wish I had done that.

I wish I had done that or I didn't do it.

Or,

You know,

And then regret sets in and then everything just kind of solidifies and calcifies into a very,

Very small,

Not very fulfilling existence.

However,

The other piece about the refusal of the call is that the refusal itself is an archetypal part of the path.

It's part of the heroine's path altogether.

And we'll talk about that next week.

So I want to invite you to come join me then.

So Karen is saying,

I know your comment is spot on.

I am a retired nurse who is taking care of others and not prioritize my own,

But now I am.

OK,

Good for you.

Good for you,

Ladies.

Good for you,

All of you.

And anybody else,

If you want to just chime in,

Feel free.

All righty,

So the next thing that I want to say about the call to adventure and these different phases of the call.

What is it that determines which road the heroine takes?

What do you think it is?

Whether she refuses the call,

Whether she heeds the call,

Or whether she denies or whether she postpones the call?

It's a magic word.

So let me know in the comments if you have any thoughts about that.

OK,

There you go.

Tanya just nailed it.

Yep,

Trust.

Yes.

If you want to say any more about that,

Feel free.

What determines the way forward is trust.

Courage.

Yes,

Amanda,

There you go.

All acts of healing are acts of heroism.

Fear of changing.

That's right,

Sandy.

So that's the opposite.

OK,

So we've got trust.

We've got courage.

And we've got the fear of changing.

So when you look at curiosity,

Perfect.

Yes.

Shachi,

Hi,

Welcome.

And timing.

OK,

Timing is definitely part of it.

Yeah,

Hi,

Good.

So I want to sum up the trust and the courage.

I'm going to use the word faith.

Faith,

You know,

In the Bible is talked about as the evidence of things unseen.

So I want to invite you to consider that.

Faith is the evidence of things unseen.

So here is the heroine at the crisis,

At the crossroads.

Which way do I go?

What do I do?

Do I move forward?

Do I postpone?

Do I deny?

OK,

I am afraid of change no matter what.

So courage isn't about I don't have any fear.

But courage is about how do I take a generative and productive relationship to my fear.

So hey,

Noah,

There she is.

Self-confidence.

Yeah,

OK.

So faith is the evidence of things unseen.

Here is what faith is.

I have no idea what is ahead.

I have no idea what's going to happen.

If if my soul is really telling me that this that I have outgrown this marriage.

Getting divorced.

Oh,

My gosh,

Like what?

Wow.

Like,

What's my life going to look like?

What's going to happen?

I don't know.

But I have faith and my faith is my evidence that things are going to work out.

OK,

I hope this makes sense.

So faith is definitely intimately related to trust.

And then the question becomes,

What is the basis of that trust?

What is it that you are trusting in?

And I'm curious,

Tanya,

If you have a response to that.

And the whole thing with faith and trust and the crisis at the crossroads is that we we don't see we can't see what's ahead.

All we can do is just take the next right action that's in front of us.

And it's,

You know,

A trust walk,

If you've ever done a trust walk,

You know,

You're blindfolded and you're like somebody's in front of you and you're kind of like walking across this terrain or whatever.

I mean,

Literally,

That's it,

You know,

Trusting the quiet call.

Yes.

The quiet call,

The still small voice.

Exactly.

And this happened for me back in California.

It was 2014.

It was about four o'clock in the morning and I wasn't sleeping.

And I was worried,

You know,

I was worried about money at that time.

And it's like,

What am I going to do?

What am I going to do?

What am I going to do?

And the quiet call that I got was.

You're going to move to Colorado.

I had zero plans to move to Colorado,

Zero.

It might as well have been like,

I'm going to move to Iceland or something,

You know,

I mean,

I've been to Colorado before.

But it was that sense of kind of leaping over this chasm.

Taking that leap of faith.

I have no idea how this is going to work out.

Why in heaven's name would something in my heart be saying move to Colorado?

And how could I even begin to build a life there?

The how is none of your business.

That's a really,

Really important point here.

The how is none of your business.

All you have to know is the what.

Trusting myself that I will be able to handle the change.

Yes,

Noah.

Exactly.

That's right.

Yeah.

Trusting I'll know what to do with whatever circumstances arise.

And farther on in the heroine's journey,

We're going to be talking about support.

We're going to be talking about mentors and allies and tools and practices and all the rest of it.

It's really fun stuff.

So,

Okay.

What else are you hearing so far in what I've been saying?

I'm very curious.

And also,

I want to invite you to just post in the comments,

What are the feelings or the stressors that are coming up for you at your particular crisis at the crossroads?

Yeah.

Okay.

Listening to the inner voices.

Okay.

Intuition.

So,

Karen,

Is that trusting your intuition?

You know,

Tanya's talking about trusting the quiet call.

Trusting that little voice at four o'clock in the morning that says,

It's time for you to move to Colorado.

Okay.

Great.

Okay.

So,

Let's take a look at what's in the chat here.

So,

Fear of discomfort.

Yes.

Okay.

Let's just look at that.

Fear of change.

Fear of discomfort.

We're going to tap on all this.

All right.

I'm just writing them down.

And Lynn is saying,

I hear the call,

But have a partner that I need to compromise with,

And he isn't hearing the same call.

Okay.

So,

Your partner's not on the same track as you.

That's really interesting.

What I like to say about that,

It's like,

You know,

Marriages or partnerships like this,

It's like three-legged races.

I don't know if you remember as a kid,

You and your partner taught,

You each tie one leg together and you have one leg free.

And,

You know,

If you line up and you're synchronized,

You can fly.

But if you're not,

One of you is always pulling the other one and the other one's behind.

That's what I get as I listen to that,

As I hear that.

Yeah.

I want to say something about failure for Amanda.

Karen,

I think I tend to analyze my inner voice.

Analyzing.

Okay.

Fear and worries affect my thought processes.

Okay.

Well,

Let's do some tapping.

Okay.

So,

I'm hearing fear.

I'm hearing overthinking and analyzing.

Analysis paralysis,

Right?

And then I'm hearing a partner that's like maybe not in the same place.

Okay.

All right.

So,

If you're new to tapping,

It's a pretty simple tool.

Rather than going into a big explanation about it,

I want to invite you to just say as I say,

Do as I do.

You're all muted.

Nobody's going to hear you.

So,

Just tap along with me and feel free to use your own words if mine don't resonate with you.

Okay.

Here we go.

The call to adventure.

All right.

Let's start tapping.

Okay.

Even though I am hearing this call in my life.

Okay.

Just repeat after me.

Just tapping on the sides of the hands here.

This call to grow.

This call to grow bigger than my comfort zone.

Okay.

And part of me definitely hears this.

And another part of me feels fear and hesitation.

I want to let my nervous system know that I am exactly where I am supposed to be at this moment.

And I really love and appreciate everything that I am bringing to the table right now.

Good.

Okay.

So,

What I mean there by that tapping,

Everything that I bring to the table,

It's like there's different voices.

One is saying,

Yes,

Move forward.

The other one is saying,

No,

I'm afraid.

The other one is saying,

Maybe,

You know,

I don't know,

You know.

All of those voices have a seat at the table.

Do you see?

Like,

None of them have to be suppressed or censored,

You know.

They're all welcome.

Okay.

So,

Maybe we should just say that all of these parts of me are welcome in this situation.

Okay,

Good.

Let's go up to the top of the head.

I am feeling and hearing this call to adventure.

Okay.

I am feeling a deep desire to grow right now.

Mm-hmm.

There is some part of my life that is calling me to change.

Okay.

Some part of my life is calling me to grow bigger.

Okay.

So,

Just keep tapping around the points.

I'm not calling them out.

I hope you're watching.

We're tapping under the nose right now.

And part of me feels inspired to move forward.

Another part of me feels afraid.

What if my life becomes so different that I no longer recognize it?

What if I don't like the changes that I initiate?

What if it's really uncomfortable?

Yeah,

Okay.

What if I can't do it?

What if I'm just not up to it?

What if my partner never gets on board with it?

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Good.

Keep tapping.

All these fears.

I have this quiet voice within me saying,

It's time now.

And another part of me is just overthinking it like crazy.

Okay.

Whew.

Okay.

So,

Maybe take a little breath here.

I want to let my nervous system know it's all okay.

I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

I totally respect my fear and my hesitation.

Right?

Okay.

Let's say this,

Like,

Those are expressions of intelligence.

Mm-hmm.

Good.

It's not just me being a scaredy cat.

Okay.

Or maybe it is,

You know,

Whatever.

But even so,

It's not just me being a scaredy cat.

It's intelligent for me to listen to my fear.

Okay.

However,

I don't have to be defined by it.

Right?

I can feel all the fear I need to feel and still take a tiny step forward.

Mm-hmm.

I can feel scared and uncertain.

Mm-hmm.

And still just take the next right action.

Mm-hmm.

Good.

I can say to myself,

I am not a heroine by any measure.

And I can still do the next right thing.

Okay,

Good.

So,

One day at a time.

Mm-hmm.

I can be,

Like,

Deeply mindful and present to this process.

Okay,

Good.

Let's leave it there.

Shake it out.

Take a drink of water if you've got some water available.

Okay.

How was that tapping for you?

What bubbled up?

And how do you feel now after a couple rounds of tapping?

How does that fear of discomfort,

Failure,

The overanalyzing,

How does it look to you?

Aina is saying,

I feel affirmed in my feelings of fear and affirmed to move forward.

Hey,

There we go.

Okay,

Let's put that in the second round.

Perfect.

I love it.

Thank you.

Yay,

Mary.

Tell us what you love about it.

Great.

Sandy is saying,

I felt more brave.

A tiny step forward was a key phrase.

Good.

Okay.

Okay,

Let's do one more round.

And this time we're going to kind of raise our vibration a little bit more.

Let's just jump in in a second round here.

Here we go.

Even though I might still feel some fear.

Yeah.

Okay,

Because these are significant changes that I'm looking at coming down the pike,

Right?

Okay.

I can totally honor my fear.

And I can move forward anyway.

And I really,

Really love and appreciate myself for that.

Yay.

Okay,

Let's go up.

Let's keep tapping.

Yeah.

I mean,

Of course I'm going to feel fear,

Right?

I'm contemplating significant changes in my life.

And what lies ahead is completely unknown.

So it's very natural to feel fear.

Yep.

I totally honor and respect my fear.

This won't be the last time that fear shows up for me.

Okay.

It will no doubt come along as I go through this journey.

I don't have to push away the fear.

And I don't have to be stuck in the fear.

Okay.

I can affirm to myself and to the universe that I am protected in the unknown.

And this is what we worked on last week.

I am safe in the unknown.

I am held and supported in the unknown.

And all I really have to think about are the next 24 hours.

Okay,

Good.

How can I heed the call to adventure in the next 24 hours,

One day at a time,

Doing the next right thing that is in front of me today,

Tiny baby steps,

Tiny giant steps?

Okay,

So even though I might still feel some fear,

I also feel a lot of inspiration.

And I feel really,

Really grateful about that.

Voila.

Okay.

Hey,

There we go.

Karen is saying,

I feel focused and heard.

Good,

Wonderful,

Excellent.

How are you all feeling now after that second round of tapping?

And I'm very curious to hear,

How can your bravery and your heroism and your willingness to heed the call to adventure,

How can that show up?

And how can you respond to that in the next 24 hours?

Very affirming.

Muscle tension released.

Good,

Tanya.

Good,

Good.

You know,

It's funny.

Last week,

We did this whole thing about tapping,

About being safe in the unknown.

And,

You know,

There was just all this fear coming up and then we tapped.

What I find for myself and what I was observing last week is that sometimes we resort to fear when what we're actually feeling is excited.

We're actually feeling excited,

But it's like,

Oh,

Can I let myself really feel this excited?

Can I feel this inspired?

Can I let this actually?

And so then it's like,

We go like,

No,

No,

No.

I'm afraid,

I'm afraid.

But really,

We're inspired.

There we go.

Better prepared to manage my pain.

Karen,

Nice,

Beautiful.

Good.

Lisa's saying,

Raised my vibration and feel open to possibilities.

There we go.

That's a great thing to tap on there.

Like,

Even though I feel scared,

I feel all this fear.

I feel open to possibilities.

Open to possibilities.

Love that.

How are you going to be a heroine today,

Ladies?

How is your heroism going to show up today?

What are you going to face in terms of adventure today?

Okay,

Ina,

Going to face the day head on with an open heart.

Ina,

You are a heroine.

You're a warrior.

I get that from your comments,

You know?

Good for you.

Tanya,

Allow holding more delight.

Oh,

I love that.

I love that.

Delight.

Literally,

It means from the light.

One of the women in the academy years ago,

She kept a delight journal.

Like,

At the end of the day,

She would journal on what delighted her.

That might be something that could be kind of fun.

Sandy's saying,

Awareness is coming to me.

Love that.

Beautiful,

Beautiful.

And whatever comes may come.

And ooh,

Tanya.

All right.

Okay,

Ladies.

Well,

Thank you so much for visiting with me today.

Really,

Really wonderful to spend this time with you.

Lovely to be here on Insight Timer.

All right,

Ladies.

Signing off.

Enjoy your day.

Bye for now.