What's the Hero's Journey of Your Life?
battling the false self is hard work
I love reading advice columns. They not only deliver the thrill of vicarious drama but grant the opportunity to actually weigh in on someone else’s choices. In real life, people rarely ask for advice, and when they do, usually they don’t actually want advice, they just want to vent. And that’s totally fine! But, ooh, I enjoy imagining I can fix other people’s lives.
The fact is, it’s a lot easier to see the nonsense in other people’s lives than in our own. When it comes to ourselves, we are often caught up in conflicting loyalties and stuck in the weeds. (Reason #11,386 that therapy is great.) Maybe this is also why human beings love stories so much: we see ourselves in the story’s characters and imagine what we would do in that person’s shoes. Maybe it’s a dry run for making changes in ourselves.
But what is a story, exactly? This topic doesn’t seem to be taught much in schools. A story is a series of causal events that leads to a change. So me telling you about how I tripped over my cat and then ate a donut and then went to Target is not a story. Me telling you I was carrying a box of donuts to the car when I tripped over my cat and therefore broke my toe and therefore had to lie on the floor with only the donuts to sustain me until I was rescued by a neighbor who drove me to Target to get a pair of crutches, that would be a story.
Whether you realize it or not, most times when you sit down to watch a movie or read a book, you’re watching a story of the main character’s internal change. Many of our stories are informed by The Hero’s Journey, which is a plot structure wherein the hero resists change again and again and again until finally they must change. They have to stop pursuing what they wanted and actually choose to get what they need. Their goal changes and they change.
Think of the Pixar movie, Up. Our main character, Carl Fredrickson, wants to move his house to Paradise Falls in order to keep a promise he made to his late wife. After dealing with one obstacle after another, Carl finally makes the choice to abandon his house relocation quest to save Russell the scout and the requisite cute Disney animal friends he’s made along the way. Carl changes from an isolated person to someone in community as he forms relationships with Russell and Dug the talking dog.
Some artists take issue with the Hero’s Journey, for a variety of reasons, but I think the reason we see this pattern across so many cultures and times is that it mirrors real life. In real life, people generally don’t change without a very good reason. Change is really hard. Whether you want to train for a marathon or become more generous, it’s going to take a lot of work, frustration, and perseverance. Most of the time, we would prefer to stay home rather than embark on the hero’s journey.
In his book, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, Father Richard Rohr draws upon the hero’s journey to illustrate the task for our spiritual growth: we must first defeat our false selves if we want to find our true selves. We must learn to let go of the thing we think we want in order to get the thing we actually need. Here Rohr gives the example of a Japanese ritual of welcoming home and decommissioning soldiers. The community assembled to publicly thank the soldiers for their service, and then they announced (here Rohr is paraphrasing):
“The war is now over! The community needs you to let go of what has served you and served us well up to now. The community needs you to return as a man, a citizen, and something beyond a soldier.”
To keep growing and maturing we must reckon with the roles we have played and reach past them to become something more. Rohr also adds that the false self is typically the thing the world rewards you for, the identity that could subsume all other parts if you let it. Maybe that’s your fancy career or your intellect. Maybe it’s being a people-pleaser or a self-sacrificing parent. Maybe it’s your family role, such as golden child, scapegoat, or class clown. Whatever it is, the false self helps you along as you establish yourself, but at some point, it grows big enough to crush you.
As I approach the big 4-0, I’m thinking a lot about my false self and how I detach from it. Making change isn’t easy, but I believe that wisdom and peace lie on the other side.
Do you like giving advice to others? How about receiving advice? Do you have any idea of who/what your “false self” is? Have you taken any steps to work on becoming your true self? Feel free to share in the comments, I’d love to be inspired by your changes.
BONUS MATERIALS:
Speaking of other people’s drama, who doesn’t love a good Am I the Asshole?
want to know more about RR’s idea of the false self? Here ya go.
slightly NSFW hilarious AI country song
Not me getting emotional reading the Richard Rohr quote!
Have been appreciating the book The Unfiltered Enneagram for its reflection questions about the Idealized Self (prob the same or similar to the false self you write about here)...been eye opening to give specific names to my false selves and think about why I've felt the need to play those roles.
Another thought provoking piece, thank you!
Hey, Katharine. Great post! Speaking of the false self, have you ever explored IFS? It was a tremendous experience for me as I stripped away literally hundreds of false selves to reconnect with my true self. Indulge me with my next sentence on how I would describe the process: I could literally feel the weight coming off my soul.