Fearless Dreams

The Fantasy of the Hero

For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to be a hero.
I’ve loved myths, legends, science fiction, and comic books my whole life.

Sounds childish, right?
It’s easy to psychoanalyze a love of heroes, and dismiss it as a childish or neurotic desire to escape from reality.

• Do I want to be a hero because I want everyone to love me?
• Do I want to be a hero because I feel powerless in the face of unfathomable forces that surround me?
• Am I trying to escape from a seemingly petty existence into a wonderous world?
• Do I want to feel overwhelmingly special and unique, and being myself doesn’t seem to be good enough?

Sometimes I do want to escape. I want to escape from a world that disappoints me. I want to escape from a “me” that disappoints me. Why play a seemingly insignificant role in the everyday world, when being a hero in my own fantasy world sounds like a lot more fun?

On the Surface
That childish desire to escape lurks on the surface of our thoughts and feelings.

And there’s another troubling feeling that travels with that desire to escape.
Do you often experience a feeling of restlessness? Do you feel that there’s some other place you must go. Some other work you must do. Some other person you must be?

It’s easy to dismiss that restlessness as the same childish desire to escape reality and to cast off our responsibilities.

But there’s much more to each of us than what floats on the surface of our thoughts and feelings. There is a deeper, meaningful side to our desire to escape, to our feelings of restlessness, and to our desire to be a hero.

Heroes and Stories

There are no heroes without a story.
A story is about meaning. A story reveals the meaning that lies within ordinary or extraordinary moments in someone’s life.

The stories of heroes are usually about extraordinary moments. They are stories where the meaning is clear, powerful, and profound.

But what divides the ordinary from the extraordinary? Is the ordinary event simply the common and familiar one?

Or does the ordinary become the extraordinary when we find the meaning in it?

Joseph Campbell studied myths and stories of the hero’s journey from many cultures.
It was his life’s work. The journey of the hero that he charted has distinctive patterns and steps.

Lives of Meaning
Campbell looked at stories of heroes and extraordinary events, but the lessons are true for our seemingly ordinary lives.

The Hero’s Journey is the story of living a life of meaning.

Your heroic story begins as you slowly awaken to a challenge that life throws at you. Life calls you to wake up and take action. For a time, you resist that call, but eventually, sometimes grudgingly, you begin your journey.

You find mentors and guides along the way, and face obstacles.

You see success, and dark moments full of failure and self-doubt, and final victory.

And you take the lessons of your victories and bring them home to share them with others.

Each of us is here to live a life of meaning. We are not meant to walk blindly and mechanically through life with no challenges, no courage, and no triumphs.

Escape to Freedom

There are many desires or feelings that have a superficial aspect, and an inner, profound aspect. My desire to be a hero is one example. Sometimes it’s an escape, and sometimes it’s a desire for profound change, a desire to begin my journey to find my personal greatness and become the hero of my life.

Another two-sided feeling is the restlessness that haunts me.
Sometimes it calls upon me to escape and avoid something unpleasant or disappointing in my life. In this aspect, the restlessness represents weakness and passivity.

Other times, that restlessness calls upon me to question the superficial, mechanical, unthinking parts of my life, and search for a life of greater meaning. It’s the call of freedom, and it calls upon me to begin the journey of profound change. In this aspect, my restlessness is a source of strength and action.

Connections
There are many actions that we need to do to live and to grow. At times, each of us finds herself avoiding these actions. Many of us, particularly if we’ve been hurt or are full of fears, have several types of avoidance behaviors.

When you seem to be avoiding everything that needs doing, here’s a way to draw on the strong, inner power of heroes and restlessness.

Exercise - Restless Heroes:

1. Become aware of the feeling that calls upon you to escape doing some everyday (or important) task.
2. Connect with the strong, deeper version of that feeling that calls upon you to escape the superficial side of your present life and find a life of deep meaning. Feel that deep ache to become the hero of your life. Feel the restlessness that tells you that your life isn’t quite right, and you are the one to stand up and make your life extraordinary.
3. For an everyday task, remind yourself (if it’s true, as I hope it is) that the mundane task is a necessary part of everyday life. It may not be exciting, but you need to do it. (If the task really is avoidable, find a way to restructure your life so you don’t do it!) Imagine your task is one of the stones of the path that leads to your freedom and greatness. Feel your restlessness and desire to be a hero moving along that path, supported by the stones.
4. For an important task (which often has more fear and resistance associated with it), see this task as a bridge on your path to greatness. Feel your restlessness and desire to be a hero moving along the path, and passing over the bridge.
5. When you reframe your actions as key steps along a life of meaning, you bring them into the Hero’s Journey, and you discover new energy within yourself to get things done. You substitute a feeling that makes you weak and passive, with one that makes you strong and active.

Tags: greatness, heroes, inner.freedom, personal-development