The Hero’s Journey
Healing Without Forgiving: A Hero’s Journey for Dissociative Survivors will be published on January 13, 2026. Many of you contributed to its creation with your thoughts and experiences (over the last several years) and with your preference for the cover design (last month). Thank you! Preorders will begin toward the end of 2025. To wet your whistle, I’m printing occasional excerpts from the workbook. Today’s excerpt comes from Chapter 1: The Beginning, under the subheading The Hero’s Journey.
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Joseph Campbell, an author best known for his work with Bill Moyers and the TV series, The Power of Myth, articulated the archetypal hero’s journey found in stories throughout the ages. In my experience, we are all given the opportunity to take that journey that calls us to achieve a greater purpose. If we accept the challenge, we leave home and encounter many obstacles along the way. Sometimes our journey is smooth sailing, but other times our very lives are at stake. The hero keeps moving forward in spite of the daunting difficulties, never knowing what lies ahead or whether or not the purpose will be achieved. After slaying a dragon or two, discovering companions, and picking up wisdom here and there, the hero discovers themself back home with more than when they began. As T.S. Eliot, the American poet and playwright, wrote:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
The moral of every hero’s journey is that when we grapple with the trials put before us, we are transformed. We see what was already there, though hidden from our view, as if we are seeing it for the first time. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, we survive life-threatening adventures to come home to the place where we started and understand it with new eyes.
I cannot imagine a more apt way to describe the healing journey of people who have experienced chronic childhood trauma. You and I are heroes. We may each define our purpose differently but, however we define it, it compels us to move forward through impossible challenges so that we will know ourselves, our history, our present, and our future in ways deeper than we could have imagined when we began.
Are you ready? Dragons need slaying. Moats need crossing. Unknown friends are waiting for you. Your healing intention is pointing you toward your destination and your quest calls.
Before taking your first step, let’s look at a survivor’s story — you’ll find one at the end of each chapter — then explore an obstacle you may find along your path.
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📫 Last month, I asked what good news you find in your diagnosis or your experience of dissociation. Judie responded with inspirational thoughts that we might all consider for ourselves:
The good news is...
There's "Reason" now. Reason for the constant, lifelong struggles I've had while others around me seem to skate through life. Reason for the unexplained bodily sensations and pain. Reason for my many "moods". Reason for the "unreasonable" fears and the plethora of irrational emotions. Reason for the nightmares...
There's reason why darkness has been such a constant companion, and hope a friend of others - but so very far from me.
Reason explains it all. It doesn't just open a whole new direction for me, it GIVES direction. Reason stops the wandering, the floundering, the constant sense of being lost.
Lost, alone, unseen.
Reason changes everything...
And with Reason comes its two companions: Purpose and Hope.
Together Reason, Purpose and Hope make me a new person with a new life, a new direction, and a love for myself that I never had before.
Reason changes the face of everything.
Wow, Judie! This is transformation and growth at its very best. Holding fast to Reason, Purpose, and Hope — through the pain, shame, and doom — is the true mark of a hero. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
With this blog post, I’ll ask a new question. How does it feel to know you are a hero? What negative self-talk do you need to overcome when you think about that? What positive affirmation do you need in order to embrace your own worthiness?
Email me at lyn@lynbarrett.com with your thoughts and I’ll share them in my next blog post
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Hard times don’t create heroes.
It’s during the hard times when the ‘hero’ within us is revealed.
~ Bob Riley