As I’ve been working through my hero’s journey process, I’ve been reading The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler. After the chapter on the Call to Adventure, there’s a chapter on Refusing the Call, which I assumed I’d skip. Since I set this process out for myself ahead of time, I knew it would feel false to purposely “refuse the call.” Obviously, I planned to accept the adventure. I committed to taking the journey when I created my travelogue journal and bought the coins for each stage and found the hollow book in which to put my daily notes.
But low and behold, a surprise! I shouldn’t have been surprised, given the fact that no one has ever heard of a simple hero’s journey. The point of setting out was to tackle something challenging, to grow personally and creatively, to wrestle those parts of myself that derail me and get in my way. A hero’s journey stretches a traveler’s courage, patience and hope. Often, a hero’s journey leads a traveler to the brink of despair.
In fact, this epic nature of a hero’s journey was the reason I wasn’t sure setting the process up for myself ahead of time would work. How could I be sure I’d face something authentically challenging? If I knew ahead of time I was headed to a difficult place, wouldn’t I avoid the worst of it or act as thought I were facing a true challenge when in point of fact it was more of a speed bump?
Nope. Turns out there is plenty of room for surprise.
On Saturday, I took out my cards from this past month and laid them all out on the floor. These cards, in case you haven’t read about them before, are notes I’ve been writing, one per day, on a key thought or discovery from the day. They read with sentences and phrases such as “Big projects are best tackled one step at a time,” or “Exercise patience,” or “Story matters. It’s how we make sense of the world…” I organized my notes and found that they became a sort of narrative that flowed one thought to the other. Rather than flowing in a chronological order from day to day, re-ordered, the cards made a kaleidoscopic picture of where my mind has traveled, and gave me a sense (which I couldn’t have otherwise articulated) of what the call to adventure truly is, right now, in my life.
And once I realized what the call was, I thought I’d simply move forward. I’d already planned to toss my coin into water to cross from one stage of the journey to the next, so all I needed to do was to go out and do it. But, that was when I stalled out. All day, I had a myriad of excuses. Maybe I’d do it tomorrow.
On Sunday, it was the same. Maybe tomorrow.
Monday? Yep, you’ve got it. Total avoidance.
So, I read the chapter on refusing the call, and my reaction (and resistance) started to make more sense. I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow.
