From the author: Continuation of the article “Writing the story in My own line...”, beginning see Part 1. "The stories we live by... The heroes we choose..." Magic stories, as G. K. Chesterton once said, are more than truth. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they say that a dragon can be defeated... (N. Gaiman. Smoke and Mirrors) The story of a hero's journey - how someone sets out on a journey to accomplish our feat is the oldest of all fairy tales in the world... Why? “We need heroes because they define the limits of our aspirations” (Scott La Barge). We define our ideals by choosing our heroes, and, in turn, our ideals define us. Heroes symbolize qualities we would like to have and ambitions we would like to satisfy. And it is heroes who inspire us to noble deeds... I don’t know who it is, I need heroes. I need to know that in this world, far or near, there are few strong in spirit and firm in word who will not betray or disappoint. Heroes are heroes to be real. This is a tuning fork against which you compare clear sound. This is a compass. Your hero is proof that no matter how hard it is, there is a chance to remain yourself and not betray what you believed in. (M. Kozyrev, My Rock and Roll) If a hero does not exist in reality, we invent him... Of course, heroic fantasies are especially characteristic of men, but women, as we know, “since childhood, they dream about Prince Charming, about a brave knight on a white horse who protects you, saves you...”... and, often, when they understand that “a knight appears only in a dream...", they themselves embody the heroic image in life... We honor heroes for various reasons: sometimes for determination, sometimes for courage, sometimes for nobility. But mostly we honor heroes because we dream of our own salvation. Of course, if the right hero doesn’t come across, sometimes you have to save yourself. (Desperate Housewives) In fact, there is no problem. It's not about gender. Each of us, going through periods of growing up, is a Hero who follows the “Hero’s Path.” Joseph Campbell, an American scientist and historian, comparing hundreds of mythological stories from different eras, cultures and peoples, came to the conclusion that at the heart of all heroic stories lies one a general scheme, a kind of monomyth - which obeys the symbolic formula: “The hero bravely sets out from the world of everyday life into the realm of supernatural miracle: here he meets fabulous forces and wins a decisive victory: the hero returns from this mysterious adventure endowed with the power to bring benefits to his fellow tribesmen.” Joseph Campbell. The Hero with a Thousand Faces Why should we really care? Because the Myth of the Hero's Journey is the story of how each of us finds our own path in life. “He is nothing more than a parting word to the hero, his “start to life”, he reminds us why we came to this Earth and what we must do here...” (H. Banzkaf) ... In analytical psychology K.-G. Jung defines the formation of personality as the process of individuation - “becoming oneself”, which is best demonstrated by the hero of a myth or fairy tale... “The story of the hero’s journey begins with the fact that “life throws a “challenge” to the hero, forcing him to go in search of some hard-to-reach treasure. The mythological hero, leaving his usual home - a hut or a castle, is lured, transported or of his own free will goes to the threshold of adventure. There he meets a ghost (the Guardian) guarding the threshold. The hero can overcome or win over this power and enter the kingdom of darkness alive (battle with a brother, battle with a dragon, offering, spell), or he can be killed by his opponent and end up dead there (dismemberment, crucifixion). Then, beyond the threshold, the hero travels in a world of forces unfamiliar, but at the same time amazingly akin to him, some of them threaten him (tests), others provide magical assistance (helpers). Whenthe hero reaches the nadir of the mythological circle, he undergoes a decisive test and wins his reward. His triumph can be presented as a marriage with his mother, the goddess of the world (sacred marriage), as recognition from his father - the creator (reconciliation with the father), as the deification of himself (apotheosis) or - if otherworldly forces remain hostile - as an abduction the good that he came to obtain (bride, fire), in fact, is an expansion of the framework of consciousness, and thereby the limits of existence (enlightenment, transformation, liberation). The last task is to return. If transcendental forces have blessed the hero, then he sets off on his way back under their protection (messenger); if not, then he flees, pursued by them (undergoing transformations or overcoming obstacles). At the threshold leading back, transcendental forces must be left behind, the hero emerges from the kingdom of fear (return, resurrection). The good that he brings with him revives the world...” Joseph Campbell. The Hero with a Thousand Faces This archetypal story, in addition to J. Campbell, has been described in detail by P. Rebillo, S. Gilligan, R. Dilts, etc.…… I suggest (for a while) we put aside the fact that the process of the “hero’s journey” occurs at the intrapsychic (internal) level, and focus on the fact that it is impossible to imagine a person’s life outside the context of the external world... Let’s compare the stages of the journey of a fairy-tale (mythical) hero with the stages of the life of each of us... One day, all of us, like the fairy-tale hero, standing At the crossroads of three roads, we are faced with a choice - where to go? Who to be? "What to choose, comfort or active actions? Should we obey our parents or take responsibility ourselves? Where to go? What profession to choose? Who to marry (who to marry)? The need to make a choice will face us all our lives, only the tasks will change. How and fairy-tale (mythical) heroes, we will have to go through various trials in life (difficulties, betrayal, glory, etc.) On our life’s path, we will meet both helpers and “demons” (enemies) who are trying to interfere. us on our journey, tempting us to an easier path, persuading us to retreat from the goal... Like a fairy-tale hero, we can find ourselves in the kingdom of darkness, where the search for Something, I don’t know, leads us. This is the time when we feel outside of society, without status and social role. This is a period of “being on the edge.” But this experience is also necessary to rethink our values, views on life, determine our life principles, and find our place in life. If we have the courage not to “go off the road.” , we have overcome all the difficulties, passed all the tests, defeated all the dragons, freed the princess (having won the prince), in the end, we will get everything we dreamed of... We marry the princess (marry the prince), acquire extraordinary strength, beauty and become a king ( queen). And, as Joseph Campbell writes, we gain “freedom to live.” Live in harmony with yourself, with the world, do what you love, be with your loved one, feel involved, needed by the world... And Heroes give us confidence that someone has already walked this path and passed it successfully..." ("Why should we do we need heroes?") So what kind of story are we all living through? In fact, the story of the hero (potential hero) begins with birth and his life in the family of parents (this is another category of myths, rarely related to the “story of the hero’s journey”, but, this is the true beginning of the life story of any of us) Description of the hero. A mythical hero, as a rule, has something that others do not have, i.e. he has some distinctive feature, special power or abilities in life. each of us is also unique - there is no other like this and there never will be... Each of us has hidden potential from birth, but even in fairy tales a hero is not born a Hero. They are heroes not because they have something that we do not have. , but because of how they use their abilities. (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) Usually in our minds, a Hero is brave, strong and courageous. But, in fairy tales, the hero inAt the beginning of history, he is usually not distinguished by special courage or intelligence. Often, he is the youngest, the most inexperienced, the weakest and narrow-minded... In a word - “fool”. And which of us in childhood can boast of knowledge of life? “The “fool” symbolizes the purity and unspoiled personality, openness and impartiality of judgment” (M.-L. von Franz), thanks to which the fairy-tale hero is so lucky... With age, we gain experience and begin to act more “stereotypically” (like the older brothers of the main hero) and thereby deny ourselves access to something new... and often lose to the “naive simpleton”... Any hero, as a rule, has (or had) parents. In classical myths, the hero is often a demigod (ever been interested in the circumstances of conception?); in fairy tales, he is someone’s son or daughter (of a king, merchant, peasant, etc.). In real life, we also come into this world not on our own, but already as part of someone’s story... Each of the future parents makes their own plans for our birth, each of them has their own dreams and preferences (for some we just need a son, someone a daughter, etc.)... Even in the most favorable case, our birth is “the end of an ordinary life,” or, at least, a serious test for a couple, because it changes the relationship forever parents among themselves, affects their professional and personal plans, etc.... i.e. the world (especially the world of our immediate environment) with our arrival in any case will never be the same... (we rarely think about this, but it is so). All parental expectations and the circumstances of our birth inevitably affect the further history of our lives... The fairy-tale hero (like each of us) spends some time in the “father’s house”, where he forms an idea of ​​himself, learns and accumulates knowledge about the world around him, and one’s place in it (mainly based on the parent’s attitude towards oneself and the life experience of one’s immediate environment). Subsequently, this period (the beginning of socialization) will inevitably “resound in us”, because it is in the family that we learn the norms, rules of relationships between people and initially largely determine the values ​​and strategies of behavior in life... The next important stage (both of a fairy-tale hero and of any person ) presupposes the beginning of independent life – i.e. parting with the parental home (both literally and symbolically, if we bear in mind the need to rethink (revise, check) parental values ​​- the “baggage” that we inherited). When we talk about “separation from the parental home,” we are primarily talking about psychological separation from the parental family, which is sometimes directly related to physical separation (entering university, joining the army, working in another city, etc. ), but sometimes not. It is important to understand that “separating” (separating) does not mean, in the literal sense, breaking with parents, stopping communicating, completely devaluing their experience, it means starting to search for your place in life, conducting an “audit” of what of parental values What suits us (personally) and what doesn’t... As a rule, this is a difficult period, the beginning of which normally coincides with adolescence and early adolescence. It is painful for parents to see how a child with whom they have always had a close and trusting relationship suddenly begins to distance themselves, hide something from them, protest against many things that seem valuable to them, etc. For a teenager (not yet an adult, but no longer a child) this is also a difficult stage associated with physiological changes, the beginning of growing up, saying goodbye to everything familiar that surrounds him... a “call” to adventure... And, often, without sufficient reason, many of us tend to prolong this process indefinitely...without particularly trying to break (first of all) the “invisible chains” - unconscious connections with our parents and the security that they represent (and they (for various reasons) are not always in a hurry to help us )… But, Only the one who destroys his gods Can become a real hero. (K. Arbenin. Odysseusand Nausicaä) The hero is the one who rebels against his father’s power and wins... (S. Freud) Ideally, all of us, sooner or later, should leave the cozy (or not so comfortable) world of childhood and understand why we were born, realize our true destiny and find (create) “his way” on Earth... But, even in fairy tales, the hero rarely leaves home voluntarily, deciding that the time has come to “show himself and see people”... Much more often he makes such a decision forcedly: life itself is everything decides for him, the hero must somehow act in response to an external event that disrupts the usual course of things... If you understand fairy tales even a little, you know that the hero does not appear until it becomes clear to the world that you can’t do without it. (The Adventures of Despereaux) Something happens in the world around us (some problem arises), and it becomes impossible to live as before, no matter how much you want. In fairy tales, there is a fairly wide range of reasons why the hero is forced to leave his parental home: an order from the king, exile, the need to save someone... In life, we, too, often at some point, due to circumstances, find ourselves “torn out” from the usual context and are forced to face with the demands of the surrounding world... And here it’s (in fact) not a matter of age... It doesn’t matter how old we are (18 or 30), but sooner or later we will inevitably face the need to leave our previous age, social or other status (due to with a change in the situation: for example, the death of parents, divorce, illness, loss of a job, etc.), a breakdown of established ideas about oneself and one’s life, or a spiritual crisis, in which “a person finds himself locked in his psyche and is his own overseer” ( F. Kafka), and the usual life, with all its stability, stability and reliability, eventually begins to cause nausea, boredom and despair... when we increasingly begin to experience the feeling that we are not in the right place, we are not doing our own thing, we we are surrounded by people who are alien to us, who are not able to understand us (and we cannot understand and accept them)... If we artificially “slow down” the process of growing up, then, often tired of waiting, at some point life itself “gives us a kick in the ass” , demanding that “the hero become something greater than he was before”... And the more persistently we are “shaken”, and the familiar world “cracks and falls apart in half”, the longer we delay the “seeing off of childhood”... Shock and denial is usually the first reaction to the need to go through the trials of growing up or even aggression - anger, anger, rage - the desire to destroy the whole world with all its unbearable demands... We hate this state, although in fact we should be grateful to it, because it is the discomfort that visits every person during the transition from one stage of life to another that gives us the impetus for development, movement, transformation, because crises, troubles, changes in our lives happen so that we have the opportunity to learn something new, to become a little different... But at this moment we are infinitely far from recognizing this fact... We are rarely pleased with changes. As a rule, at the first moment, a person strives to evade the “call”, return to a stable position, and recreate his usual existence. Sometimes he even sees his past life in a new way and wonders why he was not happy with what he had. He believes that he does not deserve trials and is convinced that he cannot cope with them... We can, of course, try to ignore the “call”, but in fact the choice here is simple - die (give up your own path) or change. Not answering means never knowing your true purpose, experiencing spiritual death, losing yourself as a person... For many of us, freedom scares us much more than the lack of opportunity to realize our potential... after all, the need for security is basic, and the need for growth and development - of a higher level, and if we feel a threat to our existence, then we often choose security to the detriment of everything else. IfIf there is such an eternal hero (“Hero with a Thousand Faces”), then, probably, for balance there should also exist an eternal coward. Let's say, a hero with a thousand sparkling heels... In the depths of many cultures, a legend was born about a hero who would one day return to protect the weak and oppressed. Who knows, perhaps, for balance, nature needed an anti-hero who would not do anything like that?... (T. Pratchett. The Last Continent) Some of us never dare to leave our parents’ home (not necessarily in the literal sense, but rather about the search for one’s own life values, which do not always coincide with those of the parents) and “to take the path of growing up”... Others set off on a journey... And then we will talk about them... I think a hero is someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom... (B. Dylan) At all times, heroes themselves “grew” their destiny. (M. Semenova. Eagle Steep) - I assure you, my friend, that Ulysses was not eager to become a hero. He simply WAS a hero - he had such a nature, he could not do otherwise. ...he was sick of sitting like a king in his stifled Ithaca. (A. and B. Strugatsky. The Doomed City) What does it mean to answer the “call”? It means risk, danger and no guarantee of success. It means deciding to “cross the threshold” and start your journey into the unknown (into an independent life)...And what can frighten a person more than the unknown? Time - Night... “Night. And with it the terrible dreams that came out into the world at sunset from those very cave times when, trembling with fear, we huddled together for safety and warmth. Now is the time for fear of the dark. Fear of what may be hidden in it - the fear of primitive man of the unknown "... (N. Gaiman. American Gods)." The word "threshold" (of adventure) itself has several meanings. "One of them implies that beyond the threshold lies a new frontier, new territory, uncertain and unpredictable. Another meaning of threshold is that you have reached the outer limits of your comfort zone. Once you cross the threshold, everything becomes difficult, dangerous, painful, scary. The third meaning of threshold is that it is fatal. line: you cannot return. Now you can only go forward" (S. Gilligan) When you cross the threshold, you lose all your usual guidelines. Sometimes you stop understanding what is happening - you are confused. your personality wants to come back, the other persistently encourages you to go further... But, we cannot be the heroes of our own lives and at the same time at some point in our lives refuse to leave in order to grow and learn... If you want to become heroes, hold on to your dreams .(Final Fantasy VII) Already on the threshold of a journey, it often seems to us that we are surrounded by people and circumstances that impede our movement. And at this moment, it is important to have “guardians”, protectors or patrons, wiser and stronger than you yourself. “Those who will remind you in a moment of despair who you are, those who have the knowledge and tools you will need on your journey, those who will inspire hope, offer their support and help when you need it, those who will mark the path" (S. Gilligan)... In fairy tales and myths, these are, as a rule, various magical creatures (Gods or sages, most often an ancient old woman or an old man) - the hero’s mentors, adults, often heroes themselves in the past, those who have gone all the way in life - these can be older family members (for example, grandparents) or a therapist. They won't walk this path for you. They can only accompany you on your journey, teach (give knowledge), “provide you with amulets” (artifacts - helping objects) against the indestructible force of “demons” with whom your path will certainly intersect... After all, the path of a hero is a difficult path on which you have to meet not only helpers, but also “demons” - those who would like to prevent you from reaching your goal... A demon is the one whose malicious voice we hear (as it often seems to us from the outside): - Yes, you won’t cope... - You're crazy... - You're toocowardly and weak to reach the end of the road... In fact, this is your voice (“resistance to change”) and, most often, we are not talking about external enemies... “Demons” (“Guardians of the Threshold”) are your doubts, guilt, shame and fears are the “Shadow” parts of our Self that we don’t know what to do with. This is what makes the problem seem so difficult. “In the images of demons, a person projects his forbidden parts of personality, which he is afraid to encounter inside himself and pushes out. Of course, we can project them outward, consider them external enemies, but, in the end, we understand that these are our “internal terrorists”... “What makes something a demon is our attitude towards it” (S. Gilligan).. A “demon” is the one to whom we give our power... So maybe we should stop running from him? Do you understand who he is? Who are you? After all, if we risk meeting him face to face, we will return from the “world of shadows” wiser and more experienced... The battle with the inner demon is a battle with yourself, the result of which is an understanding of who you are... The main thing is to find in yourself strength to continue the path... The path of trials. Having defeated the "Guardian of the Threshold", we step over the border and find ourselves "in a fantastic country with surprisingly changeable, ambiguous forms, where we have to go through a series of tests... This is a favorite part of the myth - adventures..." (Joseph Campbell). At this stage, events happen to the hero designed to strengthen him and teach him everything necessary to defeat the enemy. To reach the end of the path, we use some behavioral strategies. We deceive, negotiate, win or steal what we need at this moment... The description of the process of passing the path “reveals” the usual mechanisms of interaction with the environment, ways of responding to frustrating situations and the ability to receive help and support... This is a time of struggle (firstly turn, with oneself), battles and faith, which leads to the emergence of new knowledge and means (the ability to see and act differently in life). It is at this moment that you create something within yourself and in the world that has never existed before. In order to do this, you often must first die (die in one capacity - “give up the usual strategies of behavior”), and then be born again (in a different capacity). The “Hero’s Journey” is always a transformation (transformation) of oneself. This process can take a long period of time and even a lifetime. Perhaps there will be many defeats and setbacks, despair, retreats, it will seem that everything is lost and there is no future... But there will also be victories... A meeting with the goddess. This stage teaches the hero love and humility “The mystical marriage with the royal goddess symbolizes the hero’s complete dominance over life.” That is, the hero not only acquires the power to destroy, but also the ability to love and mercy. Apotheosis and reward at the end of the path. Decisive events occur , the hero receiving the desired prize for the path he has traveled. The hero’s journey at the end of the path involves achieving the goal and receiving a reward. In traditional stories, the goal is the search for a princess, living water, etc. At the beginning of the journey, the goal is far away, and the hero does not know in advance. the path to it, nor the dangers that await him in the process of achieving it, but, as a rule, the attractiveness of the goal is generally recognized: everyone would like to achieve it, but it can only be achieved by a hero... Understanding the ultimate goal helps a person realize his need and desire satisfy her...Everyone has their own goal...Perhaps this is finding true Great Love...marriage, personal happiness, awareness of one's calling, achieving a high social position...etc. Many fairy tales end at this stage, but the final part of the hero’s journey is always a return home. A return to the world of everyday life and life in it. The goal is to share what you have learned (during the journey) with others (often retired heroes become teachers or therapists - mentoring, helping aspiring heroes). A hero is someone who makes the lives of others better. (Cream)Here).