Resilience is an innate capacity in the brain that allows us to face and deal with the challenges and crises that are inevitable to the human condition. Joseph Campbell intended the Hero’s Journey to be more than a heuristic for studying myth: he meant for it to be a guide for understanding and navigating our […]

NOTE: You are welcome to link to this article, but do not copy or repost it. If you would like a free, updated PDF copy to use in your class or work, please contact me. This article is excerpted from   The Hero’s Journey: The Path of Transformation (2015). Most of us were introduced to the […]

Story shapes our lives and our world, and the Hero’s Journey is at the heart of… Read More We usually see the Call as the beginning of a new life, but it also signals… Read More We don’t “take” journeys. We “unfold” them, organically, as a dialogue with our world. Read More A symbol is […]

In this 2014 interview with Oprah Winfrey, author Elizabeth Gilbert offers interesting insights into threshold resistance,… Read More Hakomi therapy gives us valuable insights into the healing power of the Hero’s Journey and offers… Read More We usually see the Call as the beginning of a new life, but it also signals… Read More We […]

NOTE: You are welcome to link to this article, but do not copy or repost it. If you would like a PDF copy to use in your class or work, please contact me. The Hero’s Journey: A Myth to Live By Adapted from the 1995 edition of The Hero’s Journey: A Guide to Literature and […]

Hakomi therapy gives us valuable insights into the healing power of the Hero’s Journey and offers a practical approach to removing blocks from our lives. I was working on my Pinterest boards recently, and I came across a site called The Hakomi Institute. I had never heard of Hakomi therapy, but I was curious. I […]

Hegel’s Dialectic – Hegel’s Dialectic—thesis, antithesis and synthesis—offers us valuable insights into the psychological processes that drive the Hero’s Journey. This article explores the strong parallels between the dialectic and the cycle of the journey. The Hermeneutic Loop – Hermeneutics is “the art or theory of interpretation.” Its clearest expression is the interpretive cycle of the Hermeneutic […]

Harris Communications: Home of the Hero’s Journey Since 1997 Although designed for use with our Hero’s Journey materials, this FREE activity can help students explore a character’s growth and challenges in any piece of fiction or film. The most comprehensive guide available for teaching the Hero’s Journey. Everything you need to teach the basic Hero’s […]

This article is adapted from Campbell’s Monomyth: The Quest for the Mythic Hero, our 72-page guide to understanding the monomyth. To preview the guide, visit our Hero’s Journey shop.   The denial and the resistance to the call are important steps in the journey of the hero. They demand an inner decision. Friedemann Wieland, The […]

NOTE: You are welcome to link to this article, but do not copy or repost it. If you would like a free, updated PDF copy to use in your class or work, please contact me. (This article relates an experience I had in my classroom in 2002. While the experience revolved around the popular television […]

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It’s not challenges that shape our character. It’s how we respond to challenges that makes us who we are. In the Sierra Nevada Mountains, each juniper is unique, shaped by winter’s icy winds and heavy snows. As with the juniper, the challenges we face help shape our character. For us, however, it is not so […]

To “purify” the mind doesn’t mean that you become holy or other than you are; it means to strip away that which keeps a person–or a furnace–from functioning best. Charlotte Joko Beck, Everyday Zen In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the early 1940s, soot and smoke so filled the air that residents often had trouble seeing across […]

The Hero’s Journey in Five Days Give your students a basic understanding of the Hero’s Journey pattern in just five days. This 84-page guide has everything you need to teach the basic hero’s journey archetype. (For a comprehensive Hero’s Journey curriculum, see The Path of Transformation.) The unit includes: Detailed, daily lesson plans, Student Texts: […]