How do I start my journey?

How do I start my journey?

Embrace the Hero Within.

Once you’ve accepted the call, probably the most difficult part of embracing your inner hero, the journey can commence. We begin our adventure by leaving our world of routine and comfortability to venture into an unknown and dangerous realm where the rules and limits are unknown. As you begin to embrace the hero within, you finally accept the call and begin a physical, spiritual, and/or emotional journey to achieve a boon, something that is helpful or beneficial. Now that you’ve answered the call. You can put in the work to achieve the Ultimate Boon. Whatever this goal, it is yours as long as you listen to the call and embrace the adventure.

I want to talk about the Ultimate Boon because it sometimes gets overlooked or taken for granted as the natural end to the Hero’s Journey. The Ultimate Boon is usually a physical object to which is also attached a code of conduct or moral that the hero must learn. But what we sometimes fail to consider about the Ultimate Boon is that the hero must incorporate this lesson into his or her life.

This is the point I think is often overlooked and understated. As you begin your journey, remember that you will learn something new and important, however, it is a knowledge not for you alone. You need to incorporate that knowledge, that boon, into your life so that others might see that truth, that knowledge, that self in you. Do not worry about how you are going to achieve that part of the journey right now. Instead, focus on the adventure and the transformation that awaits you as you begin your adventure.

Bilbo chased down the party with his signed contract in hand, Frodo sets off with a ring and his friends, and Amari travels across the Atlantic Ocean in a slave ship. Anakin, Luke, and Rey board space ships to begin their adventure. All leave behind the known world of safety and comfort and find themselves in a very different place. You may not run after an adventure, enter into enslavement, or travel through the stars, however, your journey will also lead you away from what comforts you. This may be moving out of your childhood home and into a home of your own. This may involve you finding a new profession or a new hobby that allows you to grow into the person you choose. This may involve a new philosophy or faith that moves you away from the beliefs you once held. There are many ways to begin your adventure and none are comfortable. All involve making a choice to change. And true courage for the hero is choosing to leave the comfort, the familiarity, the routine behind and embracing the hero within.

The first step in embracing your own heroism is accepting the change. Your normal routine needs disruption. Every person has the choice of remaining the same and ignoring the call. Every person has the choice of embracing the change and answering the call. This is the option of the hero. All it takes is a little faith. Faith in yourself, faith in the journey, faith in the Ultimate Boon.

Say yes to the disruption? Say yes to the change?

Have the day you want. I hope you find whatever you’re looking for.

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #MyBodyMyChoice #MakeYourselfGreatAgain #EmbracetheHeroWithin

How do I know I am being called?

Embrace the Hero Within.

How do I know I am being called?

Listen. If you listen closely to not only the sounds of life but the flow of life, then you will start to hear it. Does it sound like vast quantities of water tumbling over a precipice onto the rocks below? Does it sound like the gentle tumbling of leaves across pavement on a cool day? Does it sound like a loved one singing in the kitchen while preparing a meal? Does it sound like the breeze passing outside your bedroom window?

Whatever the call sounds like, the call wants you to answer. The call wants you to begin your adventure. The call wants you to embrace the change. The call wants you to become a hero.

A lot of us worry that we are not qualified to do what we are called to do. We put off getting underway in our journey because we need to know more, do more, get more first. When we get the knowledge and skills and equipment, then we will be ready for the call. BUT that is not how the call works. You do not have to be qualified to accept the call.

In church there is this saying, “God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.” And that is exactly the kind of mindset I am talking about needing to start your journey. You do not need the whole journey mapped out for you. You do not need to know everything in advance. You do not need to see the destination in front of you to get started. All you need is to start.

Bilbo was not ready to leave his hobbit hole and neither was Frodo. Amari was forcibly taken into bondage. Anakin Skywalker, Luke Skywalker, and Rey Palpatine were not ready to leave their planet and take a journey across the galaxy. Whether by external or internal factors, the call found each of them unprepared for their journey. You will likely feel overwhelmed and unprepared for the journey ahead of you as well. BUT know that when your journey is aligned with your call, the world, the galaxy, the universe will align with getting you to your goal.

So, how do I know what my call is? Well, you need to listen to what makes you happy. What brings you joy? What is your reason for getting up each day and doing what you do? What exists in your life that makes everything meaningful? When you find the answer to that question. The answer to what you want for your life, then you will know the direction to travel.

The majority of my life has been devoted to writing and nature. That is my focus and that is my call. I sit down every morning working through my thoughts about how nature and the world are working within me to give me a better focus on what truly matters. I enjoy the stories of folks that set out with very little figured out and transform into heroes. Heroes that bring a greater knowledge back to us from out there on the road. And the great thing about the journey to me is the internal transformation that the hero undergoes in preparation for that knowledge. The hope that each of us can transform ourselves when we align our journey with our call. As Joseph Campbell would eloquently describe the feeling, he would mention the idea to, “Follow your bliss”.

I challenge you to align your thoughts with the journey of your life. I invite you to find the things that bring you meaning, those things that give you bliss. And I challenge you to follow that bliss wherever it leads. Listen closely and you just might hear the call?

Have the day you want. I hope you find whatever you’re looking for.

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #MyBodyMyChoice #MakeYourselfGreatAgain #EmbracetheHeroWithin