Heroes and Heroines: Adventurers who dare to journey toward themselves
A Reflection on the human journey…
An adventure with purpose
“The hero… is the man or woman who has succeeded in overcoming their own limitations.”
Joseph Campbell – The Hero With a Thousand Faces.
Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) was an American writer, mythologist, and professor. Fascinated by ancient tales, myths, comparative religions, and literature, he devoted his life to studying what these stories reveal about the human condition. In his seminal work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), Campbell analyzes hundreds of myths from around the world and demonstrates that they share a universal narrative structure:
The Hero’s Journey – a step-by-step process in which a character leaves their ordinary world, faces trials, undergoes inner transformation, and returns enriched.
For Campbell, myths are not just old stories.
They are inner maps that help us understand our own trials and give meaning to life.
His work bridges, among others: psychology (closely linked to Jung’s thought), anthropology, and artistic creation.
This multidisciplinary approach opens the door to a reflection that allows us to explore the human adventure through the values conveyed by the archetype of the hero.
Heroic character = The one who deconstructs…
The hero is therefore not entirely superhuman, but profoundly human. The heroic character draws strength from their ability to move closer to this humanity, to better understand it and reach the self—often hidden beneath the many layers of personality formed over a lifetime of experiences that have shaped the one called to become heroic. The hero, the heroine, can thus be seen as the one who has found the courage to peel away these successive layers in order to rediscover the authentic self: the very essence of who they are.
“Wherever he goes, whatever he does, the hero is forever in the presence of his own essence… The goal is not to see this essence, but to realize that he is inseparable from it.”
Joseph Campbell
It seems that the hero—and by extension the human being—carries within themselves an untapped potential, imprisoned beneath all the layers of conditioning. At the beginning of their journey, the hero—just as we do in our own lives—often does not know how to identify or use this potential, because our decisions are burdened with mistaken ideas about our mind, distorted notions of who we are, and influenced by countless forms of determinism, particularly our habits.
The personality we construct and reinforce like armor may, in fact, become our own inner enemy: a mental fabrication designed to help us adapt and protect ourselves, yet one that sometimes conceals who we truly are. This personality makes us acceptable, functional, usable in the world we live in - but only up to a point. That point arrives when the contradiction between our social façade and our raw, imperfectly beautiful essence becomes too powerful to ignore.
The façade begins to crack: the foundations are unsound, fissures appear. We try to patch them up for a while, but it never lasts. The camouflage may offer temporary respite, but one lived in insecurity. These cracks exist to force us to let the unstable mask fall. They let through the light hidden behind—the light of our deepest truth. And so, a real worksite emerges…
The hero is the one who finds the strength to begin this inner reconstruction, to reconnect with their foundations: their essence. From there, they can build something new, something different—yet above all, something stronger, because it is rooted in this profound truth.
“Man is much more than the personality he takes himself to be… He cannot reach his fullness unless and until he realizes his true nature, discovers, and liberates the spirit within his soul.”
Aldous Huxley – The Doors of Perception
Before facing external resistance brought by an antagonist (the opponent, sometimes called the hero’s enemy), who will push the hero to their limits, the hero is already imbued with antagonism: shaped by their inner resistance—the contradiction that dwells within. This inner tension seems to swell and expand, little by little, inside their being, their mind, their chest, their gut, their very cells… until it threatens to burst within them.
Would such an explosion be catastrophic? Could it be beneficial? It might crush the hero, pinning them to the ground, motionless. Or it might clear the way for an inner vibration—one more closely aligned with their essence, their true nature.
“We gradually discover that there is an inner story, most often unconscious, that has led to the shipwreck. The outer situation merely reveals, expresses what was lying in the darkness within… This abrupt unveiling makes possible a preliminary awareness, essential to any attempt at resolving a major problem.”
Guy Corneau – Victim of Others, Executioner of Oneself
Inner Shipwreck
To overcome their existential struggle and reach their goal, the hero and heroine must dig deep within, to uncover the source of their inner resistance and recognize what is blocking their existence, what is imprisoning their essence… And it is often external events that, by force of circumstance, will compel the hero to confront this very internal problem: a problem usually born of a wound of the mind, an emotional wound, a wound resulting from negative or traumatic experiences—one that has had a profound impact on the life of the heroine or hero, shaping their behaviors, relationships, and perception of the world… a wound rooted in the past of the heroic character.
This unhealed wound is an open sore that acts like a magnet, likely to attract the antagonist—the external resistance. The hope contained within the hero’s story is that the confrontation with this external resistance (and thus with the enemy/the antagonist) will bring to light the inner resistance that clouds the existence to which the hero, or heroine, truly aspires.
“Let us see ourselves as a tree and imagine that a trial creates a wound in our bark. The hollow that forms in our trunk is spotted by manipulators and bullies—it is a gap into which they slip in order to maneuver us… They are drawn to the wound that lets vital energy escape. By weakening us, manipulators feed on our loss of energy, filling their own emptiness—for they too have been victims of trauma, or of someone else.”
Natacha Calestrémé - The Key to Your Energy
Unprocessed anger lies at the root of much violence. Sometimes, when we are afraid to understand our anger, we fail to tend to our wounds or to work through them, and unconsciously we begin to reproduce these wounds in the people closest to us. When we avoid facing our own wounds, the energy of anger can turn into a vindictive desire for violent revenge. After experiencing violence, if you try to swallow your anger, you may end up spitting fire on a daily basis!
This is not about judgment, nor about saying that those who suppress their anger by default are “bad people.” It seems to me that when it comes to the process of dealing with violence, the ability to “manage it in a healthy way” is a path that often begins with something chaotic, revolutionary, heartbreaking—a complex and subtle process that takes time. Many people—if not almost everyone—at some point need to spit fire, to crush pain, to lash out, to let this overflow of violence and injustice burst forth in order to be freed from it.
It is also worth noting that certain circumstances can undermine this capacity and make liberation difficult. In our societies today, it is still challenging to welcome emotions deemed negative. Most of us do not yet have the tools…
“When we convince ourselves that we are “good” people who are beyond “negative” emotion, we suppress vital parts of ourselves that are deserving of communication and expression.”
Mimi Zhu - Be Not Afraid of Love - Lessons on Fear, Intimacy, and Connection
By drawing closer to the source of their wound, the hero may find a way to heal. This healing—intellectual, emotional, and spiritual—will allow the hero not only to avoid becoming an antagonist trapped by their own gaping wounds, and thus to avoid turning toxic or harmful, but also to become who they are truly meant to be—living in alignment with their own essence, and in respect for the essence of others as well.
“Become who you are.”
Nietzsche (inspired by a quote from Pindare)
John Truby, an American screenwriter, script doctor, and theorist—recognized as one of the leading specialists in contemporary dramaturgy—offers an in-depth method for crafting powerful stories and complex characters. He views every story as a learning journey undertaken by the hero, and presents the character’s transformation as the moment when the hero finally becomes who they are meant to be… The moment when the character completes a process of transformation that unfolds throughout the story, allowing them to become themselves in a deeper and more precise way.
“A true character transformation requires questioning and changing one’s fundamental beliefs, which leads the hero to adopt a new moral behavior… The hero is compelled to challenge their deepest convictions. Pushed to their limits, they discover what they truly believe in—the values that must guide their actions—and then act according to this new moral code.”
The Anatomy Of Story – John Truby
Inner QUESTioning
The heroic character: a being guided by the radiance of their own essence… moving forward in their quest for meaning.
The hero is therefore a character in search of their essence—an essence that grants access to their own story, the story that will allow them to fulfill their mission… Yet the reverse is also true: it is the story itself that leads the hero to their essence, their very center.
This story the character journeys through—this unique trajectory—echoes the personal legend put forward by Paulo Coelho, the world-renowned Brazilian author known for his novels imbued with spirituality and the search for meaning. His most famous work, The Alchemist (1988), tells the tale of a young shepherd in search of his “treasure” and illustrates the idea that each of us carries within a personal legend to be accomplished. A personal legend is the unique path one is called to follow in life: the intimate mission of every being, the reason he or she was born. To realize it is to fulfill one’s deepest potential, which gives existence its meaning. But it demands courage: to live it requires facing one’s fears, leaving the comfort zone, and responding to the call of adventure.
In Joseph Campbell’s structure of the Hero’s Journey, the threshold of adventure is the decisive moment when the hero leaves the known world (the ordinary world) to enter the unknown (the extraordinary world of adventure). It is both symbolic and concrete: it may be a physical departure (leaving a familiar place) or an inner step (daring to enter one’s shadow zones, accepting a profound change). Once the threshold is crossed, there is no immediate return: the hero enters a space where the rules shift, and where transformation takes place.
In the realm of myths and tales, the threshold often appears in very tangible forms: crossing a door, a bridge, a forbidden forest, or stepping through to the other side of the mirror…
“The hero who dares to cross the threshold between the known and the unknown enters a realm where their true treasures lie.”
Joseph Campbell
Legends, myths, and their fictional heroines and heroes draw us—as spectators and readers—into the quest for meaning. We become witnesses to a transformative journey; fiction breathes into its audience ideas that open the way to a new vision of ourselves, a vision less limited. We begin to glimpse our own potential, to imagine the scope of what might be possible…
Carl Gustav Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, through his study of myths, realized that he himself was lacking a myth. He decided to set out in search of his own myth—his “personal equation”:
“Thus, it came to me quite naturally: the decision to uncover my myth. And I saw this as the duty above all others.”
Jung
A Gaze into the Shadow
One of Jung’s central ideas is the Shadow: the hidden or denied parts of the self that one must confront and embrace in order to truly transform.
The heroic character: the one who courageously opens themselves to new possibilities.
The shadow is an unavoidable passage, an essential threshold, yet so difficult to access. The door that leads to this part of ourselves is often locked tight, barred by the fear we have of our own being and of all that we try to conceal, even unconsciously.
Might this fear be reinforced by the very personality we have built in order to adapt? This personality, constructed through effort, resists destruction at all costs—it has demanded so much of our energy… It is difficult to break something we ourselves have built, sometimes with relentless determination, even if its destruction proves beneficial. The very act of breaking warns us away, and the shield tends to grow stronger.
But what do we truly risk?
“ Open the space within you, because once you feel everything, you will let it all go.”
Mimi Zhu – Be Not Afraid of Love – Leçons sur la peur, l'intimité et la connexion.
We risk exposing and stripping away our illusions—the roles we play, the masks we wear to feel loved, the identity or personality we forged in order to survive… We risk letting go of the version of ourselves we constructed to remain safe.
It may be at this very moment in their evolution, in their trajectory, that the hero appears almost superhuman, for they dare to face risk and uncertainty; they are capable of stepping into silence, of stepping into insecurity—a silence so overwhelming it could make one sink into nothingness… A salvific insecurity that demands surrender, that asks us to stop clinging to the protective railing and instead learn to walk freely along our own path, with hands open.
“Survival is not always a showcase of resilience, but a trembling, expansive, unstable journey that requires vulnerability as strength. I had to be brave enough to face my emotions”
Mimi Zhu
The hero discovers freedom—a freedom sometimes difficult to navigate. One must know how to get lost in the in-between: a space to be crossed, a space moving away from what one once pretended to be, yet not fully aligned with what one is becoming.
It is this very force that demands so much. By unfolding their energy, the hero awakens and releases the inner strength that had long been dormant within.
“The shadow is a part of ourselves that we prefer to ignore, yet it follows us everywhere.”
Jung
→ To journey into the realms of shadow, into the void, daring to go where we usually fear to explore.
Joseph Campbell explains that the character destined to become heroic must endure a long period of darkness. It is a time when dangers and obstacles arise, a time of extreme trial and penance. The hero is cast either inward, into the depths of their own being, or outward, into the unknown.
Crossing through the shadow zone allows the character to gain depth. By daring to visit their own abysses, the character becomes more substantial: they inhabit their contradictions and embrace their contrasts. They become magnificent, like a painting whose contrasts are boldly affirmed with strength and courage—flamboyant, both dark and luminous.
An interesting character is a complex character, human and imbued with those contrasts that capture attention. Their greatest asset lies in their emotional complexity.
“A good person has their share of darkness, just as a villain may carry a glimmer of humanity. The appeal of a character lies in their contrasts, their originality, their dissonance.”
Complete Guide to Writing – French Language, Special Edition
As the story unfolds, characters evolve—molded by struggles, deep emotions, failures, trials, and triumphs. Through this journey, they transform into the hero or heroine they were always meant to be, uncovering the heroic self that had been waiting within.
The Hero: a character who creates their own trajectory.
“the hero is the champion of creative life.”
Joseph Campbell
The inner hero, once it has emerged onto the surface of the world — after being discovered beyond the boundary of the adventure’s threshold — allows the character to access their personal legend: an essential discovery in the human journey, acting as a powerful driving force that enables the one steering their being to create, with meaning and determination, a story, a future, a life trajectory aligned with their deepest, most rooted, and most authentic aspirations.
“They do not find the meaning of things, because it is not to be found but to be created.”
Citadelle, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
In the legacy of the famous french visionary poet and storyteller Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (creator of The Little Prince), we find his creative values. In Citadelle, he affirms that life needs direction and meaning—not to be passively discovered, but to be actively built. An active and constructive discovery…
“One of the best ways to give meaning to life is to create it. From this perspective, it is no longer simply about seeking what makes us want to live, but about provoking it, becoming its architect, and thus building our own cathedral.”
Christine Michaud et Thomas De Koninck - To Wonder Like The Little Prince
The creative individual can be defined as someone who dares to question their own knowledge and achievements, someone who moves forward with change and keeps the doors of innovation open. A creative person is able to propose new ideas without yet knowing their full scope: he or she can “go back and set out again with renewed energy on the path of their ideas.”
The creative is often tenacious, driven by a curiosity that frequently leads them onto unknown paths.
The creative is a hero, and the hero is a creative spirit.
“An explorer in the truest sense—free from visceral fear of the unknown, ever seeking what is new.”
Sapiens – Consciousness and Brain
The character who, along their journey, has found the courage and taken the time to look within, fulfills themselves through their creative function. Why does turning inward allow us to create and have an impact outwardly?
In part, because deeper self-knowledge seems to grant us more direct access to our intuition. The word intuition comes from the Latin intueri, meaning “to look within.” In the dictionary, it is defined as the faculty of producing information without relying on the intellect—connecting us instead to a deeper inner intelligence, almost as if our intuition were linked to our personal legend, our intimate equation, our universal mission…
Intuitive Compass
Intuition, studied by Claire Petitmengin, professor of cognitive science, who observed the lived experience of artists, researchers, and psychotherapists during an “intuitive breakthrough,” led her to conclude that “all agree that they do not find the solution; rather, the idea comes to them. Almost always, it emerges when the person is no longer in a state of searching. The center of gravity of their attention shifts from the head down into the body, functioning in a more panoramic mode—an experience close to a meditative state.”
It would therefore be a matter of listening to one’s felt experience… and letting go.
The Hero’s Journey can be seen as a narrative framework that enables us to know ourselves more deeply, and thus to strengthen our intuitive capacities—capacities that may appear superhuman, or like a superpower, yet a power that is in fact accessible to anyone who dares to confront their own shadow… to those who have the courage not to flee from their true nature.
The hero’s initiatory path can be understood as a kind of salvific solution, as the journey of catharsis—a term from the Ancient Greek katharsis (κάθαρσις), meaning purification or purgation. An emotional cleansing that allows us to shed our anxieties and excessive passions, leading to psychic relief or inner transformation.
More contemporary terms bring us closer to this desire to clarify our difficulties—not through avoidance, but through full awareness of our challenges. A mindful awareness that becomes a pivotal step toward better self-management, greater humanity, and deeper well-being. Here we may speak of salutogenesis. This is a concept developed by sociologist and physician Aaron Antonovsky in the 1970s. An approach that focuses on what generates health—even in a difficult environment—and that invites us to reflect through the following question:
“What helps us stay healthy, or regain balance, in spite of life’s trials?”
Salutogenesis answers that to cultivate health—both physical and mental—we must develop a sense of coherence, which rests on three conditions:
Comprehensibility → Having a clear and structured vision of the world: understanding events, even the difficult ones.
Manageability → Feeling that one has the resources (personal or external) to face challenges.
Meaningfulness → Giving significance to what we live, finding a purpose or a value in our experience.
Salutogenesis thus points to the paths that can empower human beings to become creators of their own solutions, through a way of thinking oriented toward the quest for meaning—a perspective that echoes the transformative dimension of the Hero’s Journey. We may therefore underline that the different stages proposed by this heroic journey are not only transformative, but also the key to the well-being of the fictional character… and of the human being who dares to transpose this journey into their own existential reality.
“What, indeed, is the most sublime work a human being can accomplish, if not to transform themselves—to become the artisan of their own liberation, the artisan of their own re-creation, the artisan of their own happiness?”
Guy Corneau – Victim of Others, Executioner of Oneself
The Hero: one who has learned to move with the rhythm of their own existence.
“For the person who does not allow themselves to be misled by superficial feelings based on appearances, but who responds courageously to the dynamic of their own nature—for the one who, as Nietzsche says, is like ‘a wheel moved by its own motion’—difficulties begin to clear away, and the great, unpredictable path opens before them as they move forward.”
Joseph Campbell – The Hero With a Thousand Faces
Connecting with one’s own movement may be a direct consequence of an inner reconciliation—one that allows for a fluid relationship with intuition: the compass of our personal myth, of our intimate equation… Intuition, and our relationship to it, could allow us to tune into our own frequency and live in harmony with our inner rhythm.
Would this inner harmony give us the possibility of living in tune with the outer rhythm? Of developing the ability to dance to the melody in which we are immersed? To adjust the BPM (beats per minute—the unit of tempo in music) so as to enter the dance of life we are called to live, within the story we are meant to journey through? Could the beats of our heart adjust themselves to resonate with the BPM of the score of our unique trajectory?
The dancer tames intentions, movements, choreography—the story they tell with their body. The heroine of a story may be seen as a dancer; on her path unfolds a moving trajectory, magnificently irregular. She dances to a music she has never heard before, yet seems to know almost by heart. This dancer follows the movement in a way that is both fluid and surprising: it is as though she can anticipate the vibrations rippling toward her, even before they have pierced the fabric of her reality.
“Dance is the art of space and time. Movement arises before thought can catch it.”
Merce Cunningham (Contemporary choreographer)
danser dans les ruines
In the spirit of Martha Graham or Pina Bausch, the heroines and heros, throughout their story, learns to listen to what moves them from within. Like a dancer in full improvisation, they feel the vibration before it reaches them. They do not anticipate through calculation, but through an intuitive, profound listening that precedes movement.
Through their transformative initiatory journey, could the heroic character, at the very heart of their story, become attuned to a frequency that allows them to navigate the meaning and movement of life? Could their loss and passage through chaos have ultimately enabled them to find their own rhythm and frequency?
And once able to live their own rhythm, might the heros and heroines also be capable of attuning themselves to the universal rhythm ?
“I had forgotten that Earth is in constant rotation and that she moves with everything that lives with her”
Mimi Zhu – Be Not Afraid of Love – Lessons on Fear, Intimacy, and Connection
And perhaps, by finding the right rhythm, the Hero may gain the ability to influence the rhythm of the world in which they move.
“We are seekers of harmony in a world out of tune.”
Jean-François Bernardini – Dysregulation: the Illness of the Century ?
Jean-François Bernardini is a Corsican artist, musician, and writer, but also an anti-violence activist, who shares his vision of the world notably through the concept of dysregulation: the scourge of our century, in which human beings seem disconnected from their own nature, living in a state of constant inner discord—largely due to the demands and tensions of an information-saturated world.
This disconnection has distanced humanity not only from its capacity for emotional self-regulation, but also from the ability to regulate its relationships—with others and with the environment. Bernardini highlights the logical link between emotional dysregulation and climate dysregulation. The implication is clear: a human being capable of self-regulation would also be capable of regulating their environment.
The Story of the Heroic Character : A Story that Echoes
So, is the hero like the human being: a student of life? Or is the hero the teacher—an imagined, fictional teacher—who, through the mirror they hold up to us of our own life experience, our struggles and limitations, our battles, discoveries, moments of confusion and loss, and our joys… allows us to gain a new vision of ourselves?
We watch and follow the evolution of this character, but at the same time, we watch and analyze ourselves.
(*Some human students can also be teachers… but they will always remain students at the same time…)
“A story does not present the audience with the ‘real world’; it presents them with the universe of the narrative. The universe of the narrative is not a reproduction of life as it truly exists. It is life as human beings imagine it could be. It is a condensed and heightened version of human life, so that the audience may reach a deeper understanding of how real life actually works.”
John Truby - The Anatomy Of Story
Fiction allows us to step back, to lower our defenses, to let ourselves be carried away by the destiny of an imagined character—one who is there to show us essential truths, things that are sometimes difficult to see, difficult to accept.
Yes, it would seem that fiction is a kind of detour toward ourselves—or perhaps a secret passage, one that lets us change perspective and observe from our hiding place, to observe ourselves without feeling watched or directly scrutinized.
There is a certain relaxation in this, which, I believe, allows us to reach deeper into the very center of the person—precisely because the spectator of the heroic character, and even their creator, will open that door which, in “normal” times, they struggle to keep locked, in order to protect themselves from themselves.
“The great literary works that describe unique and profound emotions find a universal echo.”
Maurice Moulay, Thomas Rebischung – Understanding Emotion: A Graphic Guide
The word “echo” refers to an acoustic phenomenon in which a sound, a voice, or a noise reflects off a surface (such as a wall or a mountain) and returns to its source. It can also be used figuratively to describe the repercussion or reflection of an event, an idea, or an emotion.
Here, we may retain that the echo is a dynamic movement—it resonates outward, yet ultimately returns to the source. But then, what is the source? Could it be something to which we are all connected as human beings? Could the source be a kind of container, a receptacle of what we call the collective unconscious?
The collective unconscious is a fundamental concept in Carl Gustav Jung’s analytical psychology. It designates a layer of the unconscious shared by all human beings, one that transcends the individual unconscious. Unlike the personal unconscious, which contains experiences, memories, and repressions unique to each individual, the collective unconscious encompasses universal psychic elements present in all humans—a shared unconscious memory.
Carl Gustav Jung’s Red Book (Liber Novus) is a fascinating and profoundly introspective work, written between 1914 and 1930. It was published posthumously in 2009, after many years of being kept private. This book is the detailed account of Jung’s visionary experiences and inner explorations, which led him to develop his theory of the collective unconscious and refine his ideas on archetypes, depth psychology, and the process of individuation. (Individuation, in Jung’s terms, is the process by which a person integrates the unconscious in order to become fully themselves.)
Our shadow takes shape within the light.
In the Red Book, Jung describes one of his dreams:
“He finds himself in an unfamiliar place, plunged into fog, struggling against the wind to move forward, slowly, trying to shield with his hand a small flickering light that threatens to go out. He perceives a large dark figure drawing near, so close it frightens him. He awakens and understands that this figure was the shadow cast by the very light he was holding in his hand.”
Might there not be, in the description of this dream, a form of answer? A universal response to our human condition?
Lost in the fog, against the wind, against our own essence, we are frightened by our shadow—threatening, looming… Yet this shadow is formed by the light; it takes shape in the light, it is caused by the light, it is cast by our own body, our very presence. The shadow is a projection that highlights our contours, our being in its human form.
In the heroic narrative, when the main character encounters their shadow, the spectator—through the ripple effect of the universal echo that fiction offers—may also be led to question their own shadow. And perhaps it becomes a little more acceptable, because they realize they are not alone in having one. They have developed empathy for the heroic character who reveals their flaws, and so this echo might allow them to turn toward their own flaws with greater kindness.
This gentleness toward oneself, carried by the hero’s journey, is the result of transformation—of the evolution of the heroic character. An evolution that takes its place after the trials, toward the end of the narrative: Stage 11 of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey = The hero returns from the extraordinary world where they ventured, transformed by the experience. → This transformation allows them to externalize this newfound inner stability and share it with the surrounding world: Stage 12 of the Hero’s Journey = The hero returns to the ordinary world and uses the object of the quest to improve the world (thus giving meaning to the adventure).
Could it be that a work of fiction discreetly takes the form of a mise en abyme of the inner tableau that inhabits us and repeats itself? Fiction contains within itself the human work and reflects it back to the one who observes it. The spectator, when subtly immersed in this mise en abyme, may feel the echo vibrate within them, allow themselves to be traversed by it, and then become capable of echoing in turn—reflecting and transmitting to their surroundings the benefits of an experience that has shaken and transformed them.
There is always that very clear and familiar image of the oxygen mask on a plane: one must first put it on oneself before being able to truly help another. In doing this inner work, in offering oneself gentleness, in striving to understand oneself better, to accept one’s flaws, and to give the shadow a place without repression, it seems natural to acquire the ability—the possibility—to care for others more gently, more compassionately, and with less judgment. This is true for the heroic character and, by repercussion, becomes an invitation for their audience as well.
We have deconstructed the unstable façade… The foundations are now steady and solid. The cracks remain, but they can no longer bring down the structure. And the Hero, having tamed their shadow, can finally turn outward. With solid foundations and an essence free to take its rightful place, he or she might even transform the world around them.
“If we are only moderately advanced in inner life, we will give ourselves only moderately to outer life; and if we have but very little interiority, we will give nothing at all to what is external.”
Aldous Huxley – The Doors Of Perception
The hero is a fictional character with depth, marked by an existential ambiguity, and driven by the aspiration to break free, to be truly free.
We might believe that freedom begins the day we can do whatever we want. Yet, like the hero or heroine, it seems that we must first discover who we are… in order to know what we truly want.
“Like all mountains, formed by the collision of two tectonic plates, yours is the product of the meeting of contradictory yet coexisting needs. It will compel you to reconcile two facets of your being: the conscious and the unconscious, the part that knows your desires and the part that still ignores what holds you back from fulfilling them.”
Brianna Wiest – The Mountain Is You
At the Peak of One’s Personal Legend
Brianna Wiest is an American author specializing in personal development. Her book The Mountain Is You invites readers to break free from self-sabotage and unlock their full potential by exploring themes of inner healing and personal transformation.
Brianna Wiest can also be seen as a contemporary heroine: she has confronted and embraced her own inner struggles, and it is precisely thanks to this heroic journey that she now shares her experience through numerous books—most of which have become bestsellers, helping thousands of people around the world.
She gently and compassionately reminds us that the true purpose of human life is to evolve—a dynamic that does not belong only to a few, but is the fundamental tendency of everything that is alive.
“Species reproduce, DNA mutates, shedding certain traits to develop new ones, the universe keeps expanding… And in the same way, our ability to perceive the depth and beauty of existence can unfold endlessly—provided we are willing to face our problems and turn them into driving forces. Forests sometimes need to burn, volcanoes to erupt, stars to collapse, and human beings, from time to time, need to find themselves backed against the wall in order to change.”
Brianna Weist
The heroic journey, with its different stages, seems to be an invitation to transformation and evolution—an invitation to set out in search of one’s own rhythm, one’s inner flow, to rediscover one’s essence, and to reconnect with the universal myth to which we are all bound, in order to embrace and create one’s personal legend. It is an invitation to climb one’s own mountain, to shift perspective, to develop a broader vision of the world—ever expanding, like the universe in which human beings evolve—and to welcome the new possibilities that this complex being is capable of creating through imagination.
To conclude, while keeping the door to the world of possibilities wide open: a gentle reminder from Astrid Lindgren (1907–2002), the Swedish author celebrated for her children’s books. She is especially known for creating the iconic character Pippi Longstocking (Pippi Långstrump), a mischievous and fiercely independent little girl. Her works, full of imagination, freedom, and respect for childhood, have touched generations of readers around the world and continue to inspire children’s literature today:
"Allt stort som Skedde i Världen skedde först i någon människas Fantasi.”
(“All the great things that have ever come into being in our world first took shape in someone’s imagination.”)
Astrid Lindgren
If human beings have been capable of imagining and creating a protective mask, an adaptive personality, a survival façade, then they also hold the power to imagine and create their own personal legend…
An article presented by :
Mathilda - Founder of the Red Door. Artist, author, film-director and searcher of meaning.
BIBLIOGRAPHIE :
Ouvrages :
Les portes de la perception - Aldous Huxley
Le héros aux mille et un visages - Joseph Campbell
Comprendre l’émotion: guide graphique - Maurice Moulay, Thomas Rebischung
Le livre rouge - Carl Gustav Jung
S’émerveiller comme le Petit Prince - Christine Michaud et Thomas De Koninck
L’anatomie du scénario - John Truby
Be not afraid of Love : lessons on fear, intimacy, and connection - Mimi Zhu
Guide complet de l’écriture - langue française hors série
Victime des autres, bourreau de soi-même. -Guy Corneau
La clé de votre énergie - Natacha Calestrémé
Dysrégulation: le mal du siècle ? - Jean-François Bernardini -
La montagne c’est toi - Brianna Weist
Le psychodrame - Carolina Becerril-Maillefert
18 contes de la naissance du monde - Françoise Rachmuhl
Revues :
Cerveau et psycho n176 édito - Sébastien Bohler - rédacteur en chef
Cerveau et psycho n177 - Mihàly Csikszentmihàlyi - Le flow
Sapiens 5 - conscience et physique quantique
Sapiens 2 - conscience et cerveau
Epsilon Hors série - numéro 15 - VIE
Le Monde - Hors série - Sens et Santé - Le guide santé des émotions.
Les cahiers de science et connaissance - Cerveau et neurosciences.
