By Louisa Deasey

The Hero’s Journey is such a powerful storytelling tool for self-reflection and processing experiences, which is why it’s such an essential part of the personal storytelling ‘codes’ I teach in The Art of Memoir.

The Hero’s Journey has 12 stages which correspond with self-actualisation and character growth stages, so it’s also really helpful in forming a cohesive narrative when you’re caught in the midst of events that seem to make ‘no sense’ to the conscious mind.

This blog post is about using the stages of the Hero’s Journey where the main character (you!) is crossing a threshold: a gateway or a bridge from one timeline to the next. And so one of the markers of this stage of the journey is that we can’t see what’s up ahead, and there’s a certain type of ‘mist’ to the experience. It takes trust and surrender to cross a threshold!
The stages of the Hero’s Journey are explored inside my free storytelling guide which you can download below, to gain an overview of this powerful narrative device for story.
And in this blog I’m going to explore writing and internal reflection questions you could use as you move through any of the ‘threshold crossing stages’ in the Hero’s Journey.

The Stages in the Hero’s Journey where the Hero crosses a threshold

  • Stage 5: The Crossing of the Threshold
  • Stage 7: Entering the cave
  • Stage 10: The Road Back
Download your guide to writing your story with the stages of the hero’s journey explored in more detail…

Liminal Spaces and the Gate Between Worlds

As I write this post I’m in a liminal time between Christmas and New Year where you’re never really sure what day it is because nothing’s following the usual routine and nothing is open at the times you’re used to…

Nothing is really routine or scheduled – in Australia at least, the way that it usually is.

I went down to buy some almond milk this morning, because I completely forgot I ran out, And, none of the supermarkets or even convenience stores were open at 7am, which was funny. I did end up buying some at a café, They sold me one of their almond milks. So it was all okay, and I met a nice lady In the process, but, It has me thinking about the gift in this sort of slightly confusing time.

And if I think about the twelve stages in storytelling, it corresponds to the gate between worlds. It’s the fifth stage of Joseph Campbell’s 12 stage hero’s journey when we cross the threshold.

Crossing the Threshold: The 5th Stage of the Hero’s Journey

 

To recap the stages of the hero’s journey: We start with the ordinary world, then the hero gets the call to adventure, the hero then moves through refusal of a call, and meeting with the mentor… then we cross a threshold.

We move from the Ordinary world to the Special World in this crucial stage that also takes us into the Second Act of the Three Act Story Structure.

And no Hero gets to hold onto old items in this liminal space. It’s a strange, uncertain, exciting place. We are in the midst of transformation – the thick of it. Half caterpillar, half butterfly… it all rests on our internal decision-making process.

I’ve been thinking about the crossing of the threshold stage since watching season 1 of the series The Night Manager based on the John Le Carre novel. Our Hero, the Night Manager, seems always to be crossing worlds.

It had me consider how this liminal space can be very dangerous for the hero, because typically, these are those parts of the story where many of the threats to the hero appear… in order to prepare both the hero AND the audience for what is coming…
It’s uncertain, it’s new, he or she (or you or I) don’t have our usual survival tools… our fall-backs, our safety nets. It’s a gateway between worlds, the ordinary world and the special world, and we need to be very, very conscious and intentional in what we are moving into and what we are moving away from. Who we are. What we have (inside), that we are determined to utilise in this next movement forward in our life’s trajectory…

The hero’s journey is not about winning or losing. It’s about consciousness. Willingly embracing the unknown to evolve and grow in consciousness around a theme or aspect of life.

​Heroes are heroes because they are heroic in nature, not because they won or lost…​
Nassim Taleb, Fooled by Randomness

 

A hero consciously and intentionally moves from one world to the next

You might consider that many heros are unintentionally ‘cast’ into a challenge, but if you follow a more Jungian approach to the Hero’s Journey (which I do), you approach all elements of your experience as chosen forces your soul created in order to expand and evolve.

Which brings me to a writing or self-reflection prompt that I’d love to share. I have been thinking of this myself at this funny stage where I’m eager to get back to my routine and create and plan for the new year. But I’m also in a threshold space where I’m not in my usual environment or structure or schedule, with none of my regular ‘tools’ and reminders of who and what I am. It’s frustrating, and i am both wanting the structure of normalcy and my ‘home’ and also enjoying the new and unexpected elements of this experience.

There is a lot of bushfire danger right now in the town that I live in. So I’m temporarily camped out with my cat in the city with my partner. I didn’t bring a lot of things that I usually would live with because I didn’t understand the threat until we got here to the city. I packed for a few days, not weeks.

So I’m feeling a little bit like I can’t really plan and start my new year’s stuff yet. Things feel rocky and uncertain. And I also can’t sort of, just plan and schedule and prepare in the way that I usually would, but there’s a gift in this as well because it’s showing me how far I’ve come in just a year from being in a very similar state, space a year ago.

The question that I ask myself for reflection in my journal and And in my meditations and my prayer and my, self talk and thoughts is…

What has worked?

It’s a really simple question:

What has worked for you? What is working now? What works?

And you can apply it to what has worked for you this year, what has worked for you in similar situations, what works for you right now, what feels good, what is working.

This helps you to focus on what you can control and what is actually strong in you. So you can build on that strength rather than looking for the gaps, looking at the gaps, what needs to be fixed, what isn’t right, what isn’t there, what you want that you don’t have right now, what is working.

So for me, asking that question has helped me to see that I am so much further along in my Mindset and my consciousness journey than I was a year ago in a very similar liminal space where I was in between houses and couldn’t really plan long term things but, but was focusing on the day to day and just getting my mindset and my, my self talk right. And it’s, it’s become a lot quicker for me to come out of any tricky stage and not get triggered and not get rattled by the things that used to rattle me.

And what has worked for me is coming back to breath, coming back to the body, which is why I’m sweaty right now. I’m not dressed up for this video. Nature. I live, I’m in the city, staying in the city. Very crowded city. I don’t know the population, but it’s millions. But the apartment that we are in right now is just above this incredible creek.

Beautiful creek. You can hear nature around me. If I can connect to nature every day, if I can connect to spirit…
I’ve been working through A Course in Miracles every morning this year, since May actually. I read a passage and I journal on it and I use it in my prayer and meditation every morning consistently.

I haven’t gone a day without it. I’m up to day 233. I have my coffee. I have my quiet time. And when I do feel myself getting overwhelmed in my body, I close my eyes and I come back to my breath. And it’s as simple as that. And you know what’s beautiful about that? You can do it anywhere.

This is your power as a human…

You can do it as long as you are alive.

And you can just come back to your breath and ask yourself, what do I want right now? How do I want to feel? What do I want? And that has worked for me. So that’s a reflection prompt for you for this beautiful liminal time in between worlds, which is actually incredibly powerful, where we are letting go of an old identity, an old year, an old state of being and moving into a new one.

Embodying your heroic nature in threshold places…

 

And we’re not out of each world yet. We are sort of crafting and creating the intention in this space. So, what has worked? What has worked for you this far? What works for you? What do you have in your internal toolkit that is helping things to flow for you? Think about that and write about it. or say it out loud in a walking meditation.

I do that sometimes other than writing because I find that walking particularly in nature helps me to connect to higher consciousness and spirit a lot easier than when I am feeling a bit stuck in a small enclosed environment and particularly if it’s you know with other people around coming down to nature just being in a park or near a tree can really help me to um, connect.

Just feel back into my own breath and connect to myself. So what has worked for you this year? What is working for you right now? What are you taking with you? What are you moving forward with? How far have you come? I hope that this beautiful prompt leads you to write and consider just how powerful you are and just how much you have the potential to change in a very short space of time.

I truly believe we are all here to thrive. We’re all so much powerful than we have been led to believe. And if we can reconnect to ourselves, that is where our true power lies.

Moving between worlds: In Summary

So, in this threshold place, with it’s mystery and malleability and exciting gateways leading to unknown places… I wish you power and intention.

Does this storytelling prompt help you re-frame things in the present moment of challenge and change? I’d love to know.

Louisa xx

You may also like:

The Two Worlds in every good story
Using the Hero’s Journey in your story structure
The 8th Stage of the Hero’s Journey