My Heroine’s Journey
We’ve all heard of the hero’s journey…
It is a tale of conquest that has been explored time and again in our films and literature. A daring adventure of trials rising towards an ultimate crisis in which a decisive victory must be won.
But what about the heroine’s journey? What about the feminine path to empowerment and self-actualization?
Years ago, while finding my way as a screenwriter, I came face to face with this question.
From 2012-2014 I attended film school to get my master’s in screenwriting. I had worked my ass off to get into one of the top programs in the country, an institution that had fostered so many of the artists I loved and admired.
But when I arrived, I was surprised to discover that art, as I knew it, was off the table and had instead been replaced with rigid formula.
In my writing classes, The Hero’s Journey - as outlined by Joseph Campbell - reigned supreme. As students we were counseled not to stray from its neat and linear structure for fear of losing the plot, which outlined a daring adventure of trials - ideally incited by page 15 - that rose towards an ultimate crisis in which a decisive victory was won - ideally by page 110.
But, try as I might, I couldn’t ever seem to successfully fit my stories into this narrow and quintessentially masculine mold.
And there was another problem I kept running into: the strong, female lead. Everyone was talking about her, seeking her out like a golden goose. But what they meant by “strong” was exactly what you’d expect in a male-driven industry. She was the guy’s girl. The high-powered exec who had no time for feelings and drank like a fish. She could kick ass and take names but always in a way that felt erotic. She rarely had female friends, she never truly fell apart and, structurally speaking, the journey she took was always the hero’s. In short, she was a woman created by a man. And she bored the hell out of me.
“In short, she was a woman created by a man. And she bored the hell out of me.”
Deep down I knew the “strength” I wanted to explore in my female protagonists was of another variety. Something I had caught glimpses of in lead characters like Ada in Jane Campion’s “The Piano” or The Female in Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin.” Theirs was not a journey of rising up to conquer but sinking down to surrender. And there was something about that path that called to me like a lighthouse in a storm.
It was then that I discovered a book that would change my life forever – Maureen Murdock’s The Heroine’s Journey.
I read it in a fury. Devouring the words and underlining every page as I felt the rumblings in my soul being drawn out into words.
The answer was YES, a woman’s path to wholeness was indeed of a different structure. One shaped like a womb. And interestingly it began where most stories ended: after the victory. And that I could understand, because I was living it….
The truth was I had reached a point of crisis of my own. For my entire life the path felt clear to me. I loved to write and direct and had a talent for both. I loved the movies like nothing else. So, it was settled then. I’d follow the yellow brick road to Hollywood and make my dreams come true. Perhaps even make history as the first female director to win an Oscar. This was before Kathryn Bigelow’s time of course.
But now that I was here and it was all happening – winning awards for my writing, securing a manager, taking meetings on studio lots - I felt completely lost. The joy I had experienced writing stories as a youngster had been replaced by a paralyzing dread. For now, when I sat down to create, all I could hear in my head was a cacophony of other people’s voices. People who I wanted so desperately to please and make proud. People who I believed were smarter than me and knew better. The one voice that I couldn’t hear anymore was my own.
Over so many years of looking outside myself for the answers and chasing soulless ideals of success, the channel between my head and my heart had become blocked. And with it my ability to freely create. What should have been bringing me joy, wasn’t anymore. And trying to stay positive and practice gratitude wasn’t going to cut it. I knew that just like those heroines of the screen that had spoken to me, it was time to sink down deep and reconnect to the truth within. And initially, the truth wasn’t so pretty….
Over so many years of looking outside myself for the answers and chasing soulless ideals of success, the channel between my head and my heart had become blocked.
I was a people pleaser who believed upsetting others was a thing to be avoided at all costs. My energetic boundaries were non-existent. I was carrying the weight of generations of familial trauma and cultural conditioning. I needed help to find my way back to freedom. So then and there I made a promise to myself to say yes to my healing, to surrender to wherever it would lead me. And so began my heroine’s journey…
A journey that would not climax in one dazzling, ultimate victory but many small and seemingly insignificant ones that I had to learn to celebrate.
A journey that revealed I had climbed someone else’s mountain and that’s why it felt so empty at the top.
A journey that would unearth a passion for healing and guiding others that, bit by bit, I gave myself permission to explore, until eventually it evolved into my life’s work and greatest joy.
And so, 9 years since my fateful discovery of The Heroine’s Journey, I sit here and write to you not from Hollywood but the mountains of Montana. Outside my window, the snow-blanketed meadows dissolve into endless sky. A halo of pink outlines the mountain peaks as the early spring sun descends for the day. The horses grunt and blow out in satisfaction as they munch on their hay.
This summer, women from all walks of life will come to the ranch who felt just like I did: unsatisfied, lost to themselves. They will come because they too feel a call deep within to something more, to something wild. And the horses and I will be here to greet them.
We will not give them the answers, nor a formula for success. But we will hold a space of inner knowing for them. We will see these women as the sovereign and creative spirits they came here to be. And in holding up this clear reflection, perhaps, for the first time in years, these women will see what we do: fire, water, earth and air. Masculine and feminine. Softness and strength. Darkness and light. Not a role in a someone else’s story, but wholeness embodied.
So, if you are here because you are embarking on your own heroine’s journey - or already in the thick of it - I welcome you and am here to support you.
I offer private virtual sessions, in-person equine guided sessions and twice a year I offer the Embodying Wild Course to an intimate group of women ready to dive deep and transform.
If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out - emily@embodyingwild.com