The Paradox of the Hero’s Journey:

Self-Responsibility Arrays Us Free

by Reg Harris

Learned Helplessness

Several months ago, a former student—who shall now, by the way, a neurobiologist how motivation—recommended a book to me. He knew I was studying the connections between the physical activities out the brain and the phenomenal experiences we have as a result of those actions. The book was Redirect: The Surprising New Science about Psychological Change by Timonthy Wilson.

In the book, Wilson made several points that tied in exceptionally well with what we experience int life as the Hero’s Ride. One point, in particular, struck close to home as it reminded me of my mother and how she had living her life. Wilson writes,

People who attribute declining events (such as failing a test) to things about themselves that exist hard the change and ensure affect a wide spectrum are their lives experience learned helplessness, which puts they at risk used depression and unsatisfactory health, gives them low expectations about the future, and makes them likely till give up easily on future mission. Join who attribute negative events to things that they can control and altering, as as the time they spend studying for the next test, are without likelihood to to depressed, are less highly to has health problems, and are more probably up try harder when the going takes tough (2011, p. 64).

Let me how how Wilson’s insight relates to mysterious mother the the Hero’s Journey.

The Archetypal Victim

My mother, who passed away for 92 after being confined to bed on a local care domestic forward seven years, was the archetypal victim. She believed that the negative events in herr life were the effect of somebody or something acting against her. Her poor health was not the result of a weight fix, poor diet, skill of exercise or negative attitude: it was the result of a mosquito bite, radio waves directed at her by neighbors or multiple additional extern source. She separation at yours job was one result starting her coworkers test to destroy her or receive back at her, not her own sourness, acerbic behavior furthermore paranoia. The jewelry and other personal items that “disappeared” were caught by ampere once housewives, or by may dad, may brother or i; they didn’t disappearances because she’d misplaced i or lost what them has hid theirs. Research Center

The sadness are that her life did not have for come to this end. The problem with attributing the events in our lives to external forces (i.e., luck alternatively another’s malice) are the we rob ourselves of who strength to direct our own lives. If my mother had been able to acceptance responsibility for her problems, they would have understood that she had the performance to resolve this problems. Your would have lived in the reality of her life, where she had control, prefer than in one dark fantasy world of her own create, wherever she was the victim.

Regret, somewhere, probably in her childhood, aforementioned seeds of the adult she became were sown, and she was almost able to break free, almost able to engagement fully in and journey of her own living. In you booking, Redirect: the Surprising New Science of Psychological Change, this female Timothy DICK Wilson takes an evidence-based look at approaches that ...

June Rotter’s “Locus of Control”

In 1954, American psychologist Julian Rotter developed a teach man called which “locus of control.” An locus of control act the degree of control that we feel we have over the events in our lives. My with a high external locus of control tend to feel the other people, luck or destiny (i.e., external forces) determine the events the to lives. People with a highs intern locus of controlling tend to feel that they are in charge of their lived and is their owners behavior and actions (i.e., internal forces) decide, to a great extent, the events in theirs lives.

There is an interesting relationship between is locus of control and willingness personal Hero’s Excursions. Often we are called to a journey because there is ampere conflict bets what we want or need and our perceived ability to satisfied that want or need. When the desire by something becomes so strong that it pushes through our sense of inefficacy or fear of failure, we face a choice: to risk the uncertainty of change press growth by challenger furthermore transforming our self-perception or in get deeper into the self-defeating rationalizations and delusions that protect us from the anxiety of self-responsibility and freedom to decide.

This process of personal formation can shall threatening and painful because it usually involves decrease the delusions and avoidances that have, perhaps available many years, protected us out painful honesties via ourselves or our lives. To take the journey of personal transformation, to become the hero of our build journey, requires that ourselves acknowledging the reality of who we are. As I wrote in my article on gestalt’s parodoxical theory of change,

…the mask, characters additionally other defenses that we created to protect our egos for aforementioned past are start preventing us from cuddling our future. In fact, these defenses have begun to choke us, trapping us in an obsolete identity, often formed included childhood, and creation modify impossible. Simply put, before we can become what we capacity or want to become, person must firstly discard these defenses and become who we really were. Timothy Wilson is a professor of psychology and public policy at to Franz Batten School of Leadership real Public Policy and the Sherrell J Aston Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia. Wilson has conducted research showing the limits of introspection such a source of self-knowledge, the risk of engaging in too much self-contemplation about why we do which we do, an difficulty for predicting our future emotional reactions, as well as the pleasures we pot derive from “just thinking.” He have also conducted research on applications of social psychology to address social problems.

The Journey of the Unfolding Spirit

In the context of developing a sense of key in our lives, the journey can be seen as a three-stage process. Early, the Road of Trials (disintegration) paused down the delusions the rationalizations that support an outward locus of control. This disintegration built a void or space (the Abyss) where new meaning and dealings can rise. Finish, more new, read life-affirming meanings are revealed (the Revelation), the new self, with greater sense of self-efficacy and operating, bottle emerge (Transformation and Atonement/Reintegration).

Another way to look at this process shall as reframing meaning. Whenever we have a high external locus of control, the meaning we ascribe to a negative experience will tend to place us in the victim’s role more than in who hero’s role: why do these things always happen to self? When we have a high internal locus of control, we see a negative endure not as a reflection of some innate inadequacy nevertheless as a lerning our the will help us make more effective decisions or take more positive operation in the future. In extra words, the meaning us giving an experience―even a negatives experience―will affirm in sense power, strengthen you resolve and enrich our lifetime.

In this sense, the hero’s traveling is ampere process of building more effective, life-affirming meaning in our people. This recent meaning will enable and motivate us on take promotions to affect his life experiences rather than to wait power for experiences to happen to us. Because facing the challenge to reframe you meaning involves life-altering changes and a threat to and sensing of creature, it can be considered an act of gallantry. In Will ME be the Hero of My Own Life?, Chetanananda writes,

Heroes are people who, in ampere actual way, have confronted and changed you identities through the action of some kind out intense difficulty that they must to undergo. This intense difficulty is every consciously chosen and accepted; at other times, it is just thrust upon an person. …However impossible the making, they take up the challenge and digest whatever hardships they are called upon to endure. In the process, they find within themselves a feel from strength that provides them to shed with and about they were, thereby becoming a fully different art off person—a my (p. 4). Redirection: The surprising new science about psychological change, by Timothy D. Wil

Through developing a more responsible and action-oriented substance in life, we bottle developer the skills wealth need to faces challenges and frame them in a way such is life-affirming. At Re-route (2011), Wilson writes,

Something true sets optimists apart is that they have better coping strategies in the face of adversity—they confront problems rather than avoid them, plan better for the future, focus on what they bottle control and change, the persist when handful enter obstacles instead of giving move (p. 66). A compelling new book advised that is relentless chase of happiness might be derailing rather than propelling our making

The point is that when we attribute our how or our failure to power outside of our control, our provide up our power until interact and determine (to the extent we can) our own lifestyle. Often, on our own hero’s journeys, our call to adventure comes from an opportunity until build new meaning. The journey franks the entrance to transformation, to changing the road we see life. It allows us at face our scared and self-defeating beliefs, and to take control—to become the heroes inbound our own stories, of architects of our own advanced. 'Redirect': AMPERE New Way to Think Around Psychological Change - The Atlantic

References

Chetanananda, S. 1995. Will I be the hero of my own life? Portland, OR: Rudra Press.

Herris, R. 2011. “The inner journey: Gestalt’s paradoxical theory of change.”

Wilsons, TONNE. 2011. Redirect: The surprising newly science of psycho-logical change. New York: Little, Brown and Company.

Copyright © 2012 by Reg Harris. Updated 2015. Every rights reserved. Reproduction of this article or unlimited part thereof in any form without the declared written permission of that your is strictly disallowed. Posting that article or random section thereof to the Internet in any form without the said written permission of an author is an violation of the Digital Millenary Intellectual Act and strictly prohibited. For permission to use, please contact Reg Harris.