We are all born into the “Perfect” World of the Feminine, but we have to mature to understand that it’s most likely not perfect. Perfection can’t exist. Anything truly perfect would be stagnate. We need change. We need growth. A good Heroine will see this and strive for change.

When I began Think Spiritual Podcasts in November 2017, I was unaware that the Hero’s Journey would become the primary theme for this project and its subsequent YouTube channel. What was a passing interest took on a life of its own and became a Journey in and of itself.

For nearly three years I’ve been encouraging you to Change Your Self so you can Change Your World. I’ve encouraged you to Be Your Own Hero. I’ve ultimately been encouraging you to Be Your Own Damn Guru.

I’ve encouraged you to embrace your Feminine and your Inner Goddess – that is to reconnect with your emotions, to enter the depths of your soul and to rise up and become your Best and Highest Self.

And as much as I’ve encouraged you to do all of this, I’ve asked even more of myself. This has been as much of a journey for me as it’s been for you.

All of this previous journeying has led us here: to the first steps of a new journey. So, whether ye be Hero, Mentor, Bystander, Saint, Guru, Anti-Hero, Villain, Man, Woman, Transgender, Straight, Gay, Bi or Pirate – or some combination of any or all of the above – it’s time for us to enter The Perfect World of the Heroine.

[intro]

Hello, Spiritual Seekers, and welcome to a brand new season, series and episode of Think Spiritual. Today we’re examining the first step of the Heroine’s Journey series as developed by me, Mark, your ever stalwart companion and host throughout these ongoing adventures.

There are two things I’d like to mention at the beginning of each of these Heroine’s Journey episodes: first is that there are other models of the Heroine’s Journey out there, but I’ve designed this one to entwine and mirror image Joseph Campbell’s 17 step version of the Hero’s Journey – which I’ve completed an 18 episode series on already. The Journeys are complementary and work together. They’re not in opposition and they’re not combative.

The purpose of the Hero’s Journey is for the Potential Hero to move down into the depths of the Feminine and the Emotions. From there, the Reborn Hero can rise back up to the world of the Masculine and aim for Balance.

The purpose of the Heroine’s Journey is for the Potential Heroine to move upwards from the depths of the Feminine and into the forests of the Masculine. From there, the Chosen Heroine can live in the Masculine and work her way back down to the Feminine and aim for Balance.

Second, I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to understand that these Hero’s and Heroine’s Journeys have little to nothing to do with your gender. Male or Female or anything in between or as yet uncharted, you can take these Journeys at any point in your life.

That said, and without further ado or exposition, let’s begin our examination of the Heroine’s Journey and to do so we must enter The “Perfect” World of said Potential Heroine.

Unlike our Potential Hero living out his Normal Existence, the Heroine’s “Perfect” World is everything except for Mundane. The “Perfect” World could truly be perfect and magical, but it could also be tragic and horrific or anything between those two extremes.

One common theme that I keep seeing as I develop this Heroine’s Journey is that The “Perfect” World may also be one of repressed and oppressed Femininity – much like I pointed out how The Matrix is in The Matrix trilogy.

So, our Potential Heroine could very well be a repressed or oppressed woman or man living in The “Perfect” World – such as Neo was – or she or he may be a Princess or Prince that genuinely does live in a perfect world or at least in a world that is seemingly perfect.

According to legend, The Buddha lived in such a world. Born to an aristocratic family as Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha was initially denied seeing the world beyond the walls of his palace. He was provided everything mortal man desires and he knew nothing but happiness and peace.

Diana Prince also lived in such a world. As the Princess of Themyscira, she lived a life of luxury – and I don’t mean monetary luxury. She could ride and fight or meditate and relax at whatever time she chose. Diana loved and worshipped the Goddess deeply and she had the knowledge of the ages available to her at all times through the various masters and teachers of the arts who also lived on the island.

Talk about living in the depths of the Soul! I would certainly consider that as my perfect world – and, honestly, I kind of feel like I’ve been there during this last year.

Thankfully, though, my world is not perfect. I still have a lot of growth and change ahead of me. And this is a very good thing because there is a problem with “perfection” and I’ve mentioned this problem in a lot of my previous work and posts – true perfection is not attainable because once something is perfect it’s also stagnant. It can’t grow any further, it can’t change. All it can do is rot.

And this rot generally sinks to the bottom and begins to infect the rest of The “Perfect” World.

Disney Princess films are excellent examples of Potential Heroine’s living in “Perfect” Worlds. Snow White lived in a castle and everyone loved her, but the wicked stepmother queen conspired against her.

Cinderella lived in a very perfect world until her mother died and her stepmother took over the household.

Pocahontas lived in a perfect world until the English made landfall and began to change everything.

Ariel lived in a perfect world under the sea, but she very much desired to see the world above the waves.

Belle lived in a perfect world that really only existed within her head, but perhaps that’s okay. She was happy and who can really argue with happiness?

Which reminds me that I once lived in a “Perfect” World that was largely in my head and, in fact, all of us once lived in the “Perfect” World of childhood.

I grew up in The “Perfect” World of church and Evangelical Christianity. I was an only child and my parents loved me and cared for me. I was protected from the outside world by my own naivety and by people who upheld and praised that naivety.

It took me decades to see and smell the underlying rot that pervaded my system of belief.

As children, all of us are born into this “Perfect” World as Heroines. We are birthed from the Feminine body and, hopefully, most of us are cared for and coddled and protected from the outside world. We are raised in the depths of the Feminine where all of our needs are attended to and where our understanding of the world is filtered through that of our parents and relatives.

And I greatly apologize and sympathize if your childhood was absolutely terrible and this was not your experience. You are or were still a Heroine, though, you simply weren’t a Prince or a Princess. Perhaps you had a literal evil Stepmother or you were abandoned on the steps of a monastery and you understood the harshness of reality very quickly. You were probably able to see the world beyond your parents as a refuge rather than something to fear.

And once again I’ve mentioned two extremes from a single source: parents who coddle and over-protect and overlay a child’s personal identity with ideology or dogma and parents who abandon or neglect or who outright abuse their children.

I’m very sorry to say that most of our Heroine’s Journeys are doomed from the very beginning because we’re all born to very human, very fallible and very imperfect parents because they were mostly born to very human, very fallible and very imperfect parents and so on and so forth as far back as you can go.

This is what is known as “generational trauma” and trauma plays an extremely critical role in these first six or seven steps of the Heroine’s Journey.

I’ll talk about the effects of trauma on the Heroine more thoroughly in Step 2 of the Journey, but for now I’ll just say that the less severe the childhood trauma is, the more likely our Potential Heroine can mature at an appropriate rate, the more likely she’ll know exactly who she is at an earlier age and the more likely it will be that she will reach her highest potential before she gets close to her 40s…hypothetically of course.

My point is that the sooner our Potential Heroine can see the imperfections in her “Perfect” World without it severely traumatizing her, the sooner she’ll become her best, Heroic Self.

And the job of raising good Heroines begins with balanced, Heroic parents.

I know that I’ve not been a good parent most of the time and have been an absolute failure in a few key areas, so I’m certainly not here today to tell you how to be a balanced, Heroic parent. I also don’t want to blame our parents and grandparents for not being perfect.

But I do want to point out that, as a whole, we as the human species are slowly waking up to deeper levels of consciousness. We’re beginning to realize that we’ve made a lot of mistakes in our past and, I believe, that we’re overcompensating in a lot of ways. It’s the pendulum effect and it’s very, very normal and I have great hope that the next few generations will swing to fewer extremes.

This is why I hate it when people complain and ask, “What the hell is the matter with young kids these days?”

You know what’s wrong with young kids these days? NOTHING. There is nothing wrong with them. They’re just trying to survive in these fucking bizarre societies we old farts have created.

As much as we’d like to believe that we’ve created some perfect society, our young people are seeing through the veils and understanding that we’ve been oppressing our Feminine energy and it’s really time to allow our Inner Heroine’s and Goddesses to shine.

Which simply won’t happen if we keep putting our economics and dogmatics before our humanity and individuality. We even have to put a little bit of our survival instinct on the shelf if we truly want to create strong and independent Heroines and Heroes.

All that said, I really should also thank our ancestors. Yes, they were superstitious and backwards and racists and homophobic and this and that and other things, but they survived in some of the world’s harshest conditions. They lived in ugly and brutal times and fought in wars and worked themselves to death all so we would have a higher level of consciousness today.

Our ancestors tried to build a Perfect World and many of us keep hoping that a Perfect World can exist, but we have to understand that we don’t live in a Perfect World and we never will live in a Perfect World and we truly don’t want to live in a Perfect World because they would be stagnant and awful and have major atrocities hidden below their streets.

The most Perfect World we can hope for is the one that contains the perfect amount of trauma.

And what is the perfect amount of trauma?

Well, it’s different for every Potential Heroine, but that story will have to wait for the next Heroine’s Journey episode of Think Spiritual.

Thank you so much for watching or listening today. Please like, share, comment, criticize, and subscribe at your leisure.

I have been your host, Mark, this has been an exploration of the first step of the Heroine’s Journey, The “Perfect” World, and I know that if you continue your personal and spiritual growth and embrace your inner Heroine that you will change your Self and ultimately change your world.

You have all the weapons and knowledge you need within you, everything is working out in your favour and I will see you on the next episode of Think Spiritual.

Blessings of Adun upon you.