The Heroine’s Journey
By Lum3n
I’m so grateful to have been interviewed by Joan Perry and Erin Egan on The Heroine’s Journey Podcast. Joan is the author of “The Heroine’s Journey: The Art of Becoming the Heroine of Your Own Life”, a transformative memoir that tells her story of how she transformed and navigated the “messy” middle (not just one) to finding her voice, courage and strength.
This book is a roadmap for women as we journey through life’s challenges and find ourselves needing to build or re-build our lives and search to find ourselves. Joan guides you through 13 steps, along a path that can only be described as the Heroine’s Journey - a path designed for women and only women.
As I was preparing for this interview, knowing I’d be talking about how I was inspired to work with women and support them throughout my career as a social worker and coach, I realized that my mom was one of the reasons. Time, maturity and space have granted me the gift of looking back with perspective and compassion for mom’s journey and mine.
Scottish by birth, she was raised by an austere, church-going mother and a softer, warmer father who was remembered for his love of growing roses and the grocery business - cheese was his favorite food (one of mine too!). She left home as soon as she could, determined to break free from the destiny she was told was hers - to look after her mother in old age.
Mom left Scotland to train as a nurse in London and at the start of WW2 met my Dad, a doctor who was smart, attractive, a man with means and who fell madly in love with her. Their story really deserves to be written - it is full of love, travel, secrets, dramatic moments, rage and loss. Perhaps one day I’ll put it all into a novel.
I didn’t always have the best relationship with my mom. What I realized over time was that she was a woman of her generation, focused on raising a family and taking care of her man. She also had the additional struggle with deafness - she was deaf in one ear and partially deaf in the other so some social situations proved challenging for her even though she wore a hearing aid. On a side note, she also amazed me at how she heard things I didn’t want her to hear!
I experienced her at her best when I was a child and we lived in a small, familiar community where she was able to put roots down and create a circle of friends and participate in activities. It was when she was uprooted that once again her life became chaotic and messy. Her life with my Dad was full of change as his restless spirit had them moving around, sometimes between countries and continents, and sometimes within the same city. She boasted about how she could pack a house in 3 days but if you’d heard the underlying message in her tone, it was one of sadness, fear, loss and uncertainty.
She died in 2012. I was with her when she took her last breath and even though I didn’t like her much (that’s another story), I was grateful to have been with her - no one should have to die alone. As I reflected on her life and my relationship with her, I realized that her propensity to binge drink was a sign of someone who was unfulfilled with huge amounts of loss and trauma that went unprocessed and resolved, a woman who’s intellectual abilities were overshadowed by my dad, a woman with creative talents that were never realized, a woman who couldn’t find a way to become who she wanted to be, a woman with a disability that didn’t need to impede her desire for more.
There’s much more I could say and many more examples I could offer about my mom and her life that demonstrates how moments of courage and bravery were then dampened by limiting beliefs about her worth and abilities, but I’ll save them for another day - or a book.
Not only was she the catalyst that prompted my inner work and healing journey, but she was also one of the reasons I felt so strongly drawn to supporting women in their growth and development. If I could hold the space for women to heal and grow, even just a tiny bit, as others have for me, it might be all they need to take a next step, and then another one, to become more of who they want to be, living without fear, from a place of personal power.
I share this as a metaphor for growth. The place my mom loved to be and nurture was in her garden.
As I’ve grown into mid-life I now see my mom from a place of strength, no longer angry with her and operating from the shakiness of being afraid.
I often said I didn’t want to be like her. What I meant was that I want to be a woman who has the courage to be herself, who realizes her dreams and expresses her creativity no matter what others think, who steps up and communicates clearly and respectfully her desires and thoughts, who isn’t afraid to dance with her own grief, sorrow and loneliness.
Getting to these places takes work and it’s not lost on me that the path is never a straight line - what is important is that I, like many, are on the path and continue to take steps forward. From my eyes, I wonder how things might have been different for mom had she the support I’ve had and sought out, and the where-with-all to find or create a path of healing and self-worth.
Despite living in different times and eras, we women across generations continue to have work to do to be seen and heard. Let’s keep going so that the generations of women (and men) ahead of us reap the benefits of what we’re able to sow in this lifetime.
Taking the ferry across to Dunoon, Scotland where mom was born and where her ashes were scattered.
And finally, looking back at all that my mom dealt with in her life I know that she did the best she could even if it was messy and had consequences for me and those around her. Perhaps if she’d had a roadmap like the Heroine’s Journey, her life would have been different - we’ll never know.
What I do know is that one’s life is never all good or bad, we are never all good or bad, and no matter the path we take to the end, we are our own Heroine on a journey filled with unknowns and surprises that we can fall victim to or approach with self-compassion and the belief that no matter what, we can weather the storm.
There is more to this story about my mom and me and The Heroine’s Journey, but for now I’ll end with this:
“There is a brokenness
out of which comes the unbroken,
a shatteredness
out of which blooms the unshatterable.
There is a sorrow
beyond all grief which leads to joy
and a fragility
out of whose depths emerges strength.
There is a hollow space
too vast for words
through which we pass with each loss,
out of whose darkness
we are sanctified into being.
There is a cry deeper than all sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart
as we break open to the place inside
which is unbreakable and whole,
while learning to sing. ”
If you’d like to join me, I’ve put together some reflective writing prompts in this week’s “Invitation to Write” that invite you to explore your Heroine’s Journey. This is a section in my newsletter, “The W.I.S.E.R. Woman’s Guide”, that you can receive weekly if you enjoy writing and you’ll be the first to learn about current offerings in writing and coaching. Join me HERE.
Also, I’d love to hear from you about your own Heroine’s Journey - connect with me HERE.
You could also leave a comment below!
Thanks for reading!
Joan
PS. Won’t you join me in the Tap and Write Studio and a Tap and Write Circle in February? We’re exploring Self-Compassion! Keep up to date by subscribing to The W.I.S.E.R. Woman’s Guide for weekly updates or by going to The Tap and Write Studio on my website!
