In pain but still on purpose

“What door is opened into soul through our wounds.”
― James Hillman

“You can never get enough of what you don’t really want.”
― Geneen Roth

The stories we tell ourselves have so much power over how we live our lives. It is uniquely human that we have a certain purpose in life, that our identity is this or that. We have needs that take over and drive us onward toward fulfillment. We strive to reach one goal and then the next, or we fail and either pick ourselves up and keep going or we give up and look for another thing to strive for.

We’re symbolising, dreaming beings who are building our own narratives with subplots and disruptions and heroic or dastardly acts thrown in along the way. Some of us build our stories around a main protagonist – a king or queen. Some of us hardly feature at all, feeling like a peripheral, expendable character that performs their function and is killed off early in the scheme of things. Others are resolutely at the centre of their own story.

Joseph Campbell, who dedicated much of his life to the study of myth and story, would say that there’s only one story – a monomyth. This single narrative is something we’re all familiar with on one level or another. The hero of the story is called – many times through tragedy – commences a journey, meets various other characters along the way (some helpful, others not) to a culmination of events and a fall from grace. A dark night of the soul. A wounding or death. Then, at the darkest hour, a miracle occurs and our hero is reborn – stronger and better – and commences his return to the place he started to share his gifts with his people.

James Hillman, father of a branch of Jungian psychology – the psychology of soul– does not disagree with Campbell but rather he adds a layer of complexity. The hero’s journey is informed by the character and calling – the ‘soul’s code’ of the hero. In Hillman’s conceptual universe, we’re born with a blueprint for life and accompanied by a guiding force for our own good: a daemon whose purpose is to carry our blueprint and shape events so that we may fulfil the potential we arrived with, bright and shiny, at birth.

What is happening in the world – has been happening slowly over some time now – is a trend toward externalisation of our abilities as humans to imagine and create our own stories.

We now passively view, consume, tweet, share, follow, and live our lives through screens. We’re less at the centre of our own stories – less of an authority on who we are, what we need, and where we are headed, than ever.

We’ve handed over our power to imagine and narrate our life stories to other forces.

We’ve taken in the synthetic substitute for reality and started losing our connection to soul, purpose and imagining – and thus our innate powers of creation. Discerning the difference between what is real and what is not is becoming a lost art. We live in the age of misinformation.

At the same time, we can’t get enough of any of it. Our lives no longer satisfy us. Our stories are not enough. We cannot consume enough of the processed fiction we’re fed – we’re addicts seeking the next hit, the next high, whatever the cost. We are powerless. We gorge ourselves sick and then gorge again to feel less sickened. We binge watch.

And we’ve consented to live our lives according to this manufactured, produced, coded, simulation. We bought all of it.

We’re barely even aware that the everyday things of our lives are gradually being distanced from nature. Our entire lives are as packaged as our food. Our self image is as authentic as our Instagram feed. The meaning we derive from our labours is as worthless as our Facebook posts. Nothing happens unless it’s on Facebook. We hand over our money without ever reading the labels.

We’re disconnected from our power, our authority, our heart’s imaginings and our daemons. Our internal resources are rapidly depleting and along with them, our capacity for love, compassion and kindness for ourselves and our fellow travellers.

What it will take to bring us back to ourselves and to reclaim our power is pain.

When we’re willing to allow ourselves to feel and be in pain and to experience our wounds fully, we’ll start to heal. We’ll begin the return – on a personal and a collective level.

It will start and end with our capacity to feel and transform pain instead of fearing it.

We must raise empowered, authentic humans, starting with ourselves, but especially our children. More than ever before, we need to be unafraid of authentic, lived experience. We need to re-learn and be capable of experiencing the full range of emotions – not the amped up, chemical-fuelled, flashing and saturated screen version of life but the kind that sublimates the soul. The kind of emotion that drives creation.

The monomyth is a model of life that moves us through the pain of hard journeys to the other side and becoming more of who we are – to becoming conscious creators – and to help us open our hearts to others. It is supposed to enrich us and empower us.

Turn off the screens – stop listening to the news. Delete the apps. Connect with others. Be vulnerable, allow yourself to be hurt sometimes. Take risks, be brave enough to fail. Do hard things – even if they’re painful or if you’re afraid. Especially if they’re painful and you’re afraid.

Let your pain serve you.

Eat real food, walk in nature holding the hand of someone you love. Do repair work on those you’ve hurt. Look to your heart – to your soul or daemon – for answers.

Create something. Return to the power and purpose you were born with. Return to love.