“Once upon a time there was a very clever girl. . .”

While on your Hero’s Journey, sometimes you can’t see your way out of the stage of Tests and Trials because you’re inside of them. A clever way to trick your ego-mind is to create a story about what is happening.

This story you create needs some key structural elements to work:

1. You are the hero and main character of the story (protagonist)
2. The plot must follow the arch of the Hero’s Journey
3. Personify or animify (is that a word?) the trial/test (the problem)–turn the problem into an animal or caricature of a person
4. Flip the situation around and turn them, then, into a wise sage who’s language helps you by the end of the story

Take yourself back in time and create a story that can be told to others around a fire at night. Children and adults will be listening. Perhaps you see yourself as a traveling bard or the storyteller of the village or the wisdom keeper of the tribe. Make the story one you would want to listen to. Include humor and something a little scary. Pay attention to who the story creates as minor characters (mentors and helpers).

The story doesn’t have to be perfect at first.  Refine it and learn from its retelling. (Hmm… why does that hippo keep ending up in the middle of my driveway?)

Listen for the lesson you are telling yourself.

Photo by rihab kaci on Unsplash