The Shero's Journey: Women Risen from the Ashes

If you are familiar with author Joseph Campbell’s work around the “Hero’s Journey,” perhaps you’ve recognized the patterns in your own life. Campbell said that numerous myths from the ages share this fundamental pattern:

    “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.” – Joseph Campbell, from The Hero with a Thousand Faces

In our everyday lives, it looks more like this: You’re plodding along, following the societal norms. You set up a nice average life, make sure you have all the proper insurance policies and WHAM - life smacks you upside the head with either tragedy or slow quiet suffocation, and you are faced with a darkness that threatens to take you down. Campbell said the lives of Buddha, Moses, and Christ followed this basic pattern, as do many other stories from around the world. You can even find the mythic Hero’s Journey in Star Wars. (Remember when Luke faces his nemesis in the cave?) The Hero’s journey crosses countries, cultures and religions, but what’s missing from this narrative are women’s stories. Recently on Super Soul Sunday, Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love) talked with Oprah about this very issue, saying how important it is that women rise up and tell their own stories.

Playwright, educator and speaker Lyena Strelkoff, always thinking ahead of the curve, had already been long at work on this issue. This year, Lyena had been gathering women’s stories she dubbed The Shero Summit, and has put them together in a free telesummit that anyone can join. Seven women tell their stories of transformation, finding medicine in the poison life has dealt them. I am proud and honored to be one of those seven women, and will be sharing the story from my new memoir Fire Season: My Journey from Ruin to Redemption.

The Shero Summit is a collection of real life stories, lived by women challenged by circumstance to lay down or rise. Funny, heartbreaking, inspiring, uplifting…. These shero stories shine powerful light into the journey of human transformation and, in so doing, light the way for you no matter what stage of the journey you’re on.

Because Lyena wanted this journey to be available to every woman (and man), it is a free telesummit.

I so hope you will join me, Lyena and the other brave women who have so courageously shared the good the bad and the ugly of their journeys. I know you will find pieces of yourself in each woman, and am sure you will walk away lifted and inspired.

7 women, risen from the ashes! Click here to register for your week of free video interviews: http://sherosummit.com/