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Hero's journey: Your responsive narrative (Part 2)
- Steph Turner
- Feb 1
- 10 min read
We guide your improving wellness along 16 familiar steps in the hero’s journey. Publicizing your adventure this way could easily attract more public support.
To get the most from this article, check out part one here.
PART TWO CONTENTS
BASE - Addressing personal problems - steps 1 to 4
TEAM - Addressing interpersonal problems - steps 5 to 8
GROW - Addressing power problems - steps 9 to 12
GOAL - Addesssing structural problems - steps 13 to 16
Your responsive adventure closely follows the steps in what storytellers call the monomyth, or hero's journey. You as the hero follow the steps in the monomyth cycle as explained below.
The entries below first cover the fictional hero's journey, and then applies it to your own wellness adventure as our advocacy campaign step.
This section in each entry below introduces you to the story element identified by Joseph Campbell and others. It’s why we stay engrossed in such stories as Star Wars and The Matrix.
This section applies the monomyth to our journey together resolving needs. It’s why others will become and stay captivated by your responsive narrative.
This portion has yet to be tested and could change over time.
Click on the narrative step here to quickly go to its explanation below. Click on that step title below to instantly return to this menu bar.
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Ordinary world
As the story starts, you see the hero in their ordinary world. Luke Skywalker is stuck working on a moisture farm for his uncle on Tatooine. Thomas Anderson is stuck living a double life as a hacker likely to lose his daytime job.
Cisconventional realm
You begin your responsive narrative while feeling stuck under circumstances beyond your control. You align with conventional wisdom that you can only change yourself, so must put up with the terrible situation clouding your life. You adjust or acclimate to a life of unmet needs. You settle for a life of quiet desperation.
Call to adventure
You see the hero receive some kind of challenge to go above and beyond the usual. The would-be hero is typically less enthusiastic. Their motivation may be too external at this point. Or too selfish to consider their impact on others. Luke is invited by Obi-Wan to join the rebellion by becoming a Jedi. Neo gets invited to follow the white rabbit, and later receives a call from Morpheus.
Call to resolve overlooked needs
You can’t take the complacency anymore. Something occurs in your responsive narrative to disrupt business as usual. You get some kind of “call” to try to resolve your overlooked need or needs, like a “call to adventure”. You must take charge as it seems no one else will. You feel a call of duty, like you might be the only one who can get this done. At this moment, you feel sure of it.
Refusal of the call
You see the hero have second thoughts about going through with this challenge. Luke insists he must go back to help his uncle. Neo questions himself while trying to escape out on a ledge.
Hesitancy to resolve needs
You realize answering the call could exact a price you may not be ready to make. Your initial readiness to confront powerholders gets tempered by the reality of your current limitations. Your responsive narrative finds you vacillating between the extremes of avoidance and being adversarial to those in power. Your hesitancy to jump into such a win-lose battle prepares you for or win-win mutuality alternative.
Meet the mentor
The hero is shaken from complacency by a wise helper. Obi-Wan inspires Luke to explore his greater destiny as a Jedi. Morpheus inspires Neo to find out what the matrix actually is.
Receive advocacy to resolve needs
Here is where your continuing responsive narrative merges with ours. We guide you to enter a new world of possibilities. We advocate for your vision to resolve the needs you feel called to resolve. We help you break the cycles of extremes. We inspire you with a workable plan to speak your truth to power.
TEAM: ADDRESSING INTERPERSONAL PROBLEMS
Crossing the threshold
Now the hero boldly steps into the special world. Luke leaves Tatooine with Obi-Wan to get to Alderaan. Neo chooses the red pill and then suddenly wakes up from the matrix.
Enter the extraordinary transconventional realm
Here is where your responsive narrative shifts focus. We initiate you into this special need-resolving world with a simple test of endurance. You reorient yourself to endure discomforts to resolve needs. You let go of generalizations to engage nuance. You transcend temporal barriers to address all the relevant needs in your situation.
You also start with your contact list of those who may take interest in your progressing responsive narrative in real time. They subscribe to the service for free as “followers” who regularly receive news from you. Later, you will nominate the more engaging followers to be your supporters, who invest in your vision with money and volunteer roles. They become invested coproducers in your responsive narrative. In short, you build up a support team that can also benefit from this.
Belly of the whale
The hero fully leaves the familiar behind and steps deeper into the special world. The hero faces their first real challenge or challenges and often fails. Transformation begins now in earnest, to prepare for the road ahead. Luke starts learning the ways of the force with Obi-Wan. Neo accepts he is “the one” and begins training with Morpheus.
Growth with new skills
We step deeper into transconventionality to let go of trusted generalizations and to replace pain-relieving habits with norm-transcending need-resolving determination. You internalize that you can do this, to courageously speak your truth to power. Your support team tests your character to make sure you can. Together, you prepare yourself to boldly address the relevant needs on all sides.
Road of trials, allies, and enemies
The hero gets put to the test, sometimes repeatedly. Luke encounters Darth Vader, who kills Obi-Wan. Neo is relentlessly pursued by agent Smith. The less trustworthy in the team reveal themselves. Han Solo helps only for the money. Cypher betrays the team. A new ally emerges to inspire the hero to reach their goal. Princess Leia inspires Luke to take on the empire. The Oracle inspires Neo to realize his life purpose.
Facing off with your team to improve yourself
Your support team helps you practice speaking truth to power. You match a supporter to each AI, and have them role-play as that AI. They can play devil’s advocate, to ensure you are ready for the real thing. They can help you consider outcomes and objections you may have overlooked. They give you constructive feedback to your rough draft messages for contacting each powerholder.
Most importantly in this step of your responsive narrative, you fully realize the ultimate enemy is not these people in positions of power but structural barriers that prevent you and them from fully resolving needs. Once internalized, your conciliatory approach becomes increasingly irresistible to these powerholders. You soon realize you’re finally ready to speak this deeper truth to power.
Approach to the most innermost cave
The hero draws closer to the edge of the impending ordeal. There’s little room for failure now, so the hero better be ready for the danger ahead. After the Death Star destroys Alderaan, Luke and the others enter this behemoth weapon of terror. The Oracle warns Neo that he or Morpheus will die from the choices he makes.
Approach to speaking truth to power
You draft your final message to send to each identified powerholder. If no one objects or finds room for improvement, you give these to the service to pass along for you. Before forwarding your messages, we “announce” to each powerholder to alert them that a change is afoot.
The service contacts each powerholder with news of a revolutionary kind of leadership development support. You could say this softens up the target for your initial contact in the next step, so it does not land like some cold call. They can expect your initial call. In fact, this step is the “norm” in each powerholder’s forthcoming narrative of need-resolving change. Your “ordeal” is their “call to leadership”.
Ordeal, death, and rebirth
The hero faces the most challenging circumstance so far. It typically challenges the hero’s assumptions. After helping to rescue Leia, Luke sees Obi-Wan killed by Darth Vader. Neo and the others get ambushed by agents in the matrix.
Ordeal of speaking truth to power
You finally make contact with powerholders impacting your needs. You assess their responsiveness to your expressed needs widely shared with others. You challenge them to improve their leadership qualities, ready to provide social proof of their responsiveness. Or testimony of any disappointing reactions or neglect.
Once you contact powerholders, we go live with this responsive narrative. Your interactions with powerholders remain transparent. Together, we draft press releases to send to relevant media outlets and interested podcasters. In the extraordinary world of this transconventional realm, legitimate power impacting the needs of the vulnerable holds no legitimate secrets. clinging to opacity can cost powerholders their assumed legitimacy.
Atonement with past
The hero recognizes past mistakes in the ordinary world and now comes to terms with it. Luke learns to accept that Obi-Wan is really gone and finds his connection with the force growing stronger. Neo blames himself for Morpheus’ s capture and renters the matrix to rescue him.
Incentiize powerholders to engage you
The more you inspire powerholders to listen to those impacted, the deeper you connect with your untapped potential. You see how you resolve more needs more fully with the active support of powerful others.
Or you find yourself in the uncomfortable but necessary position of sorting out bad leaders. You help society weed out those who stubbornly prevent us from resolving our needs. Along the way, you may inspire emerging leaders to proactively address structural problems.
Apotheosis or resurrection
The hero goes through a life-or-death metamorphosis. The results bring the hero closer to the ultimate goal. Luke hears Obi-Wan encourage him to trust the force, which he does and destroys the Death Star. Neo almost dies at the hands of the agents, but with Trinity’s love and trust that he is the one, he revives and defeats the agents.
Reborn as effective need-resolver
Your past reliance on conventional generalizations to ease pain gets finally crushed. You learn to embrace the discomforts of resolving needs. You learn to transcend divisive generalizations and any conventional opposites to more fully resolve needs.
You avow to each contacted powerholder that you will now pursue every legitimate means available to resolve the identified needs, with or without their support. Your example either incentivizes their support or gives them good reason to make room for more effective leaders.
Reward, or ultimate boon
The hero gains something special for all their efforts, to take back to the ordinary world. Luke realizes he has the force within him, to become the Jedi he is meant to be for the rebellion. Neo realizes that he is indeed “the one” as Morpheus claimed, so he can manipulate the matrix to bend to his will for the benefit of others.
Add powerholders to social capital
You gain a pioneering type of authority, and that is the anakelogically recognized authority of resolved needs. You realize all legitimate authority only exists to resolve needs, and any claim to power that fails to effectively resolve needs is merely coercive illegitimate force.
You bestow or withhold legitimacy on powerholders with your newfound organic authority. You reach some satisfactory level of your campaign goal. You earn the right to advocate for each other’s impacted needs. You may soon be in high demand to help others similarly situated.
Return to the ordinary world
The hero must now find their way back to the ordinary world. They typically bestow onto others what they gained in the special or extraordinary world. Luke gives new energy to the rebellion as an emerging Jedi warrior. Neo gives hope to others that they break free from the matrix without threat from the agents.
Return to cisconventional realm
You step back into your conventional life. Your familiar friends may not adequately understand your transconventional journey. They may try to pull you back into comforting overgeneralizations, and settle for the quiet desperation of symfunctional or dysfunctional survival.
But now you carry the responsibility of modeling a better way to those in higher positions of authority than you. Your consistency to proactively resolve needs, with endured short-term discomforts and messy nuance, could attract more powerholders. You stay true to your new energized self.
Mastery of two worlds
The hero develops competencies in both the ordinary and extraordinary worlds. Luke continues as a humble Jedi warrior. Neo humbly accepts that he is “the one” as he comfortably moves between the matrix and the real world.
Competency in both transcon and ciscon realms
The more you integrate specifics in your decision-making, and embrace the sharp pain when first alerted to a triggered need, the easier to trust your resulting emotions. By cultivating new routines to more fully resolve needs, you can encounter the benefits of the transconventional realm after sliding back into the ordinary world of the cisconventional realm.
This time, you enjoy a growing social circle of the powerful. Granted, you may alienate a few powerful folks who are unwilling to appreciate your vision. But the more you demonstrably resolve needs over settling for perpetuating pain, the more you brand yourself in ways that will protect you from the reactive. You become too much of a champion for both the vulnerable people and the compassionate powerful for haters to mess with.
Return with the elixir
The hero brings back what they gained to others in need. Luke brings back the power of the force for good. Neo brings back the powerful knowledge that the matrix can be transcended by deeper awareness of a greater reality.
Goal supported by powerholders
You show others this more effective way to address and resolve needs. You offer a more attractive alternative to adversarial justice, or to divisive politics or some other way you transcend the symfunctional status quo to inspire more of us to pursue need-resolving peakfunctionality.
Resolution or denouement
The hero or others, sometimes the narrator, wraps up any loose ends in the story. Sometimes this closure utilizes humor. Just about every Star Trek original series episode closed with a humorous or lighthearted point. This can counter the heaviness in the preceding plot.
Luke and the others are celebrated as smiling heroes at the end. Neo speaks his truth to the diminished power of the agents, offering a fresh vision for moving forward in life without their domineering presence. Sometimes this post-climatic closing plants seeds for a sequel.
Need-resolving expands as a reachable standard
You are now ready to move on with your life with a new way of seeing things. You help establish a higher standard to hold the powerful accountable to their objective impact on our needs.
Or perhaps you have some unfinished business. You know more powerholders to reach with this need-resolving vision. Maybe you are just getting started on a longer journey of advocacy campaigns. You can repeat this cycle to reach more lives, and to more fully resolve needs. There is now plenty more love to go around.
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