In equal measures

The underappreciated hero’s return

“There are times when you need to retreat to the wilderness…times when you need the subtle flow of a river, the song of a waterfall and the deep, slow presence of trees. Times when you need to return.”

- Sharon Blackie

Many of the most meaningful experiences of a life come to be thanks in large part to our blissful ignorance of their price.

While some of us overestimate the risks of a new challenge, others like myself habitually downplay the difficulty and head out half-cocked and wholehearted, inevitably questioning our sanity during the crux.​

I no longer berate myself for this functional denial (I have taken too many leaps off of familiar cliffs to call it naivete). I never regret the reconciled sum, except for perhaps temporarily in the worst of the discomfort.

Any great adventure, whether birthing a child, writing a book or climbing a peak, gains its depth of meaning from the stretches that truly test us, the singular focus that takes over during the final push while we dredge the bottom of our souls for every last ounce of determination.

This is precisely when we feel most alive.

There is pain, but it is purposeful. Our suffering comes before and after, in the very many ways we argue with reality.

I deny the great cost going into a call to adventure because otherwise I might hesitate. Resisting our own becoming and hanging in the limbo of self-doubt is one way we torture ourselves.

I can also return to denial after the challenge has passed, but it is no longer helpful in the aftermath. I pretend that a great debt has not been incurred, that I can pick up right where I left off, at the same pace and enthusiasm with which I headed out.

If you examine Joseph Campbell's diagram of the Hero's Journey, you will notice that the hero traverses from innocent status quo through to their death and rebirth all in just the first half of the circle. The second half is devoted to the return, the journey home.

Integration is essential. We need spacious time to absorb the fullness of our experiences, to reorganize our focus and efforts with new clarity and intention, to move forward rather than circle back to the same lesson over and over.

In the culmination of the challenge, we release a part of ourselves, the death, and gain a gift, a rebirth. When we rush right back into the status quo we left behind, we lose track of this gift, the threads we were to weave into our story, into the meaning of our lives, are left loose in the wind.

What if you were just as intentional and present in your return from a challenge as in the preparation or execution?

We rob ourselves of the other half of our experience, living predominantly from one challenge to the next out of an internalized pressure to perform. What would it look like to be deeply intentional about commitments and obligations such that your chosen constraints are supportive of your present values and a meaningful vision for your life?

What if we embraced the reality of an equal measure of focused determination toward meaningful restoration?

“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature. The goal of life is to be a vehicle for something higher…The return is seeing the radiance everywhere. The goal of the hero's journey is yourself, finding yourself.”

- Joseph Campbell

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