Exploring The Heroine's Journey
A podcast series with Kayla M. Sweet from Internally Guided Life
If you’ve been around for a while, you’ll remember the publication I posted around this time last year where I shared the raw, juicy, deep details of my own Heroine’s Journey.
If not, you can find that post here. It’s about my initiation to Soul through death, decay and the cycles of life. My first turn of The Heroine’s Journey.
A few years ago, my soul sister Kayla told me about Maureen Murdoch’s book, The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness, and we dove in together. I was so moved by this perspective on the classic Hero’s Journey.
As a long time student of self-discovery and self-authorship, I came across Joseph Campbells work years ago. I love myth, metaphor, archetypes and the many ways that Jungian psychology helps us come home, so this was a natural resource for me.
But something always felt like it was missing from the Hero’s Journey archetype.
In 2020, I was part of a deep container focused on soul discovery, purpose, and soul embodiment. The entire focus of the container was to prepare our egos and souls for a 24 hour Soul Quest (a mini, contemporary version of the Vision Quest). And while I was most certainly game for the entire experience, it all felt so…. masculine to me.
I had been studying nature based rites of passage and initiation for years at this point, and in my studies it seemed as if all of the people who embarked on these mythic quests for soul retrieval were usually the young men of the communities. There was always some major test of will, some act of devotion to the Goddess, some level of pledging fealty to Soul through subservience, lamenting, and learning to receive from the feminine.
But what about those of us who already had a relationship to the feminine? Where was our representation in the quest for wholeness?
If you’ve been around, you’ll know that I found my feminine quest through menstrual cycle awareness, among other embodiment modalities, which I’ve written about at length on this blog.
You can find those posts here:
So when Kayla brought forward Maureen’s work, I felt like the final pieces clicked into place. The Heroine's Journey, as outlined by Maureen Murdock in her seminal book, is a deeply transformative process that offers a feminine-focused counterpart to Joseph Campbell's monomyth. This journey is a quest for wholeness, integrating both masculine and feminine energies.
And Kayla and I are breaking down this incredibly transformative piece of work through a four-part podcast series on Kayla’s podcast, Internally Guided Life.
Episodes 1 and 2 are live, and the series continues next week so be sure to subscribe to her show to get them right away. We are getting incredible feedback on these shows and I must say, I am extremely proud of how they’re turning out, especially since it’s so much FUN for Kayla and I to nerd out together in this way.
We are both so excited and honored to be sharing this soul-stirring exploration of a piece of work that has changed both of our lives. We offer practical wisdom, tools and rituals, using this book as the framework for deep internal work. This series reverberates depth, vulnerability, and sheer beauty - a testament to the transformative power of embracing one’s journey within.
Let us know what you think! Leave a comment below, and make sure you subscribe and review Kayla’s podcast if you resonate with the content!
I’ll catch you all next week.
May these words and this work benefit all beings everywhere.
Soulful blessings,
Emily
P.S. Soul purpose and wholeness coaching is one of my all-time joys. If you are interested in receiving some support in your purpose discovery and embodiment journey, book a free consultation call below and we can talk about options.
