Listen to the full episode here: Your Hero’s Journey – Solocast + 10 Ways to Love it More
What if everything hard that’s ever happened to you is actually part of your hero’s journey — and something your soul signed up for?
That idea might feel like a stretch. Or it might feel like the most relieving thing you’ve ever heard.
In this episode of Rapid Transformation Sessions, I’m walking you through one of the most powerful reframes I’ve encountered in years of studying the human condition: we are here to have experiences. And that changes everything about how you see your life.
What If Your Soul Chose This Life?
In his book Quiet Mind, Epic Life, Matthew Ferry shares the results of muscle testing thousands of people, calibrating their nervous systems to get accurate readouts on what their bodies believed to be true or false at a deep, subconscious level.
The statements that tested strong (meaning their system believed them to be true):
- We chose to come to earth.
- The purpose of incarnating as a human is to have an experience.
- We choose our geographic location before we’re born.
- We choose our parents before we’re born.
- The soul arranges a select few negative experiences before coming to earth.
- The majority of souls incarnating as humans have a dominant desire for negative experiences.
That last one stopped me cold.
The statements that tested weak (meaning their system did not believe them):
- People have only one human life, and then it ends.
- Human beings do not choose anything regarding their birth.
- A soul incarnates on earth to learn lessons.
- The world needs to be saved.
- People need to be healed.
- A human being’s death is completely random.
Think about that. At a body level, at a nervous system level, we believe we’re here to experience.
Experience Is the Point
Here’s the analogy that makes this land: imagine you and I go to a movie together. On screen, there’s a beautiful woman in a sundress, walking through a peaceful meadow. Butterflies. Soft light. And ten minutes pass. Then twenty. Then ninety minutes, and nothing much has happened.
We’d be asking for our money back.
We go to movies for the conflict. The mystery. The twist that makes us gasp. We want to feel something. And if the soul chose this life the way we choose a film, wanting the full experience including the difficult parts, then suddenly all the “why me” questions get a little easier to sit with.
We are all on a hero’s journey. Each of us has our particular path, and we genuinely cannot compare our struggles to anyone else’s. As my husband says: one person’s peanut butter sandwich is another person’s death sentence. Pain is relative. Journeys are personal. And every single one of them matters.
The Evidence That Suffering Has Meaning
Mo Gawdat, author of Solve for Happy, lost his son at age 21 to a surgical complication that was never supposed to be serious. He then dedicated his life to studying happiness, and eventually surveyed thousands of Stanford students with one question:
If I gave you a magic eraser and you could delete the most painful event of your life, erasing every person you met, every growth you experienced, every way your life changed because of it. Would you use it?
98% said no.
And when asked whether he would erase his son’s death, Gawdat said, through tears, no. Because his son was a light who wanted people to be happy. And because of that loss, Gawdat has helped millions of people. That’s what his son would have wanted.
Suffering, when we come out the other side, doesn’t just teach us. It transforms us. And with every challenge, every trial, every experience that causes anguish, we gain a new awareness equal to or greater than the suffering it took to get there.
That’s not toxic positivity. That’s the hero’s journey, and it belongs to all of us.
10 Steps to Loving Your Life on the Hero’s Journey
After years of studying the human condition and working intimately with people inside real transformation, here are the 10 most important steps I’ve found to loving your life, exactly as it is, while also creating what you want it to be.
1. Take Responsibility for Everything in Your Life Right Now
For everything you have. For everything you don’t. This is one of the hardest steps, and one of the most freeing. You can’t change what you won’t own.
2. Release the Stronghold of Old Stories
The stories you’ve been carrying about who you are, what happened to you, and what’s possible for you are not facts. They’re interpretations. And they can be released.
3. Accept Yourself and Your Life Exactly as It Is
The good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful. All of it. Drop the resistance and you get access to real choice.
4. Release Harsh Judgments of Self and Others
Release pain, shame, anger, fear, resentment, and unworthiness. Decide how you want to do it. There are many paths. PSYCH-K®, somatic work, therapy, energy work. Find the one that resonates and follow it.
5. Remember Your Innate Value
You are immeasurably lovable. Always connected to and part of something greater: source energy, nature, all beings. You belong here. You’ve been given the cosmic breath of life. Rest in that.
6. Create a New Story With You as the Hero
As long as you have breath, you can do something different or better. New decision trees open in front of you every single moment. Start taking steps toward what feels most joyful or most exciting. Even when it’s just a small pull, a flicker of interest. Follow that.
7. Discover Your Most Energizing Work or Contribution and Do It
What are you pulled toward? What lights you up or at least doesn’t drain you? Align your skills, your interests, and your abilities, then share them with the world. Good for you and everyone around you.
8. Create Honest, Authentic Relationships
Be real. Deliver honesty in the most heartfelt, compassionate way you can. And stop waiting to have the hard conversations. The anxiety you’re carrying while you delay costs more than the conversation itself. Check in. Ask. Stop building stories about other people that have nothing to do with them.
9. Be, Act, and Speak From Your Highest Self
It ripples. No matter what anyone else is doing or saying, you get to decide who you are in every interaction. Ask yourself often: am I showing up in a way I’m proud of? That’s your compass.
10. Realize That Life Is Messy, Beautiful, and Magical. Always.
A flat line means you’re dead. The ups and downs, the happy-sads, the goods and bads, that’s the rich tapestry of a real life. The roller coaster is the sign you’re alive and on the ride.
Where Are You in Your Hero’s Journey Right Now?
What allies are nearby, or is it time to find some? What tools can you develop or discover for your metaphorical satchel as you move through this next chapter?
One of my clients came to me after a string of really hard experiences. He said: I’m in my third third. I have maybe one third of my life left, and I want it to be epic.
That’s a choice. And it’s available to you, too.
Albert Einstein said there are only two ways to live your life, as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is.
You get to choose.
If you want support on this leg of your journey, book a consult at rapidtransformationsessions.com. I’d love to walk with you through it.
Get the Book
If this resonated, my new book The Human Guidebook: How to Navigate Thoughts, Emotions, and Relationships So You Can Enjoy Being Alive is now available on Amazon. It’s a practical field guide for the hero’s journey, full of tools to help you think clearly instead of spiraling, stay present with your emotions, release old subconscious programming, and create a life that feels grounded, honest, and true to who you are.
Get The Human Guidebook on Amazon →
Listen to the full episode: Your Hero’s Journey – Solocast + 10 Ways to Love it More
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