Joseph Campbell popularised The Hero's Journey. Here we applied it to the journey of finding lasting love.

Transcript

Right. So I think we're all back shall we put if you want to put in the chat and anyone who wants to share Which films? You can say but not everyone's going to talk. So my ones I really recommend when I just watched earlier, it's called The Lighthouse. It's a new movie psychological Thriller the lighthouse I highly recommend us I recommend to call it the wild. And maybe Battle Royale. This is a Japanese movie. Okay wasn't very James Bond one of them title senior Royale a I'll it's a Japanese movie. It's like the Hunger Games. It's like the original version at Hunger Games. They reckon The Hunger Games copied my oh no. No, sir. So, what was it about those films that you well I'll just talk mainly about the one I just saw today which was called and the lighthouse it was a very like unique for them. There's only two characters in it and it's a psychological trailer and like it's just very very entertaining like Always you never get bored of it like and it's like and it's just shows like the man the camera work is really good. It's Black and Whites to look like an old movie and the story line is just very very good. It's like I recommend looking looking it up anyway and see if you might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's the type of movie that I like and I said what film that came out a few years. Segoe, okay. What was that? It's like a psychological Thriller is well with the real question being a philosophical question, which is what is it mean to be human?  Okay. So is this like machines versus Humans type thing? Sort of but not really but they make a an AI artificial intelligence and they're trying to make it as human as possible. And I so I was saying that the deeper question is not what does it take to make an AI human? But what is it that makes us quintessentially human. So in order to make a AI that successfully passes the Turing test and is taken for human. You have to be able to find out what obviously constitutes fundamentally human said the real. Not about the ARB. It's about our humanity. And what is it that makes us human interesting is essential think when you look at some of the technology that's coming around it's where we're going to sort of merge with review moments where like intelligence is never going to be a competitive advantage in the future because machines are going to be there and implanted in us. So yeah, that's that's an interesting question for I will have to face it started already. Don't be scared. Yeah, think of your Cochlear implants in your bug your your joints and your Pacemaker and your insulin pump and all of that started. It's just that those things you think of them as You don't think of them as things that can be hooked up to become a network of its own as you go along. So the more things are replaced and the more that they are program of programmable. Then you get you're getting closer and closer to that cyborg State. Yeah. Okay, so we got seven as well wasn't was seven like a horror or thriller. Weller psychological Thriller, but serial killer I don't want to give too much away in case somebody wants to actually watch it. But yeah, it was good. We could you find whenever some love. Yeah Netflix list here at night when the lights are off. Yeah, okay. Alright, so we're I don't really know the main characters in this but so we'll get we've tonight we're going to talk about the hero's journey and how that relates to relationships and the reason why I asked about films is because the hero's journey is is a concept that Joseph Campbell popularized and he actually got them the monomyth first came from James Joyce, but Joseph Campbell was this genius who sort of lived life on his own the damn bastard live life on these in his own. Design sort of way he wanted to do a PhD in literature and he'd arranged his Ph.D. And he went traveling and he really found out all it was about it was going to do American Native an apology and he he went travelling he found all this a fury and Celtic mythology and he said like it's expanded. I don't want to do this and they wouldn't they said my my you've agreed this this is has been a good idea and he just said sorry it went and it was in the beginning of depression and 1930s. So he just went to this to you this heart in the middle of the forest and for five years you just live that in his heart really simply just reading all day. And basically he went into to this solitude. It's reading all kinds of Mythology all kinds of books and he emerged five years later and he wrote this He wrote this book the hero and the hero with a thousand faces. And essentially the premise of the of that is that there is a universal structure to all stories and every great mythology and every great story from Rocky from Harry Potter Lord of the Rings to Jesus booger The Iliad and odyssey. See all follow the same structure and when you look at this the structure that he's got it's a brilliant. recognition of the structure that we go through whenever there's any kind of in order to like in order to have the career that we want in order to have a business that we want to have a relationship that we want to do anything that we want of significance. We have to become better than we are we have to develop skills knowledge confidence that we didn't have and the hero's journey is basically the story of that. It's the story of this free phases to it. There's the Comfortable Ordinary World is the separation we go to a new world and then there's the return. And the journey like when you think of a question the question is like the Holy Grail where you go for this object, but what all of those the stories is about is while you're going for that quest for that thing you're changing and it's it's really about The Interchange and not the the outer chain like the outer award. So let's look at the question. So we need If you I don't I remember the holiday in the buses, but I don't know the characters well enough to look at their hero's journey the others the others was a great film. So I really look at the archetype now probably the closest archetype to this is Star Wars and George Lucas had Star Wars for years and you couldn't write it and it was only when he came upon. The hero's journey structure that he just literally followed it out like that. So there's lots of like the Matrix is based on it. What ship down Lion King, all of these kind of films are based on it. So the first step is you have to show the contrast you have to show some on first in that Audrey world. And so first live Sky will clear. This is where he's all on the farm and he wants something more. So it's the safe stable world, but is is wanting something more and this is where a lot of people are at in terms of relationship. It probably comes the more, you know, it might be happy on their own but they just feel that they want something something more and I feel like there's something more out there for them. The next stage is something happens with a great white is called an inciting incident is something that happens that Spurs them like opens this whole new world and so it could be you come across someone really attractive. Someone asks you out it could and for Luke Skywalker was Princess Lea. The message from Princess Leia for Neo in The Matrix. It was when he got this message that follow these watch out for the white rabbit or something like that. So it's the Call to Adventure. But what almost always happens is is scary. And so there's the refusal of the call. So most of the time the hero will refuse and Luke Skywalker refuses the call because his uncle needs him Harry Potter doesn't believe that he you know, it has anything magical about him like the epitome of the refusal of the call is to build. By Baggins in The Hobbit. This is like, oh, I wouldn't want an adventure nasty dirty dangerous things that make you late for dinner. So this is Sometimes people are wanting to go on a dating site page. Sometimes people have been asked out but they feel uncomfortable in the situation or ascared of what that involves. So I think we all refuse the call as well. But the key to the review the key to the refusal of the call is that life is never going to be better. It's like life is going to always become boring constricting and Till you accept that call and so that's what films so that's the first section. That's like the Ordinary World. So I think  We can see it in films. But if we relate that to your own circumstances your own situations things that have happened in the past. When have you been in the Ordinary World what's been the Call to Adventure and power of you refuse then why have you refused it? So I think that would be an interesting point for a chat and in the breakout rooms. So if we go to the breakout rooms for we just have a short chat you think 8 minutes be enough?  okay, so if I set the breakout rooms and we'll be back about eight minutes again when you get the link, you don't have to rush straight back because you'll still have another minute. So is that clear? What what we're talking about? Just gives it again please rub. Okay. So the three stages are the Ordinary World where you are in your own work Ordinary World The Call to Adventure like the inciting incident what has called you to what have you been dissatisfied with in your current state that you would like a relationship? What is the Call to Adventure? What's the incident that made you think like this whole new world could open up to me and what and how have you? used it okay did so I think this is although this is like a script writing has been used as a script writing so that it's a way of interpreting books and films. I think we have our own narrative and we live by narrative and the difference between really struggling and really feeling empowered and grow for an experience is the narrative that we give to it. So I think by Able to apply these narratives. We we can change our experience of what happens. So did anyone have any insights or any stories or experiences that they can relate to? That they would like to share. I think so. I just got some amazing stories, but it's just kind of unable to tell us at the Mormons. She's going to have a busy night typing. I think she is. Yeah, there's a bit of a discussion going on in our group about kind of life being candid that in secret intricate that it's difficult to say, what's what I see you brought it over but it's hard to say what's technically go there. And because of the intricacies of life because of that. There was regret that doesn't really I don't really have much regrets. Obviously. I'd rather have not done certain things or behave in certain ways, but you kind of where you are. Because of what you've done I suppose and that's the thing more of his kind of says something similar in The Matrix about things happened just because they they also know like that countries a phrase which kind of fits into what we were talking about. Yeah. I remember this is a story I used in my bed case. Maybe it's her like a Chinese proverb. And that's it. Yeah, you know it. Yeah, it's so so one day like in ancient China this horse comes in and this man gives her a horse which is like a horse is worth like a house now and everyone to know how lucky you are. You're so lucky. He said maybe and his sons breaking in the horse and the horse froze him off and breaks his Leg, and if I saw what terrible luck your son, how are you going to bring in all the crops and how we've been a farm everything this year? And he said they said, you know what terrible luck and he says maybe and then a couple of months later the Army come around and can script in all the figuring men and he can't go and he's like one of the only ones saved from like a bloody war and it's just like Alan Shepard. Sign what we think is like sometimes you can never tell if it is or isn't it takes a longer time span? In terms of the refusal of the call and the Call to Adventure. Like does that bring any insights on where you may like where your fears might hold you back or where you're feeling of obligation to your current state cyst, like for example, as I'm saying that what comes into my head is the research that on average it takes a couple six years from where decide they're going to leave like a marriage to when they actually leave it and that's there's so many obligations and fears and restrictions. So does that make sense to you that the refusal of the call? It makes sense and we were discussing along similar lines because it's one thing to recognize that you need to change. But then as you mentioned obligations sense of Duty that can hold you back. But even after you have resolved that or those issues there is still yourself. How do you proceed? One it says it's the landscape has changed so they are fares as to how you're going to cope. What how can you navigate this new place? How are you going to be comfortable in it? Are you confident Etc? So there is one your yourself within a relationship or within a system because every marriage or relationship has not just the two people but family members business all of those. Things are intertwined and you have to unravel those to get yourself and not feel guilty about that process. And as you said takes about 6 years because you have to figure out how you're going to get yourself out with I suppose the least amount of bruising to yourself and to others because there's also The the fair that what you do can have serious impact on the others or the significant other in the relationship and how they are going to cope as well. And those things can hold you back. But once you're out of that there is as you say making that step to enter into a new phase of Life the confidence to do that. In a landscape that you probably don't recognize and to figure out how to maneuver the develop that confidence to then try to engage with people who again, it's going to be the same thing. Am I going to have to go through the same set of experiences that I had and how many as I as I called it how many princes am I going to have how many frogs am I going? Case before I find my prints are going to go through all of that that is just time consuming his energy-sapping. It's can't I just find the one right now and we just start you know, and we go through this thing. So it's I think it's effort. It's fear of the unknown and it's having to go but I think a positive note is that we I've gained some experiences that we can draw on even though that relationship that we are leaving or that situation at relieving we have failed their lessons that we have learned that we can bring to bear. And that's interesting because that kind of leads us to the next stage. So it's really there's all these external reasons like you said and really it's about us getting to grips with all of those and the internal fears and being ready and like the details of actually doing it. I just a sort of administration but it's it's becoming instead of facing the fears. And so this is the next state of thats that's like the cut off from the Ordinary World. So now once you've gone past the refusal of the call, the next stage is the stage that takes you into the new world is the meeting of the mentor meeting with the mentor. So this is the idea that you have a plan. You have something you see some way that you can do this and initially it may be that you don't have belief in yourself. But you have belief in something else. So or Luke Skywalker is Obi-Wan Kenobi and knowing the world of the Jedis and having cop having belief in the Jedis for Neo it was Morpheus and you know all that. Yeah, Morpheus and Trinity that they had a plan and they had something going on for think of other films for for Rocky. It was it was finding his trainer Mickey who taking him on so the stage of the mental is Finding some knowledge finding someone or some training that you can believe in until you can believe in yourself. Sorry. Once you have that that sort of pushes you over the edge and give you the confidence to take this new quick New Journey. And so the next part is crossing the threshold increase it crossing the threshold is The stage of leaving the comfort of your own world and finding this strange new world. So in Star Wars, this is when he goes into that bar. It's full of all these strange aliens of it's like this completely different world for a mate for Neo in the matrix. It's going into the joining the crew of The Never member kashiro or whatever it is. And so it is finding this. Only world that you're in and just finding your place now. So in terms of relationships is crossing the threshold could be like date joining the dating site. It could be when you've leave your relationship and you suddenly got this new world open up. Yeah, I think ultimately is I think the refuse of as I said it can it be dangerous that stage. Yes it is because ultimately what what the refusal of this call tells you is that life is always going to be shrinking and I think there's the comfort zone and if you don't Branch past that comfort zone Everything you want is in what I call the Adventure Zone but the adventures that design is scary and if you don't take if you don't make that leap your life is always going to be less than it could it's going to bore you and what's and what anxiety what happens is the less you face anxiety the more it in circles you and shrinks and so there's the more and more scares you so the less needs to happen. Are you to feel anxious?  so Okay, so he's crossing the threshold know once you cross the threshold. You're in this strange new world. And once you're in a Strange New World, you think you find yeah, that's actually says of each of the individual these three things that patient. That's really what what determines how long it takes you to go from the refusal of the call. It's really about getting the confidence together and feeling ready to take that leap. And so yeah, it's going to be different for everyone. So all of this is unique the Is a universal structure but the I mean we can see how many films it's in. I remember years ago. I used to sort of emails and it was like 501 different Heroes Journeys and they broken and 501 films down into the hero's journey structure. So once you're in the new world, it's about tests allies and enemies. So a new world has different challenges for you. It's tests that you're not comfortable with and then it's sorting out who your allies and who your enemies so in Star Wars, you've got the rebels you got Han Solo principally a cube a coronal then and then you've got the Stormtroopers. You've got Darth Vader in Harry Potter. You've got the sliver earrings and Gryffindor is it so it's like you've got allies and enemies. So what did I see in sight you're going to have? People that you may not be attracted to you may not get on but you probably going to end up just chatting to a few people as kind of friends. You're going to have people who are rude people are aggressive and you're going to have tests. You're going to have rejection. You're going to have to deal with people who are rude and you're going to have to just like how do you get someone's attention? How do you deal with people who are persistent but your uninterested so all of these are tests. So the next stage is the approach to the innermost cage in the most cave. And so this is...