Welcome to Day 31 of the Wellbeing 9-a-Day blog! For the first 30 days of this blog, I have focused on sharing the fundamentals of the #W9AD to help you get the most out of your first month of using The Wellbeing 9-a-Day Journal. In today’s blog, we enter the second phase of this blog writing campaign, and I will use the next 10 days to take a deeper look at Your Journey.
Your Past, Present, and Future
One of the three main focuses of The Wellbeing 9-a-Day Journal is Your Journey, which empowers you to set goals for the future, be mindful in the present, and let go of bad habits that were formed in the past. By building these three daily habits, we are better able to ensure that our next steps take us closer to where we want to be.
Remember, the Wellbeing 9-a-Day Journal is a tool that can be used to create positive change in your life.
At their core, all stories are about change, whether it is the transformation of the character or the world around the character. Your journey with this journal is also a story of change, and it can be helpful to view your journey within a narrative structure.
The term ‘Hero’s Journey’ was first coined by mythologist Joseph Campbell in the late 1940s, after he identified a common structure to the core myths of a variety of different civilisations around the world.
Working in partnership, Pyramid 9 and Unreal Ideal have interpreted the Hero’s Journey concept, putting our own spin on the theory so that it is aligns with our philosophy for self-development and better living.
Like Campbell, we have broken the Hero’s Journey into a three-act structure:
We will look at this in more detail in the next part and over the coming days.
The Hero's Journey
While the details vary from person to person and journey to journey, each Hero’s Journey follows a similar structure. You will have heard and seen this structure countless times in fiction, and I am sure that you will see parallels from your own life, too.
First, the Hero prepares for an adventure in their Ordinary World, a place that is known to them. They live their day-to-day life, but there is a growing problem that they alone can solve.
Accepting the call to adventure, the Hero crosses the threshold into the Special World, where they enter a place that is unknown to them. There, they must transform if they are to claim the reward that they seek, which could be knowledge, a new skill, wisdom, or anything else that they need to solve the problem that propelled them onto their journey in the first place.
Finally, the Hero returns to the Ordinary World with this reward, re-integrates it into their community, and uses the reward to create a better life for themselves and those around them.
While the journey begins and ends in the Ordinary World, it should not be viewed as a circle. Instead, it is an upwards spiral, with each complete Hero’s Journey moving the Hero upwards towards the next journey.
Using The Wellbeing 9-a-Day Journal can help you navigate your own Hero’s Journey on your way to transformed health and wellbeing.
Call to Action!
Think back to the last time that you completed a project, learned a skill, or acquired some knowledge. Compare the process you went through with the three acts of the Hero’s Journey we have just covered. The chances are that you went through your own Hero’s Journey as you transformed, and so you transformed the world around you.
This blog was written as part of a 90-day blog writing fundraiser for Live Well with Cancer, a volunteer-led charity serving North Tyneside and the surrounding areas. If you enjoyed this blog, please show your appreciation by donating to my JustGiving page. Every penny raised from donations or sales of the journal will help deliver workshops, events and support groups that empower better health and wellbeing for those affected by cancer, including family, friends, carers, and healthcare workers.
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