Guide to Jungian Shadow Work: How to Get to Know and Integrate Your Dark Side by 

Scott Jeffrey
OVERVIEW: This guide explores the nature of the shadow and provides tips and exercises for daily shadow work.
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It’s always standing right behind us, just out of view. In any direct light, we cast a shadow.
The shadow is a psychological term for everything we can’t see in ourselves.
I understood how important knowing my shadow was when I wrote a biography of a spiritual teacher.
Most of us go to great lengths to protect our self-image from anything unflattering or unfamiliar. And so it’s easier to
observe another’s shadow before acknowledging one’s own shadow.
Seeing the shadow of this teacher helped me understand how someone can show gifts in one area of life while
remaining unaware of poor behavior in other areas.
Every human being is susceptible to this. I find working with my shadow a rewarding, yet challenging process.
Exploring your shadow can lead to greater authenticity, creativity, energy, and personal awakening. This introspective
process is essential for reaching mature adulthood (which is rarer than most think).
Let’s inspect what the shadow is and how it comes into being …
Table of Contents
 What is the Shadow?
 How the Shadow is Born
 Ignore the Shadow At Your Own Peril
 What Happens When You Repress Your Shadow
 Five Benefits of Jungian Shadow Work
o 1) Improved Relationships
o 2) Clearer Perception
o 3) Enhanced Energy and Physical Health
o 4) Psychological Integration and Maturity
o 5) Greater Creativity
 Five Tips For When You Engage in Jungian Shadow Work
o 1) Center Yourself
o 2) Cultivate Self-Compassion
o 3) Cultivate Self-Awareness
o 4) Be Courageously Honest  
o 5) Record Your Discoveries
 Shadow Work Exercises
o Exercise #1: Watch Your Emotional Reactions
o Exercise #2: Engage in Inner Dialogue
o Exercise #3: Challenge the Good Part
o Exercise #4: Get to Know the Shadow Archetypes
o Exercise #5: The 3-2-1 Shadow Process
 Facing Your Shadow Side
 Further Reading on the Shadow
 Read Next
What is the Shadow?
The shadow is the “dark side” of our personality because it consists chiefly of primitive, negative human emotions and
impulses like rage, envy, greed, selfishness, desire, and the striving for power.
(However, we cut ourselves off from many of our best qualities too. I cover the “positive shadow” in a separate guide
on psychological projection.)
All we deny in ourselves—whatever we perceive as inferior, evil, or unacceptable—become part of the shadow.
Anything incompatible with our chosen conscious attitude about ourselves relegates to this dark side.
The personal shadow is the disowned self. This shadow self represents the parts of us we no longer claim to be our own,
including inherent positive qualities.
These unexamined or disowned parts of our personality don’t go anywhere. Although we deny them in our attempt to
cast them out, we don’t get rid of them.
We repress them; they are part of our unconscious. Think of the unconscious as everything we are not conscious of.
We can’t eliminate the shadow. It stays with us as our dark brother or sister. Trouble arises when we fail to see it. For
then, to be sure, it is standing right behind us.
A Complete Guide to the Shadow (PDF)
How the Shadow is Born
Every young child knows kindness, love, and generosity, but he also expresses anger, selfishness, and greed.
These emotions are part of our shared humanity. But as we grow up, something happens.
Traits associated with “being good” are accepted, while others associated with “being bad” are rejected.
We all have basic human needs. These needs include physiological needs, safety and security needs, and needs for
belonging.
These needs are biological and instinctual.
As children, when we expressed certain parts of ourselves, we received negative cues from our environment.
Maybe we got angry and threw a tantrum. Our parents reprimanded the outburst and sent us to our room.
Or perhaps we acted boldly, playfully, spontaneously, or silly in our first-grade classroom. Our teacher shamed us for our
lack of decorum in front of the class and told us to sit down.
Whenever it happened—and it might have happened often—it threatened one of our basic needs.
Would the disapproval of our parents threaten our safety? Would the disapproval of our teachers and classmates
jeopardize our need to belong?
We adjusted our behavior to gratify our needs and learned to adapt to the external world.
All the unaccepted or discouraged parts of us in the first 20 years of our lives are bundled together, swept out of view
(outside our conscious awareness).
As poet Robert Bly says in A Little Book of the Human Shadow, the child puts all of these unwanted parts into an
invisible bag and drags it behind him.
This repression of unwanted parts creates what psychologist Carl Jung called the personal shadow.
As Jung writes in Psychology and Alchemy:
“There is no light without shadow and no psychic wholeness without imperfection.”
Ignore the Shadow At Your Own Peril
The ancient Greeks understood the need to honor all of the parts of the psyche. For them, these parts were worshiped
as autonomous gods and goddesses.
The Greeks knew a god or goddess you ignored became the one who turned against you and destroyed you.
Any part we disown within us turns against us. The personal shadow represents a collection of these disowned parts.
So here’s the problem: The shadow can operate on its own without our full awareness. It’s as if our conscious self goes
on autopilot while the unconscious assumes control.1
We do things we wouldn’t voluntarily do and later regret (if we catch it). We say things we wouldn’t say. Our facial
reactions express emotions we don’t consciously feel.
Remaining unconscious of the shadow hurts our relationships with our spouses, family, and friends, and it will impact
our professional relationships as well as our leadership abilities.
Do you remember Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
Dr. Jekyll was a respectable gentleman (the “good,” conscious side of the personality) who took a potion to separate out
his darker impulses to create a creature free of conscience named Mr. Hyde (the personal shadow).
(Looney Tunes did a fun version of this classic tale in Bugs Bunny in Hyde and Hare.)
Dr. Jekyll could not control the actions of his darker half, leading him to commit unscrupulous acts, including murder.
Such is the fate, although often not so severe, of anyone who denies his or her shadow.
What Happens When You Repress Your Shadow
So what happens to all the parts of ourselves we sweep out of view?
Whatever qualities we deny in ourselves, we see in others.
In psychology, this is called projection. We project onto others anything we bury within us.
If, for example, you get irritated when someone is rude to you, it’s a good bet you haven’t owned your own rudeness.
This doesn’t mean the person isn’t being rude to you. However, if rudeness wasn’t in your shadow self, someone else’s
rudeness wouldn’t bother you so much.
This process doesn’t happen consciously. We aren’t aware of our projections.
Our egos use this mechanism to defend itself—to defend how it perceives itself. Our false identities of being “good”
keep us from connecting to our shadow.
These psychological projections distort reality, creating a thick boundary between how we view ourselves and how we
behave in reality.

Five Benefits of Jungian Shadow Work

The shadow isn’t a popular topic.
Who enjoys owning their flaws, weaknesses, selfishness, nastiness, hate, and so on?
Focusing on our strengths is more enjoyable and life-affirming.
Exploring our shadow side, however, gives us tremendous opportunities for growth and development.
Let’s look at five benefits that result from Jungian shadow work:
1) Improved Relationships
As you integrate your shadow side and come to terms with your darker half, you see yourself more clearly. You become
more grounded, human, and whole.
When you can accept your own darker parts, it is easier to accept the shadow in others.
As a result, other people’s behavior won’t trigger you as easily. You’ll also have an easier time communicating with
others.
You may notice an improvement in your relationships with your spouse, family members, friends, and business
associates.
2) Clearer Perception
In seeing others and yourself as you are, you’ll have a cleaner lens with which to view the world.
As you integrate your shadow self, you’re approaching your authentic self, which gives you a more realistic assessment
of who you are.
You won’t perceive yourself as being too big (inflated) or too small (deflated).
When you’re self-aware, you can assess your environment more accurately.
You’ll see others and evaluate situations with greater clarity, compassion, and understanding.
3) Enhanced Energy and Physical Health
Dragging around this invisible bag of stuff behind us is draining. It is exhausting work to continually repress and suppress
all of the parts of ourselves that we don’t want to face in our adulthood.
Fatigue and lethargy can plague the unexamined life. Mental suppression can also lead to physical pain and disease.
Dr. John Sarno has healed thousands of patients of chronic back pain by helping them acknowledge the repressed rage
in their unconscious.
With Jungian shadow work, you liberate a tremendous reservoir of energy you were unconsciously investing in
protecting yourself.
This can improve your physical, mental, and emotional health.
Shadow work can bring you inner strength and a greater sense of balance, making you better equipped to take on life’s
challenges.
4) Psychological Integration and Maturity
As long as we deny our shadows and repress certain parts of ourselves, a sense of wholeness and unity is elusive.
How can we feel a sense of wholeness and balance with a divided mind?
Integrating the shadow brings you one step closer to realizing a sense of wholeness. It’s a critical step to achieving
mature adulthood.
5) Greater Creativity
One of the greatest benefits of Jungian shadow work is that it unlocks more of your creative potential.
Creativeness, as psychologists like Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers found, is a spontaneous occurrence in mentally
healthy (integrated) individuals.

Five Tips For When You Engage in Jungian Shadow Work

Here are five things that will make it easier to approach your shadow:
1) Center Yourself
This is perhaps the most important thing to do before you engage in shadow work. Yet, it’s almost never mentioned in
literature about working with the shadow.
If you attempt to get to know your shadow self when you’re not centered in your Self, you won’t get constructive
results.
The shadow represents a cluster of various parts hidden within yourself psyche.
Only from your Center can you get to know these parts. If one of these parts is “blended” with you, it will hijack the
process.
You’ll be judgemental, critical, or confused. This will inhibit your ability to integrate your shadow.
Before you begin working with your shadow, you want to be a calm, clear, neutral space.
That is, you want to be in your Center.
2) Cultivate Self-Compassion
Before you get to know your shadow, it is helpful to cultivate a sense of unconditional friendliness with one’s self. In
Buddhism, it’s called Maitri.
Without friendliness and self-compassion, it is difficult to look at our darker stuff.
If you’re hard on yourself when you make mistakes, it is difficult to confront your shadow.
If you’re accustomed to feeling shame or guilt, you need to transmute these emotions with friendliness, self-acceptance,
and self-compassion.
Start by accepting your own humanness. Remember that we all have a shadow—everyone is in the soup together, as
Jung used to say.
I find it helpful to connect to my heart: place your attention on your heart. Breathe in and acknowledge your heart.
Breathe out and say to your heart, “Thank you.” It’s a simple Buddhist practice offered by Thich Nhat Hanh.
3) Cultivate Self-Awareness
Seeing the shadow requires a self-reflective mindset—the ability to reflect and observe our behaviors, thoughts, and
feelings.
Mindfulness meditation helps foster nonjudgmental awareness—the ability to stay aware of the present moment
without involving the inner critic or other modes of judgment.
Self-awareness and self-reflection are a precursor to shadow work because they help us observe and evaluate feelings
and emotional reactions without judgment or criticism.
If you need an easy and powerful place to start, check out my audio program, The Mastery Method.
4) Be Courageously Honest 
Self-honesty and integrity are prerequisites for shadow work.
It’s easy to give lip service to these qualities, but true self-honesty means being willing to see unpleasant attributes in
our behavior and personality.
It is often uncomfortable to come to terms with your disowned parts, which is why the ego invests so much energy in
repressing them.
Seeing and accepting your insecure selfishness and tyrannical nasty parts can be challenging.
To take an honest look at your attitudes, behaviors, dark thoughts, and emotions requires courage.
The rewards are worth the discomfort, as these honest confrontations with your shadow help heal the splits in your
mind.
This courageous act unlocks more of your creative potential, opening a new world of possibilities for your psychological
development.
5) Record Your Discoveries
I find it fascinating how some of our disowned parts want to remain out of our view.
Similar to how a dream slips out of mind moments after awakening, our disowned parts can elude us.
A writing journal where you record your new discoveries about yourself is a remedy.
Writing your insights and reviewing them later helps encode the discovery into your awareness.

Shadow Work Exercises

Here are five ways of working with your shadow:
Exercise #1: Watch Your Emotional Reactions
Remember that the shadow is elusive; it hides behind us. Our defense mechanisms are designed to keep our shadows
repressed and out of view.
The more you pay attention to your behavior and emotions, the better chances you have of catching your shadow in the
act.
We tend to project our disowned parts onto other people.
One of the best ways to identify your shadow is to pay attention to your emotional reactions toward other people.
Sure, your colleagues might be aggressive, arrogant, inconsiderate, or impatient, but if you don’t have those same
qualities within you, you won’t have a strong reaction to their behavior.
If you’re paying close attention, you can train yourself to notice your shadow when you witness strong negative
emotional responses to others.
As Jung is often quoted saying:
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
But we rarely have time to work with those emotions on the spot.
At the end of the day, it’s helpful to take five or ten minutes to reflect on your interactions with others and your related
reactions.
Whatever bothers you in another is likely a disowned part within yourself.
Get to know that part, accept it, make it a part of you, and next time, it may not evoke a strong emotional charge when
you observe it in another.
Focus on what and who evokes an emotional charge in you. It doesn’t matter what the emotion is; it’s a clue you are
denying something within you.
Exercise #2: Engage in Inner Dialogue
Many forms of inner work require you to engage in an active dialogue with your shadow side.
At first, this might seem like a scary idea since we have a belief that only “crazy people” talk to themselves. But all of us
have many subpersonalities—numerous unrecognized, autonomous parts in our mind.
Many different psychologies offer ways of working with these disparate parts, including Jung’s Active Imagination,
Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems, Stone and Winkleman’s Voice Dialogue, and Assagioli’s Psychosynthesis.
When we don’t pay attention to these parts—one or many of which represent aspects of our shadow—they have a way
of influencing our behavior.
Have you ever done or said something and then wondered why you did or said it? A part in you was taking charge.
Every so-called “accident” is a part hijacking your behavior.
Our disowned parts aren’t trying to hurt us, but when we ignore or deny them, they often do.
By dialoguing with them in our imagination or in a journal, we can integrate these parts into our conscious selves.
Then, they become our allies instead of our enemies.
See: How to Expand Your Consciousness by Using the Psychology of Archetypes
Exercise #3: Challenge the Good Part
Many of us identify ourselves as being a “good person”. We were praised as children for being a “good boy” or “good
girl,” and that identification stuck with us.
This intensified the split between our conscious identity and our shadow.
Make a list of all of your positive qualities. Then, highlight the opposite. Try to identify the opposite within yourself.
For example, if you define yourself as a disciplined person, you’re repressing your lazy part. The lazy part is hiding in the
shadow.
The disowned is influencing your behavior and constantly challenging your disciplined part.
So identify with this lazy part. See it. Accept it. Make friends with it. It’s okay to be lazy too.
Exercise #4: Get to Know the Shadow Archetypes
Perhaps the best way to get to know your shadow is to familiarize yourself with the work of neo-Jungian Robert Moore.
Moore has outlined the structure of the psyche in archetypal terms.
Moore suggests that the four primary archetypes of the psyche are the King, Warrior, Magician, and Lover.
Each archetype possesses qualities we define as the best attributes of mature adulthood.
But for each constructive archetype, there is a destructive shadow.
And not just one shadow, but two: an active side and passive side (bipolar).
For example, the shadows of the King is the Tyrant and the Weakling. The shadows of the Warrior are the Sadist and
Masochist.
Getting to know these bipolar shadows makes it easier to identify their thoughts and behavioral patterns within yourself.
I highly recommend Moore and Gillette’s King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. It’s one of the most important books on
psychology I’ve ever read.

See also: The Ultimate Archetypes List (Over 325 Archetypes) and How to Activate the Magician Archetype
Exercise #5: The 3-2-1 Shadow Process
If you want a step-by-step method for working with your shadow, try the 3-2-1 Shadow Process developed by integral
philosophy Ken Wilber in Integral Life Practice.
Here are the basic steps:
Step 1: Choose what you want to work with. It’s often easier to begin with a person with whom you have difficulty (e.g.,
partner, relative, boss).
This person may irritate, disturb, annoy, or upset you. Or maybe you feel attracted to, obsessed with, infatuated with, or
possessive about this person.
Choose someone with whom you have a strong emotional charge, whether positive or negative.
Step 2: Face it: Now, imagine this person. Describe those qualities that most upset you, or the characteristics you are
most attracted to using 3rd-person language (he, she, it).
Talk about them out loud or write it down in a journal. Express your feelings.
Don’t calculate say the right thing. There is no need to be nice. The person you are describing will never see this.
Step 3: Talk to it: Dialogue with this person in your imagination. Speak in the 2nd person to this person (using “you”
language).
Talk directly to this person as if he or she was there. Tell them what bothers you about them.
Ask them questions such as:
 Why are you doing this to me?
 What do you want from me?
  What are you trying to show me?
 What do you have to teach me?
Imagine their response to these questions. Speak that imaginary response out loud. Record the conversation in your
journal if you like.
Step 4: Be it: Become this person. Take on the qualities that either annoy or fascinate you.
Embody the traits you described in step 2. Use 1st-person language ( I, me, mine).
This may feel awkward, and it should. The traits you are taking on are the exact traits you have been denying in yourself.
Use statements such as:
 I am angry.,I am jealous.,I am radiant.
Fill in the blank with whatever qualities you are working with: “I am __________.”
Step 5: Notice these disowned qualities in yourself.
Experience the part of you that is this trait. Avoid making the process abstract or conceptual: just BE it.
Now you can re-own and integrate this quality in yourself.
Facing Your Shadow Side
Philosopher Alan Watts possessed a unique gift for translating complex psychological and philosophical ideas into
beautiful, practical, and concise poses.
Joseph Campbell was a curious mythologist. In the field of comparative mythology, most scholars invested their time
exploring how one culture’s myths are different than another.
Instead of focusing on the many differences between cultural myths and religious stories, however, Campbell looked for
the similarities. And his studies resulted in what’s called the monomyth.
The monomyth is a universal story structure. It’s a kind of story template that takes a character through a sequence of
stages.
The main character in the monomyth is the hero. The hero isn’t a person, but an archetype—a set of universal images
combined with specific patterns of behavior. Think of a protagonist from your favorite film. He or she represents the
hero. The storyline of the film enacted the hero’s journey. The Hero archetype resides in the psyche of every individual,
which is one of the primary reasons we love hearing and watching stories.
Campbell began identifying the patterns of this monomyth. Over and over again, he was amazed to find this structure in
the cultures he studied. He saw the same sequence in many religions including the stories of Gautama Buddha, Moses,
and Jesus Christ.
Campbell outlined the stages of the monomyth in his classic book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (audiobook).
Read it later: A Complete Guide to the Hero's Journey (PDF version)
Why is the Hero’s Journey Relevant to Us?
We might ask, why explore the Hero’s Journey? Sure, Hollywood uses it as their dominant story structure for its films
(more on that later), but what relevance does it have for us as individuals?
Today, when we speak of “myth,” we refer to something that’s commonly believed, but untrue. Myth, for people like
Campbell and Jung however, had a much deeper meaning.
Myths, for them, represent dreams of the collective psyche. That is, in understanding the symbolic meaning of a myth,
you come to know the psychological undercurrent—including hidden motivations, tensions, and desires—of the people.
And because the hero’s journey represents a monomyth that we can observe in most, if not all, cultures, it represents a
process that is relevant to the entire human family.
What is this process?
It’s the process of personal transformation from an innocent child into a mature adult.
The child is born into a set of rules and beliefs of a group of people. And through the child’s heroic efforts, he must break
free from these conventions (transcend them) to discover him or herself.
In the process, the individual returns to his or her soul.
If we think of the hero’s journey as a roadmap for self-development, it can hold a lot of value for us.
The 3 Main Stages of the Hero’s Journey
So now let’s begin to break down the structure and sequence of the hero’s journey.
Stage 1: Departure
Campbell called the initial stage departure or the call to adventure. The hero departs from the world he knows.
Luke Skywalker leaves his home planet to join Obi-Wan to save the princess. Neo gets unplugged from The Matrix with
the help of Morpheus and his crew.
In the Departure stage, you leave the safety of the world you know and enter the unknown.
Campbell writes of this stage in The Hero with a Thousand Faces:
This first step of the mythological journey—which we have designated the “call to adventure”—signifies that destiny has
summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of his society to a zone unknown.
Stage 2: Initiation
Now the hero must face a series of trials and tribulations. The hero’s journey isn’t safe. The hero is tested in battle, skill,
and conflict.
The hero may not succeed in each action but must press on. The hero will meet allies, enemies, and mentors with
supernatural aid throughout the initiation stage.
Stage 3: Return
Having endured the trials and hardships of the adventure, the hero returns home. But the hero is no longer the same. An
internal transformation has taken place through the maturation process of the experience.
Luke is now a Jedi and has come to peace with his past. Neo embraces his destiny and liberates himself from the
conventions of The Matrix.
The Hero’s Journey in Drama
In Three Uses of a Knife, famed playwright David Mamet suggests a similar three-act structure for plays and dramas:
Act 1: Thesis. The drama presents life as it is for the protagonist. The ordinary world.
Act 2: Antithesis. The protagonist faces opposing forces that send him into an upheaval (disharmony).
Act 3: Synthesis. The protagonist attempts to integrate the old life with the new one.
Pause: Accessing Your Place in the Hero’s Journey
Before we explore the stages of the monomyth more closer, let’s look at what these three phases reveal about our self-
development and the individuation process.
Stage 1 represents our comfort zone. We feel safe here because it is known to us.
Stage 2 and 3, however, represent the unknown. Embracing the unknown means letting go of safety.
Abraham Maslow points out that we are confronted with an ongoing series of choices throughout life between safety
and growth, dependence and independence, regression and progression, immaturity and maturity.
Maslow writes in Toward a Psychology of Being:
We grow forward when the delights of growth and anxieties of safety are greater than the anxieties of growth and the
delights of safety.
It becomes clear here why so many of us refuse the call to adventure. We cling to the safety of the known instead of
embracing the “delight of growth” that only comes from the unknown.

10 Hero’s Journey Steps

Campbell didn’t just outline three stages of the monomyth. In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he deconstructs every
step along the journey.
I’m going to outline these steps below using a slightly simplified version from another excellent book, The Writer’s
Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler.
As you scan these hero’s journey steps, see if you can determine how they apply to your development.
Step 1: The Ordinary World
Before a would-be hero can enter the special world, he must first live in the ordinary world. The ordinary world is
different for each of us—it represents our norms, customs, conditioned beliefs, and behaviors. In The Hobbit, the
ordinary world is the Shire where Bilbo Baggins lives with all the other Hobbits—gardening, eating and celebrating—
living a simple life. Novelist J.R.R. Tolkien contrasts this life in the Shire with the special world of wizards, warriors, men,
elves, dwarfs, and evil forces on the brink of world war.
Step 2: The Call to Adventure
The Call to Adventure marks a transition from the ordinary world to the special world. The hero is introduced to his
quest of great consequence. Fear of change as well as death, however, often lead the hero to refuse the call to
adventure. The ordinary world represents our comfort zone; the special world signifies the unknown. The hero resists
change initially but is ultimately forced to make a critical decision: embark on the adventure or forever remain in the
ordinary world with its illusion of security. This defining moment helps the hero to…
Step 3: Cross the First Threshold
In one sense, this is the point of no return. Once the hero shoots across the unstable suspension bridge, it bursts into
flames. There’s no turning back, at least, not the way in which he came. The first threshold marks a major decision: “I’m
going to travel around the globe.” “I’m going to transform my physical health.” “I am going to write a book.” “I’m going
to master the flute.” “I’m going to realize my true nature.” This first breakthrough is a feat within itself; however, it is
but the first of many turning points.
Step 4: Trials, Friends, and Foes
Along the hero’s journey, the main character encounters many obstacles. Some people may try to stop you along your
quest—possibly saying you’re unreasonable or unrealistic. These dream-stoppers are often cleverly masked as friends
and family who appear to have positive intentions but hinder your development nonetheless. Your ability to identify
obstructions on your path and align with supporters along your adventure is critical to your mission’s success. Because
few people complete their hero’s journey to mature adulthood, most people will unconsciously attempt to sabotage
yours.
Step 5: Magical Mentor (or the Mentor with Supernatural Aid)
Generally, at an early stage of the adventure, the hero is graced by the presence of a wise sage. Personified in stories as
a magical counselor, a reclusive hermit, or a wise leader, the mentor’s role is to help guide you. Think Obi-Wan, Yoda,
Gandalf, Morpheus, or Dumbledore. Sometimes cloaked in mystery and secret language, a mentor manifests when the
hero is ready. But our modern world is depleted of wise elders or shamans who can effectively bless the younger
generation. (See King Warrior Magician Lover for a full treatment on this important topic.) For most of us, it is best to
seek wise counsel from your inner guide, the Higher Self within.
Step 6: Dragon’s Lair
The next significant threshold is often more treacherous than the first. Entering the villain’s castle or the evil billionaire’s
mansion, this second major decision usually puts the hero at significant physical and psychological risks. Within the walls
of the innermost cave lies the cornerstone of the special world where the hero closes in on his objective. For a man, the
innermost cave represents the Mother Complex, a regressive part of him that seeks to return to the safety of the
mother. When a man seeks safety and comfort—when he demands pampering—it means he’s engulfed within the
innermost cave.
Step 7: Moment of Despair
No worthwhile adventure is easy. There are many perils on the path to growth, discovery, and self-realization. A major
obstacle confronts the hero, and the future begins to look dim: a trap, a mental imprisonment, or imminent defeat on
the battlefield. It seems like the adventure will come to a sad conclusion, as all hope appears lost. But hope remains and
it is in these moments of despair when the hero must access a hidden part of himself—one more micron of energy,
strength, faith, or creativity to find his way out of the belly of the beast. The hero must call on an inner power he
doesn’t know he possesses.
Step 8: Ultimate Treasure
Having defeated the enemy and slain the dragon, the hero receives the prize. Pulling the metaphorical sword from the
stone, the hero achieves the objective he set out to complete. Whether the reward is monetary, physical, romantic, or
spiritual, the hero transforms. And often, the prize the hero initially sought becomes secondary as a result of
the personal transformation he undergoes. Perhaps the original quest was financially driven, but now the hero takes
greater satisfaction in serving others in need. The real change is always internal.
Step 9: Homeward Bound
Alas, the adventure isn’t over yet. Now the hero must return to the world from which he came with the sacred elixir.
Challenges still lie ahead in the form of villains, roadblocks, and inner demons. The hero must deal with whatever issues
were left unresolved at this stage of the journey. Taking moral inventory, examining the Shadow, and performing
constant self-inquiry help the hero identify weaknesses that will later play against him.
Step 10: Rebirth & The Champion’s Return
Before returning home—before the adventure is over—there’s often one more unsuspected, unforeseen ordeal. This
final threshold, which may be more difficult than the prior moment of despair, provides one last test to solidify the
growth of the hero. In this final stage, the hero can become master of both worlds, with the freedom to live and grow,
impacting all of humanity. Returning with the prize, the hero’s experience of reality is different. He is no longer an
innocent child or adolescent seeking excitement or adventure. Comfortable in his own skin, he has evolved and is now
capable of handling demands and challenges.
The Hero’s Journey in Films
Are you now aware of how these hero’s journey steps play out in the films and television series you watch?
One challenge our society faces is that many popular film franchises produce movies that never complete the hero’s
journey. Many popular characters in action films like Marvel and DC Comics superheroes, James Bond, Ethan Hunt
(Mission Impossible), Indiana Jones, etc. never transform.
These characters stay in the adolescent stage of development (and we celebrate that reality). They don’t evolve into the
warm, vulnerable, generative adults that no longer seek adventure and excitement.
You see, the Hero archetype isn’t in alignment with mature adulthood. It’s a by-product of adolescents. The archetypes
of adulthood are different, but to access them, we must complete the hero’s journey first. Perhaps we’ll cover the adult
archetypes in another guide in the future. (If you want to explore them now, see Gillette and Moore’s King Warrior
Magician Lover.)
Where Are You On Your Hero’s Journey?
More importantly, do you see how these steps are unfolding in your life?
Although each of our tales is unique, they do have common threads—elements of this universal structure that we all
share.
And if you return from the moment of despair—from inside the dragon’s lair—without the reward (or lesson), you will
undoubtedly be presented with a similar adventure repeated ad infinitum until either the lesson is learned or you give
up.
In the beginning, the hero’s journey is about achievement. Whether you’re trying to build a successful business, raise a
family, write a screenplay, travel to a distant land, or produce a work of art, these all represent external achievements
that often launch us into our hero’s journey.
But through the course of this external quest—if we become more conscious—the journey transitions to an emphasis
on internal growth that leads to transformation.
The Primary Ingredient in Every Hero’s Journey
Compelling stories (and real life) come down to one thing: problems.
The protagonist faces a problem and tries to overcome it. Problems represent the essence of drama and the key to good
storytelling. Without problems—without troubles and tensions—there’s no story and nothing to engage us. The hero
must face his problems, surmount his fears, resolve his tensions, or fail.
The same is true for our development: without problems and tensions, there can be no growth. Psychological
development is the process of overcoming setbacks, limitations, and conditioned behavior to reach maturity.
Your Call to Adventure
Few people ever fully embrace the Hero’s Journey, a psychological odyssey that leads the individual to wholeness.
Because of our fear of the unknown, many of us refuse the call to adventure. We delay our journey in many ways:
 Put important things aside.
 Procrastinate.
 Distract ourselves with social media and other people’s lives.
 Make excuses.
 Become lazy.
But something brews inside of us. An internal tension builds. It may be small at first, but it grows stronger in the
darkness. Tensions are those opposing forces at play within us. This internal conflict creates disharmony.
Humans don’t like disharmony, and so these internal tensions can catapult us out of the familiar. The feeling of discord
leads to action and ultimately, some resolution.
Maybe you’re currently embracing your hero’s journey. Or perhaps you’ve been refusing the call. It matters not. What
matters is what you do today—right now.
How to Embrace Your Hero’s Journey
Ultimately, no one can tell you how to embrace your hero’s journey or what it should look like for you. As the caddy
Bagger Vance (magical mentor) says to Rannulph Junuh (hero) in The Legends of Bagger Vance:
“Now I can’t take you there Junuh, I just hopes I can help you find a way.”