Exploring the Magic of Your Hero’s Journey by Pat Edwards [Book Review]

I’m very happy to review Pat Edward’s book Exploring the Magic of Your Hero’s Journey. It’s been published in the course of Barbara Sher’s WriteSpeak 2017 we both participated in. Pat is a lovely fellow blogger and a friend on the journey of living and writing. I loved reading the book, reviewing it for our big Telesummit a year ago – and rereading it now.

The book helps me reflect on what my own Writing Journey is.

Because that’s what the book is for: Reflecting on your own path as part of something bigger, something meaningful.

And did you know, that you can go on a Hero’s Journey on purpose? That’s what Pat tells us.

 

The Hero’s Journey

As many know, it’s the great American mythologist Joseph Campbell who showed how the same patterns of personal development are found throughout stories and fairy tales all over the world. Pat Edwards has worked with these well-known concepts and now breaks them down for us into doable steps.

Whatever the challenge may be that we are facing right now, Pat invites us to see them in the light of mythology. She says: “Maybe you are just curious what your life and adventures would look like if you thought of them as a Hero’s Journey.”

Instead of focusing on the trials and tribulations, we can feel there’s importance and purpose in what we’re doing and where we are going.

In 13 chapters, Pat Edwards covers all the Stages of the Hero’s Journey, explaining them more clearly and simply than I thought possible. It feels more like a one to one coaching session with the author than merely reading a book. It’s like going through a guide to self-coaching, using the general pattern of the Hero’s Journey.

 

Reading Exploring the Magic of Your Hero’s Journey is like having a Mentor

What I especially love about the book Exploring the Magic of Your Hero’s Journey is that Pat speaks to the reader as a friendly, patient mentor who clearly knows what she’s talking about, while at the same time being at eye level with the reader, which I very much appreciate.

Her writing is warmhearted and also fun to read. Like when she tells you to pull up your socks and adjust your glasses to be properly prepared for meeting a Guardian.

 

The author addresses me, the reader, personally, in a conversational style as if she’s sitting next to me, offering her experience for me to apply it directly to my own life.

While the stages in life are not always a smooth ride, reading this book certainly is!

It’s filled with direct questions, examples, quotes from other people’s journeys; and it’s full of lively stories which make it very interesting to read.

 

I found the exercises easy and interesting to do; after each exercise I knew more about myself and the point I’m at right now in a nice way. I just felt encouraged – “Yeah, I can do that!”

I see the book as a traveler’s guide that makes this secret journey much more accessible to us. The Empowerment of the Hero’s Journey!

 

If I should name three things the book gives to me, they’re Clarity, Strength, and Encouragement.

So, to me the book is absolutely worth reading.

 

The Human Experience

Let me close with a quote from the last page of her book:

I believe our human experience is perfectly aligned to the Hero’s Journey. We are meant to experience all of these stages in the course of simply living, and they give our lives more depth and greater meaning. Higher highs and lower lows, yeah … but worth it.

 

Definitely check out Pat’s webpage and blog which is all about the small steps of your own Hero’s Journey.

And here is the link to order the book on Amazon.

 

Yours in travelling on and on, no matter what

Jana

 

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