The Heroine’s Journey is a framework developed to understand a woman’s path to self-discovery and empowerment. Drawing on real-life experiences, hosts Barbara and Joan Perry explore how navigating this journey is an inherent part of a woman’s growth. They unpack the 13 key stages, including the initial sense of stability, the disruption caused by a crisis, and the experience of hitting rock bottom. By understanding these phases, women can gain valuable tools to navigate life’s challenges and emerge as the heroines of their own stories. Tune in as Barbara and Joan get into the nitty-gritty of the first two steps of the Walk The Journey Roadmap.

 

This series shows you exactly how to:

• Navigate your way out of the darkness, worrying, and stressing.
• Ignite the courage and strength that propels you forward.
• Live a life of true wealth, full of joy, freedom, and prosperity.
• Fire up your self-worth and voice to serve.

 

Get Your Free eBook:

The 4 Biggest Mistakes Women Make https://bit.ly/THJfreebook

 

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Videos:

Walk The Journey Podcast: Steps 3 & 4

Walk The Journey Podcast: 4 Biggest Mistakes Women Make

 

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Uncovering The Secrets Of The Walk The Journey Roadmap: An Overview

Welcome back, everybody, to The Heroine’s Journey. We’re so excited to continue this conversation. Joan and I have had ongoing conversations, but what’s really exciting is as we launch this out into the world, the feedback and the questions we’re getting. We’re going to answer some of those here in this episode as we also jump into the next section going over the thirteen steps of the heroine’s journey.

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Joan, welcome.

Welcome. It’s so exciting to talk about being a heroine. I don’t know about you, but I certainly didn’t hear much about it until we said, “We got to talk about this.”

It didn’t even dawn on me until you said, “I wrote this great book, and I started reading through the articles and the chapters.” I thought, “You’re right.” I’ve always said that it’s really interesting that we as women are often raised to be princesses. We’re treated by our parents, specifically our fathers often, to dress early and be out there in the world in this way. Yet, there are very few men who are raised to be the prince or king to make that match for us. Over these last few years, we’ve seen that whole thing turned upside down and convoluted anyway. Nobody’s teaching it, but it’s more on the other side of confusion.

I would go one step further and tell you a quick story about my mother. She was like the first of the women’s liberals. She had a very successful business. She spoke up, but then, there was this other side of her. It was very confusing to me because she felt her obligation was to teach me to sit down and shut up. There was this big contrast.

She wanted to teach me what she thought I would need to know about culture, but at the same time, she was one of those first women who was stepping out to do it differently. I remember growing up how confusing that was because I hear a woman needs to have her own self-worth and her own confidence and not let that be diminished. In our culture, it’s getting diminished, and you and I are taking a stand against that.

I’m glad that that’s a story you wanted to start with because as we start to review the steps, step 1 is 1 that I wanted to talk about. We’ll get more into that in probably about 30 or 40 minutes. Step one, we are lied to so much in society that we start to doubt who we are. In this case, your mom is doing the absolute best she can. Nobody loves us like our parents, and yet, the messages we’re getting are not as helpful as they could be.

She would tell me all the right things to be a strong, confident woman, and then she would undermine them with other things she said. The basis of our culture is to teach us to be victims. We’re supposed to be receptive. We’re supposed to sit down and not speak up. We’re supposed to do it for others. She was trying to teach me both sides of it. Yet, it was terribly confusing to me.

The Premise

I know we’re going to touch more on that victim role in a moment, but also, I wanted to ask what the premise of the heroine’s journey is out of the lessons that you’re bringing to this.

It’s so exciting. The heroine is that woman who can stand in her own high heels confidently. She has, from within, a sense of self-worth. I was talking to a woman. She’s going through some challenges, and those challenges make her think of other challenges that she had earlier in her life. I was reminding her, “As you come down the birth canal, there’s no stamp that says approved and disapproved. A heroine knows that she’s fully approved and that she came with her gifts, skills, tools, and talents to present them into this world in a confident way where she can make her contribution. Anything we let get in the way of that, whether it’s being the victim or whether it’s saying things to yourself that don’t support you, that is not working for us to be the heroines of our own life.”

A heroine looks at life from a fully approved point of view, let’s say. She masters life’s challenges very beautifully because she’s confident in her abilities. As I was saying about my mother, she really was a hero because she aspired to thrive. She created a successful business that she later sold to AAA. In those years when she was producing such good things, she was confident. She was capable.

A heroine gives generously to others because we don’t come from lack. We come from like, “I’m here to help you and support you. I love you.” That’s a relationship you and I have. It’s like, “What do you need? How do I help?” A heroine embraces happiness and hope. I was reading something that said, “Be happy and joyful and tell your face about it.”

You remind me that all the time.

Be sure to tell your face because you are more beautiful with a smile than without. A heroine comes to that. A big one for the heroine is she’s at peace with her past. I know I’m rattling off a lot of things right here to give you a description of the heroine, but in our conversations, we’re going to go much more deeply into all of this because each one is so deliciously rich.

You and I have had many conversations about this. We went through some real bumps and hard times in life where it didn’t seem like we could get over those hurdles. At the same time, it was really easy to go on and have a grudge about that. What we’ve learned is that there’s a gift in everything and that all of that was forming us into the people that we are. It’s, for me, the teaching I’m able to do. It was a hard nut to crack, God or the universe. It had to whack me up the backside of the head to get me to crack open so that I could blossom. That is the thing about it here. She finds a space where she’s at peace with her past so she can live fully in the present. She’s a heroine too.

Going back to my mother, the conundrum I saw was, on the one hand, she would acknowledge her gifts, and then on the other hand, she would diminish her gifts. It was like, “I’m this little woman, but sometimes, I’m this big woman.” It was very confusing at the time because she was gifted. Women are gifted. They’re gifted differently. Each one of us has a, has a unique gift, and we’re here to use them. The last one I want to add to this is that a heroine has the freedom to make her own choices and light up her own world.

A heroine has the freedom to make her own choices and light up her own world.

This is a really big one. Although we’ll go into this not even in this episode where we’ll hear my story a little bit more, but in that moment right before life changed for me, I heard words as clear as could be. It was, “Life is about to change. Remember. You will have a choice.” For a good decade, there didn’t feel like there was any choice as I was holding onto the back of the truck that was dragging me on in life.

That’s right. It’s fair to say that culturally, we’re taught that we’re supposed to endure, we’re supposed to survive, or we’re supposed to accept our circumstances. We’re not taught that we should get up and get on with it and make the best of our lives. That’s what we’re teaching because that’s what a heroine does.

With grace.

Every day, we’re practicing to be heroines because there’s a choice in it at every moment. As we were talking about, we can sit in the middle of the road and suck our thumb. I’ve done that. We have a choice to make this the best life. That’s where I’m going.

Me too. That’s the heroine’s journey.

That’s right.

The Teacher And Model

You’ve been going over what a heroine is as a woman. For anybody who wants to follow along, that’s on page five that those key points are outlined. It’s a good reminder. It’s not only the answer to the question of what are the premises of a heroine’s journey, but what is rolled up into that. Another question that I receive is who teaches how to be a heroine? This means back to the conversation of women or girls are often raised to be princesses and boys are usually not raised to be the prince or the king. Where in the world do people hear about this, learn it, or be able to practice these strong skills before coming here?

Nowhere. That’s a pretty bold statement. Maybe there is something that I’m not aware of, but that’s why we’re teaching this. Let me ask you. Did your second-grade teacher teach you this?

Absolutely not. I’ll pause there a minute too before we continue. My second-grade teacher told me that I could not be in the highest reading group. I started reading very early. I was one of the strongest in the class, but I couldn’t be in the highest reading group because there were other readers that I had opportunities that they didn’t. I remember one morning, I made an appointment to talk to my teacher. I said, “I want to be in that top group. I don’t care what it’s labeled or what it’s called, but if there’s the best, I’m in it.” This was already as a second grader, seeing how we are put in different channels and paths. Often, we have to stand up for ourselves.

That’s right, and that’s what a heroine does. A heroine has such confidence in her skills and her talents that she’s like, “I’m on the road to go use these. Please don’t get in my way.”

That’s correct.

Did your sixth-grade teacher teach you about your gifts and your skills, and down the road, or in the meantime, did your mother model what a heroine was?

I have a phenomenal mother. She was always doing the best she could in every given moment. I’m very grateful for the parents I have, but their society is wrapped around that too.

That’s right. She grew up in a culture where she was supposed to serve, and then life changed. There were more opportunities for us as we came into the world, but at the same time, we were still taught to do the things that a woman is supposed to do. That’s not to say that a heroine doesn’t do the things that a woman wants to do. I’m not saying that.

The heroine is all feminine and all lovely. I love beauty and all those kinds of things, but at the same time, it’s so important that nothing stands in front of our growth. That’s what we saw in the past, whether it was your 2nd-grade teacher, your 6th-grade teacher, your mother, or maybe it was your grandmother or your aunt. I remember my grandmother saying, “You can’t get divorced. It’s your job to stay there.”

No matter what it is, it goes back to that last one, that a heroine has the freedom to make choices for herself and to light up her life. We have an innate desire and sense inside of us to grow. We’re like roses that are trying to blossom. Anything that would try to keep that rose tightly held together would be in the way of the display of beauty.

That was the choice that I realized I had looking back over those years. I didn’t necessarily have a choice of the circumstances, how other people handled themselves, being selected in one division or another, or wherever it was in life. I had a choice in my outlook, how I handled my emotions, and how I kept stepping forward versus many, many times people told me to give up and step back or accept it. My choice was to continue to move forward.

All my blessings and gratitude go to God. Since I had something more than myself to look at, I had a vision of something perfect and awesome in order to keep me stepping forward toward the light. That was the choice that I realized I had all those years. In the human world here, that’s not the choice I thought I wanted at the time. I wanted to have that job back, whatever the situation was.

I know that you struggled over getting divorced. You were like, “I’m supposed to stay. It’s okay for me to feel bad inside because I’m supposed to do this.” We want to fulfill our obligations as best we can, but also, we have the right to grow and blossom in this world.

We have the right to grow and blossom in this world.

That’s correct. That is a big point in society as well. As we talked about who teaches it in the world, we’re not getting it mainstream. We’re certainly not getting it in a public education system. They’re not necessarily teaching it in most private schools. Some of the elite private schools, and I don’t mean elite by more money, but elite by those that are following a unique path, are offering those core skills.

In fact, out of the Calgary Library, I got a book for my son, Raising a Modern-day Knight. That is a good match based on a biblical worldview. As we talk about what it means to be a woman who is a heroine, all of this starts to unfold. The light goes on. The ideas go on. We can each grab a little piece of this and see how it has popped up in our life, whether it has been a short trip, a long vacation, or her lifestyle.

As we move through life, we’re going to see that life changes. This is why I really liked the book of the 13 Steps of the heroine’s journey on page 13 where you highlight the heroine’s journey roadmap. On that journey, it lists the thirteen steps in a visual way. Do you want to take some time and spend time on this page and discuss it a little bit?

The thirteen steps were a gift that I was given as I went through all the difficulties that I went through. I think of life as going down the middle of the road, and then sometimes in life, it feels like you’ve got thrown into this gutter and then that gutter. I felt like I was spending more time in the gutters than I was spending in the middle of the road. Usually, when I got back into the middle of the road, I also got hit by the next oncoming car.

We can laugh about it now. We’ve discussed it. It wasn’t laughable for a long time.

All of that was not very pretty. I started to say, “What does it take for me to get up and start to move?” I looked back. I could realize a pattern that had gone on, and that pattern I discovered is a plot line for a woman’s life. What I mean by that is all of our stories are different. Usually, the start of the heroine’s journey, which is the upset, is going to be either a financial upset or a relationship upset. It could be something physical, or it is going to be the kind of things you’re saying to yourself about yourself that are handicapping you tremendously.

The 13 Steps

I started to look back and I started to see this pattern. What I realized is that I started to make progress when I understood what this was. I’m going to highlight the thirteen steps of the heroine’s journey, the process that we all go through to become the heroine of our own lives. You might even say, “That’s not me.” We all go through it.

Brené Brown said something, and I’m going to paraphrase it. I won’t get it exactly right. She’s a psychologist and author. She said that if you fell down, got your butt kicked, had your heart broken, and something else, whether you wanted it or not, you’re on the heroine’s journey. It is a part of the natural growth that we go through. It is not something we necessarily choose, but we end up on it as part of the process.

It’s a really good idea to understand, “What are the thirteen steps? What steps am I going to go through? How can I look at each step and see what I need to do so I can take the next step?” Personally, what the heroine’s journey did for me is when I look back and put my past into perspective, it told me what step to take next and gave me hope for the future. I can tell you that my life has gotten so much better having understood and understanding the heroine’s journey, which is why I’m here to pass it on.

This is going to answer the next question I had as well as we roll out these thirteen steps. However, the person who asked me didn’t know there were steps. They were asking, “What does the journey entail?” You mentioned something a couple of minutes ago that I wanted to voice once again. Anybody who’s reading might want to jot this down as well. You mentioned the pattern is the plot line for a woman’s life. As somebody is reading these steps that you’re conveying, there might be a thread that is more common or something that keeps popping up for them as well.

There are thirteen steps. I’m going to highlight them. Our conversations are going to go into depth in each one of the steps over time, but as we’re introducing them, we’re going to highlight the overall path. We’re also going to come back to the first couple in more depth. The first step is what we call the status quo. You’re sitting at home thinking that life is good. You do not necessarily feel good on the inside, but it looks great on the outside. You’re getting this little twinge. You don’t think anything that could possibly come along that could dismantle or disrupt your life. You think it’s engineered to your perfection.

The second step is a crisis appears. Out of the blue, where did that come from? You didn’t see that happening. You are not happy about this. It’s a life storm. Your old life seems to go away in minutes. That crisis could be a financial upset. It could be health-related. It could be relationship-related, like a divorce. It also can be because of the things you’re saying to yourself about who you are. When that crisis appears, the unthinkable happens. The third step is the challenge. This might be defined as your darkest moment. Life feels incredibly perilous. It’s like you’re poised at the top of a big cliff and you could either fall off onto the rocks below with a raging sea or you can’t even fathom putting your wings on and flying.

We’ve all been there holding on with everything we have because we don’t know what else to do.

You are saying, “I can’t make it. I could be ruined here.” The questions in your mind aren’t necessarily supportive ones. We could laugh about it, but it wasn’t very funny when we were in that situation because I was so difficult. What I also was feeling was there was no energy for me to maintain my false self anymore. All that I tried to make the world think that I was, was crumbling in the darkest moment as that was happening to me.

Number four is character revelation. From under something deep inside of you, and I know that this is your heroine speaking, something erupts in you that says, “Wait a minute here.” For me, I said something like, “I am not going to be measured by my fall. I’m going to be measured by my rise.” There was this deep inside energy that sparked. It wasn’t going to let me fall off the cliff, but at the same time, I didn’t know what to do with it at that point. It called me forth on the journey.

Step number five is called to the crusade. This is when you’re confronting your new realities. You don’t like it. You want to swim back up. You want your old life to come back and be what it was, but you’re confronted with the fact that that’s not going to happen. You are wounded, hurt, and suffering. It’s painful, but you’re getting the recognition that you have to deal with life as it is. You don’t know what your next step is. It’s big and scary, but you have to move forward in some way because you can’t stay on the top of the cliff. As much as I wanted to, I wanted to put my tent on the top of the cliff and stay right there. At this point, I really had to find my life force energy. I had to find that inside of me.

You have to deal with life as it is. You may not know what your next step is and it might be big and scary, but you have to move forward in some way because you can’t just stay on the top of the cliff.

Step number six is a blessed step. That’s when angels show up. That was so important to me because I realized they didn’t have everything inside of me that I needed to move forward. I needed people who were going to be kind, loving, supportive, and generous. At that point in my life, I picked such poor people in my life. I picked the people who wanted to go forward because I was doing something that they could tag onto as opposed to those people who, in ups or downs, would be there. Those angels might not be present in your life at this point, but it is part of the step.

This is important to show how beautifully this is all woven together. We talked about the 4 biggest mistakes women make, and 1 of them that you highlighted was a broken people picker. This is the flip side of when the angels show up in whatever form or format that may show up for somebody, other people, mankind, or something greater than us that truly wants to help us and wants us to succeed.

I’m going to tell you two quick stories. One is that I had a friend. I went to him and said, “I’m in difficulty here.” He looked at me and said, “Your problems are too big for me.” Some people won’t say that, but they’ll back away from you when you’re in difficulties. Another friend, I went to him and said, “I’m in difficulty here.” He said, “Here’s a list of what you need to do today. Do this part, and tomorrow, I’ll help you do the next list.”

Isn’t that amazing? One person was honest enough and in touch with their feelings to be able to verbalize that. Some people walk away or don’t respond to text or the call. They disappear in your life because they don’t know what to do or how to handle it.

Step number seven is gathering your provisions. You realize you can’t go back. You’re on the top of the cliff. You have to source your energy, and that means a lot of things. You start to look around and go, “How much money is in my checking account?” You start to say, “Am I getting enough sleep so that I have the energy to do this?” You start to say, “What else do I need? Do I have to move?”

There are many actions to take. You’re assessing and gathering the fuel that you’ll need because what you’re starting to get a sense of is you’re going to have to put your wings on the top of that cliff because the beautiful blue sky is above you. It’s not your objective to fall nose-forward off the cliff. Your objective starts to become, “I got to move out of these circumstances. I need to help myself. I need to get resources. I need to gather my sense of self-worth.” You calm yourself to the point that you start to think, “How do I move forward from this?”

Step number eight is taking empowered action. Here, you’ve got to be very conscious about calming your fear. At this stage, you have to be very careful about not letting anything get in the way of your productivity, whether it’s fear or whether it’s people. In this stage, you have to acquire new skills, new tools, and new talents. You don’t look back because the back is not where you’re going. You focus on the future to keep your eyes up, and you go forward. We’re talking about the first ten steps of the heroine’s journey. I’m going to highlight for you steps 11, 12, and 13, but most of our work is going to go on in steps 1 to 10.

Don’t look back because that is not where you’re going. Focus on the future, keep your eyes up, and go forward.

Step number nine annoys me. You put your wings on. You’re starting to fly up into the blue sky. You’re seeing a panoramic view. It looks a whole lot better from up here than when we’re standing on the cliff. A wind current comes along that tests your resolve and you’re thinking, “I got this far. Could I be taken out here? Is this going to trip me up so that I am going to fall flat on my nose?” What’s beautiful about this step though is that you’ve developed your courage and strength by being a heroine and your perspective is up. You meet these challenges with new resources. We’re going to talk a whole lot more about that.

Step number ten is crescendo. You’re lifted into freedom. I’m going to read to you what this step includes. I don’t have it memorized, but it’s so lovely. Finally, the air currents around you become stable. When the wind currents of flight lift you, they lift you fast. You are out of survival and struggle mode and into the freedom of soaring through the air. Spirit runs through you. You are strengthened within.

The journey brought you the gift of wisdom that roots you deeply in your power as a woman. You are no longer wrapped in fear, broke without resources, numb to your sense of what is good for you, neglectful of your inner voice, led by your former impaired beliefs, tied to external things for your security, wedded to familiarity, impaired by rules of what to be, or armored in your heart. Isn’t that huge?

It’s so big that every time you touch on this, I hear in my head the phrase, “Then sings my soul.” It is such a freedom, crescendo, and enlightening. It’s really that turning point where we understand the blessing of what we’ve gone through.

By then, your story belongs to you. It’s motivating you. I think of myself way back in the status quo when I had all those things going on inside of me, how impaired I was, and how much I needed something to come along,

Be careful what you ask for. That is what pushes us into the life we’re supposed to live.

That’s right. It’s big. Step number eleven is celebration. I love this. That’s when your dreams fly higher than your fears.

We heard that a lot from Harv Ecker. He would teach us that you would want to set a dream, and whatever you can dream of is not big enough. Go bigger and go better. This is the point where you can truly do that and realize it.

You’re prepared for it. The heroine’s journey is about claiming your self-worth and your voice. You have built what’s needed inside of you for your self-worth to be strong and your voice to reflect who you really are. At that point, you can live into your dreams. Step number twelve is living your dreams and thriving in life. While things still come up that upset me a little bit here and there or send me swerving down the road, I can adjust, go back, and ask myself, “Where do I need to tweak now?” I can put myself in the space of living my dreams. All of that leads to step thirteen, which we call the heroine’s homecoming. That’s where you are able to transform the world because you have become and you can help others to become.

Those are the thirteen steps of the heroine’s journey. We have a full course that teaches about all this. On our show, we’re going to be talking a lot about it. We welcome your questions. We’re going to dive into each one of the steps much more carefully. Our hope and wish is that you join us to be here because Heaven knows the world needs us.

That’s the biggest lesson here. From step thirteen or what you said, “Heaven knows the world needs us,” we can’t be what we need to be for our children, our community, and the world if we’re not standing in our own strength. This is allowing women to go back and put the Band-Aids on, the duct tape, or whatever it takes in order to figure out what occurred, be authentic with it, step into who they are, and stand strong in this world as the light that we truly need.

That’s right.

Thank you so much for going through each 1 of those 13 steps. The Heroine’s Journey roadmap shows you exactly how to navigate your way out of the darkness of worrying and stressing, ignite courage and strength that propels you forward, live a life of true wealth, full of joy, freedom, and prosperity, which is key, and fire up your self-worth and voice in order to serve.

Step 1: Status Quo

I want to step in and break down a few of the first few steps. If you don’t mind, we can start with number one and move forward. We’re really going to pull back the lid a little bit and look down under the cover of what we’re talking about. I’d like to start at the beginning with step number one. Step number one, you’ve titled the status quo. It’s living in your comfort zone. What gives with that?

Let’s take you back to a time in your life when you thought you were doing it all right in the right order. Maybe you bought a house. Maybe you got married. You thought you were setting up your life in a way that mostly, you were getting messages from the culture that were telling you how to set it up. That didn’t mean it was coming from your heartfelt being of saying, “This is really what I want my life to look at.” It meant that you were looking around, seeing what everybody else was doing, and saying, “If I do these things too, then maybe that’s a path to success.” However, it’s not until later in life that you learn that the other person may not be on the path to success as you’re copying.

The status quo is when you’re doing things in your life, but you’re not necessarily doing them from your heart. You’re doing it to make it look good on the outside. You’re doing it for security and safety and thinking that you can protect yourself in some way by setting this all up. We talked earlier at the beginning of this episode about the heroine and who teaches the heroine. I made the statement that mostly, culture doesn’t teach us to be a heroine.

It reminded me of a passage from Liz Gilbert’s book, Eat, Pray, Love. If you haven’t read it, I admire the way she writes and how clear she is. What I thought I might do is redo this passage because then, it’s not coming from us. This is the foreword in her book, Eat, Pray, Love. She says she thinks the message of her book resonated so deeply with millions of women. She says the message, “If your life has become a trash compactor, then you are allowed to try to escape the trash compactor whatever it takes. By escaping your own trash compactor of existence, you can revive, reinvigorate, and reinvent yourself almost at a cellular level.”

To put it mildly, this is not a message that women have been receiving for centuries. On the contrary, society’s message to women has always been the opposite. Embrace the trash compactor that is your life. Bow down beneath your burdens and shut your mouth about it. Be a good sport. Give up more, work harder, surrender more, endure more, sacrifice more, and become a good martyr. Remember that your life is not your own. Your life belongs to everyone else. Your life belongs to your father, your husband, your children, and your community. In the status quo, you might have gotten yourself into that spot.

As she’s pointing out here, culture is not teaching you to be a heroine. Culture is teaching you to be a victim. She then raises the question that what if your life belongs to you? That’s the heroine’s journey. The heroine’s journey is what if your life belongs to you? You’ve worked hard, have gone to school, have developed your life, and have developed your career, but all of a sudden, all those things that have become your life are pressing in on you. I’m going to read one more piece. She got a comment from her reader. The comment was from a Japanese middle-aged woman which simply read, “It never occurred to me before reading your book that I could change my own life. What shall I do with myself now that I know this?”

Culture is not teaching you to be a heroine. Culture is teaching you to be a victim. But what if your life belongs to you?

The possibilities. That is beautiful though. Right there, that is phenomenal. That also ties into what we were talking about a few minutes ago. She healed her past to the point that she could stand in the world and be a delight to others. This woman that she may or may not have ever met in Japan is showing, “You have touched my life,” and she’s found her strength. I’m sure she’s sharing that with others.

That’s right. The status quo is not all of what you want your life to be. I often use the phrase that I got to the top of the ladder. I was very successful. I wrote a book. I did all kinds of publicly acclaimed things. I got to the top of the ladder, but the ladder was in the wrong building. I really had to sit back and say, “If this isn’t responding with your heart, then what do you do?” In the status quo, it’s constructed all around you, but you may not be fully living in it. While it seems impossible at the time, step two can be quite a blessing because that’s when the crisis appears.

That’s correct. Let me pause here before we run into step two. I wanted to dig a little bit deeper into step one if that’s okay. I wanted to really look deeper. We talked about other people in history who have come before us. There are lots of road signs that tell us, “You’re on the wrong path,” or, “There’s a better way,” or, “Stop here.” There are jokes about that. It was probably Bruce Almighty when they highlighted that visually.

Plato talked to us about the shadows in the cave. Don Miguel who wrote The Four Agreements talked about the lies in society we believe. As little girls grow up into young women, those lies become very pervasive. We talked a little about our mothers and about role modeling. I also want to acknowledge that we as human beings are extremely intuitive. We used to be able to live in nature. We were known to have walked with God. Those who open themselves up are really able to connect with others on another level.

In fact, driving up here, I looked at the truck next to me and there was a sign on the truck that said the name of somebody Electrical Company. I thought, “I’ve got to call my friend who has that name as well.” It’s not that person, but it was like the board there. I got a text from her as soon as I stopped my car. She had thought that she needed to call. I haven’t talked to her in over eighteen months, so this whole thing shows together.

Yet, because of the lies in the world that work to undermine, diminish, doubt, and cause us to ignore where we’re at, we then buy into the scenario of, “This is the status quo. I’m doing the best I can right now. This is the way it should be,” when in fact, we probably should be on a parallel path or a different road altogether, and maybe that road could be a higher road.

The heroine’s journey often happens midlife when you’re saying, “I did it this way the first half. How am I going to do it in the second half?” Sometimes, you cling on as tight as you can because you want to maintain that security and safety that you thought you created in the first half of your life.

It’s all you knew.

You don’t want it to change because it’s scary when things change. There are probably people around you who don’t want you to change, so they’re trying to keep you in the sandbox too. At some level, I got a twinge in my heart that said, “This is not all there is.” When I look back on the status quo time of my life, I say to myself, “I couldn’t have done the things I’m doing now, delivering the gifts I want to deliver and doing the service that I want to do from where I was in status quo.”

That’s correct. Something inside of us was not in alignment with who we needed to be. Although we were doing our best to fulfill the status quo, we were not in alignment. That’s really interesting. I interrupted you. Do you want to step into a crisis where everything changes?

I’m going to make one other comment about the status quo. Personally, I was managing money for people. I owned a securities brokerage firm. That’s what I was doing. While I’m good at it and I was able to learn it, and I wrote the first book to women about money called A Girl Needs Cash, that’s not really where my gift is.

The fact that I got slammed out of the status quo, while it was certainly painful, I can’t say that I wouldn’t wish it upon myself because it took me to be more authentically me. That occurred through a crisis. Even if you think you can avoid all this, even if you think, “I’d rather not grow. I’d rather sit on the couch and eat bonbons,” and even if you think, “I’ve designed it perfectly, and I don’t want any change,” the statistics are 87% of all women will encounter a major upset by age 50.

87% of all women will encounter a major upset by age 50.

That’s a very high statistic. I would not have guessed that high.

Crisis Appears

My father used to say, “Save for a rainy day,” and I would think, “I’m not going to have any rainy days.” There is something that goes on that’s bigger than us that has an impact on our lives. Generally, around 50-something, earlier sometimes or later sometimes, something big comes along that rocks your world. That’s the crisis stage. It can be financial where your circumstances change dramatically. It can be a relationship, which doesn’t have to just be divorce. It can be other forms of relationship where you lost your job. It can be health where something came along that really rocked your world and you had to change your focus and come up with new strategies.

I believe a really big one too is beliefs. While you were young, you got to get along with crappy beliefs. You were like, “I’m not skinny enough. I’m not smart enough to understand financial stuff. I’m not lovable.” These are all crappy beliefs that we talk about in-depth in our work because you have to straighten those out.

It is also mistake number one, that you highlight BS beliefs.

While you’re young and energy carries you, you can survive with that, but around age 50, you have to clean up your beliefs, strengthen your self-worth, and get out your courage and strength. Any 1 of those 4 things will call you to that task.

You have to clean up your beliefs, strengthen your self-worth, and get out your courage and strength. Any one of those things will call you to that task.

As we go over those four topics, I wanted to pause a little bit for me on codependency. We’re going to dig more into the victim mindset. It’s very interesting in society, especially the younger crowd, they are reminded that codependency is real in relationships, that women need to take their stand and build their own careers, and whatever that path looks like that the society is painting at the moment, but often, it’s overlooked, the codependency that is created in the workplace.

In my mind, that is much stronger for most individuals than what they’ll ever have in a relationship. In a relationship, there’s a human being you can discuss things with or be rational with. As the workplace becomes more run by machines or artificial intelligence as a theme, it’s almost impossible for any tech company to talk to an HR rep or to have anybody with accountability. There’s a lot of fear. There’s a lot of manipulation. There are a lot of threats that go on in that world where the underlying conversation is to set somebody up to fail rather than to set them up to win. Codependency can very easily turn into a workplace bullying environment.

As we believe that our self-worth or our money comes from that job or that company, we’re then standing on that ledge. We’re being pushed off. It’s not comfortable. It’s not healthy. Yet, if we let go, where are we going to land? When crisis hits, whether it’s in an instant or after years of abuse in a workplace, this is something that’s often downplayed quite a bit. When people realize how much it affects not only that individual but the family around it, then this crisis point runs pretty deep as a theme through a lot of people’s lives.

In my first book, A Girl Needs Cash, the subtitle is Banish the White Knight. In that book, I was saying, “Take charge of your financial well-being.” The white knight could be a husband, a broker, a brother, or an employer. We’re talking about being a heroine where we have the courage and strength to withstand change and challenge because we know our own self-worth is strong enough and we can use our voice.

Sometimes, when we talk about this in people, and we’ll get much more in-depth than that, there are people or other things that you have to boot out of your life. In my case, the crisis was initiated by a husband who went off with a girlfriend and then put all the pictures out on the internet so we could all see what a great time he was having when he was still married to me. My nieces said, “Aunt Joan, who’s that woman sitting on Uncle Ron’s lap?”

What I really understood at that moment was how much strength I needed inside of me. I was very tempted to sit in the middle of the road and suck my thumb, but that’s not what a heroine does. At the crisis stage, you’re trying to deal with your own upset, your own pain, and your own hurt. You’re numb to the circumstances. You can’t grasp the changes that are occurring so fast in your life. You often, for a period of time, will feel paralyzed. I crawled into bed and cried. That was the right thing to do at that time because we’re human. We have fear, uncertainty, anxiety, and all those kinds of things. When we first get hit hard, we do this.

In crisis too, it’s also important that life has a plan for you. You’re not going to fall off the edge of the Earth, which I thought I was going to, when you go through this. You’re no longer in control of the circumstances which makes you feel like you might spin off the Earth. Ultimately, this crisis is a catalyst for your transformation. I know that’s really hard to hear in the middle of it. I would not have believed you if you’d told me that. I would’ve said, “No.”

We would say, “I don’t want it.”

I’d be like, “It’s a prescription for my demise, not my rise.”

Exactly.

That’s why a community of heroines, which is what we’re creating here, is so important. You can surround yourself with heroines. That includes looking at the heroines that we know, like the Eleanor Roosevelts, Marilyn Monroes, Oprahs, and so many that we identify in our work. We should do a whole episode on some of those women and the quotes that we have from them. That would be really fun.

That would be great. Also, understanding that every woman has a story. Every woman has their own hero or heroine that they have looked to, whether inadvertently, aware, or not aware. That would be fun to do.

Life is not a rose garden. There are thorns as well. If you can hang with us, what we want to teach you is that this is for your transformation. It’s for your good. It’s going to work out. It’s not that it’s not a challenge and you’re not going to have to do some things. The crisis stage is a very difficult stage. At the same time, I hope that you will trust that there is a process that we can teach you that will be there with you in our show and our other work. I’ll have a new book out shortly called The Heroine’s Journey, which I’m very excited about. You’re not alone on this journey, so come with us. You are not being singled out like the whole world is against you. This is a natural part of growing through life, and we’re here to talk about it.

Life is not a rose garden. There are thorns as well.

Thank you all for joining us on the show. We’ve talked a little bit about the overview of what the 13 steps of a heroine’s journey are, and we’ve touched on the first 2. If you want to go ahead and join our community, the first step for that is reaching out. They can go right to our website and join us at WalkTheJourney.com. We’ve got a box there where in exchange for your email which allows us to reach out and continue to let you know the progress we’re making, as the course launches, and how everything unfolds, which you can be included with that, it also gives you a free copy of The 4 Biggest Mistakes Women Make. That is an awareness that all of us can look through and say, “I got it.”

Our wish for you is that you journey onward.

Have a wonderful week. We’ll post another episode soon as well to continue. Thank you so much.

 

Important Links

• Raising a Modern-day Knight
• 13 Steps Every Woman Takes to Become the Heroine of Her Own Life
• Eat, Pray, Love
• The Four Agreements
• The 4 Biggest Mistakes Women Make
• Facebook.com/TheHeroinesJourneyLLC
• https://YouTube.com/@TheHeroinesJourney6442?si=82utqvSWaXQitR2F
• Walk The Journey Podcast: Steps 3 & 4
• Walk The Journey Podcast: 4 Biggest Mistakes Women Make