The Heroine's Journey Part 1: The Ordinary World

In this recording from a live event on Insight Timer, Marcella guides you through Stage 1 of the Heroine's Journey: the Ordinary World, where the Heroine moves through routines, roles, and patterns that might keep her safe, but also keep her small.

While things might be good—or at least good enough—beneath the surface of daily life the Heroine can her her still, small voice beckoning her into a greater field of possibilities.

In this highly interactive talk Marcella will guide you through rounds of EFT Tapping to help you embrace the aliveness of the unknown as you contemplate the Heroine's Journey that lies ahead of you.

Transcript

Okay so once again welcome and away we go on the heroine's journey.

If you're new to these events they tend to be highly interactive so please feel free to post in the chat.

I'll be prompting you to post in the chat at different points but anything that you would like to share feel free to just bring it forward and then we'll do some tapping around whatever you present.

When I was starting out in this work you know coming from my chef background and then practicing EFT my thinking was well you know I'll help people figure out what to eat and little did I know what I was actually getting into because what what happened was I started to do one-on-one work primarily women who were coming to me who were saying that you know they were eating chips late at night and you know binging on this or that or this or that and they didn't like their bodies and they were gaining all this weight and very quickly what I realized was that the struggles with food were like the tip of the iceberg you know kind of like the very very beginning of the journey and that underneath that behavior was a whole history of trauma and stress and hardship and maybe poor self-care as a result of all of that and that all of that had its roots in beliefs of what we you know what we think we deserve and how much we value ourselves and you know what we're capable of and all the rest of it and what I began to realize is that ostensibly women were coming to me with their struggles with food but really what they were looking for was an experience of self-forgiveness and I wonder if that resonates with some of you as well.

What I've been looking for getting emotional yeah well welcome to women food and forgiveness yeah also what I began to realize in my work was that there's a huge difference between healing and really embarking on the path of healing versus just wanting to feel better and I used to say my my tagline on my website used to say it takes courage to be happy you know it takes courage to be happy and that's precisely where the archetypal path of the heroine's journey comes in that healing is not just simply a matter of like oh I'm going to eat salad instead of a hamburger which I I don't by the way just as an aside I'm not necessarily of the school that salads are de facto better than hamburgers it all depends depends on a lot of factors so it's not just simply that because if that's as far as we go then we get what we get right if that's as far as we go then it's just a matter of time until we're defaulting back into old behaviors and blaming ourselves and all the rest of it so rather the healing process as I have experienced it myself personally and as I have sort of midwifed it for gosh at this point I mean really close to 80,

000 women altogether it is essentially a re-engineering of your entire identity it's a big deal it's a big journey and this is where the the heroine's journey comes in the heroine's journey begins in the ordinary world and the ordinary world is the world that I like to call the blessed discontent so your life can be going along just fine you know everything is good or it's good enough you know maybe you're in a marriage that is you know it might not be great but it's good and good enough is good enough your job is good enough you know or maybe it's all going really well you know and and it feels very good at a deeper level to you however what marks the stage of the ordinary world in the heroine's journey is this sense of yes it things might be good but they can be better just a couple days ago a woman reached out to me on email and she was looking for some help with food and she said she knew that she was using food to numb herself because she was feeling afraid of the unknown you know her marriage was very turbulent and she was starting to feel kind of like scared you know of her husband or whatever and you know she was scared of well gee if I really take action you know possibly to leave this marriage who will I become and what will happen and how is that all going to work out right it provokes a lot of uncertainty and a lot of anxiety and she knew and what she was doing was using the food to numb herself out Tricia's saying sounds like my life it's good but I want better this is typically the quality of the ordinary world next week we'll talk about the call to adventure which is when when life kind of pulls the rug out from under you so right now this is just kind of like the sense of change is just about to stir it's beginning to stir in us our soul is starting to say I'm starting to outgrow the life that I have and all I know is that I feel this discontent I don't know what it means I don't know what to do I don't know what to make of it it's just simply stirring okay so 100% can relate like all of us can't stay here anymore right okay so I don't know who I'm becoming I don't know what's gonna happen I mean when do we ever know really but you know I don't have a vision for how to go forward but I do know that if I continue to stay here my soul will start to stagnate okay so just give me some thumbs up or hearts or or just tell me what are you hearing so far in what I'm saying you feel like you will die yeah well I mean we will die you will die and I will die we will all die you know but that feeling of yeah and you've been having these thoughts Martha hi Martha so here's something to know about the heroine's journey and about really every stage of it I am speaking your life okay this is a universal pattern this pattern this blessed discontent at the beginning of the heroine's journey on the one hand it is very intimately personal on the other hand it's encoded in our DNA really because if you look at all the fairy tales all the movies all the myths all the stories from like and this is what Joseph Campbell said like all over the world throughout history all cultures all of the transformative journeys that the heroes and heroines of all time have been through always start in this place we don't affect transformation in our lives when things are hunky-dory it all begins with this sense of something stirring so this is where it takes courage to be happy because the road to happiness sometimes is like marked with a lot of confusion and you know uncertainty and all the rest of it okay this is so beautiful yay wonderful why don't we do some tapping unless anybody has something else that they just want to add ginger oh I love that look at this beautiful affirmation from ginger I open to the possibilities that my mind can't fathom yes yes in the 12-step world that is called living the life that is beyond your wildest dreams yeah can't imagine it it can be better than we can imagine yeah beautiful beautiful okay good Trish is a widower empty nester been trying to find my life and where I belong yeah okay so there you go that's that's the ordinary world and the call to adventure right there so who's not familiar with EFT anybody here if you've done tapping before or if you haven't done tapping before just let me know EFT tapping is the main tool that I use in my work and I must say I've been privileged to witness and experience personally a lot of miracles of transformation with EFT tapping so essentially what it is is we fingertip tap on points that are at or near the ends of certain acupuncture meridians while we're recollecting or calling to mind stressful circumstances and what the tapping does is it acts like a circuit breaker on the electromagnetic signal of the distress it's like pulling a circuit breaker on it and helps to diffuse it and I think in clinical language what they say is it down regulates the limbic system of the brain which is kind of like the you know smoke alarm of our brain it's very very helpful and very effective Tanya hello Tanya love that affirmation ginger thanks for sharing it yeah yeah it's good okay let's see if we can incorporate that into our tapping so I want to invite you before we begin tapping to tune in to these circumstances where you are feeling like you are outgrowing your life it could be an aspect of your life it could be say a particular relationship it could be a particular behavior pattern I'm outgrowing my binge eating I'm outgrowing being a people pleaser I'm outgrowing taking care of everybody else and neglecting myself right these are some pretty common ones just think about what you are what you feel like you know you're kind of hitting up against the edges of it outgrowing ginger saying outgrowing overriding my body's messages and emotions that I don't want to feel to this is just coming through intuitively it's ginger it's like you're ready to kind of move through into kind of a new area of your emotional body that maybe has been dormant right okay all these emotions over here that I haven't wanted to feel okay I would like to begin growing into feeling that so thinking about what you are ready to outgrow you know what you're starting to push up against how strong is that feeling for you on like typically with tapping it's like on a scale of one to ten ten is like oh my god I'm ready to let go today you can also think like is it huge is it medium is it little like just get a sense of how big or small so if you're new to tapping just say as I say and do as I do and feel free to use your own words if mine don't resonate with you because you are muted okay here we go this is just bumping the sides of the hands together just repeat after me even though I feel ready to outgrow this specific area of my life and just go ahead and say to yourself what that is okay some part of me has been asleep or avoidant and a deeper part of me knows I could grow into a bigger and better you know version of myself and even though part of me might not yet quite be ready for that another part of me is ready and willing to outgrow this pattern yeah okay good and I deeply love and appreciate all of this excellent let's tap on the top of the head okay this whole pattern in my life just go ahead and call it to mind okay this whole pattern where I've been keeping myself asleep knowing that it's time for me to outgrow this and yet still feeling like maybe I'm not quite ready okay still feeling like I'm holding back okay it's all okay yeah excellent good okay it's okay for me to be exactly where I am at and it takes courage for me to even acknowledge this okay back up to the top of the head because it immediately brings up everything in the unknown yep good what will be required of me to grow okay how will my life change what will I lose that I can never get back what if I don't want to or don't feel like it okay even though thinking about making these changes feels uncomfortable I want to affirm to myself and to the universe that I am safe in the unknown okay try that and see how that feels I am held in the unknown I am loved and supported in the unknown good good good okay and I don't have to change everything all at once okay so for today all I have to do is acknowledge this okay let this deepest part of my soul know I hear you excellent yeah okay ah and even though it all feels completely uncertain I am willing to stand in the uncertainty anyway okay let's add this at the very end without needing to fix or do anything okay good let's just leave that there for the moment please let me know how that tapping worked out for you I'm very curious um Ginger's saying the unknown is where the juice in life lives absolutely yeah there's a quote from Joseph Campbell where he says people are ultimately what we're all looking for is the experience of being alive and you know it's hard to rev up that juice of where life lives and be kind of sleepy and comfortable at the same time you know no need to fix or do feels really good right now okay how does your distress feel after after doing that tapping I'm curious some of you who are here how does it feel right now mm-hmm lighter okay good good I'm happier with knowing that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be yay just feeling the feelings helps a lot absolutely Ginger and feel so centered good good Trish you released oh tears okay clearer and brighter yay good good well this is just the beginning lots of tears oh sweetheart oh girls oh yeah yeah yeah and there will be more tears to come you know and then the tears kind of roll into joy yeah wait till we get into the return phase it's going to be a little ways down the road but stay with me and um yeah we're going on a journey together heroine's journey is it a book you know that's actually interesting that you asked that there well let's see is it a book years ago back in the 1980s Joseph Campbell did a series of interviews with Bill Moyers I don't know if you all know him and it was called the power of myth and it's a six-part series it's wonderful six one-hour interviews there's also a book called the hero with a thousand faces and that's the book where Campbell really lays out the the monomyth but there's also the women food and forgiveness academy just saying you know it's a curriculum taking these principles of the heroine's journey and applying them to healing again the emotional and spiritual roots of your struggles with food okay so shall we do another another round of tapping you're feeling generally feeling lighter did anybody have like uh bigger like opening up the pandora's box of you know sometimes when we do some tapping it's like we can feel better most of the time that's what happens but sometimes you know big things can come up that need a deeper level of resolution tears are making me stronger okay ginger saying some joy tears some sad tears and excited tears good good good okay not yet but it's cracking open okay Trish perfect let's do that we can tap out the negative and then we can tap in the positive and again just say as I say do as I do feel free to change my words if mine don't resonate with you even though some part of me might still be afraid okay good to face the whole unknown around this aspect of my life okay I can feel that it's starting to crack open good all right and once again I affirm I affirm to myself and I affirm to this universe I am exactly where I am supposed to be this journey that I am on is sacred yep and I am a heroine for embarking on it yeah how does that feel to say that yeah I just came through nice let's go up to the top of the head oh yeah it still feels uncomfortable kind of scary recognizing I am outgrowing this pattern in my life being willing to acknowledge that yeah yep and starting to feel like the edges of that situation cracking open and I still don't know what it all means and I still don't know what's ahead uh-huh okay but it is cracking open and even though it might feel scary and uncomfortable it also feels more alive yeah waking up the force of life within my being yes okay yeah facing the unknown I am supported as I face the unknown ah here we go okay I am supported in facing the unknown by the unknown yeah good okay in other words the universe is on my side good you know the universe is on my side and the universe is inviting me to dance with the unknown yeah and even though I have no idea where this will lead me I choose to say yes I choose to honor this longing in my soul I choose to take giant baby steps to open my being to what is possible for me yeah good and I am a heroine for doing this it's fun yay okay well that was pretty exciting I feel kind of fired up how are you all doing how does that feel second round of tapping yeah so as I was saying like we can tap out you know the distress and the trauma and then we can kind of tap in you know the positive and where we want to go yeah how was that for you awesome empowering very clear Vic yay put a smile on my face all right great what are the inklings of vision that are starting to emerge for you I'm very curious I'm excited about the unknown instead of scared good yes this is where support comes in and we'll be talking you know farther down the line we'll be talking about your allies and your mentor made me believe the changes are possible little ones yay yes little ones perfect yep I am befriending the unknown Tanya wonderful yay women this is good so apropos of what Noah's saying about little changes something that you can kind of dovetail with this is it's a 24-hour life trusting the journey yeah so like between now and you know 24 hours from now how can you honor acknowledge your desire to outgrow these patterns that have kept you comfortable but have also kept you stuck and kept you small I will keep saying yes in small and big ways good taking my power back yes yes yes I want to invite you all to come follow me here on insight timer if you are not following me yet this piece about the ordinary world is just the beginning so come follow me what are you taking away from our conversation today I love this women's group with you we give so much amazing thank you for today good good good so glad you arrived here okay here's what I want to suggest don't be scared of the unknown and embrace it yeah yeah there's a lot of fertility in the unknown so maybe there's an affirmation here where when you wake up in the morning you can say exactly I embrace the unknown unknown where I am safe supported and held in great love and I am a heroine you know craft yourself a little affirmation all right anything else before we adjourn all right ladies well go enjoy life in the unknown it's all waiting for you all righty see you later

Reviews

Thank you so much for this! I missed that live session and right now is when I needed it the most! Thank you for your wisdom and compassion ❤️

Well I’m listening to my own track 🤪but I have to say it was quite good!

More tapping points leading on replay since there's no visual for people not familiar.