The Female Hero’s Journey: Integrating the Masculine and Feminine in Our Lives

Each of us travels an individual path in life, unique in its emotional terrain, outer adventures and spiritual demands. That said, there are also well-known patterns or themes that can help us make sense of the journey we’re on, allowing us to see where we’ve been and where we are now, particularly in terms of balancing and integrating our masculine and feminine sides.

We’ve assembled some of the more common journey-patterns that many women travel, especially over the last fifty years. This doesn’t cover all the patterns and can never really describe or capture an individual’s story but it does give a rough outline of the some of the more common, collective tendencies. We’re calling these life-journey patterns the Female Hero’s Journey. We’re all Female Heroes in our own lives, being transformed and shaped by our paths and by the choices we make. Read the following six journey-paths and see which ones you most resonate with. 

1. Traditional Female Hero’s Journey:

This has been a classic path for women, at least prior to the sixties and the advent of the feminism. It is the traditional path whereby a girl grows up, gets married and has children. Once her children are grown, a woman can then develop her own interests and pursue a post-mothering life. This developmental pathway is the one that psychologist Carl Jung called the Path of Individuation—once we have fulfilled our traditional social roles as men and women, mother and father, we can then develop ourselves and become a rounder, fuller person. Women can explore their inner masculine side and focus on their intellectual and creative pursuits, and men can explore their inner feminine side and focus on their feelings, internal and relational self. This pathway is perhaps less noticeable today but still plays a vital role in many women’s journey. 

2. Traditional Male Hero’s Journey:

This is the fabled psychological journey of how a man becomes a man, made popular by mythologist and author, Joseph Campbell. Classically, the man leaves home and goes on a big adventure where he’s transformed through facing trails and difficulties, finally succeeding in winning and bringing home some important knowledge or treasure. Movies are full of the Male Hero’s Journey. Just think of Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones or Star Wars. Many women today are also eager to go on their own Male Hero’s Journey and have used their new-found female freedoms to take off and see the world and have their own big adventures and experience amazing transformations. However, the female journey can never really be the same as the male journey—her physical experiences, inner psychology and personal transformations will always be different. We need to hear and learn more about these kinds of female action or adventure stories or stories about women overcoming the odds. 

3. New Female Hero’s Journey: (Feminist) Path of Power:

Since the sixties, many women have been delaying marriage, motherhood and other more traditional feminine pathwaysin order to develop their power or more masculine side of themselves. They’ve ventured out into the world, got an education, worked in careers and been successful. They’ve mastered the traditional male world of personal advancement, economic independence and worldly achievement. Having succeeded in this traditional male realm, some women experience a personal, health or career crisis that catapults them into something Maureen Murdock calls the “Descent into the Goddess,” a return to the feminine. This often brings a woman back to healing her past, particularly her relationship with her mother and her own feminine self. This healing crisis gives her the opportunity to balance the masculine and feminine parts of herself, sometimes resulting in a career or lifestyle change. 

4. Combination Path: Super Woman and the Multi-Tasker:

This is an increasingly common life path, whereby a woman tries to have and be it all. It tends to be a combination of the Traditional Female Path of wife and mother and the Power Path of outer achievement in the world. Often there is a tension between her outer worldly life and her personal and family life. Although she knows she needs more space and time for her own inner life and self-care, she can rarely find time for it, sometimes resulting in burn-out and exhaustion. She may even dream of running away to have her own independent adventures, but she must first fulfill the demands of her career and family life. This path tends to develop great strength and resilience in a woman, as she moves between her worlds. 

5. Inner Healing Path: Spiritual Path/Modern Mystic:

This is a less common or conventional path, though many women are drawn to it. On this path, the main goals are inner growth and healing, creative self-expression and the living of a life based on artistic, transpersonal or spiritual pursuits and values. It’s a more fluid path and often entails travel, study and periodic change. Relationships, family and children may or may not be part of this path, and outer worldly success may not be apparent or forthcoming. Women on this path are often drawn to a life of spiritual practice, healing or artistic work but may suffer from not having enough material support or social recognition. When one is following such a deeply inner path, the outer practical side of life must still be dealt with. Some women on this path have a strong relationship to the outer world as well and can be very successful there. 

6. Bold New Goddess Seeker:

Many younger women now in their twenties and thirties (daughters of the baby-boomer generation) are like a new breed of woman, infused with the spirit of the empowered feminine. Many enjoy yoga, meditation, dance, sacred travel and creative expression and are reclaiming feminine spirituality as if they were born to it—which they are. They gravitate towards the Goddess and alternative health/lifestyles and may even experience themselves as sacred channels for a new feminine spirituality. In their joyful embrace of the divine feminine, they may not fully appreciate the darker side of the Goddess and the work necessary to secure and maintain female rights and freedoms, hard won by elders and ancestors. They may also struggle with an external world that still doesn’t reflect their feminine values and desires and experience conflict about which path to follow, with so many options now available to women. It will be interesting to see how these Goddess Seekers change the world as they hit their stride.  

In our complex lives today, our path may be a unique blend of all the above paths, but typically we find ourselves living certain paths more than others. Some women ache to live a particular path but circumstances prevent her, or she may find herself thrust onto a path that opens up a new life for her, though she would never have chosen this path for herself.

Inner Dimension of the Female Hero’s Journey:

The Inner Path is probably the most neglected path right now in the West, trained as most of us are to focus on the stimulation, opportunities and tensions of the outer world. However, if you’re reading this, you’re probably interested in the Inner Path, Spirituality and Soul’s Journey, which is attracting more interest as our strongly materialistic life runs into increasing problems.  

The Inner Path is something we also call the Rainbow Path, a path which respects all paths and has a meta-position or higher viewpoint many call the Fair Witness, Observer Consciousness or Higher Self. This Inner Path is about consciously working on our growth, awareness and evolution, no matter what’s happening in our lives. Ultimately, the various Female Hero’s Journeys are all potentially Inner Paths, whether or not you’re travelling the Traditional Female Path, the Outer Power Path, the Inner Healing/Mystical Path or the Combination Path. It just depends on how we approach and work with our path. We can either be a victim on our path, or we can grow and become empowered. 

Most women’s journeys will be different to the classic Male Hero’s Journey, though many women are attracted to the male path of outer adventure, heroic action and dramatic initiations resulting in psychological or spiritual transformation. The Female Hero’s Journey will happen for most of us, however, through our ordinary daily lives, meeting the everyday challenges of being a woman.We know that many women undergo profound physical ordeals and psychological and spiritual initiations through their bodies, relationships and emotional life—through things such as menstruation, menopause, hysterectomy, giving birth, abortions, miscarriages, motherhood, unwanted infertility, breast cancer, death of parents, marriage and divorce, problems with children, loss of youth, the ups and downs of female friendships, etc.

These common female experiences are deeply influential and can shape our beliefs and identity as a woman, depending on how we work with them. What stories and meanings will you be left with after these events? Women’s journey through these events is just as significant as the classic male adventure stories in terms of their ability to produce empowerment, maturity, wisdom, self-knowledge and spiritual awakening. 

Our Contribution to the Female Hero’s Journey

We all need Inner Work tools and Sacred Practices to help us deal with what happens to us in life, regardless of what path we’re on. These  tools and practices include things like meditation, prayer and inner reflection, journalling, emotional processing, along with knowing how to work with common inner experiences that typically get overlooked or dismissed but which hold important information for us: forbidden thoughts and feelings, symptoms and subtle body experiences, intuitions and flashes, nighttime dreams, visions and mystical experiences, and outer synchronistic events. We have the answers inside of us but we also need to know how to access these answers, how to find the jewelled cave of intuitive wisdom, healing and guidance within. 

Our retreats and workshops focus on giving women inner work tools and sacred practices so they can better navigate their life path, balance the feminine and masculine parts of themselves and connect to their own inner guidance and wisdom.

 Gemma Summers

Honouring the Midlife Woman

Does the thought of your own midlife fill you with dread or loathing or does it give you a sense of your own power, wisdom and creative possibility? As our hormones struggle to find balance, symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats, decreased sex drive, irritability, depression, etc., are experienced by many women. These hormonal shifts also affect our brain and often make us acutely aware of any injustice, inequity and lack of fulfillment in our lives. It’s a time when many women find their voice and feel compelled to use it as an expression of their inner truth.

This profound transition in a woman’s life is for tenderly nourishing the birth of her wisdom. It’s a time for gently nurturing and kindling the fires that spark the passion of transformation in her journey through womanhood. To fully embrace this transformation, we may need to listen and tend to an increasing need for space and solitude. We may start to realise that life is less about what we’re becoming and more about what we’ve become. And the question is, do we like who we’ve become? Are we able to love who we are? Or do we want to change this?

We feel there’s little offered in our modern world that truly honours and understands the emotional, psychological and spiritual journey of midlife for women. In our Soulful Woman work, we explore this journey and its transformative possibilities. When understood from this soulful perspective, midlife and menopause can be a time of birthing a whole new kind of consciousness about ourselves and our life purpose. It can also be a time when we finally heal old wounds and powerfully activate our feminine creativity and spiritual expression.

Gemma and Shushann

When we find ourselves regularly feeling  tired, reactive, defencive and even lonely, we may be suffering from soul hunger.  A hunger for nourishing our inner being. Following are three simple keys to nurturing our souls and helping us feel more balanced and able to handle what life hands us. When we start listening to and nurturing our soul we create more joy in our life, feel more connected to our creativity and start to feel more energised.

1. Stop and Breathe

In our desire to get things done we can rush through life. There’s a popular mantra,  “Just Breathe.”  Breathing works. It has an immediate positive physiological and emotional effect.  Stopping and breathing allows us to turn our focus from an outer consciousness to an inner consciousness.  Once you’ve put your attention on your inner, especially your heart, you are more able to connect to your inner guidance, your essence.  When we stop, breathe and take time for silence, we are more likely to get insights about  where we're at in life and what, if anything, needs to happen next. Try it now. Take a moment to stop, close your eyes, let your eyes roll gently down towards your heart and take 3 slow breaths. As you consciously slow your breath, your mind also slows. Now try asking yourself: “What do I most need to nourish my soul right now?”  Lots of responses may rush in, or you may get nothing. Keep breathing. Allow time to quiet your mind and for an answer to float up from deep within you.  Giving time to be with our soul self supports us in moving more fluidly from doing to being. It helps us to be more grounded, more present and connected to our soul needs.

2. Simple daily practices and rituals that nurture and honour the sacred in your life.

Start savouring the simple rituals in life that honour your sacred self. Think of some of the routines you do in your life, brushing your teeth, washing, cooking, driving to the supermarket. Bring your alertness and sense of presence and aliveness to these simple everyday activities. You may find that they are soothing, meditative and even joyful.

When we weave inner awareness with outer practices we can create a sense of the sacred. Sacred practice needs consistency so it’s a good idea to engage in ones that work best for you.  These can include:

• lighting a candle in the morning when you rise and the evening when you get home, marking the beginning and ending of your day.
• sitting in your favourite spot and listening to music that soothes or energises you.
• giving thanks for your health, the people and things in your life.
• having fresh flowers in your home so that when you get home you can breath in their fragrance
• having a table or space where you can place your special objects e.g. stones, feathers, shells, candles.
• playing with your children or your pets.
• planning regular trips and adventures. Things to look forward to.
• keeping a regular journal for your dreams and reflections,
• meditating, chanting mantras, dancing, or taking a walk somewhere in nature.

Think about the things that give you joy, enliven you, lift your heart or inspire you. All these things nourish your soul.

3. Connect with a group of like minded people and create your own sacred circle of women.

Connecting with like minded others can provide a great balm and nourishment for our soul. There are some people who always leave us feeling good or more positive when we've been with them. It's often because we feel accepted by them and comfortable in their company. When we are around people who like us, who see us and get us, we relax and  start feeling good about ourselves.

One of the most common and soothing ways of connection is meeting for a chat over a cup of tea or coffee, it immediately raises our oxytocin levels. When two or more women meet for this, it also often involves sharing little sweet treats together. More and more women are finding support and connection by joining or forming a conscious support group with other women. Meeting with like minded friends and friends of friends: our soul companions, is very nourishing for our soul.  Co-creating a sacred circle together is a great way of honouring and embracing our soul journeys in life.  Sacred circles are naturally with women you feel comfortable being with, you feel you trust,  share mutual support and understanding with, and can act as caring guides and advisors during times of transition in your life. This may start off simply as a meeting with one or two people.

Contact us today for information on our next soul nurturing Retreat, Soul Spa or Women's Meditation Program. info@thesoulfulwoman.com.au

I wish you well on your journey in nourishing your soul.

love and warm wishes

Shushann xx

3 Good Things That Support Our Intentions

Here are three things that empower our intentions—giving them life and colour, from the perspective of the divine feminine.

1. Energy: We need enough energy and nourishment to fuel our creativity. It’s what enables us to make changes, manifest our dreams, or create shifts  in our lives. As soulful women, we can start by reflecting upon and addressing any existing imbalances between giving and receiving in our lives. This way we can ensure we have enough energy to sustain our ability to create. Energy is the key to creating change. How can you access more energy for yourself?

2. Asking: Asking for the support we need to manifest our intentions makes achieving them much easier. This can be difficult for many of us and we often need practice in doing so. However, this step can help move us beyond the cycle of doing it all ourselves—a classic issue for many woman. This week, why not practice asking for help in achieving your goals?

3. Passion: Not having a clear intention—that is, not knowing what you really want—often stems from having vague or inadequate desire. If this is the case, you need to nurture your heart’s desire and reconnect with your passion. Let yourself dream about the future and what would make it even more exciting for you. What goal or vision lights your fire?

Asking for help, taking time to reflect and re-energise, connecting to our passions, dreams and desires—all these things strengthen our ability to create, heal and nourish our body, mind and spirit. Taking time out of our day for stillness and silence, going on a retreat, joining an empowered women’s circle, working with a life coach, counsellor, or spiritual mentor, or being guided by our own inner wisdom about how to align with the creative feminine energies within us are just some of the ways we can support our intentions. Namaste.

Women’s Retreats: The Quiet Revolution
When is it time to run away to some deep, green, tropical paradise? As often as possible.

For many women, that may only be once a year, or once every five years, but as some point, most women long to leave their loved ones and just disappear to some place where it’s safe to focus on themselves.

Where do women go to nourish themselves? Well, there’s the hair-dresser or the local Day Spa, but these only provide a few hours of chit-chat and self-care—they rarely provide the deeper healing and restoration that most women need.

But today there is a new phenomena emerging around the globe: Women’s Retreats. What is a retreat, exactly? A retreat is a temporary withdrawal from daily in order to nourish one’s inner life or spiritual being. It’s also a time-out to restore one’s physical and emotional energies and open up to nature.

I’ve noticed there seems to be two kinds of retreats for women: There are “indulgence” retreats, which are usually spa-oriented with lots of of massages and health drinks (and with maybe a dab of yoga or meditation thrown in), or “spiritual” retreats which focus almost exclusively on serious meditation and yoga work (forget the frangipani spa-baths or retail therapy).

I believe what a lot of women need and crave is both physical pampering and spiritual empowerment—care for their entire being: body, mind and spirit. That’s why we’ve created Soulful Woman Retreats: a getaway where women can indulge their sensual selves, have fun and relax, while nourishing their inner selves through guided meditation, inspirational talks, journalling, gentle yoga, and meaningful connections with other women.

We wanted to create a quiet revolution, one where women can heal and regenerate themselves from the stresses of daily life through well-earned retreats—and regularly. I’m thinking of all those women who run around tired all the time being transformed, returning home rejuvenated and refreshed from their retreat.

Women are the culture-changers in their families and communities: When women change themselves, everything changes with them. They are the emotional and psychological hubs of their homes. When women return from a retreat bringing with them new energies, thoughts and ideas, it inspires everyone around them.

Gemma Summers
The Soulful Woman