The Heroine’s Journey is a path of feminine awakening beyond the hero’s story and the well known Hero’s Journey made famous by Joseph Campbell.
The Hero’s Journey has been the archetypal roadmap for storytelling, transformation, and myth. But what about the way the feminine is different? Maureen Murdock wrote in her book The Heroine’s Journey, that this masculine-oriented framework doesn’t fully capture the internal struggles and soul evolution of the feminine psyche.
In this post I share snippets of my own heroine’s journey, and why for most women, and even men, this feminine archetypal roadmap is as important as the more well known hero’s journey, because it’s something we will all go though in this lifetime.
Why the Hero’s Journey isn’t enough
Although Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey is a powerful map of external conquest and self-discovery, it follows a linear trajectory of external adventure and transformation: It begins with the call to adventure, where the hero leaves the ordinary world to face challenges in an unknown realm. Along the way, they encounter allies, enemies, trials, and a final ordeal – often symbolised by slaying a dragon or confronting death. After gaining wisdom or the “reward,” the hero returns home transformed, ready to share their newfound power or insight with the world. This path is outward, action-driven, and centred on achievement and mastery.
Maureen Murdock, a Jungian psychotherapist, noticed something else. Women (and people with strong feminine inner worlds) often experience a different kind of journey – one not just of adventure, but of reconnection.
One of her observations was that the Hero’s Journey often glorifies separation: leaving the known, rejecting the mother, and rising through willpower.
For many women, the path of wholeness isn’t about conquering externally, it’s about healing inner wounds, reclaiming lost aspects of oneself, and bridging the broken bond with the feminine…
The Stages of the Heroine’s Journey
The Heroine’s Journey is an inward spiral – a descend, death, and return/rebirth – mapped through these stages:
1. Separation from the Feminine
The journey begins with rejection of our feminine nature (turning away from the Mother, the body, feelings and intuition). This looks like seeking value in a masculine world, believing power and worth lie in these aspects.
How this looked for me:
I was completely disconnected from my feelings, and especially my intuition, so much so that I ignored and numbed it completely, even when it sometimes screamed at me…! I operated in a male dominated system (it was a spiritual institution I was part of that operated on masculine patriarchal energetics), and believed the more I achieved the more worthy I was, and the more power I had. It was actually part of the ‘teachings’, that the more you ascend along the ‘path of progression’ of this specific institution, the more power you have…
2. Identification with the Masculine
You embrace masculine ideals like logic, intellect, achievement, independence, external validation – and often excels in them, gaining status and approval.
How this looked for me:
Because I so thoroughly ignored and numbed my intuition, I operated on logic, on what I learned and what was taught to me, by human beings just like myself, yet I’ve put them on a pedestal as we so often do in this masculine dominated world of achievement. I didn’t question anything, and took it as total truth and went along with it. I achieved a ‘level of intellect, independence and external validation’ and was on a high because of this, an ego-driven high…
3. Road of Trials: meeting the challenge and disillusionment
This stage can bring a sense of soul loss, as you realise how you’ve sacrificed your feminine essence in pursuit of masculine approval. It brings a feeling of being spiritually empty, because the achievements do not bring the inner satisfaction you expected of them. This then leads to a disillusionment moment.
How this looked for me:
After many years in this community, I got pregnant again with our daughter. My pregnancy made me face this empty feeling I felt on a spiritual level, because suddenly I have been chosen again to bring a new soul into this world, and for all my external achievements, I felt broken and empty, and I felt a deep responsibility to change this within so I can be the full expression of my power for my daughter, but also for myself… It’s the moment I had my disillusionment, where I realised I have lost part of my soul in this spiritual institution I was part of and that it wasn’t for my highest good and expression. It was at this stage that I also felt extremely guilty for pivoting, because of the conditioning in this world of ‘finishing what you’ve started’, ‘staying on the path even though being called to something else’…
4. Awakening to the Wounded Feminine
You become aware, and must face, the wounds inflicted by the rejection of the feminine – and this may come up as feelings of self-betrayal, inner suppression, and emotional disconnect.
How this looked for me:
My pregnancy with our daugter opened my psyche to the liminal space, and I now realise how she has been (still is) my most powerful healer, because in choosing me to be her mama she opened me up to all the pieces of my feminine psyche that I have rejected – my intuition, my natural rhythm and cycle, my body, my inner strength, my own unique path as a medicine woman in my own right and expression… I very clearly had to face how I’ve rejected my true nature by giving away my power to external achievements and validation, as well as a system that doesn’t honour the true meaning of the Goddess.
5. Initiation and Descend to the Goddess
A symbolic (or literal) descend into the unconscious. You come face to face with your grief, rage, loss, and shame. This is the death of who you thought you are.
How this looked for me:
I walked away from everything I’ve known, people, the school I was part of, my trainings, teachings, levels of achievement. We also recently moved, and being pregnant too, I felt completely ungrounded. It plunged me deeply into a dark night of the soul, deep shadow aspects within me came to the surface and I had no idea who I was. I moved through rage (at myself and everything), I felt the loss (of self), and deeply ashamed of the rejection towards myself inflicted by myself over time.
6. Yearning to Reconnect with the Feminine
This stage is a turning point. You start to long for softness, authenticity, nurturance, and inner truth, and you begin to seek integration.
How this looked for me:
Through nurturing my newborn daughter, I became softer… Also, being deeply in the underworld of shadow work humbled me, I had to surrender to the unknown, and this brought a softening, because you start to feel the embrace of the Mother/Goddess. One day I saw a white rose blooming in my garden and she softly whispered to me. Mary Magdalene came to me in an intuitive download. I lost my original Facebook and Instagram accounts because someone reported my accounts and Meta deleted both of them with years of content (from this ‘old’ life). It was a turning point, because now I also lost the virtual connection to this other life I walked away from, and I could start fresh. Without social media accounts I connected with the world in a new way, I read new books (having lots of time to read because I wasn’t scrolling anymore), I expanded my consciousness towards new possibilities, I reconnected with Nature again, I connected with new people, fresh new perspectives, real humans, mostly women, in their authentic, real, and messy natures, and I LOVED how I saw myself in them.
7. Healing the Mother/Daughter/Nature Split
You begin to heal the relationship with the feminine in yourself and often with your mother or ancestral line. This is also the stage of reconnecting with the Mother/Nature. From this, forgiveness, compassion, and understanding flow.
How this looked for me:
I started a journey of healing my ancestral line, going back in time learning where they came from, where they lived, the history of my ancestry and their ways and practices. Also their wisdom and gifts. Your own lineage is the only lineage that can give you true authentic wisdom. It gave me deep insights into my inner desires and dreams that I’ve always had, and knew about myself. This healed my inner feminine, the wounds I’ve carried around my magick, my voice, my intuitive gifts, and my expression, and why I could never carry on in an unbalanced masculine dominated system. I opened up the channels towards my own unique way of sharing my magick with the world through feminine energetics, and it was here that I started training with the Rose (and Nature, as well as my ancestors) as my guide.
8. Integration and Healing of the Masculine and Feminine
You see how both inner and outer masculine energies have been distorted, and begin to create a more balanced, sacred relationship with both these energies.
The returns is not a trophy, but a wholeness of being. You embody a life where inner masculine (action, clarity, purpose) and inner feminine (intuition, receptivity, connection) coexist in harmony.
How this looks for me:
I am now grateful for everything I experienced in my life, every trial, every error, everytime I gave my power away, because I can truly say I learned something from it all. I don’t see failures, I see stepping stones. I had to fall, descend, go to the darkest corners of my psyche, to gain the medicine and wisdom from those aspects. Even my profile (in the Human Design system) is 1/3 – the investigator/martyr – the one that experiences life deeply, go deep in all aspects, learn all there is to learn from life and come out into the world sharing the wisdom of it all. I even wrote a whole post about this right here!
I am now integrating aspects of my ‘old’ life back into my work and life, because I now have the healed perspective of it all. It was part of my journey, so I could bring it into the world through my own magickal gifts and perspectives.
At this stage I am constantly learning and integrating, but with the deep wisdom of the Heroine’s Journey thus far I have the tools to build a stronger foundation every day. And that is what embarking on this journey brings you…
Your true nature revealed!
Why this Journey Matters
The start of this journey begins with a call – coming from a major transition moment: a divorce, illness, pregnancy, career shift, a move…
It’s a moment that makes you realise that who you were no longer feels right and so the search begins for your new self.
In a world still healing from centuries of patriarchal imbalance, the Heroine’s Journey is more than a narrative structure – it’s a spiritual map for anyone longing to return to their authentic self. It speaks to those burned out from overachievement, to women disconnected from their intuition, and to men yearning to reclaim their emotional depths.
It’s the journey back to the Goddess!
It reminds us that the journey home is not always upwards – it’s inwards.
The Heroine’s Journey does not replace the Hero’s Journey – it complements it. The one is not better than the other. In a sense my life before I was being called on the Heroine’s Journey has very much been the Hero’s Journey. We need both maps. We are all made of masculine and feminine energies, and the journey to wholeness often asks us to honour and heal both.
In the words of Maureen Murdock:
“The heroine must become a spiritual warrior. She must learn to confront her own shadow, to understand the illusion of control, to embrace her vulnerabilities, and to make peace with her past.”
This is the sacred path of the heroine – and perhaps, ultimately, the path of every soul.
We are here to learn how to BE, and not just DO. This journey is a quiet quest, because it’s not rewarded by the outside world. You learn to find value not in what you do, but in who you are.
The descend and retrieval of your soul brings true wholeness. The sacred marriage within you allows you to embody your wisdom with courage, and take action from those. Reconnection with the Goddess allows you to love fiercely, take clear action, and create a solid new foundation to build your life on.
Original Design mentorship is a call into such a journey, an initiation into your inner heroine, the inner Goddess, and if you’re desiring to walk alongside someone who has walked the path(s), who is still walking the path, connect with me.