Mythology In Action - Part 1

Mythology in Action #1 - Feb. 16, 2019

Maurice Turmel PhD - The Spiritual Psychologist

Before I delve into the subject matter of mythology and how it is addressed in my book “Conscious Evolution - Mythology in Action” I want to give you some background into how and why I became psychologist. These are tidbits that don’t show up in one’s customary bio which is designed to focus on the professional side of one’s work experience, rather than the personal experiences that brought one to make any particular career choice.

In the early 1970s I was going through a divorce.  I had two young daughters with my first wife when she advised me our marriage wasn’t working for her.  To be fair we were married quite young and neither one of us was really ready for the level of responsibility we had gotten ourselves into.  We had our troubles as most young couples do and she concluded it just wasn’t working for her.

I was devastated of course, not fully realizing what had gone wrong but appreciated the fact that I was also unhappy and we were moving in different directions.  However, at that early juncture I would have done anything to hang on to what we had out of sheer fear of the unknown.  But she was ready to go and I ultimately accepted that.  We worked out the details of child support, my visitation rights, along with division of assets and went our separate ways. It was painful and difficult, but in hindsight, all but inevitable.

Being single again was both a liberating and frightening experience for me.  I really didn’t know who I was or where I wanted to go with my life at this point.  As the months rolled past I got used to my new designation as a single part-time father, went back to college for some advanced training in my then profession as an electronics technician and found a new job as an audio-visual technician in a local high school. This was a fresh start which afforded me the opportunity to reflect on what was happening in my life.

In the back of my mind a simple question kept dogging me. “What had gone wrong in my marriage and what could I do to prevent a repeat of that failure?”  I was still experiencing anxiety and low self-esteem related to that loss and sought medical help.  My new doctor it turns out ran a therapy group for people going through life changing trauma, such as divorce or loss of confidence or general disorientation regarding one’s life purpose. I jumped on his offer to join in and attended those once a week group sessions for the next five years.

This is where my life really turned around.  I had stumbled upon a path that would not only help me understand my failed marriage, it would also help me “find myself” - a problem that I didn’t know I had. Books were recommended; seminars were suggested; a great variety of resources appeared before me as I discovered a world called Personal Growth and took to it like a duck to water.

I devoured all the personal growth books being recommended, found many others on my own based on author recommendations and even considered the idea that I might take some University courses to see if I could handle that. In the world I had come from I could not see this as a possibility, so low was my confidence in the area of academics.  But now, reading these books and watching the teaching staff at my new job take regular upgrading courses at the University level, I could see the possibility. I signed up for one course to test it out and did well.  As I studied the Psychology program I realized that was “my calling.”  One after the other I focused on the courses in that program, evenings, spring sessions and summers.  

Within five years of part-time study I had the equivalent of a 3 year B.A. But I wanted more. So I applied for and received student loans, which allowed me to leave my job and do a 4th year Honors program which would qualify me for Graduate School.  After that, over the next 5 years, I completed both Masters and Doctoral programs in Psychology and went on to a career as a Psychotherapist.

This is an abbreviated version of these events, but what I want you to see, as I discovered for myself, was the radical change in tack for my life.  After going through the divorce I had no idea who I was or where I wanted to go with my life.  That trauma set me on a path where I consciously needed to find myself, to obtain focus and understanding, and to make necessary changes in my life so that my next relationship would have a better chance of success.  I met my current wife in Grad School and we’ve been together now for 38 years.

What does Mythology and Conscious Evolution have to do with any of this? Perhaps you can see it already but I’ll bring in my favourite reference to help illustrate. Mythology, and specifically, the Myth of the Hero, as detailed by Joseph Campbell in his book “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” paints a revealing picture.  The three main themes of the Hero’s Journey are: Separation, Initiation & Return.  I can readily see these themes at work in the above story.  Separation: going through the divorce, loss of self; Initiation: finding a path to self-understanding through personal growth work; and Return: full self-acceptance as the key to healing any and all psychological and emotional wounds with a dash of Spirituality thrown in.

We are each the Hero and Heroine of our personal life journey.  We are here to learn lessons and those lessons come at us in a variety of ways.  Initially we may feel like victims, and a lot of traumatized individuals get stuck here. But if we take responsibility for healing whatever has happened in our lives and ask the right questions such as: “Who am I? and Why am I here?” then we will engage the process of recovery and find our way Home. What is Home?  Home is where the Heart is and our Heart will tell us who we are and why we are here.  This is Conscious Evolution and what my book on the subject is all about, both as I understand it and have lived it.

Within the next week or so I will be offering my book “Conscious Evolution - Mythology in Action” as a no cost Kindle Book Promotion for a limited time. I will be posting that information here on the blog and in the Goodreads book giveaways section.  I’ll be looking for reader feedback and reviews of course. It is my hope that my life experience and the experiences of my many therapy clients that have culminated in the ideas presented here will be of help to many of you as well. There will be at least one or two more posts on this subject before the book giveaway is launched.  Stay tuned to this blog for more.

https://thespiritualpsychologist.blogspot.com/   Watch for our Goodreads Kindle Ebook giveaway of this title coming soon.