Becoming the Hero of Your Own Story

Every good story, film, or game begins with a hero.

So here you are!

The hero of your own life.

The star of your story.

The central character in your journey.

How have you developed your character thus far?

Are those developments currently serving who you want your character to be?

It’s easy to lose sight of our true character early on. The personality we develop is often comprised of defense mechanisms meant to protect us in a world we deem unsafe in some way.

We usually develop a character based on external influences before we reach five years old with the goal of survival and approval.

You are now at a point in your life where you can question that construct:

Is it serving you?

Is this who you want to be?

You can change this at any time. If the character you’ve become is no longer serving your purpose, you have the ability to create a character that delights you.

There are (at least) two aspects inside you that create this character- the Ego and the True Self. The Ego is the one that has constructed the personality to guarantee your survival. The True Self is waiting for the opportunity to play the game they came here to play.

A quick way to assess who is at the helm of your life (Ego v. True Self) is to study how closely linked you are to what you actually want:

Do you confidently move in the direction of your desires?

(It’s important here to distinguish the difference between an Ego desire and a True Self desire. While both may crave a promotion, the Ego likely does so out of a desire to satisfy a proof of worth, an external validation, etc. while the True Self knows their worth, enjoys but does not require the validation, and is more likely excited about the possibility of moving up in an arena they deeply enjoy and being truly seen and recognized for who they are. You might notice that you feel these two desires in different places in your body.)

This leads us to noticing:

What is the underlying motivation for your desire?

and

What part of you gets fed when you move in the direction of that desire? The Ego or the True Self?

If you’re noticing the Ego popping up here frequently, or you struggle to connect with your own true authentic desires, an excellent tool to explore why you might be behaving the way you are is the Enneagram.

In the Complete Enneagram by Beatrice Chestnut, she opens by noting,

“In order for us to grow and change- to develop our ability to make more conscious choices- we first need to know how we truly operate in the present. To become all that we can be, we must start where we are and know exactly… who we are.

“One of our deepest unconscious patterns is the false belief that we already know ourselves well enough to understand why we think, feel, and act the way we do. I will argue that, in fact, we don’t; and that thinking we do know who we are is part of the problem…

“We respond in predictable, repetitive ways according to the dictates of our early programming, much like uniquely specialized machines. And like machines, we have no power to grow out of this pre-programmed condition as long as we have no conscious understanding of how our existence is limited by our programming.

“We don’t always understand what we don’t understand and we are limited by the degree that we don’t recognize our limitations.”

If this resonates for you, I highly recommend looking into an Enneagram test (I like this free one) and noticing what numbers come up the highest for you. Take this test as though your least favorite parts of yourself are on display. Looking at yourself through the lens of the Enneagram should make you feel uncomfortable. It’s meant to show you the shadowy, hidden sides of your personality and why you unconsciously act the way you do.

On the bright side, this isn’t really you, so there isn’t anything to take personally. This is just how your Ego has survived. Don’t forget to have compassion for these parts of yourself as you look at them. They were built to survive, and they have done an incredible job. Ultimately, though, they aren’t really you. They may reflect aspects of your True Self, but they are not what your character is truly capable of.

There are roughly only 27 ways the personality shows up in the Human Game. You have likely been programmed into one of them. Exploring this programming and taking back the power to choose your responses is one of the first steps in becoming the hero of your own journey, the hero you want to be.

Please feel free to comment below or reach out to me with the results of your Enneagram test to dive deeper into what it means together. I’m happy to share resources and help point you in the direction of growth as you take back the power to create your character from the root of your truest self.

Definitions in this chapter:

Ego: the part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity. (from Oxford Languages)

True Self (or Higher Self): the part of you that has not been wounded by judgements or prejudices. It does not view life through murky-colored filters tainted by past experiences (pain, rejection, abandonment, etc.)… The higher self is YOU, the best part of you, it is yourself at the purest level. (source here)

Becoming the Hero of Your Own Story

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