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The Heroine’s Journey: An Inward Path Toward Wholeness
- Dr. MJ Yang
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
After beginning the conversation around the entrepreneur’s Hero’s Journey last week, another voice emerged—quieter, yet persistent—asking what might be missing from this narrative.
Not only does the traditional Hero’s Journey emphasize a largely masculine orientation toward action, striving, and external achievement, but entrepreneurship itself often reinforces this outward focus: growth, performance, visibility, and measurable success. In listening more closely, it became clear that something essential needed balancing.
This question feels especially alive in my clinical work with both women and men in Silicon Valley, where achievement-oriented, masculine-dominant values are deeply embedded in professional culture. I often meet individuals who are highly capable, disciplined, and outwardly successful—yet internally exhausted, disconnected, or unsure why fulfillment still feels out of reach.
In these moments, the struggle is rarely about competence or motivation. More often, it reflects the absence of space for inward life. From this perspective, making room for the Heroine’s Journey feels not optional, but necessary.
The Origins of the Heroine’s Journey
In response to this need, I turn to the work of depth psychologist Maureen Murdock, who articulated the Heroine’s Journey in her 1990 book The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness. Murdock developed this model after observing that many women’s psychological struggles were not adequately reflected in traditional heroic narratives—stories that privilege separation, conquest, and external success.
Instead, she proposed a journey that honors women’s lived experiences, particularly the psychological cost of adapting to masculine-dominant values and the resulting disconnection from the feminine self. While originally framed around women’s development, this journey speaks powerfully to anyone living within systems that prioritize doing over being.
What Is the Heroine’s Journey?
The Heroine’s Journey describes a psychological and emotional path toward wholeness and integration, rather than achievement. Where the Hero’s Journey moves outward into the world, the Heroine’s Journey turns inward—toward the body, emotions, intuition, relationships, and meaning.
Rather than asking, “How do I succeed?” this journey asks a different question:
“What parts of myself have I had to leave behind in order to survive or succeed—and how do I begin to bring them home?”
This journey often emerges during moments of burnout, depression, identity transition, or a quiet dissatisfaction that cannot be resolved through effort alone. From a mental health perspective, these moments are not signs of failure, but invitations to reorient inward.
The Stages of the Heroine’s Journey
Maureen Murdock outlined ten stages in the Heroine’s Journey. These stages are not meant to be linear or prescriptive; people often move back and forth between them, revisiting certain themes across different life phases.
Separation from the Feminine
The stage where a woman unconsciously distances herself from the feminine aspects of her identity in order to succeed in a masculine-focused world.
Identification with the Masculine
Adopting traditionally masculine traits such as ambition, competitiveness, and rationality to gain recognition and achieve success.
Road of Trials
Facing challenges and obstacles that test the newly adopted masculine identity and highlight the cost of disconnection from the feminine self.
Illusion of Success
Achieving external markers of success, yet feeling a sense of emptiness or internal dissatisfaction despite accomplishments.
Awakening to Spiritual Aridity
Realizing that external achievement alone cannot provide fulfillment, prompting a longing for deeper meaning and inner connection.
Initiation and Descent to the Goddess
Turning inward to confront suppressed emotions, intuition, and aspects of the feminine self that have been neglected or denied.
Urgent Yearning to Reconnect with the Feminine
Feeling a strong inner pull to integrate disowned parts of the self and reclaim emotional and relational depth.
Healing the Mother/Daughter Split
Addressing and reconciling the psychological and emotional divides from early maternal relationships and cultural expectations.
Healing the Wounded Masculine
Integrating healthy masculine traits while addressing the distortions and limitations imposed by overly rigid, external-focused masculinity.
Integration of the Masculine and Feminine
Achieving a balanced, whole sense of self where both inner feminine and masculine qualities are recognized, valued, and harmonized.
Why This Journey Matters for Women’s Mental Health
Many women seek therapy not because something is “wrong,” but because the ways they learned to function—be strong, be capable, be resilient—no longer feel sustainable.
At the same time, I also work with many women whose lives are already oriented toward relationality, intuition, and emotional depth, yet who struggle to fit themselves into highly competitive, masculine-normed environments like Silicon Valley, often at the cost of self-doubt or invisibility.
The Heroine’s Journey offers language for understanding burnout, depression, and identity confusion as meaningful psychological movements rather than personal shortcomings.
As a veteran child psychologist, I am continually reminded of how essential a developmental perspective is when we talk about healing.
Growth does not happen all at once, and integration cannot be rushed.
Just as children move through stages that require different kinds of support, adults also revisit unfinished developmental tasks across the lifespan.
The Heroine’s Journey honors this truth: healing unfolds in phases, at a pace shaped by readiness, safety, and compassion.
From this lens, wholeness is not an endpoint—it is an ongoing developmental process of becoming more fully oneself.
This post offers an overview of the Heroine’s Journey. In the next blog, we will begin with the early stages—separation from the feminine and identification with the masculine—and explore how these themes often take root long before adulthood.
