Mythic Wisdom: Transform Your Story with Allison Stieger

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How you doing today, Allison?

Hello, thank you for having me.

Uh, like I say, thank you for coming out. Thank you for coming out. So Allison, let me ask you, the power of myth in everyday life. Can you share how you first fell in love with mythology and storytelling?

Well, absolutely. So I had an interesting childhood. It was a little bit unusual. When I was a year old, my parents were living in Central California, and my dad had loved airplanes and aviation from the time he was watching the planes fly out to the Pacific Theater during World War II. And he grew up and he became a pilot. So he decided to move to Alaska. He moved our family to Alaska so he could become a bush pilot. And so that put me in this environment where the landscape itself was really, you know, using the language I use now, very mythic. And he was this fantastic storyteller. And he would tell these wonderful stories my whole life about bears and going hunting and flying around and crashing the plane and craziness. And my mother was a reader. And she taught me to read when I was little. And then they had this terrible, epic clash of titans divorce when I was 5. And so what that taught me from the earliest age was that story was something that could help me navigate my life. So I would read books for comfort and for solace and for just a place to be that was separate from all the craziness of this divorce. And then for my dad, ended up being the custodial parent, we were hearing these wonderful stories about all of these crazy things and all of his crazy adventures. So after a few years of this, I realized, you know, story is something that is really powerful for human beings. The stories that we tell each other, the stories that we tell to ourselves, and about ourselves, these are the best ways to communicate with other people. And I wanted to understand why that was. Like, what is it about this particular way of communicating that is so meaningful to human beings? And I could see that it was true the older that I got. And I got a literature degree and I just, you know, I was always reading and always kind of understood, wanted to understand things. And I was always a curious person. And when I was about 30, I discovered the work of this guy named Joseph Campbell, And he wrote books called The Power of Myth, Hero with a Thousand Faces, a lot of books that were about why myths matter. And to me, myths were an even better category of storytelling in a way, because they were stories that had lasted for a really long time. And they just made sense to me. And I love them. I always had loved them. So he sort of showed me a path into how can we— I wanted to figure out my life. And then once I did that, which I did very successfully, I wanted to help other people do it too. So I started reading all of his works and ended up getting a graduate degree in mythology and union psychology. And that taught me even more about how to do that. And that's basically what I've been doing ever since. I mean, I made a beautiful life for myself, which I never thought was possible when I was young. I mean, both of my parents were divorced 3 times and my husband and I are going to be celebrating our 20th anniversary this summer. We have a really happy marriage and I didn't think that was possible for me. I really didn't because I came out of this situation that was so different. But what I was able to do is look at these old stories and say, what do they have to teach me? And I learned that they are kind of a, you know, you have this kind of impulse as human beings, right? And maybe not everybody does, but I see this to be true a lot. Like if we find something that we love, or if we find something that we really don't love, we want to tell other people about it, right? So, oh my gosh, I just found the best plumber. He's reasonable. He's really good at his job. You got to call him. I see your sink's leaking or, Oh, don't go to this business. The owner sold it. Now it's really gone downhill and the food's terrible. I got food poisoning 3 times. Really, just don't go. Or anything like that. And to me, that's what a myth is. It's essentially, okay, well, we did this thing. We had this crazy adventure and we're going to tell you what we did because this was so cool how we managed this and we won. Or boy, we didn't win. We lost. Don't do that.

Yeah.

And they're great because they last for a long time. They're funny. They're romantic, they've got battles, they've got jokes, they've got all this great stuff that keeps us engaged and really on the edge of our seats. But also they show us what to do. And if you peel away all of the ex— the layers of like, well, this happened back in, you know, 5,000 BC or whatever, and our lives were different back then. If you actually look at the underpinnings of it psychologically, you can see that a guy, a hero or a god or something going into the underworld and coming back out is something that actually happens to us in our regular modern lives all the time. So if we're struggling with something, we need to figure something out, there is a story from the past that will show us what to do. And to me, I find it very comforting to know that the people that came on the planet before us cared enough about us to leave us a story to tell us what to do. You know, there's no instruction manual for life, but myths could be thought of in that way because they really do contain a lot of wisdom. And in our religious traditions, we have a long history of studying the Torah or the Bible or, you know, any other texts like that, but we don't have that same care that we take with our myths, and they're just as ancient, and they have a lot to offer. So for me, that's where I got into this work that I do, where I found the power in it. It gave me the tools that I needed to make the life that I wanted to make for myself. And I'm really happy now. I have a good life, and I want to teach other people how to do the same. So that's really it. Like, that's why. It's, why do stories matter? Oh, this is why. Yeah. And this is what they have to offer us.

Yeah. I mean, like you say, Uh, stories is a testament to your life. And like you said, I can go back and dig up one of these stories and kind of make me feel like, okay, this is why I'm in the situation that I'm in right now. You know, you go back, you think about life in general. So let me ask you, Allison, what drew you to the idea of helping people reshape their lives and their narratives?

Well, I don't know, I guess it's that same impulse again, right? If you accept my premise of, you know, we like to share things that work I think that everybody kind of knows what this looks like. If you ever had a friend that went vegan or went on the keto diet or went paleo or found a great trainer, you know, they tend to evangelize a little bit. So you think of that evangelism impulse, like, I have found this thing that's made my life better and I really want to tell you about it because I hope for you that your life can be made better, too. I mean, that's what that is, right? If you went vegan and you feel amazing, you want to share that experience with lots of people. And it becomes kind of a trope almost. So that's really it for me. Like I understood the world through stories and I saw that a lot of other people did too. And so what I've done now is to say, okay, there are things that I've learned from studying these myths for this many years that they had to teach us. So I meet people at a lot of different points in their lives, people that are just coming up as adults, people that are kind of in that empty nest stage where they don't know what to do with themselves now that their kids are out of the house. Like you're trying to figure out how to find a love connection or get a new love connection or keep a marriage happy or relationship that's been many years happy. These are all very common moments in a human life where we have something that we have to navigate and myths have answers in them. And they are incredibly deep and meaningful. You know, I can get down, like we have thousands and thousands of myths from all over the world, right? I read and study and use all of them in my work, but sometimes it's a very broad category, but it's also very narrow in the sense that you can read one line out of a myth and get a huge amount of wisdom from just one line or one word or one image. It has an opening into the unconscious mind that teaches you what the unconscious mind is trying to tell you about your own life. So it kind of opens that portal or that door a little bit, just in the way that it works, because a lot of the language is— if you understand the idea that myth and ritual are very closely connected, like we can tell the stories with our minds and our mouths and listen to it with our ears. But ritual kind of pulls it into the body a little bit. So we kind of have this body knowing of what these stories are. So, so that's really it. It's like it has that connection between them. So it gives us an access to that wisdom through multiple different paths. And that can be a really powerful thing. And we're just not looking at our myths for this. And it's an incredibly rich resource that's been there for thousands of years. And what I'm really trying to do is say, let's not ignore this. Immense treasury of wisdom that we have. Let's find ways to make our lives better with it.

I like that. Like you say, multiple streams. We got multiple streams of wisdom that we haven't tapped into yet. I like that. So let me ask you, since we talking about multiple streams of wisdom, how can myths serve as maps for people navigating challenges today?

Well, you know, I mentioned a guy named Campbell a few minutes ago, and and he became famous for a concept called the hero's journey, which is that thousands of myths from all over the world follow a very similar pattern. And when you look at it at its most granular level, you see that what it means is you start out in wherever you are, just in your life, in your community, whatever, and you are called to an adventure. And that means that something's about to change for you and you're probably not going to like it, but you're going to go through it anyway. Right? Your partner tells you they want a divorce. You get a call from your doctor that's not great. You get a call from your boss, I need a meeting. You know, like these are moments that happen. Things come to us that we don't want. And so we talk about three words: separation, which is separation from the original place of being, the original community; initiation, which is where we change through the process of this thing that we're going through; and then we return. So we come back to the place that we started. We've been completely transformed by our experience. So that process is something that happens to us all the time. Now, what we can do is we can choose to say no, and that's called the refusal of the call. And people do that, right? They say, I'm not going to go to the doctor even though I have a lump because I'm scared of what they might say. I mean, that's a refusal, right? And sometimes people will choose survival over transformation. And a lot of people do this, right? They say, I'm just going to get through it. I'm not going to learn anything from it, or I'm not going to grow from it. I'm just going to put one foot in front of the other every day, and I'm going to come out the other side. And we have a lot of people that deal with it that way. I mean, I think that that makes sense for some folks, but we have another option here. And this is what the myths show us. We have myth after myth after myth that says, okay, the hero started out here. They said no, they're going to go on it anyway. They go to kind of go into the underworld metaphorically. They have allies, they have villains that they have to battle. They have temptations to tempt them off the path. They wrestle, they have a battle within dragon and they bring a treasure away with it. And then they come back and they go back into the upper world. And what happens there, it's kind of like a clock face, right? But it's backward because you start out as an individual hero or heroic person. You go through all of this, you meet people that help you and hinder you along the way. And then when you come out, you bring this treasure with you. And sometimes in the myths it's a goblet or a sword or a chest or whatever. But what it really means is what you learn from this or what you've brought back with you, this wisdom, this lived experience, and what you can do with that when you come back out into the community is you can share what you learned with somebody else, right? So here we are, we've got these old stories of this exact thing. We go through it and we learn something and we write a novel or we have a conversation with someone at a bus stop and we tell them what we did when we were in their situation. Or, I mean, any number of things that people do, every kind of art, every kind of— company or invention or wise thing or amazing thing that comes into the world is a part of this process. It's a treasure that's brought back from the underworld. And what you get to do then when you come out of your hero's journey is you now you're a part of the community that is helping other heroes do what they need to do, right? So you get your wisdom from the past, you go through it yourself in the present, and then in the future, you become the ancestor that you needed at the beginning of your journey. So to me, it provides this beautiful continuity of support for other human beings, of getting help when we need it and helping others when they need it, for just showing up for other humans in a way that's really, really beautiful and meaningful. And what it does, the great side benefit of all of this is it gives us such an enormous sense of purpose and happiness and connectivity with other people. I mean, there's been study after study that's shown this. If you want to be happy, find purpose, find your community, find the people that you need to be among, get help and help other people. All of these things. It's not that complicated. You don't need a billion dollars. You don't need, you know, whatever you think you need. It's not about that. It's about how do we do this effectively? So myths show us, and they've been showing us this for thousands of years, right? This is how you do it. We go into the underworld. You do this hard, hard, difficult. I'm not— I don't want to sugarcoat this. It is not easy to do this. It is not easy to survive a divorce. It is not easy to come out on the other side of a terrible diagnosis or any one of the things that happened to us in our lives that is less than ideal, right? This is going to take us into the underworld. We are going to die to an old version of ourselves, and we are going to be reborn into a new version of ourselves. And this is what myths show us how to do over and over and over. It's right there. So to me, I find that really beautiful. It's helped me learn how to both accept help and give it. To how to be part of the community, to how to know where I am. Because, you know, sometimes these journeys are going on at multiple times. We're showing up in other people's journeys as villains and as temptations and as allies and all kinds of things, mentors. So it's going on overlapping all the time. And once we can start to recognize that this is what's going on, because this is the myth, we call it the monomyth for a reason. It's called a monomyth, which is like the myth, the pattern of this is a story, right? I had to change. Something had to change. I didn't like it. I went through it all and I came out the other side and I was different at the end. If you don't have that, you don't have a story. So it's really at the heart of what we find meaningful when we hear stories as humans.

So yeah. Yeah, I totally get you, especially about the part of going through, you know, as far as what you're saying with myth, because I like stories and it's a biblical story that I like that, you know, kind of put me in the mind of what you were saying. Sometimes you have to go through some things and be in places that you don't want to be at times, or sometimes that you don't even deserve to be. But it's in those places a lot of times that you find talents or gifts that you have within you are developing, you know what I'm saying? And then, like you said, then once I come out of that, now I'm positioned to do what I was commissioned to do, you know? And if it wasn't going through those trials and tribulations and these things, I wouldn't have garnered or gained the wisdom gave me an understanding that I needed to move forward. So I totally agree with you on that, Allison. So let me ask you, you mentioned being stuck, and so, you know, you've been talking about the hero's journey as a powerful tool. So again, why is the hero's journey such a powerful tool for moving forward?

Well, there are two places that are recognized in the heroic journey that we get stuck in. So the first one is at the very beginning. So if you imagine it like a clock that's going backwards, think of it as like 11 o'clock if you went backwards, right? So you've just been called to the adventure. You got that phone call from the doctor, you got the request for, you know, you got that email requesting a meeting or whatever, you know, whatever it's going to be. And there is always going to be at least a part of you that says, no, I don't want to do this. I'm comfortable. People like the status quo. They like things to not change, but that's not realistic, is it? That's just not the way life is for us. So you say no, and you can see this over and over again in every story. Like when I think about Harry Potter, so there's a scene in the first Harry Potter book when Hagrid comes to Harry and he's like, you're a wizard, Harry. And Harry says, I can't be a wizard. And then he accepts it and he's fine. That was his refusal of the call. Just saying, I can't be a wizard. Sometimes it's a moment of hesitation in your mind that you never say out loud, and then you're ready to go. Other times you push something away for decades of your life, right? I mean, it really does vary. So, so you're going to have that refusal of the call, and then eventually it becomes kind of undeniable and you step into the adventure and you go down and your life changes. And now you're in this new place. You are in the underworld. Again, this is the metaphor of the myth, right? You are in a new space. You're— we call it the special world. You know, it's, it's the world that's separate from where we are. You know, maybe if you're sick, either you're in hospitals all the time or, you know, medical appointments or whatever, or you're in divorce court or whatever it is that you're dealing with. I mean, you're going to feel different than ordinary life. And the problem with that is, is that sometimes we get really comfortable being in the place because we've gotten used to it. Again, we're used to feeling sick all the time, or we're used to being heartbroken, or we're used to just, I mean, any of it, like you just get in a place where this dark place, you don't need to, you don't belong, you don't need to stay, it's temporary. You get afraid to leave that place too. And that we call the refusal of the return. So you have kind of this corresponding place where you say, you know what, no, I'm not ready to date again, because my divorce was so heartbreaking, I can't. And I'm just going to be in this place forever. Or, no, I can't go hike the Appalachian Trail, because I had breast cancer 5 years ago. And I know the doctors told me everything was fine. But now I just can't, I'm a sick person now, you know. And what it is though, it's, it's a reluctance to step out of the heroic journey and back into that place where you're like, okay, now I'm going to help somebody else out. There's this thing that happens there too, where we get so used to like having our ego centered in the journey. I'm the hero at the middle of the story. I'm the main character. Right. And you have to be willing to share what you've learned on and also decenter yourself a little bit. So there's, those are some of the things that lead to that feeling of being stuck on the back end of the journey, right? We were reluctant to start and we're reluctant to finish and people get stuck there too. Either they say, well, you know, I can't share it. It's not ready. I have to keep rewriting my draft or whatever. I mean, there's a lot of ways that people will be stuck and it's a complicated thing, you know? And I, a lot of my coaching that I do with people is around that moment of, okay, I feel like I want to share it on, or I feel like I want to start dating again, or I feel like I want to do the thing that I'm afraid to do. But I know what this means, and I know what it means to be in this small little space that I've carved out for myself in the land of the dead. And we need to be able to move on. And that is also the place we get stuck. So my book is called Unstuck: Finding and Following Your Path Through the Heroic Journey. And that's what it's about. It's really about recognizing when people do get stuck. I mean, a lot of people out there are stuck. And if you feel stuck, myths have a way to show you what to do. So it really does show you. That there are mechanisms there psychologically to help give you the courage to find that next step. So yeah, I guess that answers it.

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Music style.

Music Store.

Yeah, I mean, I was just about to ask you about your book. If you want to expound more on it, feel free.

Well, yeah, okay. I mean, it's about two things really. So the title is called Unstuck: Finding and Following Your Path Through the Heroic Journey, and it's about understanding all of this, everything that I've been describing. But it's also about these things called archetypes. And I don't know how familiar your listeners are, or you are, with the concept of archetypes. But it's an idea that comes to us both from ancient Greece and from a guy named Carl Jung, who's a psychiatrist, just that came up just after Sigmund Freud did. And it's this idea that there are perfect understood versions of every different type of a way there is to be a human, essentially. So, you know, there's a big energy that exists around what a mother is, like, for example. So a mother is an archetype. So that means something different than what a father is, and it has a different energy that's associated with it. Now, this is all fine. This is all known work. But what I'm doing that's a little bit different is recognizing that, you know, a lot of our biggest celebrities hold enormous archetypal energy that is kind of undefined other than their own name. So if you think about, you know, we're in a situation right now where we have this very big archetypal energy guy that's the President of the United States, and he's someone that is either really loved by people or really hated by people. And to me, what that means is he is creating an archetype that for whatever reason came up and burbling up in American culture right now. And we have other big celebrities that do this too, right? If you think about like Beyoncé or, you know, some of our other pop stars, like they are worshiped by their fans and they're also hated by other people. And anytime you've got someone that's holding a lot of both real adoration and also hatred energy, that's because it's archetypal. But then it also is reflected in our day-to-day lives with each other among us non-celebrities, right? We are seen as archetypes by other people and we see other people as archetypes. So what we're doing here is, and again, it's, it's kind of that human impulse to not want to try too hard when it comes to other people. I'm going to create the situation that's going to be the lowest possible energy expenditure that I can manage. So you just kind of assign roles to other people, right? Like, okay, you're my mother. So you're the mother archetype or you're my child. So you are the child archetype or you're a caregiver or you're a queen or, you know, you're whatever. And we do this unconsciously, completely. So that is a way that we can help to understand other people and the way they approach it. So my life has become just very infinitesimally more public since I started being on social media and talking about my work publicly. And I've gotten both of those reactions, right? Like people either absolutely love me or they troll me on the internet and they hate me. And both of those things are archetypal reactions because you don't know me, right? You don't know the full kind of complement of who I am as a human being. All you know is how whatever I said triggered some aspect of you psychologically. And that's fine. So if you love me and adore me, that's fine. But that belongs to the archetype. Like, I'm sure you've experienced this too. You're a podcaster. You have people that from the public that see what you do in your work. And if they react to you really strongly, they are reacting to the archetype that you have created. And I find that really comforting actually, because what that does for me, nothing bothers me and also nothing inflates me, right? So if I have too many people in a row tell me how brilliant I am, it could maybe get to me psychologically. And it does destroy lives when we see some celebrities that have fallen apart because of addiction or just like mental illness. That energy is really, really hard if you're sort of fragile.. But if you say, okay, that's not about me, that is about the archetype that I created in the minds of strangers, then you just move it over there. And I don't get my feelings hurt if someone insults me on the internet, because I know they don't know me. They're not even really talking to me. They're talking to whatever it is that they created in their minds as a result of whatever it is about my manner or what I have to say that is triggering something for them. So, so once we start looking at our relationships this way, a lot of things start to make sense. Right? So if you are in a struggle, you know, someone's behaving in a way that doesn't make sense to you, if you understand what archetype they're reacting to or what archetype you are reacting to, then you can get it. Like, okay, why does my mother always treat me like I'm 8 when I go home for Thanksgiving? Well, does she see you or does she see the child archetype? And if you're frustrated by that, I'm just going to use this as an example. If you're frustrated by that, by being treated that way, It would be helpful for you. It allows you to find some empathy for her and to ask her some questions like, what was it about? Like, if she treats you like you're 8, maybe there was something about you being 8 that was really special for her. That was her favorite time of your childhood, or that was the best time of her life. And she's trying to hold on to that. And maybe she doesn't want to let go of the power she has over you as the mother archetype. These archetypes have a lot of power. And so when you find people kind of trying to force you into that space, it's because these things are enormously energetically powerful. And we use them to manage and navigate our relationships with others, sometimes in kind of benign ways and sometimes in not so benign ways. So once we understand this, like you are more than the role that other people have put on you and they do it all the time and they're going to constantly do that. So, so one thing that I have to kind of navigate, I'm a 50-something blonde white woman, and there's this word Karen that gets associated with women like me. Right. So, so what does that mean? What does it mean to be the archetype of the Karen? Okay. Now that's something that, okay, I look like I could be a Karen. Okay. Cause I'm the right age and I'm the right race and I'm the right everything. So it helps me to understand no one's ever called me that. That's never happened to me once in my life, but it's something that exists for women like me. So what does that mean? How can we understand what that is? How can we navigate that? And that's true for anyone. If someone treats you a certain way because of your, any of your external characteristics, that your skin color or your gender, or your hair color or anything you want, your age, that is an archetypal response. And it gives you another path to understanding, to recognize how this works. And it gives you another path to a deeper relationship and a sense of intimacy. When you have people in your life that you do want to get closer with, you do want to go deeper with, to say, okay, I'm going to actively work now to get past the archetype. And even like in my most intimate relationships, I see this with my husband, with my two sons, like sometimes they do fall into archetypal energy, even though I know them well and they know me. Sometimes my sons need the mother archetype because it's big and heavy and powerful. And as they're trying to separate themselves psychologically from the family so they can become independent adults, hard thing to do. And sometimes you need something big and heavy to push against. And that helps me understand that when they're being jerks, which happens sometimes, that it's not really about me at all. It's about, I need the mother archetype to push against. And now my feelings aren't hurt anymore because I know what they need. And I say, okay, if you're being kind of rude, we're going to talk about it later. But right now in this moment, I understand what's happening. And I understand that for whatever reason, you need to feel separate from me. And I know how much you love me. And I know how good our relationship is, but I can recognize that I am willing to show up for you as this archetype in this moment. And we get to make those decisions, right? Like, I will be this for you, or Like, every so often somebody will be like, well, I met this guy and he told me on our first date that I remind him of my ex-wife. And okay, now you're an archetype right there. You are an archetype. Are you okay with that or are you not? You have to make that decision. So that's, that's what the other part of the book is about. Long Way Around is to talk about how those archetypes show up for us, what we can do about it, how we can deepen our relationships by an understanding of this kind of work.

So. Hmm. So talking about your book, where can we find you at? Where can we find your books and where can we find you at on social media?

Well, so if you search for either my name, Allison Stieger, or just the phrase Mythic Stories, you'll find me pretty easily all over the internet. Writings that I've done, classes that I have on offer, I have coaching available. The book is not out yet. It is coming very soon. But if you follow me on social or you go to mythicstories.com, you can get notified. I have a Substack. You can read more. I write there every week. And if you want to— there's so much more, obviously, that we couldn't cover in this interview that I want to share with you guys. So if you come to Substack, you can subscribe for free, and I will share with you the work as I am learning about it and as I'm going through it and all the wonderful things that I haven't had a chance to share here today. So find me on social, just Mythic Stories or Allison Steger. I am all over the place. I'm hard to miss.

Hey, Allison said she ain't hard to find. So, so Allison, let me ask you, in today's fast-paced world, how do you recommend people slow down and reconnect with storytelling and ancient wisdom?

OK, so, you know, one of the top things I love to tell people to do is just make it a priority to just go read a myth. You know, just maybe find the Odyssey, or— that can be a little bit intimidating for people because the language is sometimes kind of archaic. It seems like homework a little bit, or it seems like reading a hymn in church or something like that. And, you know, it's got that kind of tone to it. But, you know, just find whatever myth makes sense for you. Sometimes people like to choose myths that come out of whatever culture their family is from or not. You know, whatever it is that speaks to you and, you know, just give it a try and see it as a voice from the past trying to help you out and see what is in there for you. And your intuition will guide you into what lessons that myth has to offer you. And so that's, that can be a fantastic and low-key way to just try it out. And if you're not a big reader, just get it, you know, you can get it on audio for free just off the internet. Most of them, because they're so old. I mean, they're not under copyright protection anymore. So So just, you know, I would say put The Odyssey on or put one of the Norse myths on or an Aboriginal myth or Chinese myth or whatever you want and just go for a walk and like let it into your brain, let it move its way through your body and see what it has to teach you. And that's for me, just a really fantastic starting point for how to find a way to engage with myths. You know, and you can find me and I'll help you. And I would also mention too, that if anyone wants to talk to me personally, there is a way to do this on my website. You can sign up for a free 30-minute conversation. And what I try to do in those conversations is just whatever the problem is that they're having, to try to give them a little bit of guidance and a little bit of a few things to try to, to try to help figure that out. And, you know, and again, there's coaching and all that kind of stuff available as well. But so if you want to talk to me personally, that is an option. But also just, you know, try looking at a myth if you haven't in a while. I think most people haven't read one since they were in middle school maybe. And, you know, they have a lot to offer.

Yeah, so if you want to talk to Allison, and like she said before, she's not hard to find. So Allison, I only have one more question for you, then I got this quickfire round that I've been playing on the CJ Moneyway Show. I'm going to ask you one question. I'm gonna ask you a question, you give me the first thing that comes to your mind.

But no problem.

Before I get there, how can people start reshaping their life story today?

Well, one of the first things I often encourage people to do is whatever your situation is, there's— if you've got a story in your life that you want to figure out a better path into it. So the first thing that I sometimes have people do, like in a workshop or something, is just write it down or tell it, you know, like we're doing voice recording or something, or draw it, whatever you feel comfortable with, whatever you feel the most comfortable with. Just write it out the way you would tell it to your friend or whatever, and then do it again but write it as if it was a myth itself. Like pretend like you are writing a myth. Tell your story as if it was a myth. And the purpose of this, the reason that this works, I think, is because when you tell your story as if it was a myth, you create a little bit of psychological distance from it. So now your story's over here. It's the story of this hero who went and did this. And what it does is it gives your unconscious mind a chance to show you parts of it that you haven't really seen before. And it gives you a way to kind of walk around the outside of the story and see it from angles that you may not have had before. And that can be really insightful, you know. And, and another thing that I like to try too, and this is actually something that Carl Jung mentioned in his work, if you like to write, don't write. If you feel uncomfortable with drawing, then that's what you should do, because doing the thing that gives you a little bit of discomfort is going to crack open access from the unconscious mind to show you things. So there's something about doing something that's a little bit uncomfortable that allows insights to come through. So I love to write. I write every day, so it's just too familiar. So if I really want to get at something, I draw it, because I've decided when I was like 6 that I was a bad drawer and I never did it. So it's scary for me, but sometimes things come out that way and you can't really predict it. But yeah, I think the unconscious mind is a lot more powerful than people really understand. And it'll just give it ways to get a message through. And another time to do that is right when you wake up or right before you go to sleep, like set an intention of something that you want to ask yourself before you go to sleep. And that kind of creates a more porous environment between you and your unconscious mind. And often you'll have an answer when you wake up. Those are a few things you can try. Yeah.

That's a great myth right there. You had an answer when you wake up. I'm gonna have to try that one, Allison. So Allison, are you ready for this quickfire round?

You bet.

All right. Favorite myth or legend?

That's a really hard one, but I would say the one that I go back to again and again is the myth of Ariadne from Greece. She was the daughter of King Minos of Crete, and she had an incredible story. She helped Theseus defeat the Minotaur and then escaped, and then he abandoned her, and then she ends up marrying Dionysus. It's this crazy, wonderful story. It's got so many layers and elements to it that are fascinating, but it's got a lot of psychological wisdom in it as well. So that's one of my favorites, and I go back to it again and again. But my tendency is to choose myths about women that are kind of up to no good. Usually what that means is they've got something interesting going on, and, and I like to look under the surface of that. So, so that's certainly one of those.

I like that, looking under the surface of women that's up to no good. One word to describe the hero's journey?

Exciteful.

Exciteful. Yes, it sounds exciteful. Most inspiring hero, real or mythological?

Oh, well, okay. So, all right, so I'm gonna go back to those naughty women again. One of my favorite characters from mythology is a woman named Medea, and she had a similar story to Ariadne. She was married to Jason, Jason and the Argonauts fame, and she became famous for murdering her children. Now you would not think that this is someone to be inspired by, but there's a lot more to that story than got remembered. And she actually, one thing that gets forgot about her story is that she was a witch and she had a spell that would allow her children to come back to life. And she basically just did it to get back at her husband after he divorced her. And her story is so inspiring to me because she really did live life on her own terms in a time in which that was very difficult for women. She was both a woman and a foreigner. She was an immigrant to her— to Jason's country, and she was not treated very well as a result of that. And she still managed to— in fact, the Theseus that I mentioned from the Ariadne story, she was his stepmother, and she really got around, and she had some adventures, and she did not take any guff from anyone. And I have a lot of admiration for that. So I think she's my favorite.

Yeah, that's crazy. You do like interesting women. That's up. To no good. And so besides that one and the one you spoke about earlier, book that changed your life?

Well, I mean, I've already talked about Campbell, so I'm not going to mention him, but there's this wonderful book that came out just as I was getting into this work. It's called Women Who Run with the Wolves, and it's by a Jungian psychologist named Clarissa Pinkola Estés. It came out in the early '90s, and she tells a lot of fairy tales and myths and then shows us the psychological underpinnings of those stories. And for me, it was a really cool way to start to understand some of these concepts and understand how they make sense for us psychologically. And so I hope that my book will be a book that is like that for other people that read it too. So that's my hope. Of course, we'll see if I can pull it off. But it's a fantastic, very, really insightful book that a lot of people read over and over throughout their lives, keep it on their nightstand, that kind of thing. So, and it's certainly been that for me.

Yeah, I understand what you're saying. You want to have that book where people have it on their nightstand, or they go to book. Hey, check out Allison Unstuck: Finding and Following Your Path Through Historic Journey. You can find it anywhere. You can find it on Amazon, Barnes Noble, or wherever you get your favorite books from. Grab Allison's book and keep it on your nightstand. Okay, last question, Allison. Advice you would give your younger self starting your own life story?

I think I would just tell myself that it's going to be okay and that everything that made me so strange and weird that I thought and unpalatable to other people that I thought was the case when I was young were actually kind of superpowers. And, you know, sometimes being weird is what makes you cool. This is a little bit of a niche thing, but you just got to find your people, right? You find the people that love what you love and you're going to have a great community around you. And sometimes your community is not who you think it's going to be at the beginning.. And finding that is really important. And that was what I was able to do, and I'm very grateful that I was able to do that. Wasn't who I thought it was going to be at the beginning.

I like that. Allison said, uh, I'm trying to think how I put it. She said, it's not crazy to be a little weird. Sometimes it can be a good thing.

So, Allison, interesting ones.

So, Allison, I thank you for joining us on the CJ Moneyway Johnson Show today. Remember, your life is your story. You have the power to craft it, shape it, and live it with courage. This is CJ Moneyway, a long G out of state's capital, and CJ Moneyway Entertainment reminding you to write your own legend. Until next time, keep planting seeds and shaping your journey. It's your boy CJ Moneyway with Allison the Myth Reader. Hey, We out of here. Peace.

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