The Ego and the Hero’s Journey “The ultimate dragon is within you, it is your ego clamping you down.”---- Joseph Campbell Establishing a healthy Ego is the prerequisite for taking the Hero’s Journey safely. The developed Ego helps us meet our needs for survival, satisfaction, safety, love and belongingness. It also contributes to our self-esteem, self-actualization and even transcendence. It balances our individual needs with the needs of others and in that way contributes to the survival and development of the individual, the family, the community, the nation and the species. Ego is born when we begin to learn that what we do can affect what happens to us. No matter how old, wise or mature we become, each of us has a vulnerable little child within us who still bears the scars of our formative years. The Ego’s first task is to protect that inner child. The Ego’s next task, and it’s basic function is to mediate our relationship with the outside world. It is the experience of some hardship or difficulty that is critical to the development of Ego strength. The period of preparation for our Hero’s Journey often seems hard, but that is because we don’t yet possess the skills that can make life easier. Preparation for the journey requires each of us to be socialized adequately to be effective in the society we live in, and then to separate from the collective view of the world enough to assert independent values, opinions and desires. It then demands that we use this capacity for autonomy and independence, not for selfish ends, even though we want to seek our own good, but for the good of the whole as well.

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