Main Character Energy
On being the hero in your own story, the power of words, and the importance of the hero's journey
About a month ago, someone who knows me well said, “Emma, you’re not even the main character in your own story. You’re barely a background character! You take a backseat to everyone else in your life and their opinions. What they think and say, or what you think they think about you, dominates all of your thoughts. Be the main character – the hero – in your own life.”
It hit me like a ton of bricks because he was right, and I knew it.
Many years ago, I heard someone named Graham Cooke talk about a young woman who was barely a background character in her own movie, and so he sent her letters to encourage her, to tell her who she is (Wonderful. Beautiful. Talented. Worthy.), to validate her in her own eyes and show her her own worth. I always thought it was such a sad (and ultimately sweet) story – but to realize I had become just like her? Me, a storyteller! I knew what I had to do.
I immediately set about clearing those thoughts of my head. Every time a thought came up of what someone else might think, I cast it out. No, I’m not thinking that. Especially if it was a lie about who I am or a shot against my character. There was no room for that in my mind anymore. If it wasn’t my own original thought that supported me being the hero of my own story, it had to go.
Instead, I focused on the joy of every task I did, and I thought of cooking, writing, and creating Kitty and Corgi, all as main character energy items. I turned up the music. I danced. I prayed life into myself. I told myself how beautiful, important, talented, worthy, and successful I am. I counted the good things I have done, accomplished, and am doing. Instead of looking at where my life was lacking, I looked at how rich and full my life is. I held my head tall; I made a point to smile more – including smiling to myself while cooking and smiling at myself in the mirror! I even happened upon a mug that has “Main Character Energy” written across it (quite by accident! I wasn’t searching for it, but I took it as a sign and promptly purchased it), and now I drink out of it every day. It’s a reminder every time I see it.
And guess what? My energy changed. My joy returned. I don’t focus on everyone else or worry about what they 'might think’ of me. I focus on pouring myself out into other people so that they, too, can become the main characters in their own stories.
This quote by George Bernard Shaw informed everything about what I should be as the main character, the hero, of my own story:
“This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”
That quote lit a fire in my heart when I heard it.
And this morning? A memory struck me. I remembered that a ‘friend’ once told me that someone else may be the villain in my story but that I was the villain in someone else’s. It devastated me to hear a friend say it. The way she said it felt damning. And for years after, anytime something went wrong, anytime some miserable person who just needed a whipping boy, or to throw someone under the bus, or falsely accused me of something, I shrunk down and believed that I was, indeed, the villain. I carried all of that fault with me. Was it my fault? Was I in the wrong? And even if I had done nothing wrong, I shouldered the guilt and shame. And the burden grew heavier and heavier and heavier…
What I learned from all of this is twofold:
One, you are worthy, and you need to speak life into your own story. Be the hero in your own story, and don’t call yourself the villain. The moment you call yourself the villain or the anti-hero or say, “Hi, I’m the problem, it’s me” (to quote several Taylor Swift songs) or ‘‘I’m the bad guy,” you damn your own thoughts, behavior, and attitude. Say it too long, and you’ll believe it - and you’ll have difficulty believing you could be the hero. In fact, you’ll have difficulty believing you’re anything but the villain.
And two, you never know the impact of the words you speak, no matter how flippantly you may toss your words into the air. Call someone the villain, the bad guy, a loser, a failure, the evil stepmother, and it will stick in their soul like a fiery dart. It may take years, but that wound will fester, and the person may eventually become a shadow of their former self.
If you relate to any (or all) of this, if you’re calling yourself a victim, a villain, a failure, or anything negative, this is for you. Each time you feel compelled to call yourself one of those words or names, stop yourself and tell yourself (out loud), No, that’s a lie. I am the hero of my own story; I have that main character energy; I am successful; I am [whatever you need to hear - the countering truth to that lie].
This is so true not only of the thoughts in our heads but also of the stories we read and the stories our children read. I am a huge proponent of hero’s journey stories. Why? Because the hero begins as an ordinary person in an ordinary world, and there is a call to action that takes them out of their ordinary world and out into some extraordinary circumstances outside of their comfort zone. On their journey, there are temptations, traps, trials, and tempests, and other obstacles must overcome these things. They will fail along the way, they’ll question themselves, but ultimately, they’ll pick themselves up and choose to overcome those obstacles. That is their journey! Without the trials, temptations, and choosing to accept their call, they cannot be transformed and changed into the hero they’re meant to become.
*(A little graphic for those of you unfamiliar with the Hero’s Journey)
That kind of story puts courage into our hearts at every age. We want to see the hero succeed! So if you program your own mindset, and your children’s mindset with those hero stories, towards success, towards being an overcomer rather than a victim, then you’ll find a propensity towards being a hero rather than a victim.
For those of you wondering why trials and tribulations keep recurring, the answer is simple. It was but one book in your saga called life. Harry Potter had 7 books; each time, he went through the entire cycle of the hero’s journey, and each time, he ended his journey transformed: wiser, stronger, more knowledgeable, and braver than before. Luke Skywalker went through multiple stories in his saga. Percy Jackson also endured 7 written works. And if you think of it in terms of written stories, you’re only seeing the cycles that have been written down!
Each of us is somewhere in the hero’s journey cycle. The question is where in that cycle, and also whether or not you’ve chosen to accept the call to action — and if you will learn from the trials and tribulations or if you’ll keep repeating the same tasks over and over again. If you keep going through the same ordeals, then, most likely, you haven’t learned what you were meant to learn from the trials in your journey.
When we read these hero’s journey stories regularly, we begin to recognize and relate those herculean obstacles to events in our own lives. Hence, the importance of reading those stories and relating to the main character :)
Here's to many more hero stories – and being the hero of your OWN story.
Love,
Emma
P.S.! Kitty and Corgi stickers for iMessage, WhatsApp, and LINE are finally here! Click the links below: