🌀 What if the path you’re on isn’t yours?
And what if the one that is… starts here?
When I first heard the term “the heroine’s journey”, something in me exhaled.
Not because I fully understood it — but because it named a pattern I had lived, over and over again, without realising it.
For many years, I walked a familiar path:
✅ A successful career in a high-performing, masculine culture
✅ A full family life, with all the juggling and striving that came with it
✅ A reputation as someone who “had it all together” — always capable, always delivering
And yet, underneath it all, a quiet ache. A question I didn’t want to answer:
Is this it?
I remember one moment in particular — during my coach training — where my coach asked me a question I’ll never forget:
“What do you, as a woman, want to contribute to the world?”
I paused.
Not just because I had no idea. But also because of that word: “woman.”
It felt… distant. Uncomfortable.
I had no problem identifying with ‘girl’ — the curious, ambitious one who worked hard and made people proud, the doer, the one always trying to prove she was “big enough” to know, to lead, to succeed. But “woman” felt… foreign. Heavy.
It felt ‘charged’ - stirring up emotions I didn’t expect (sadness and fear), and a resistance I didn’t understand.
I didn’t know it yet, but that word would become the doorway into one of the most profound awakenings of my life. And that moment marked the beginning of a long and winding return to myself.
🌿 The Heroine’s Journey
When I found Maureen Murdock’s Heroine’s Journey, something clicked.
Here was a story I recognised. Because I had lived it.
It’s the journey many women are unconsciously walking:
The pursuit of achievement, often by rejecting the feminine
The burnout, emptiness or inner split that follows
The longing to reconnect to intuition, rest, softness, sensuality
And ultimately, the return — not as we were, but more whole
This is the story behind the story. The deeper arc beneath your over-achievement, your exhaustion, your questioning.
Her work emerged as a response to Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey — the classic mythological arc of leaving home, facing trials, and returning transformed. But when Murdock asked Campbell where women fit into that story, his response was disheartening:
“Women don’t need to make the journey. They are already there.”
But most modern women — as Murdock points out — do not want to be Penelope, endlessly weaving and unweaving while waiting for Ulysses to return.
In a culture that devalues the feminine and sees women as weak, irrational, or less than, many of us internalised that message. So we opted for the masculine path — the one that promised power and success. We distanced ourselves from the softness, intuition, receptivity, and relational nature of the feminine, and embraced logic, achievement, and control.
And many of us succeeded. We earned the degrees, built the glowing careers, raised the families. We ticked all the boxes.
And yet, at some point — often around midlife — something starts to ache.
A strange emptiness. A longing. Not for more success — but for something deeper.
The feminine begins to call us back — not to become who we were, but to become whole.
And often when that longing arises, we fear we’re falling apart.
But in truth, we’re waking up.
💫 Where are you in your journey?
You don’t have to have it all figured out.
In fact, that’s usually the first sign you’re on this path: you stop pretending you do.
Maybe you’ve left something recently — a job, a marriage, a version of yourself that no longer fits.
Maybe you’re tired of chasing things you don’t even want.
Maybe you’re aching for reconnection — to your creativity, your energy, your joy.
Maybe you’re circling something sacred, but haven’t named it yet.
This is the heroine’s journey. And it begins with a pause. A question. A whisper.
✨ This is the map I wish I’d had
And it’s the map I want to share with you.
On Friday 23rd May, I’ll be hosting the very first Replenish & Rise Transformation Workshop:
🌀 Awakening the Heroine Within
A 90-minute immersive space to explore where you are on your own inner journey — and how to move forward with compassion, clarity, and courage.
We’ll meet the stages of the journey, name where we’ve been, and begin to reclaim what has been left behind.
💛 This is for you if:
You feel like you’ve lost yourself in the doing, the achieving, or the giving
You’ve been circling a shift — one you can’t fully explain, but feel deeply
You long for more than just rest — you long for reconnection
You want to lead from the whole of who you are — feminine and masculine, wild and wise
🔔 How to join:
🗓️ Date: Friday 23 May
🕤 Time: 9:30am–11am (UK time)
📍 Where: Live on Zoom (replay available to members)
🎟️ Access:
Free for Replenish & Rise members
£20 drop-in for non-members → [Ticket link here]
Not yet a member? Join here or click below.
If you’ve felt like there’s a part of you that’s been waiting — quietly, patiently, maybe even sadly — for you to come home to yourself…
This is the invitation.
Come awaken her.
She’s already inside you.
With love and gratitude,
Nathalie 💫🌱
