What Happens When Men Ignore the Hero's Journey? Finding Purpose Through Masculine Transformation

Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey is one of the most powerful frameworks for understanding masculine transformation, purpose, and personal growth. Yet many men ignore the call to adventure because of fear, comfort, and uncertainty, remaining stuck in patterns that lead to emotional repression, anger, addiction, and a lack of purpose.

In this episode of The Alchemy of Masculinity, I explore why the Hero's Journey is essential for men's mental, emotional, and spiritual development. We discuss masculine psychology, shadow work, sexual energy, and the symbolic process of death and rebirth that every man must face to become who he is meant to be.

You'll learn why avoiding discomfort keeps men trapped, how suppressed masculine energy turns into rage and self-destructive behavior, and how consciously directing that inner fire creates purpose, confidence, and authentic masculinity.

In this episode:

•  Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey explained 
•  Why men avoid the call to adventure 
•  Masculine psychology and personal growth 
•  Emotional repression, anger, and addiction in men 
•  Shadow work and masculine transformation 
•  Purpose, meaning, and self-realization 
•  Sexual energy, creative energy, and inner fire 
•  Kundalini symbolism, chakras, and spiritual awakening 
•  The psychology behind slaying the dragon 
•  How embracing uncertainty leads to growth 

If you've been feeling stuck, disconnected from your purpose, or unsure of your next step, this episode will help you understand why, and what the Hero's Journey asks of every man.

Transcript

Refusing The Call What happens when the hero doesn't answer the call? Most of us know about Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey, this life cycle that the soul has to basically move through in order to experience some form of spiritual death and rebirth. There's a coming, a returning, a meeting with the goddess, atonement with the father, all these different milestones upon this journey that actually do challenge us and ask us to go beyond ourselves. This is a call that each and every one of us does hear in this lifetime. We often see it in mythology, in movies, in stories, in folktales, but this is actually a timeless pattern that exists within the human psyche. All of us, in some way, shape, or form, are on a hero or heroine's journey. But what happens when we don't answer the call? Because that is how the hero's journey starts. We hear the call and in not knowing what is going to happen, we are asked to answer that call. Podcast Welcome Setup Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Alchemy of Masculinity podcast. I'm your host, Ioannis Kokkinos. Thank you for being here today. So last week, I talked about the name change of my podcast, speaking specifically to the symbolism of fire, the alchemy of fire, the alchemical fire. And I touched upon a little bit on the hero's journey, because the hero's journey is a journey of transformation. But more so than anything, it is a journey of our own soul moving through an energetic death and rebirth when it decides to answer a certain calling, and this also speaks to a certain fulfillment of purpose in our lifetime. So today's episode is about what that can look and feel like when man does not answer this call. This episode will be geared towards men. So if you are a woman listening, please apply everything that I am saying to your own masculine polarity, because whether we're man or woman, when we move through the hero's journey and we go out into the unknown, that does speak to the masculine polarity. That speaks to the atonement with the father, which is the symbolic father, the great father that exists outside us, within us, and it's the leaving of the home, which is the symbolic mother. How The Call Appears So most of us, when we do think of the hero's journey, we think of myths, we think of stories and folktales because this is what makes these stories so great is that transformation and that ordeal that the hero faces in order to retrieve, reclaim, remember, and ultimately gain something that they did not have before. Now, of course, we can apply this to our own daily lives. Normally, it will start with a certain feeling, a certain sense of something is wrong with the daily life, right? We're tired of maybe the nine to five we're working. We feel like we can do more, we can offer more. We are tired of maybe the degree that we are studying. We think that this is something that we have to do because of what the system has imposed upon us. Um, it starts with a feeling. It starts with maybe there's something more, maybe there's something I need to feel more. Maybe there's something I need to realize more. That's how it starts. And the more awareness we start to give to that feeling, the more it will grow, and then the messages will become more specific and clear as to what it is we have to do. Ninety-nine percent of the time, travel will be involved because it does speak to leaving the familiar. And the familiar not only involves our physical home, but it also involves the city we live in, the town, the neighborhood, the friends we have, the communities. It doesn't mean that any of this is bad. It doesn't mean the familiar is bad. It doesn't mean that the home we grew up in is bad, or that the friends we have are not good for us. It just speaks to growth and evolution. And the reason we incarnate into this lifetime is for the sole purpose of growth and evolution. Security Versus Soul So what happens when we don't answer the call? Because this is what I wanna talk about today, and especially from the perspective of man, and I will bring fire into the conversation because in order to move via that spiritual death and rebirth, as I talked about last week, is to face our inner fire. So a lot of men, I believe, in this day and age, because we're not in myth, we're not in stories, we're not in folktales, this is very much real life, and we do need to survive. We need to pay bills, we need to eat food, we need to pay for our rent and all that, right? So Even when we're called to go somewhere, let's say to drop everything and to travel, it's different for everybody. Every single person's hero's journey is different, but it does speak to the same pattern of leaving the familiar, going into the unknown, moving through challenge and adversity there, finding tribe, finding allies, but ultimately self-realization is the name of the game. And the return, the return to the familiar and comfortable in order to share the new knowledge, in order to share the newfound understanding and insight. So by avoiding this entire journey, by not answering the call for the modern-day man who is attached to the familiar, to the safe, to the comfortable, because we do need security. It goes without saying that we need security, but letting go and taking the leap Can feel extremely non-secure and very scary to do so. Because we need to know as our egos are constantly reminding us that we need to know what is going on, but this is not the journey of the ego. This is the journey of the soul, and the soul is here to move through strife, is to endure through challenge, because that is how the soul transforms. Remember, soul also means butterfly, as I talked about in some episodes back, because the soul is the psyche in ancient Greek, and psyche also meant butterfly. The butterfly goes through a metamorphosis, and it wasn't always a butterfly. That chrysalis stage, right, the transition between caterpillar and butterfly is extremely crucial, and it does speak to the death of the caterpillar and the birth of the butterfly simultaneously, and that is exactly what our soul is here to experience. Chakras And Inner Fire So when we deny this transformation, we deny the inner fire, and when man denies his inner fire, this is how that fire stays in the lower centers, the lower chakras of the human body. I talked about the chakras in last week's episode. I talked about them in many episodes. But it goes without saying that this fire does need to be raised, and we can see this ascension of the fire moving up the spine, moving up the energy centers as a hero's journey in itself. Because every single chakra is an energy center in the human body, and the lower the chakras, the more animalistic they are, the more this speaks to primal expression of our humanity. The higher the chakras are and the higher the energy reaches as we move the fire, the more spiritual or the more energetic, the more light the energy is, and I'm not talking about light and dark. I'm talking about lightness and density. I'm talking about density because we are very dense down here in the lower centers. The vibration is low, but that does need to be the reality of the vibration of the energy because that is what holds, right? So we need dense energy, just how the Earth is dense, right? The Earth is very dense. It's heavy. The Earth holds everything. So that is why our root chakra, our base chakra, is associated with the Earth element. But from there is where the fire serpent, the fire Kundalini Shakti raises from. And what happens is when we are moving through the hero's journey, when we are going out into the unknown and we self-realize, which ultimately is the realization that God is within us or that we are connected to the universe, that we are not separate from God, we are not separate from the universe, we reach nirvana, which translates to the fire going out because the fire has been raised. It doesn't mean you need to be doing chakra work as you are out there moving through the unknown, but it is symbolic because if, let's say, we are doing chakra work and we are raising the fire up the energy centers, This fire ultimately must purify us, not in the sense that we were contaminated or bad or tainted or anything like that, but it's the fire of truth, which I talked about last week. There's the fire of love and there's the fire of truth, and we are here to discover truth, and that is what the hero's journey permits us to do, is to discover our truth, as does this inner fire. So when we don't answer the call, when we wanna stay in the familiar and in the safe and in the comfortable, that will also permit the fire to not be raised. And every man has a responsibility and a need, a spiritual need, to raise this fire in order to transform through this fire. Because that fire, if it stays in the lower centers, if that fire is not used to move out into the unknown will stay stuck as suppressed rage, suppressed anger, suppressed grief, sexual perversions. The fire is our sexual energy at the end of the day. The fire is our creative energy, and we need to use that sexual creative energy in order to create truth. But that truth is ultimately a remembrance. It's to create love. That love is ultimately a remembrance. We have come here, we've incarnated into the physical, and we've forgotten truth. We've forgotten love in respect to source. Sure, we love each other, sure we have families and friends and we feel love. We say, "I love you," and we feel love. But the love we are ultimately here to feel and remember is the love of God, is the love of spirit, is the love of source. And this all begins with the fire, the sexual fire, which is the creative fire. So man resisting this adventure, man resisting the hero's journey can lead to emotional, mental, spiritual, and sexual complications. When we say the hero's journey for modern day man, it doesn't mean to go out there and slay a dragon. That is symbolic. To slay the dragon means to master your sexual energy, is to master your sexual fire, and this does not speak solely to sex. It speaks to creation, for man to be a creative being, and that is how man can fully step to his authentic self into his vitalized self, his motivated self, his courageous self. Fear Courage And Mastery It's fear that's going to stop man from going out onto the hero's journey. It's fear because it's the unknown, and fear is the first thing that knocks on our doors, the first emotion that knocks on our door when we are about to step into the unknown. But fear catalyzes courage, and courage is very fiery. Courage is very feisty. Courage is a wild beast. Courage is the roar that we need in order to face that fear. So when we are giving into fear, we are negating the courage. We are negating that fiery roar we need in order to stand up to that fear, and that is how the fire stays in the lower centers That is how the fire controls man. Man cannot be a servant to his own fire. The fire must come into service toward man because it's his energy. It's his sexual energy that also has to become creative energy that ultimately has to become spiritual energy. So that is alchemical in nature. Shiva Shakti Containment And you know how I said last week that masculine energy is symbolized by fire? In the alchemical tradition, It is an upright triangle that symbolizes fire. In the Hindu tantric tradition, Shiva's symbol is an upright triangle as well, which symbolizes the lingam, which is the male sex organ. But in the Hindu tantric tradition, we know that Shiva must unite with Shakti, because Shakti is that fire we must raise up our energetic centers or chakras, and it's about the containment of the fire. Because Shakti without Shiva is chaos. Shakti without Shiva is like dancing without having a dance floor to dance on, right? We need that container. We need that solidity. We need that anchor. We need that space for the dance or the fire to do its thing, and that is man's ultimate mission when it comes to the hero's journey. And this speaks to the hero's journey within ourself. But that will happen as we move through the great unknown. Because when we are moving through the great unknown, we will be tested, and we will be asked to move through death and rebirth, and it is the fire, the inner fire, that will activate all of that, that will catalyze all of that. Immature Masculinity And Misuse Of Fire So this episode was actually inspired by a amazing conversation I had with one of my dear, dear friends who put on a play in 2012, and I got to play this character, Ares, who was the mayor's son in a Greek village and was pulling toddler tantrums, was extremely enraged, very much about the misuse and abuse of that inner fire that had no outlet, no containment, no witnessing. It was a very interesting character to play, especially during that time in my life, because I had just recovered from my knee injury and I started doing all my inner work, And it's interesting to look back all these years later realizing that why that character was so angry and enraged and acting like a spoiled little prince was because he had not gone through his own hero's journey. He was born in a village, raised in a village. He was the mayor's son, which meant that he had to be constantly on, very proper behavior. It was all about the way the village perceived him, all about how his father perceived him. He had not individuated. He had not left the village in order to use that fire because he had a lot of fire, and it wasn't bad. The fire is not bad. It's just we need to learn what to do with it as men, especially. And throughout the story, and I was talking with my friend the other day, and we were, like, talking about how we both realized how integral it is for man to go on this journey in order to eventually fall in love even because he was the main antagonist of the play. And the reasons we gave or my friend who wrote the play, why he was so angry is because he wanted to steal the protagonist's girl from him 'cause he was the g- the main guy. But the girl had feelings for the protagonist, and Ares was trying to do whatever he could in order to separate them so he can basically steal the girl away from him. But the main difference between the protagonist and Ares was that the protagonist had left the village. He had traveled to other Greek islands in order to learn Greek folk music, so that was his own hero's journey, and then he returned with new knowledge, new insight, and that is actually who gets the girl because the man has individuated. He has come into his own, and it's only when man can come into his own that he can come into union with his lover. Individuation And Love We even see this in the hero's journey. We see the meeting with the goddess as one of the milestones when the hero is out into the unknown. There is a meeting with a feminine energy, with a feminine nature, but that is not the end of the story. That's actually usually the halfway point of the hero's journey because the hero meets the goddess in order to realize, yes, there's a love that's outside of him, but ultimately she reflects the love that exists within him. Because to truly move through self-realization is to integrate the masculine and the feminine from within. So it makes sense that the meeting of the goddess is not the end of the story, right? We're taught that we have to fall in love, meet a partner, settle down, and that is how man becomes man. Maybe. Maybe that's someone's hero's journey in itself in his version, or maybe man has undergone through a death and rebirth and has ended up with his lover, woman, feminine energy in his life. But we have to individuate. We have to individuate as human beings before we can come into union. We have to know who we are as a single entity first in order to come into union with someone else, and this is especially significant for man, for man cultivating his masculine polarity, because the masculine polarity is the one, is the singular. It's the feminine polarity that speaks to the two, which brings the single entities together. It's the feminine energy that brings everything together. So the female protagonist choosing the man in the play that went on the hero's journey is very sound. But back then, she didn't name it like that, and I hadn't understood it like that either because I hadn't gone on my hero's journey yet, and my friend had not understood that journey of the masculine that needs to happen through his own trial by fire. It is quite symbolic that his name was Ares because Ari was the god of war and aggression in ancient Greek mythology. So we see this character filled with fire that is very powerful. He was a very powerful character, but that fire was very misplaced. There was no witnessing, there was no containment, there was no love because that character did not leave the village, and the village here is a symbol for the familiar, safe, and comfortable. Purpose Polarity Closing So basically that is what happens when man ignores the call, when man does not move through a hero's journey. And this is one pattern that exists in many, many, many different shapes and forms. So it will look different for every single man when it comes to the hero's journey and what the call is, because that call is directly linked to your purpose in this lifetime. It's directly linked to what we have to do in this lifetime, how we are to come into service in this lifetime, and that is the masculine polarity. The masculine polarity is truth, will, and purpose, and it has to be infused with love, with care, with service, which comes through with the feminine polarity. Outro And Ways To Connect So I'll leave it here. I think that's enough food for thought. I wanna also give a very special shout-out to my dear friend which led to an amazing blast from the past, and the inspiration for this episode. For the rest of you listening, I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you're on YouTube, please hit that like, subscribe, engage in any way. I'd love to hear from you if you've gone through your own hero's journey, if you are thinking about going on a journey, if you have a certain call that you know that you need to answer, let me down below in the comments. For those of you on the podcast platforms, I'd love to hear from you as well. You can send me a message. If you're enjoying the podcast, if you're enjoying the episodes, please rate them. That will also really help me out, as well as leave some reviews. If you are a man and want to work with me one-on-one, I do have my website, templeoffire.carrd.co. That's all in the description and episode footer. You can book a discovery call to see if we're a right fit, to see how we can work together. Everything I bring to the space is up for grabs as to how we can collaborate. Uh, right now for social media, I'm on Threads, I'm on Instagram with my full name as my handle. I'd love to see you over there as well. I'm quite expressive there as far as all these themes and topics are concerned, and you get to know me more on a personal level if you'd like that as well so consider giving me a follow. I will be back next week, of course, with a brand new episode here every Thursday on the Alchemy of Masculinity podcast. And in closing, please remember that you are the medicine and I'm just the messenger. Thank you very much.