The Hero's Journey

How To Embark On Your Own Journey As A Tool To Get What You Want

By Joshua Wayne, MA
(PEERtrainer note: at the end of this article is a link to a thread where we can all share our thoughts and responses to this article and idea. We get a lot of email from you all and a lot of them need to be shared with everyone. So please write down your thoughts on the thread!!)


Breaking Through The Weight Loss Glass Ceiling

I was traveling recently and had a couple hour layover in the Charlotte, NC airport.  Usually I do two things when I’m in an airport with time to spend waiting for a plane: eat some kind of Mexican food (it’s the usually the most reliably healthy option- you can’t go too wrong with black beans, salsa and fresh guacamole) and thumb through a bunch of magazines.  I’d like to say I’m the kind of a person who only reads magazines of taste and substance- but you wouldn’t likely completely buy that, would you?  For good reason- it wouldn’t be exactly true.  Before I get around to the likes of “Harpers” and “The Economist”, I’ve first gotten my fill of Sports Illustrated, Maxim and Rolling Stone.

I must have gotten caught up on A-Rod’s latest blood test results, the 8 must-do exercises for rock hard abs, and a review of Bob Dylan’s new album, because I found myself reading an interesting article in “Newsweek” (or was it “The Atlantic Monthly”- don’t remember) about the “glass ceiling” in American corporations.  It was talking about how in spite of Barack Obama’s election to office, many minorities and women still perceive that there is a very real glass ceiling in their companies that typically doesn’t allow them to rise above middle management positions.

It really got me thinking about the weight loss struggle that most of us go through, and how in many ways we bump into a “glass ceiling” as well- only this one is entirely of our own creation.  We usually know it too, but we still can’t figure out how to break through it.  We keep bumping our heads on this imaginary ceiling.

It’s like we keep getting snagged- like when you’re walking through a doorway and your shirt or jacket pocket gets snagged on the door handle (don’t you hate that?) and you get unpleasantly jerked back.  Only when it comes to weight loss, we get jerked back to the place where we began- and it leaves us feeling very frustrated and stuck. 

So how can we break through that glass ceiling once and for all?  How can we shatter it to tiny, miniscule, meaningless pieces- and even get to the point where we realize it was in our minds the whole time?  In other words, how can we break through out own barriers to finally have the results and happiness we desire?

What I’d like you to contemplate for a moment is that the way you’re going to break through this glass ceiling is by finding the “Hero Within”.  Not exactly the answer you were expecting?  Let me explain.

There was a great mythologist named Joseph Campbell who studied literally thousands and thousands of myths and great stories from all over the world.  (His work was one of the primary influences of George Lucas and Star Wars.)

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Joshua Wayne is a Personal Development Coach and Trainer who focuses on weight loss, fitness and optimal mind/body health.  He is the co-creator (with PEERtrainer co-founder Jackie Wicks) of the “Point of No Return” training program that helps people adopt the thinking and behaviors necessary to finally get “un-stuck” and overcome frustration and hopelessness in their weight loss efforts.