We are officially on the journey.
Entering the Dark Forest represents all of our subconscious fears, patterns, and protective behaviors that try to keep us from stepping into the light. It is a place of “not knowing,” but it is also a place of immense potential. If there were no leap of faith required, you wouldn’t be able to tap into your inner resources of courage and resilience.
However, as you navigate this “Enchanted Wood,” you are bound to run into a few monsters. The first one? Medusa.
🎧 Listen to Episode 4
To hear the deep dive on the Medusa Conundrum and how to activate your “Animal” instincts to unfreeze your progress, hit play below.
Want the highlights or the deep dive? The key takeaways are below, and if you keep scrolling you’ll find the full transcript.
The Peril of Medusa: Why We Freeze
In mythology, anyone who looked Medusa in the eye turned to stone. In your quest, Medusa represents Overwhelm. When we embark on a new adventure, we create a vision and start listing everything required to achieve it. When we stare that entire list in the face, we freeze. We feel we don’t have the time, the money, or the energy, and we turn to stone.
The key to beating Medusa is to stop looking Point Z in the eye. You achieve everything in life one step at a time.
Masculine vs. Feminine: The Energy of Action
We often get frozen because we are coming at things from a purely “unhealthy masculine” point of view. This is the energy of “strong-arming,” “go-go-go,” and the belief that there is only one way to succeed.
Feminine Energy is the antidote. It is about receptivity and flexibility. It trusts that the answers will come if we are present and ask for them. We need a balance: the feminine to be open to wiser ways of tackling problems, and the healthy masculine for discipline and follow-through.
Archetype to Activate: The Animal
When you feel caught between freaking out about the future and beating yourself up about the past, activate The Animal. Animals are grounded in the present moment; their bodies tell them everything they need to know. When you activate this archetype, you ask: What do I need right this second?. Sometimes, the most heroic thing you can do for your quest is take a nap or have a meal to get out of lizard-brain survival mode.
The Symbol of the Prayer
The Prayer is simply the act of asking for guidance. It isn’t about asking for a literal magic trick to finish your work; it’s about asking to be tuned in enough to notice the synchronicities—the text messages, the books, the songs—that are already trying to lead you forward.
Want a personalized Mythic Map of your own hero’s journey?
That’s why I created Mythic Journey.
Your Gene Keys profile reimagined as a literal map that will reveal your most challenging internal obstacles to overcome, protective patterns to disrupt, and the gifts that are waiting for you on the other side. Over the course of 75+ minutes (in a pre-recorded video you can watch over and over again), I’ll operate as your very own guide as weave the new narrative for what you’re being called to and how to step into your full potential.
Intrigued and want to know more? Click here for all the deets!
Navigating the Dark Forest: Overcoming the Monster of Overwhelm
After a few potentially false starts and the inevitable questioning of whether it’s even possible to get moving, we are now officially on the journey. We are entering the Dark Forest, a space that represents our subconscious and conscious fears, patterns, and protective behaviors. These are the internal loops that try to keep us from stepping into the light.
While these fears have roots inside of us, there are also external monsters in this forest that prey on our vulnerabilities. When we are already feeling scared or in a state of self-doubt, these external monsters can freak us out so completely that we either run back to the safety of our homes or find ourselves frozen in place.
The Necessity of the Dark
It is important to understand that the “dark” piece of this forest relates to the void—the necessary place of not knowing that accompanies the beginning of any journey. This would not be a hero’s quest if you knew exactly where you were going or how to accomplish your goals. If there is no leap of faith or required courage, you never tap into your inner resources of resilience, determination, and strength.
The goal is not to escape the dark or fast-forward through it. Instead, it is about letting your eyes adjust until you realize that while there are monsters, you can handle them. Growing up, one of my favorite series was Enid Blyton’s The Magical Faraway Tree and the Enchanted Wood. Much like those stories, there is magic in this forest. If we activate a mythical mindset of heroism and valor, we can find it.
We often wait for a clear light to illuminate the entire forest so we can exit as quickly as possible. But the way you actually move forward is by looking for clues—sparks and magic that reveal themselves within the trees. If you rush out of the forest, you miss the point of the experience.
The Medusa Trap: Frozen by the Vision
The first monster most travelers encounter is Medusa. While the original myth is a tragic story of an innocent woman wrongly punished, she serves as a perfect metaphor for the place where many people get stuck: being frozen in stone.
One of the most common traps when embarking on a new quest is taking your vision and immediately listing every project, milestone, and skill required to achieve it. When you look at that entire list—the lack of energy, time, money, or team—the overwhelm kicks in. You turn to stone.
The Snowboarding Analogy
There is a delicate dance required to hold a vision without letting it become a terrifying to-do list. When I was learning to snowboard, I was told that you need to look where you want to go. Often, people do the opposite: they stare at a tree because they don’t want to hit it. By staring at the obstacle, they inevitably hit the tree.
Similarly, looking at your vision as a giant, heavy boulder you have to push up a hill will freeze you. It is the difference between having a North Star to guide your general direction and obsessing over every step of the journey at once.
Moving from Point A to Point B
I recently worked with a client who went from being excited about her work to being paralyzed by anxiety. We sat down and mapped out her milestones, but I had to remind her that she was only at Point A. She only needed to get to Point B.
Overwhelm occurs because your mind tries to process every variable between now and the end of the journey. It tries to calculate decisions for things that haven’t happened yet, which wastes immense brainpower. Once you reach Point B, the variables reduce and you can consider Point C from an informed perspective.
If you are running a business and panicking about a website launch when your immediate issue is actually cash flow, you must focus only on the things that impact cash flow now. Anxiety forces us into our lizard brain—the reptilian part of the brain focused on survival. This part of you makes rash decisions rather than wise ones. To access your intuition, you must chunk the journey down until you feel safe enough to proceed.
Masculine Force vs. Feminine Receptivity
In the myth, only men were turned to stone by Medusa. Metaphorically, this suggests that we get frozen when we approach our goals from a purely masculine point of view. This energy is focused on output, “go-go-go,” and strong-arming your way to a destination. When we operate only in this mode, we aren’t receptive to guidance or wiser, more aligned ways of doing things.
Healthy feminine energy, by contrast, opens us up to guidance from our higher self or synchronicity. It recognizes that there are infinite ways to get where we want to go and is just as interested in the journey as the destination.
The Medusa conundrum is solved by activating both energies intentionally:
- The Feminine: Use this energy first to be clear-sighted. Ask what you are truly trying to achieve and which path feels the most fun or aligned.
- The Masculine: Call on this energy to make a commitment. This isn’t about a rigid plan, but the healthy discipline and devotion required to follow through on what you’ve decided.
Archetype to Activate: The Animal
To help unfreeze yourself, I want you to contemplate the archetype of the Animal. Animals live by instinct. Their bodies tell them everything they need to know about the present moment. They aren’t worried about next week or beating themselves up about last year.
As humans, we have the gift of foresight, but we often lose our ground because we are constantly jumping between a future we fear and a past we regret. Neither exists. The Animal brings us back to the body.
Ask yourself right now:
- What is happening within you in this moment?
- Does your body need a nap, a meal, or movement?
- Can you appreciate that your body is a walking miracle—breathing, flowing blood, and repairing itself—without you needing a “plan” for it?
When you tune into your innate bodily wisdom, you realize you don’t need to “strong-arm” your way to success.
The Symbol: The Prayer
The final tool for navigating the forest is the Prayer. We often forget that we are supported. We assume we have to do everything in our own strength. But the universe is always expanding and creating; if you want to expand and create, the universe is ready to help.
I don’t necessarily mean prayer in a literal, religious sense—though it can be. It is the act of setting an intention and asking for guidance. For the thing that feels most unsolvable right now, simply say: “I’m not sure what I’m doing, and I could really use some help. I am open to receiving it.”
When we are in a receptive state, the universe answers through synchronicities: a text message, a book recommendation, or a song that encourages you. These signs are always there, but we only notice them when we stop pushing and start listening.
The next right thing: What is the single, next right step for you to take? Focus there, and you’ll be surprised how quickly the magic of the forest begins to unfold.
Too overwhelmed to see the forest for the trees?
It’s not always easy to coach ourselves out of the Medusa freeze, so if you’re struggling, please don’t beat yourself up. I’m here to help if you need a clean mirror to reflect back to you what’s truly important right now and what’s likely getting in the way of your ability to take action.
One way we can tackle this is with a Mythic Journey (you can add on a 1:1 session to that at a special rate, which means you can also get real-time support as we unpack what was uncovered in more detail and then formulate your next steps).
And the other way is with a Simply Magnetic session which is designed to jump straight into action-planning. Regardless, help is available to you if you’re feeling a little weary from having to go it alone for too long!
