We are officially on the journey.
There are quite a few monsters in the dark forest as you embark on this journey. And in today’s episode, I’m going to introduce you to one of them, the one that is most likely to have you frozen in place, unable to move.
You’ve accepted the call. You’ve mobilized your internal parts. You’ve crossed the first threshold. And now you’re entering the dark forest—that necessary space of not knowing, where your vision is still forming and the path ahead is unclear. But here’s what happens: you start to see the enormity of what you think needs to be accomplished. You begin listing all the projects, all the milestones, all the things you believe are required. And suddenly, you can’t move. You’re frozen. Overwhelmed. Turned to stone.
Welcome to the myth of Medusa. And welcome to understanding how to navigate overwhelm without letting it paralyze you or send you running back to safety.
🎧 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.
The Cliff’s Notes
Core Themes:
- The dark forest represents subconscious fears and protective behaviors, but it also contains magic and necessary guidance
- Medusa symbolizes the paralysis that comes from staring at everything you think you need to accomplish
- Overwhelm happens when we operate from unhealthy masculine energy—forcing, planning, controlling—without receptivity
- Feminine energy opens us to infinite ways of achieving goals and helps us trust the journey, not just the destination
- The animal archetype and prayer as a practice bring us back to present-moment wisdom and divine support
Key Takeaways:
- Don’t rush through the dark forest: The void is essential. It’s where you find clues, magic, and synchronicities. Rushing out means missing the gifts.
- Stop staring your goals in the face: Looking at the entire mountain you need to climb creates paralysis. Focus only on getting from point A to point B.
- Balance masculine and feminine energy: Feminine energy helps you receive guidance and find aligned paths. Masculine energy helps you commit and follow through with discipline.
- Get out of your head and into your body: The animal archetype reminds you that present-moment wisdom lives in your body, not in future projections or past regrets.
- Ask for help: Prayer (however you define it) opens you to synchronicities and universal support. You don’t have to do this alone.
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 we 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!
Understanding the Dark Forest
After a few potentially false starts and maybe some questioning around whether it was even possible for you to get moving, you’re now officially on the journey. You are entering the dark forest.
As mentioned in the last episode, the dark forest represents all of our subconscious and maybe conscious fears and patterns and protective behaviors that can try and keep us in this loop of not moving forward, that keep us from stepping into the light.
All of these monsters have roots inside of us. They are always connected to some sort of fear or belief. But what’s been found is that aside from these internal things, there are also some external monsters in this dark forest that can prey on those existing fears.
Anywhere we’re already vulnerable and scared and in a little bit of self-doubt, these external monsters can basically freak us out completely and have us either running back for the safety of our homes, or just frozen in place, or maybe going down the wrong path, one that’s not meant for us.
Regardless of what happens, it’s not good. It’s basically guaranteeing that we do not get past this forest.
The Dark Forest and the Void Are Connected
A connection needs to be made, in case you haven’t already made it: the dark forest, the dark piece of the forest, relates also to the void that was talked about—the necessary place that we need to sit in, the not knowing any time when we’re beginning our journey.
The point is that we don’t know.
This would not be a hero’s quest if you knew exactly where you were going and what you needed to do and how you needed to accomplish it. So the void is part of it. If there is no scary thing that you need to overcome, if there’s no leap of faith, if there is no required courage, then you are not going to tap into these inner resources: this courage, this resilience, this determination, this inner strength.
Us needing to overcome the fear of the dark is a part of the journey. It’s not about escaping the dark or trying to fast forward your way through. It’s really about letting your eyes adjust and looking around and realizing, “Oh, hang on. Yes, there are monsters here, but I can handle them.”
And you know what else is in a dark forest? A.K.A. an enchanted wood?
Magic.
There’s also magic in the dark forest, so it’s important that we get familiar with this place because there is so much potential in here. If we are buying into the fear story, obviously that turns it into the dark forest that is really scary and horrible and something we need to escape.
But if we can activate this mythical mindset and we can activate our own spirit of heroism, of nobility, valor, courage, strength, then we are going to be able to find the magic in the forest.
Following the Clues, Not the Exit Sign
A conversation with a good friend last night touched on this: we’re so often waiting for this clear thing that’s going to light up the entire forest and get us out of there as quickly as possible. We’re looking for the new thing to replace the old thing as soon as possible, in complete form.
For instance, there was knowing that the old version of a business was expired, and thinking that this new version of the business would just appear in great detail, so that there could just be a move from okay to the new thing and out of this dark forest.
But that’s not how it happened.
The way out of the dark forest is learning to look for clues. Starting to follow the magic, the sparks, the fairies, the whatever mythical element resonates. We actually find what we need to move forward in the forest.
So if we rush out of the forest, we’ve missed part of the point.
All of this to say, the dark forest is an essential, important, and beautiful thing for us to navigate. But we do need to be on the defensive to a point, especially when we are in this stage of still being a bit vulnerable to falling into our old traps of self-doubt and fear, comparison, all of these different things that can come up when we are nervous about what we’re navigating.
This is when we’re most vulnerable to these external monsters that will be talked about over the next five episodes.
Just know that these monsters are technically there—something that happens outside of us—but it’s always happening inside of us as well.
Meet Medusa: The Monster of Overwhelm
The very first monster we’re going to talk about is Medusa.
You may, by the way, encounter any of these five monsters in your travels, and you may find that it was on a previous quest that some of them got you. And this time you’re coming across different ones. But once we learn to really slay or beat these monsters at their own games, we no longer need to have them trick us into giving up or making the wrong move ever again.
You can’t unsee this stuff.
Now, Medusa is not necessarily a creature that you would find in a dark forest specifically, but she was the perfect metaphor for this very first place where a lot of people get stuck—or in the words of Medusa, frozen.
The Myth of Medusa
The myth of Medusa is actually quite a tragic one. Medusa was actually very innocent in all of this. We’ve painted her as this horrible monster, but she was actually attacked wrongly and then blamed and punished for something that she did not do, and ended up with snakes for hair.
And the curse? If she would look any man in the eye, or if the man looked her snakes in the eye, he would be turned to stone.
The reason we’re talking about Medusa through this lens is that one of the most common traps that can be fallen into when embarking on a new adventure, a new quest or hero’s journey, is this:
We have this goal. We’ve started to create this vision. We’ve already started listing all the things that we think are going to be required for us to accomplish it. And then what happens is when we start to look at that entire list—the projects upon projects, the accomplishments that we think have to happen as milestones before we’re going to achieve the thing we really need to—we freeze.
“Oh my God, I don’t have the energy. I don’t have the time, I don’t have the money, I don’t have the skills, I don’t have the team, I don’t have the…”
We freeze. We turn to stone in the overwhelm.
And that just sends us backwards. That can also lead to us getting trapped by other monsters that are going to be talked about in the next episodes. Because while we’re in the belief that it’s just too much, we’re also likely to then look for other ways out of the forest that don’t involve the only true way, which is one step at a time.
Two Layers to Beating Medusa
The key with Medusa—there’s actually a couple of layers to this. We’ll start with the really obvious one, but then we’re going deeper.
If you’re listening to this, the belief is that you’re a very intelligent person, a deep thinker, probably a deep feeler. Maybe you’re an overthinker. And you don’t just want surface level—you want to go deeper, because maybe the surface level stuff in the past has left you cold. It’s not actually helped. And you’re like, “Please, actually, this time, can we go somewhere that’s going to help me for real?”
Layer One: Stop Staring at the Whole Mountain
The obvious layer: it’s really important that when we’re setting out on this new journey, we are not staring our goals and the things that we think we have to accomplish in the face.
We cannot be looking at the whole thing.
It is such a dance to be able to hold a vision and to even have some tangible milestones that we need to work towards, and yet to not let that become something that we’re just staring at the whole time.
It’s kind of similar—same same, but different—to an analogy learned when trying to learn to snowboard (a work in progress). The advice was: you need to look at where you’re going, as in look towards wherever you want to go. But what people often do is they look at where they don’t want to go. They stare at a tree and they’re like, “Oh, no, I don’t want to hit the tree. I don’t want to hit the tree.”
But what happens when you’re snowboarding is you actually end up hitting the tree because that’s just how it works.
So it’s not quite the same thing because we do want to be looking where we’re going. But there’s a very big difference between looking towards a vision and a North Star and knowing just the general direction we’re going in, but then being able to just keep putting one foot in front of the other and staying really present, versus staring at it as just a giant to-do list, as this thing that you actually have to do and that it’s all on you, like it’s something you’re going to have to effort your way through, like pushing a boulder up a hill.
Learning to know the difference.
For many, it’s really about knowing when to put what hat on or when to be in which frame of mind.
A Client Example: From Excitement to Overwhelm
Working with a client the other day, she went from being really excited about all of the things that she was working towards, and then taking a pause for a moment and going, “Whoa, this feels like a lot.” The excitement started to turn into some anxiety and overwhelm.
Sitting down together, what had to be done was first look at it realistically. What are you trying to work towards? That’s important to acknowledge. We need to know where we’re going.
And then we also need to map out some of the things that we know have to happen. There are practical things in the 3D world that we need to do in order for other things to happen, and to be aware of blockers. For instance, until this thing happens, I can’t then do that thing.
So there was going through this whiteboarding process, showing her the way of thinking, which is to just map out all of these different milestones and checkpoints and starting to draw little arrows of, “Well, this thing impacts this thing and this thing impacts the next thing.”
But then getting really clear about the fact that, “Okay, I know this looks like a lot, but you’re at point A right now. You only need to get to point B. And getting to point B involves very little compared to what we’re looking at if we’re trying to get to point Z, which is the end goal.”
If we’re looking ahead too many steps, if we’re trying to look at point C and point D, the reason the overwhelm kicks in is because there are so many variables between now and then that your mind is trying to process all of those. It’s trying to calculate how to make decisions without having all the information, and it’s completely overwhelming.
“Okay, well, if this happens, then what would I do? But what if this other thing happens, then what would I do?”
You’ve got this infinite set of decisions it’s trying to make. It’s trying to make a decision based on all the things that haven’t happened yet, and that just wastes so much brainpower.
Having a little bit of a map for yourself of where you’re trying to go, but then breaking it down and going, “Well, what is actually point B?” gives us the ability to kind of check out, to switch off from everything that comes after point B for the time being, and really just focus on A to B and what is going to allow that to happen in the best possible way.
Once you reach point B, so many more things will have been made clear to you that the variables reduce, and then you’re able to start considering point C from an informed perspective.
The fact is, how do you eat an elephant? (Sorry vegans and vegetarians—not that elephants are being eaten anyway.) One bite at a time.
We achieve everything in life, one step at a time. So we do not need to be looking at absolutely everything.
Focus on What You Need Right Now
We can also think about in terms of what do you need right now.
Let’s say you are running your own business and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I have to launch a new website. And I have to bring on this team member, and I have to…” and there’s this list of things that you think you have to do to have this successful business.
But really right now your issue is cash flow.
Well, then the response would be: Cool. What are the couple of things that are going to make the biggest difference in the short term to cash flow so that we can get you out of this panic mode?
Because this also keeps us in what was referred to as survival mode. If we’re not feeling safe and secure and we’re in anxiety about anything, we are not going to be able to access our grounded inner knowing, that aligned intuition that unlocks our highest potential.
Instead, we’re going to be in panic mode and we’re going to be making decisions from our lizard brain—our reptilian brain that operates on autopilot and is very much about just survival. It’s not necessarily going to make wise decisions that get you towards the vision. It’s going to make really rash decisions.
So what we need to do is be able to go, “Okay, I know where I’m aiming. And now let’s chunk it down and get clear. If I’m at point A right now, what is point B?” And then that is that.
That is one of the most practical ways we can avoid the peril of Medusa. Stop looking her straight in the eyes, the many sets of snakey eyes.
Layer Two: The Masculine and Feminine Energy Dance
The deeper layer now—getting a little bit more into the myth of it all.
It’s interesting that it’s only men who get frozen by looking her in the eye.
The way this is interpreted, through the lens of this particular conversation, is this: you only get frozen if you come at things from a purely masculine point of view.
Masculine energy is very much about output and go, go, go, go, go. It’s the strong-arming your way to get somewhere. It’s, “Okay, I just have to have the plan and then I’m going to take all the action and I’m not going to stop.”
When we are only accessing our masculine energy, that means we’re not receptive. We’re not open to guidance and open to being given wiser, more aligned ways to tackle things.
We have already gotten into a very fixed mindset about what we think is required, and often we attach to some really hefty things that we think are needed. We set these insane goals for ourselves.
Often this is seen with clients who go, “Okay, well, the only way I’m going to succeed is if I am publishing every single day. I need to start doing videos on Instagram every day, and I’m going to have to do this, and I’m going to have to do that.”
They have this insane list of things that just exhaust them even thinking about it. But because they’re not open to any other input—this is really their fear-based mind, not the healthy divine masculine—they’re not open to input. They’ve just decided there’s only one way to succeed.
Oh, isn’t that exhausting?
Just think about that. Imagine if there was only one way to succeed in life. Life suddenly becomes very unforgiving, doesn’t it? That’s not a fun way to live.
What Feminine Energy Opens Up
Feminine energy opens us up to guidance. It opens us up to realizing there are infinite ways for us to get where we want to go.
Feminine energy opens us up to guidance from whether you want to see it as a higher power or your higher self, or your internal guidance system. Synchronicity.
It knows that there are infinite ways for us to get where we want to go, and it is really concerned about what is the most aligned, nurturing, fulfilling way that we can get there.
It is just as interested in the process and the journey as it is in the destination. In fact, probably more interested in the journey because feminine energy also knows there is no destination. Life is just this series of growth cycles.
When thinking about it this way, it’s like, okay, so if I just stare at it straight on and I take things very literally and I get attached to the idea that it’s pass or fail, there’s only one way to succeed, and I have created this plan for myself that already feels like I’m going to fail—no wonder there’s overwhelm.
We’re stuck in this unhealthy masculine energy that will lead us to freeze and/or force our way, muscle our way through, and burn ourselves out in the process.
And this has certainly been experienced more than once. Most people have experienced this at some point in time.
How to Integrate Both Energies
But when we step into feminine energy—and feminine energy as an archetype, not as being a woman (everyone has access to masculine and feminine energy)—that feminine energy is the thing that is going to give us this flexibility and receptivity to be open to a better way of doing things.
And it really allows us to get comfortable in the void of the not knowing, because femininity, feminine energy, trusts that the answers will come if we are present and we ask for them.
So the Medusa conundrum can be solved on two levels, and really it should be solved from two levels, because personally there needs to be intentional activation of masculine and feminine energy depending on what’s being done.
Usually, there needs to be a period of the feminine energy coming first, so that there can be opening up to being really clear-sighted:
- What am I actually trying to achieve?
- What are the actual problems here?
- What am I truly struggling with?
- What is the best way I could possibly achieve this?
- Or what are all the ways I could achieve this?
- And now let me choose one that feels the most fun.
Then calling on Divine Masculine energy to sit down and make some commitments. Not necessarily make a rigid plan, but decide:
- What is it that I need to do now?
- What do I need to do regularly?
- Are there some milestones that I do need to hit?
- What are the things that I can control but that are sustainable and healthy and aligned?
Then holding to that now. And that is what the healthy Divine Masculine is about. It’s about follow-through. It’s about discipline. But from a healthy place—devotion and commitment and knowing that anything that we want to achieve is going to require work.
It’s not about “yoloing” it. It’s not about crossing our fingers or just seeing how it goes. There is going to be commitment involved, but that does not mean that there’s pass-fail here or that if we mess up the plan, if we skip a day or we’re doing it imperfectly, that we’re not going to make it.
We’re going to make a commitment. We’re going to do our best to uphold it. And then we can step back into feminine energy whenever—regularly recommended—and check in: Is this still the best way to approach things based on the data, the feedback that I have now? Does anything need to be adjusted?
And then knowing that the extra data received while in the feminine energy can then be put into something like a whiteboarding session while in the masculine energy: Right, what needs to happen next? What am I committing to next?
Hopefully you can see that the Medusa conundrum does not need to be something that makes us freeze. Once we learn to navigate this, we stop looking things in the eye and freaking out and being frozen and overwhelmed because we realize we can handle it. But we handle it when we’re tackling things a step at a time, not when we’re trying to scale the mountain in one leap.
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 we 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!
Activation & Contemplation
Your Archetype to Activate: The Animal
To round out this episode, here’s another archetype to activate and contemplate. And it’s a beautiful one. It’s one that we can be a little scared of.
The archetype is of the animal.
The animal obviously is about instinct. The animal’s instincts come through their body more than anything. They know. Their body tells them everything they need to know about what’s going on and what they need to do next.
It grounds them in the present moment. An animal is not thinking about what it needs to do tomorrow or next week or next year. It’s not worried about that.
Now, we obviously don’t want to always be in the animal archetype. The beauty of being a human is that we do have foresight. We have vision. We can plan to a point. We can work towards something. We want to accomplish things that animals don’t necessarily think about.
But we can learn so much from animals in just that moment-to-moment wisdom.
The animal tells us to get out of our heads and into our bodies and get really attuned to what is happening right in this moment.
- What’s going on around you?
- What’s going on within you?
- What do you truly need?
Sometimes it’s a nap or a meal. Other times it’s, “Wow, I really need some more financial security. I need to focus on this next.” Or, “I just need to move my body and I need to express myself. I need to scream or sing.”
Whatever that may be, the animal just brings us back into the present moment.
Your Practice
Wherever you’re at in the journey right now, if you have been caught in the future or looking back as well—because this is what we tend to do as humans, we jump between freaking out about the future and beating ourselves up about the past, but neither of them exist—the only thing that exists is right now.
Can you just take a moment to breathe a little bit? Get curious about what’s going on in your body. Get appreciative of just how much is happening in your body right now without you having to force it.
Your body is breathing for you. The blood is flowing for you. Oxygen is being sent around your body as needed. The way that we just repair ourselves when we’re at rest—you’re not having to force any of that. You didn’t require a plan for that.
So why do you think you need to strong-arm your way to achieving something incredible in your life?
You are already a walking miracle.
So tune back into the miracle that is you, the innate wisdom that your body holds. It does stuff that science hasn’t even figured out. All our body is capable of, how it’s able to do what it does—our bodies are smarter than our minds, but we forget this.
Ask yourself now, while you’re tuned back into your body:
- What do you need in this very moment?
- What is the focus of your day really need to be about?
And just see what it tells you.
Your Symbol: The Prayer
The symbol to leave you with is one that is forgotten the most.
One of the reasons we get into the unhealthy masculine—or maybe it’s the unhealthy masculine that thinks—we assume that we have to do it all in our own strength. We forget that we are supported, that we are surrounded by different forms of support.
But more than that, the universe actually wants to move us towards creating amazing things.
Everything in the universe is always expanding. It’s about creation. And if you’re wanting to expand and to create, personally the belief is that the universe is like, “Yep, I’m here for it. What do you need?”
So the symbol is the prayer.
You can ask for guidance. You do not have to do this alone.
And this doesn’t mean asking for guidance from a coach or a mentor or somebody around you. Get into that present-moment awareness and then just close your eyes and set the intention.
Everyone’s different. Maybe you have a relationship with a version of God or gods and goddesses. Maybe for you it is you just have a connection to the universe or source or creation. Maybe for you it’s about Mother Earth. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s just a wish and a prayer and you don’t know where it’s going, but you’re hoping someone’s listening. Maybe it’s the angels.
Doesn’t matter.
What would be wonderful is to just take a pause. And for whatever the thing is that feels the most unsolvable right now—you can do it for everything, but especially the thing that’s overwhelming you the most or feels the most impossible—just ask.
Be honest. Go, “I’m not sure what I’m doing right now and I could really use some help. I am open to receiving help. I know that I can’t do this in my own strength. Can you please send me something?”
It’s incredible when there’s actually remembering to ask. It’s always given in some form. We often are looking for the wrong form.
There was being brought up in the church where there was this idea that prayer was meant to be something super literal, like, “Okay, please just bring me a miracle and have me wake up and the project is done and perfect.”
There wasn’t understanding that, oh, what we’re really asking for is for us to be able to activate our own resources, for us to be able to trust our own intuition and wisdom, for us to remember our own strength.
That is the real thing that is missing right now. You don’t actually need a miracle. What you need to remember is that you’ve got this.
And the universe also loves to work in synchronicities. When there’s really asking and being receptive—because something happens when we’re in that receptive feminine energy, not when we’re determined that “I know the way I have to do this and I just have to push through,” but when we’re like, “Okay, I admit I don’t know, and I’m just in the void right now”—that is when the universe can go, “Oh, hey.”
And something just synchronistic shows up in your feed. You get a text message from someone. You’re made aware of a book that is super helpful. Or a song plays that used to always encourage you when you were younger and you haven’t heard it in ages.
So many ways that synchronicities can show up, but they show up when we’re ready to receive them. We have to be listening. We have to be open to it because they’re always being presented to us.
It’s not that we’re asking them to be presented because they haven’t been previously. What we’re really asking is for ourselves to be tuned in enough to notice these things so that they can do what they need to do.
Your Question
The animal and the prayer are the things being left with today.
Get back into the present moment and really, really focus on what is needed now, because that is the thing that will unfreeze you, and then you will get moving again. And you’ll be surprised how quickly stuff starts to unfold. It becomes quite magical.
Ask that question: What is the next right thing for you to do?
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!
