Heroism As Therapy: Spirit Of Improvement For Personal Growth
When someone lives guided by a heroic aspiration that is expressed in daily life and service to others, they find a way to dilute the trauma of the past, taking action.
When someone lives guided by a heroic aspiration that is expressed in daily life and service to others, they find a way to dilute the trauma of the past, carrying out actions that are incompatible with their existence in the present
The recreation of heroic exploits and the affirmation of the divinity that resides in the human is tremendously powerful and inspiring.
It is a way of living that draws its energy from the chimera, from the future, and from who one aspires to be, liberating from the conceptions of the human being that compare it to a storage room clogged by traumas (retrospective), which must be cleaned. before coming back to life.
In fact, it is not the trauma that usually worries us but the role of that scar in life. They are not the events that occurred, but the way we fit them into our daily existence.
For too long we have been entertained with a historicist psychology loaded with immobile prejudices towards the human psyche. Because although it is true that we are historical beings and biography is the place that houses our possibilities of action, it is also true that we are possessors of a mythology full of feats, of epic literature and of many religions, which provide us with guides for living.
That is the great error of classical psychologies, considering that human action is determined more by the past than by the search for effectiveness and viability in the future. Thesis that Kurt Lewin already defended, with his germinal proposals for constructivism.
And that’s because it is much easier to create an occlusive mechanism like a lock, a key or a door, than to create a generative mechanism, one that creates, produces or invents. I’m not talking about optimism, I’m talking about emancipatory and possibilist thinking to go beyond Seligman’s Positive Psychology.
This is a new psychology that is breaking through, one that is not positive because it does not recognize the existence of negative psychology, nor does it recognize the notion of pessimism. I am talking about a generative psychology as opposed to other static and totalitarian occlusives.
I speak of knowledge for the generation of knowledge, for the creation of opportunities, for inventive and expansive action
I’m talking about the adventure of human beings who invent at every step an intelligent and efficient solution for each of the problems. From “smart people” who do not want to be led by stereotyped and automatic solutions. I speak of the heroism of the one who makes the path by walking, step by step, verse by verse.
The role of heroes
Heroes and heroines, saints, wizards and witches, have always been used as references of an ideal, examples of how Human beings acquire divine properties and virtues by overcoming their limitations.
In many cultures they are the guide of behavior for ordinary citizens, which leads them towards excellence and talent.
They are the “Light” that goes ahead, that illuminates the path along which one must advance. References to count on to encourage you on the path of personal growth, as understood in each culture.
Unfortunately in our society these figures are a bit blurred, in some cases and in others, far from the ideal of personal improvement. Among athletes, singers and actors there is little room for defenders of justice, kindness or wisdom, such as Robin Hood, Snow White or the wizard Merlin, to say the least.
Hence the importance of recovering the heroic meaning of actions to facilitate the path to a healthy life, to promote the development of personal talent The need for a notion of progress that is not defined strictly in economic terms, but by the sublimation of the human. In the search for a transcendent ideal, the same one that provides the hero with his divine, supernatural and admirable character.
Heroes and martyrs put faces and exploits to the values and aspirations of each culture. They are the personification of their virtues. In them there is the value of describing the potential of every individual and encouraging them to flourish. Experiencing admiration for a hero or a saint is the way to pre-establish who I am on my way to becoming and what kind of light I am going to be for others.
In a certain sense we have lost the sense of improvement or growth guided by ideals or values and we only have the vestige of growth guided by results or objectives And for that reason we have numbed the spirit of relationship with adversity, difficulty and pain. Disposition that is needed intact to overcome the unforeseen or simply get up after a fall.
For this reason and this is the fundamental thesis that I come to defend. Energy is neither created nor destroyed, it is only transformed. That’s why every time someone accepts a challenge and overcomes it, they bring home the bear skin and feel like a winner. If after trying he does not succeed, he will always be able to tell how his battle went and everyone will respect him for his daring. But if he decides to avoid the attempt and stays at home, the bear will knock out his teeth and make a necklace with them.
Hence the need to take a step beyond positive psychology to never expect from optimism what can be achieved with determination.
Oriol Rojas, Psychologist at the Psychology Center in Santa Cruz de Tenerife
