14.
The Heroine in
Everywoman
There is a potential heroine in everywoman. She is the leading
lady in her own life story on a journey that begins at her birth and
continues through her lifetime. As she travels on her particular path,
she will undoubtedly encounter suffering; feel loneliness, vulnerab-
ility, uncertainty; and know limitations. She also may find meaning,
develop character, experience love and grace, and learn wisdom.
She is shaped by her choices, by her capacity for faith and love,
by her ability to learn from experience and make commitments.
When difficulties arise, if she assesses what she can do, decides what
she will do, and behaves in ways consistent with her values and
feelings, she is acting as the heroine-protagonist of her own myth.
Although life is full of unchosen circumstances, there are always
moments of decision, nodal points that decide events or alter char-
acter. To be a heroine on her own heroic journey, a woman must
begin with the attitude (or even at first act “as if”) that her choices
do matter. In the process of living from this premise, something
happens: a woman becomes a choicemaker, a heroine who shapes
who she will become. She either grows or is diminished by what
she does or does not do and by the attitudes she holds.
My patients have taught me that it is not just what happened to
them that shaped who they are, but what happened in them that
made the difference. What they felt and how they reacted inwardly
and outwardly determined who they