"It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure"
About this Quote
Joseph Campbell, the mythologist who mapped the Hero's Journey, points to a paradox at the heart of growth: the way up begins with a descent. The abyss is the dark, frightening place every hero must enter, the underworld of loss, fear, and confusion. In epic tales it is the dragon’s lair, the night sea, or the cave; in ordinary life it is grief, failure, addiction, betrayal, or the collapse of a cherished identity. The descent strips away illusions. It demands surrender, not as defeat, but as a willingness to face what the ego avoids.
Where you stumble signals the precise place where vitality is trapped. Jung called this the shadow: the parts of the self that are disowned because they feel shameful, painful, or dangerous. Avoiding the stumble preserves the wound; turning toward it releases its energy as insight, compassion, and power. Myths encode this exchange: Orpheus goes down to seek love, Jonah is swallowed and learns obedience, Dante descends to see clearly. The treasure is not mere comfort but a boon carried back to the world: wisdom hard-earned, a re-knit identity, a gift that can heal others.
Campbell’s famous counsel to follow your bliss is incomplete without this darker companion. Bliss is guarded. The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek because fear marks the threshold of transformation. Stumbling is not a detour but a guidepost. The mistake, the heartbreak, the project that fails, all point to the curriculum your life is offering. Go down with attention, humility, and help, and the descent becomes initiation.
The alchemists called the first stage nigredo, the blackening that precedes gold. So it is in a human life. Despair, met honestly, turns to meaning; brokenness, integrated, becomes strength. The abyss is not the end of the story. It is the passage by which a person becomes real.
Where you stumble signals the precise place where vitality is trapped. Jung called this the shadow: the parts of the self that are disowned because they feel shameful, painful, or dangerous. Avoiding the stumble preserves the wound; turning toward it releases its energy as insight, compassion, and power. Myths encode this exchange: Orpheus goes down to seek love, Jonah is swallowed and learns obedience, Dante descends to see clearly. The treasure is not mere comfort but a boon carried back to the world: wisdom hard-earned, a re-knit identity, a gift that can heal others.
Campbell’s famous counsel to follow your bliss is incomplete without this darker companion. Bliss is guarded. The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek because fear marks the threshold of transformation. Stumbling is not a detour but a guidepost. The mistake, the heartbreak, the project that fails, all point to the curriculum your life is offering. Go down with attention, humility, and help, and the descent becomes initiation.
The alchemists called the first stage nigredo, the blackening that precedes gold. So it is in a human life. Despair, met honestly, turns to meaning; brokenness, integrated, becomes strength. The abyss is not the end of the story. It is the passage by which a person becomes real.
Quote Details
| Topic | Learning from Mistakes |
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