Threshold Guardians

Threshold guardians? What are those? This is a concept from The Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell. I've been finding this term useful in talking to clients about various blocks, impasses and general stuckness. The threshold guardian is the figure in any great story that initially appears to block the protagonist from moving forward. It may be the bouncer at the club that the criminal has just disappeared into, blocking the detective. In The Wizard of Oz, it's the Wicked Witch of the West and her scary monkeys that may send Dorothy to her peril. What Campbell says these figures represent psychologically is the parts of ourselves that hold us back. In some legends, the guardian can be seen as instrumental in teaching who we will need to be in order to face what lies in store for us. In other stories, the guardian ensure we are fully committed to entering the next level of our lives. Considering that every figure in a story acts out a part of ourselves, the work of going through has to do not necessarily with barreling through the sentinel — though it may — but rather inhabiting the body and soul of the blockage. The well meaning people in our lives say, "Don't be so hard on yourself." This takes us nowhere. When a client can fully experience his investment in being hard on himself — because its the only way he can feel parented, or the only way he can trust he will not harm someone, or its the only way to feel he did everything possible to achieve his goals — that is when there is softening, and then movement.