This is a very interesting question. Like most people, I think I have been very influenced by my parents, or particularly my mother, as I didn’t live with my dad when I was growing up. Then I have been with my husband for 14 years, so he has also been a major influence on my life. For the past 3 years, I have found my thinking and behaviour have changed radically under the influence of my son. As Angela Schwindt, founder of the Growing Through Parenting website said,

“While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.”

Yet there are many other influences in my life, beyond those in my family. My students, my friends, the people in my community… But also people who I have never met, perhaps people who died before I was born. I could name many of these. In terms of my peace work, my three biggest influences are MK Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, and John Paul Lederach. In terms of storytelling, by far my biggest influence is the writer Ursula K LeGuin (if you haven't heard of her, I recommend you check out her novels!) and I love many other writers including JRR Tolkein and Orson Scott Card.

But probably the person who has had the biggest influence on my thinking is the author and comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell. If you have had a class with me already, I think you have heard me talk about Campbell, and if you book a class with me in the future, I’m sure I will mention him at some point.

Campbell’s work was to compare stories – myths, legends, folk tales, cultural fables, religious stories – from around the world and from throughout history. Most anthrologists before Campbell were looking at different cultures and highlighting the differences between them. But Campbell, inspired by the work of CG Jung and Adolf Bastian, was focussing on the similarities. By looking at the symbolism of the stories, he found that, metaphorically speaking, all cultures around the world and throughout history can be seen to be telling more or less the same stories – connecting us all through our shared human existence (this is characterised as the ‘collective unconscious’ by Jung).

What does this mean? To me, when I first began studying Campbell, it meant that I suddenly felt closer to everyone else in the world. I realised that we are all humans together, telling the same stories to help us deal with similar issues. His idea of a shared story – which he wrote about in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) and which can be described as ‘the hero’s journey’ inspired me to re-evaluate the story of my own life, and how I can, as Joseph Campbell puts it, ‘follow my bliss’.

Before I encountered Joseph Campbell I had never heard anyone saying that religions are valuable because of the metaphorical or symbolic nature of what they are expressing. I grew up thinking that people who believe in Christianity, the main religion in th UK, are a bit old-fashioned and silly. After reading Campbell’s work I took a new look at the symbols of Christianity and realised that a lot of my thinking is heavily influenced by the Christian religion, and if I choose to acknowledge this, I can make those symbols a beautiful part of how I live my life.

These are just a few ways in which Joseph Campbell has influenced and continues to influence me. Want to know more? You can check out ‘The Power of Myth’ where Campbell explains his ideas to journalist Bill Moyers here: https://billmoyers.com/series/joseph-campbell-and-the-power-of-myth-1988/

As Campbell wrote:

“We have not even to risk the adventure alone
for the heroes of all time have gone before us.
The labyrinth is thoroughly known ...
we have only to follow the thread of the hero path…

Where we had thought to travel outwards
we shall come to the center of our own existence.
And where we had thought to be alone
we shall be with all the world.”

Want to know more about comparative mythology and how it can help you? Please book a class with me!