Aaron Rodgers is an NFL quarterback regarded by some as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. He started his professional career with the Green Bay Packers, where he played for 18 faithful seasons, only to be traded to the NY Jets in 2023. During his first season with the Jets, Rodgers injured his Achilles, forcing him to take time off for recovery. This injury devastated Aaron; he wanted to prove to the world that he still had it and could lead a team to victory. His road to recovery was intense and required much hard work, both physically and mentally. Rodgers was raised in a strict and religious home, where football was the only other thing they worshipped. He was pushed to work hard, score, and win. When you are conditioned to think winning is the only option, you also start believing that winning is your worth. Rodgers was accustomed to winning, so his self-worth suffered when the winning stopped. How do I know all this? I watched a documentary about him on Netflix.<\/p>\n
\n
I am not a football expert or super fan, but I like the sport and would define myself as a tomboy. I grew up with two brothers who would make me play sports with them, a father who wanted to raise a girl who did not throw like a girl; I married a man who falls asleep with sports center on, and I have two sons, one who is obsessed with sports. Sports is something I cannot escape. While I enjoy playing them, watching them has never been a passion of mine, but since so many people in my life have an interest in them, I decided to learn more about them. My way of learning has been watching documentaries on teams, players, etc. While I am interested in the game, the people playing these sports are far more interesting, hence how I stumbled across Aaron Rodgers’s story.<\/p>\n
\n
As I read this week’s book: “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” by Joseph Campbell, I kept thinking about the Enigma documentary I watched on Netflix. In it, we see a different side of Rodgers, the more human, troubled side of this great quarterback. He explains how religion played a huge part in the rupture of his relationship with his family. His fear of losing the support and love of his family kept him from searching for more meaning in life, but this desire for more eventually led him to study mythical ancient stories that he connected with. One ritual he found through this journey of self-discovery was ayahuasca. I had heard of this natural plant and how people were using it to heal deep-rooted traumas and always thought people were crazy for going to those lengths to find healing or meaning in their lives.<\/p>\n
\n
Aaron Rodgers has been taking ayahuasca journeys for some time now. He attributes a lot of his mental and emotional healing to this Indigenous cultural tradition that folk healers have used for centuries. He believes that if the wins were to stop and the applause stopped, he would no longer fear it. This tradition has helped him find his path and given him the clarity and peace to become his champion. I find his motivation and eagerness to find peace compelling and inspiring.<\/p>\n
\n
Do not get me wrong. I am not saying we should all do ayahuasca to find the heroes within us. However, as I heard his story, I could see someone searching for more than what this world has to offer, and I realized that Aaron Rodgers and I are more alike than I thought.<\/p>\n
\n
In his book, Campbell explores the common patterns in myths, legends, and folklore across different cultures and eras, arguing that these narratives share a universal structure that he calls the “monomyth.” His analysis swings from ancient mythologies to modern stories, showing us how the structure of the monomyth resonates across time and culture; in other words, the same fears, dreams, and traumas show themselves throughout history in different stories, but all have the same narrative\/ending.<\/p>\n
There were parts of the book that were overwhelming for me and, quite honestly, not that enjoyable, but the part of that book that I resonated with was the importance of the Hero of the story. Campbell argues that the Hero’s journey is not only an external adventure but also a profound psychological transformation that reflects itself in the growth and evolution of the individual. He introduces the concept of a cave of fears and how it can produce all the treasures we seek if we decide to enter it. This concept speaks to the idea that facing one’s fears is necessary for growth. Campbell emphasizes that the Hero must confront and overcome their fears to move forward in the journey and achieve true transformation. Through this process, we then become the heroes of our story.<\/p>\n
Campbell is correct when he suggests that we all eventually must face the fears stored in our lives’ caves to find and achieve growth. In this sense, Aaron and I are alike. Although we had very different upbringings and currently live very different lives, we are united in the fact that we both have faced fears and traumas that have propelled us to search for deeper meaning and confront certain fears.<\/p>\n
\n
I agree that we are all searching for peace and understanding. Different cultures and backgrounds, all searching for profound transformation and individual evolution, where I disagree with Campbell (if I understand him correctly) is that we cannot be the heroes of our own story because if we are to take scripture seriously, then there is only one Hero that has indeed survived the test of time. Jesus Christ is the Hero of my story, and once you have encountered Him, only then will our lives truly be transformed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Aaron Rodgers is an NFL quarterback regarded by some as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. He started his professional career with the Green Bay Packers, where he played for 18 faithful seasons, only to be traded to the NY Jets in 2023. During his first season with the Jets, Rodgers injured his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3424],"class_list":["post-40508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-campbell-dlpg04","cohort-dlgp04"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40508"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40509,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40508\/revisions\/40509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}