Impressed with the Fun of Shared Heroship

On this day, I felt strong, capable, and smart. I felt like a hero.
(*PG13 for strong language*)

In my definition, a hero is a person who, from the damnable chaos inside themselves, will keep reaching and fighting for their soul’s light & purpose, and putting their best foot forward in real-life action benefiting others and themselves.

My acting friend, Ryan, asked for help creating a visual storyboard for writing a screenplay. He asked Kelly, another actress friend, and me to create our costumes for this steampunk world he was crafting and hired our friend Mary at Queen Elizabeth Photography. On the photo shoot day, we headed to an old ghost town on a cold, windy, almost snowy day in late October.

Mine and Kelly’s characters were part of a hero crew dismantling the power of a community leader who was smitten with his thirst for supremacy. Ryan’s character was a wild card capable of swinging in a direction that would serve him most until he found love that helped ground him and he also found two female warriors willing to fight with him.

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Often my creative projects provoke self-reflection. Recently, this project triggered another wave of reflection, only this time in regard to national news headlines and resulting discussions going on around me. One of those discussions being definitions of male and female qualities each of us has inside ourselves and how we receive or reject those qualities of others based on the gender of the person expressing them. I appreciated how my friend Ryan was creating female characters that would be victors in this story rather than victims and creating lead character men that were vulnerable and making their own paths.

Ryan imagined a story where the power of goodness was being wielded by two capable, steampunk, Robin Hood style, female mercenaries. Kelly and I crept, ran, carried our weapons, planned and executed our strategies, and looked for clues until we came upon Ryan’s character. Ryan’s character was sneaky, charismatic, and deeply troubled. Our triumph was defeating the darkness leader who was causing much deception and confusion and also helping Ryan’s character convert his efforts toward goodness.

Battling weather elements, our photographer valiantly directed and allowed us time, space, and creativity to set up scenes to capture the best images. We successfully shot a series of photos that became a platform of ideas for Ryan to write his screenplay.

Experiencing this photo shoot renewed my fuck yes appreciation of my own heroship and also my enjoyment of the fun of creating mutually respected heroship with open minded people! Ryan was developing his screenplay with characters that were real, flawed, strong, and individually intelligent. This led characters to be confident and dare I say sexy; not because his focus was on portraying that, but because that visual evolved out of the expression of who they were being!

When a guy will be hospitable about a woman's independence and support her strength, I feel impressed with his ability to manage his pride (brave choice!) and his ability to be inclusive when creating heroship. This shared heroship creation is the beginning of a stronger recognition of how we can more fully own all parts of ourselves regardless of gender, and with that, create some pretty epic life, art, or love together! Regardless of gender every human being needs to feel and own the male and female aspects of their own heroship. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could be open to receiving that multifaceted male and female awesomeness from each other not based on the gender expressing it… but because that is who we are?!

Celebrating and building female strength is not a new concept and it’s at the forefront of thought lately. It's progressive. It's courageous. It's now. A woman does not want to take away from what a man needs at a very instinctual level! She wants to have her part in it, be recognized & credited for it, and have her sexuality be respected in a way that feels good to her! Women as a whole do not fear or want to disown their sexuality but that is not all of who we are! Our heroship qualities are deep, powerful, intelligent, sensual, and nurturing to name just a few!

I feel some men who reject and diminish a woman’s strength, intelligence, or power may be unwittingly insulting themselves because some of our strength, intelligence, and can-do attitude is the result of learning from strong, capable men! Go men! Men who share in celebrating and promoting female strength in their own and shared heroship are helping create new ways for women AND men to be admired and appreciated!

Believing and expressing your own unique heroship is confident, sexy, impactful. When it is used with good intent, it can SO help boost self-esteem, worth, and faith to create for yourself and others in life!

There is hope and grace in opening conversations about current headlines and the growth that we need to be brave enough to do. Both public and private stories being told are SO important and part of a larger wave of change coming from many, many brave generations before us!

Hells yes and cheers to a renewed love and acceptance of your own inner hero and to being inclusive in creating shared heroship in life together! We need male AND female heroes that are open-hearted, capable, strong, intelligent, and inclusive who are putting their best feet forward to spearhead change and make 2018 a KICKASS, amazing year!

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Thanks to my gracious writing editors: Rachel Riitano & Jaime Lue Inflore