Embracing the Antihero ~ A Path for the Wild Soul

After writing and publishing Awakening Your Inner Shaman, where the hero’s journey was a central theme, I now find myself curious about a different kind of heroic path — the journey of the antihero.

Both, the hero and the antihero, undergo a profound journey of transformation, but the difference lies in the attitude carried throughout the journey. Right from the beginning, the hero may stride toward a more exciting destiny with open arms, or may resist it for a while because of fear, but eventually steps willingly into the space of transformation.

Meanwhile, the antihero recoils, doubts and bargains in front of the possibility of change. They resist it because they don’t even realize that transformation is possible — or necessary. The worldview of the antihero is shaped by wounds, betrayal, and survival, so they believe that trusting, growing, or hoping are dangerous or foolish.

The antihero has been surviving in a broken way — ruled by fear, cynicism, or anger — and doesn’t like to admit that he or she is trapped. Then comes the Call to Change in the shape of an unexpected event or a shuttering crisis that launches them into the transformational journey.

Underlying this new situation is the opportunity to a healthier destiny, but the antihero will keep ignoring it or mocking it believing that change is pointless or even risky. The antihero thinks: “hope is for fools”, “this is just how life is”, “I should not give in”. For them, survival is the first priority — trust, love, and idealism seem like luxuries for the naive.

From another angle, while the hero strives to uphold their ethical values, the antihero often succumbs to lying, deceiving, stealing, and even killing to survive or to shield themselves from further hurt. Their defining trait is not nobility, but a kind of numb endurance.

Though the hero and the antihero are distinct archetypes, in real life our journeys blend elements of both in unique proportions. For instance, we might embody the hero’s attitude 90% of the time, but still give in to the antihero’s doubt or cynicism the other 10% of the time. Conversely, if we lived predominantly from the antihero stance, once in a while we may touch a dignified part of ourselves that pushes and pulls us forward with a glimpse of heroic resolve.

Keeping this in mind, we can examine Frida Khalo’s life as an example of someone who did not follow the tidy arc of a heroic ascent. Her attitude toward existence was of poetic rebellion; at times she was vengeful, bitter, or emotionally reckless—yet always stunningly honest.

From an early age, she endured tremendous suffering: first polio in childhood, then a devastating accident in her teens that left her in chronic pain, and later, a tumultuous relationship with the artist Diego Rivera.

She didn’t set out to change the world through art; painting was a form of self-repair. And yet, her canvases became altars of truth—unapologetically raw, wounded, defiant, and real. She was not the kind of heroine who inspired by triumphing over pain; she inspired by making pain sacred, by giving beauty to rage and voice to sorrow.

Her Call to Change wasn’t a singular event but a series of reckonings: physical agony, miscarriages, betrayal. Unlike the traditional hero who grows by overcoming, Frida grew by enduring—and by turning endurance into radical expression. Through her work, she reclaimed her body, her pain, her indigenous roots, and her voice as a woman in a patriarchal world.

At this stage of my life, like Frida, I find myself more drawn to the rawness of existence than to the effort of meticulously polishing my path forward. As I release the illusion of walking a flawless heroic journey and embrace my own antihero moments, I feel pleasantly freer, looser in spirit, and more grounded in truth.

Though I uphold myself according with my ethical values as much as I can, there are moments in which I feel too tired, too hopeless or simply unaware of my own blind spots, and I end up acting in ways that fall short of my integrity.

Therefore, I know is more wholesome to embrace myself with all my light and courage, but also with also with my stumbles, my missteps, and my unavoidable human inadequacies. In doing so, I can better rest in the fullness of my being and strive for authenticity rather than a neurotic ideal of perfection.

Now is your turn!

You can share here or journal:  When have you found yourself walking the antihero’s path—guarded, reluctant, or raw—yet still moving, in your own way, toward something real?

Marcela Lobos