In my last three posts, I shared key insights from my work with the Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women by Sylvia Brinton Perera. Today, I want to explore how those insights have shaped my own life.
About eleven years ago, I made a decision that changed everything: I chose to go on a healing journey. I had just come out of not one, but two narcissistic relationships and my life was in shambles.
Looking back, I can see now how I was searching for validation in all the wrong places. I was worn down by the weight of unresolved childhood trauma related to my father leaving and the subconscious patterns of relating that this trauma set in motion—patterns that kept me stuck in cycles of trying to prove I was worth staying for to all the wrong people.
I could no longer afford to ignore or deny to myself the ways these subconcious patterns were shaping my life.
But how do you go forward on a path that isn’t yet created?
I didn’t have a map. I didn’t know exactly where to begin. But I decided to trust myself and follow the discomfort. That’s when the myth of Inanna’s descent began to guide me—though I didn’t fully realize it at the time.
Before this breaking point in my life, I had been deeply interested in Sumerian mythology, particularly the work of Enheduanna and the myths of Inanna. What I didn’t realize at the time was the pivotal role it would later play in my own transformation.
During this very difficult time in my life, Inanna’s story of her journey into the underworld became more than just a myth. It became a symbolic resource—a tool that gave structure, language, and imagery to my experience. Her voluntary descent into the underworld, the stripping away of her symbols of power at each gate, her death and time in the shadows, and finally her return—these became a mirror for my own path of loss, transformation, and renewal.
Reading Perera’s book helped me recognize what I intuitively began doing: engaging with a sacred narrative to make sense of my inner world. This wasn’t just an intellectual exercise. Over seven years, the myth helped me move through layer after layer of emotional weight I hadn’t even known I was carrying.
This experience taught me something profound: the stories we live by shape us.
Perera’s book became a companion on this path. It helped me stay present during the hardest moments, gave me language when I felt lost, and reminded me that I wasn’t alone. Healing, I’ve come to learn, isn’t about avoiding the darkness. It’s about walking through it—stripped bare, uncertain, and trusting there’s something on the other side.
Inanna’s myth helped me see that the descent itself has meaning. The surrender. The waiting. The not-knowing. It all serves a purpose. And when I came back up, I wasn’t the same. I was more whole—not because I escaped the pain, but because I reclaimed something vital from within it.
Have you ever experienced a similar situation where you used a symbol or story to navigate a difficult transition?
