On Symbolic Resources & Myth Work
In 2017 my life changed. After finding the courage to leave my abusive husband, I stepped into the unknown in search of healing and transformation.
Leaving meant leaving everything behind.
It was one of the darkest periods of my life. At first there was shock—I had barely escaped, covered in bruises, from a situation that could easily have ended my life. Alongside the physical aftermath came grief and deep confusion after years of gaslighting. For a long time, everything felt disorienting.
Yet in the silence and darkness, something else slowly began to surface: curiosity.
I found myself asking difficult questions. Why had I stayed for so long? What had placed me in that vulnerable position to begin with? What part of me believed that love required that kind of self-erasure?
Gradually, I began to realise that leaving forced me to confront more than the wounding of that relationship. It required facing the collapse of an identity I had built my life around.
As a way to keep my mind occupied in the evenings, instead of ruminating on memories and regrets, I returned to my love of reading esoteric texts and learning about symbols and ancient religions. I began rereading translations of Sumerian myths, and one in particular stood out: The Descent of Inanna (Inanna ki-šar-ĝeštu-gal).
In the story, Inanna deliberately descends into the underworld, passing through seven gates where she is progressively stripped of the symbols of her power. At each threshold she must relinquish something—her crown, her jewels, her garments—until she stands completely exposed before the queen of the underworld. Suspended between life and death, she undergoes a profound transformation before eventually returning to the world above.
Within this myth, I now recognized myself—not only in the stripping away of Inanna’s identity as she moved deeper into the underworld, or in her suspension in the unknown, but also in the pull of her curiosity. It asked the same questions I was asking of myself now. What lies on the other side of surrender? What happens when we let go of control and identity?
Inanna was not curious about the underworld as a place, but about what she might discover there. Something in her was pulled toward that threshold, toward what she could not access while she remained intact and adorned.
While researching the myth further, I came across Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women by Sylvia Brinton Perera, which interprets Inanna’s descent as a psychological initiation—a journey into the depths of the psyche where former identities must be relinquished before transformation can occur.
Reading her work changed the way I related to and engaged with the myth. Rather than approaching it as a story to be read and understood, I began to linger on its images and symbols. I reflected on and journaled about the meaning of the seven gates and wondered what it might mean to be suspended between worlds. Over time, the myth became more than a narrative. It became a framework through which I could begin to understand the experience of uncertainty I was going through.
After leaving my abusive relationship, two things were particularly difficult. First, I had no container that could hold the experience of my life dissolving. I needed something that could give structure to the disorientation and overwhelm I was feeling. Second, I lacked the tools to navigate the unfamiliar territory I now faced without feeling as though I might be torn apart by it.
Returning to the myth began to change this. I found myself coming back to it repeatedly, working with its images and symbols through the interpretive lens offered by Perera’s work. Gradually, the story began to give shape to an experience that had previously felt chaotic and unmanageable. Its symbols offered a way to hold emotions that were difficult to articulate, and the imagery of the myth became a set of anchors in my journey through the unknown. This made it easier for me to articulate where I was in the scheme of things and it provided me with a kind of map I could use to navigate my way forward.
In essence I was using the myth as a guide to help me through my own transition.
Years later, I discovered that cultural psychologist Tania Zittoun has a name for this process of using something to overcome a disruptive gap in your life. She calls it turning a cultural element into a symbolic resource and this according to her is done primarily to navigate personal transitions.
In this process, a story, song, image, or object is used intentionally to carry significance beyond its everyday function. For example, a song is no longer just music when it helps someone feel closer to an absent loved one. By moving the cultural element out of its ordinary context and into a personal one, it becomes a tool for coping with loss. It is no longer simply a song; it now creates an abstract space where a person can connect, reflect, and process emotions related to that person.
Cultural elements can become symbolic resources in many ways. A worn teddy bear, for example, is more than a toy—it can offer comfort, evoking the safety and warmth of childhood. A film might be watched not simply for entertainment, but as a lens for understanding a personal dilemma. Even objects in public spaces, like a torn flag or street art, can carry social or emotional messages that speak far beyond words. Music, too, can take on a ritualistic role, helping to structure a time of grief or reflection. In each case, the ordinary transforms into a tool for navigating emotions, making sense of experiences, or connecting with something larger than the immediate moment.
There are three things that symbolic resources help us do. They help regulate difficult emotions. They allow us to distance ourselves from a difficult reality in order to gain a fresh perspective, and they act as a bridge, giving us a sense of continuity amidst change.
What began for me as a crisis and an ending, turned out not to be an ending at all, but the beginning of a deeper journey—one in which I learned how to hold my own descent and transformation.
x Martina
