WELCOME to the greatest adventure of your life, that is your life. It is with great honor that I invite you along this great hero’s journey. This talk explains how we can use the archetypal hero’s journey to find the excitement in healing from trauma, or plunging into any darkness in our lives, with a newfound sense of home, and a gift to give society. This talk will combine concrete calls to action for finding your own hero’s journey, with personal anecdotes, charts, and photos of beautiful original mixed media art. Amy Oestreicher is a PTSD peer-to-peer specialist, artist, author, writer for Huffington Post, speaker for TEDx and RAINN, health advocate, survivor, award-winning actress, and playwright, sharing the lessons learned from trauma through her writing, mixed media art, performance and inspirational speaking. As the creator of “Gutless & Grateful,” her BroadwayWorld-nominated one-woman autobiographical musical, she’s toured theatres nationwide, along with a program combining mental health advocacy, sexual assault awareness and Broadway Theatre for college campuses and international conferences. She has studied as a playwright and performance artist in the National Musical Theatre Institute at the world-renowned Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx