The importance of knowing your ARCHETYPES
Becoming aware of your personal set of archetypes, and how they influence your behaviour will give you important insights into your biological & emotional urges urges.
The theory behind this is that because these patterns are pre-existing, archetypes are predictable. Take the Hero, or even the Mother Archetype for example; regardless of what image you hold in your mind for these characters, there are certain patterns of behavior and personality traits which arise universally.
In the example of the Hero, you think bravery, valour, persistence, and action. The mother? what are your immediate thought and or musings about the mother archetype?
Suffice to say that an archetype is the ‘perfect example’ or model of something.
In the psychology of Carl Jung, aka Jungian Psychology, an archetype is an inherited pattern of thought derived from the past experience of the collective and present in our unconscious minds.
But Jung wasn’t the first to talk about archetypes. In fact the Greeks were the first culture to identify archetypes in that they referred to them as ‘The original imprint or stamp’.
Plato believed that everything you see in this world has been created in some way shape or form prior.
A lot of the archetypes trace back to Greek and Roman times and have changed in relation to the collective’s evolution. They’ve individuated and matured (eg: Zeus which is now considered to the seeker or philosopher archetype), and there have also been new archetypes added to the mix, like the computer geek archetype, which for obvious reasons, wasn’t around in the times of the great Greeks and Romans.
If you’ve fallen pray to the belief that your archetypes have to convert to a job, then you’ve got this all wrong.
They are energies that co-exist in all parts of YOU.
They are who you are in your entirety, not merely the skills you posses to monetise; and although people can and sometimes do, it’s not always the case. The soul needs the light and the shadow of the archetypal pattern, and so it’s with that in mind, that you can access the template of the archetypes you posses an understand how they co-create your life’s blueprint.
Remember this: An archetype isn’t personal. It belongs to the collective, and is played out by the individuals who posses the template. By understanding this, and separating yourself from it, you allow yourself the freedom and space to witness it’s behaviours, thus providing you with precious time and wisdom to choose an appropriate course of action in alignment with your values and intentions.