Benefit From Understanding Your Archetypes

In your life, you can unlock many beneficial perspectives and pieces of knowledge from knowing your archetypes. That is, the archetypes that best fit you and fit in with your life. You have certain archetypes in your psyche that are harmonized with who you are. However, you must first understand archetypes and then understand how to unlock their hidden potential for your life.

The concept of psychological archetypes was pioneered by Dr. Carl Jung. Jung was a psychiatrist who began his career as the protégé of Sigmund Freud who then left Freud after finding him much too narrow-minded and limited in the scope of what he was able--or willing--to comprehend and accept about the human psyche. Jung was much more spiritual, and he was able to accept far more about how human life and consciousness really work.

The "archetypes" are symbols and images embedded deep within our minds and emotions. They are so integral to human nature that they are born into us like our very DNA. They are universal and transcendent of different cultures, epochs, ages, and societies. Among these archetypes are the Alchemist, the Advocate, the Artist, the Magical Child, the Wounded Child, the Damsel, the God/dess, the Gambler, the Mentor, the Thief, and the Wise Old Man (or Woman). There are many more, too. Our different personalities and our different cultures make the universal archetypes manifest in different ways. So, the Advocate may manifest as Attorney, Defender, Environmentalist, Legislator, or Political Lobbyist. The Alchemist may be the Inventor, Magician, Scientist, Visionary, or Wizard. And so on.

When we become aware of archetypes, we are able to comprehend our own life lessons, dreams, tasks, and personal talents from a much wider perspective. We can begin to understand the wholeness in which we live, and no longer make ourselves feel so isolated from the rest of the world, or from Nature, or from the people we know and love. Our painful memories, our self-negating and self-defeating talk, and our world-diminishing belief systems no longer need to control us through automatic, un-thought-out responses, for we become aware of why we are acting in particular ways through the vision engendered by an understanding of the archetypes that our particular character and circumstances are summoning forth and manifesting.

When you understand the archetypes, and your own personal archetypes, you are then in possession of a potent tool for transforming your attitude from hopelessness and despair to powerful and in command. You realize that what you need are creativity and the development of highly effective habits. Knowing your own needs for the lessons you have to learn and the actions you have to take means for you that now you can consciously choose to write your own story and therefore create your own reality.

Wanting to begin living out a different story is no longer "mere wishful thinking", it is no longer dreaming the impossible dream. Now, it is a path that you can design, plan, map out, and walk upon into the life of your desires. Reinventing yourself, as you must do as soon as you are aware of your own archetypes, is no longer impossibly difficult, grinding work but a grand game.

So. Begin taking the time to learn of the archetypes. Use them to write stories for the practice of gaining the knowledge of them to apply to your own actual life. Soon you’ll start to understand what archetypes are yours right now and which ones belong to you. You’ll see that you aren’t helpless before mysterious or outside forces, but in fact you are involved in something timeless, ageless, and eternal. You can craft new self-images and live different stories--stories of your own success, and the fulfillment of your destiny.