Archetypes To Live By: The Power of Universal Symbols

[Waking Times]: A human life is a story, with a beginning, middle and an end. Like stories, our lives are filled with moments and experiences that shape us into who we ultimately become. Many of those moments and defining experiences become embedded within the subconscious mind, and even deeper into the ‘collective unconscious’ where they continue to drive our behaviours, actions and thoughts long after their shelf-life has worn out. They take on a symbolic form, and, in turn, a universal aspect that is understood, and experienced, by others all over the world regardless of time, place, colour, gender or creed.

These universal symbols are called ‘archetypes’, a word which has its roots in the ancient Greek archein for ‘original, old’, and typos for ‘pattern, type or model’. Archetypes are models or blueprints of original patterns, concepts, ideas, objects, themes and motifs that are later copied, modelled after, emulated and derived from. They serve as a foundation for understanding who we are not only as individuals, but as the collective of humanity as well.

Two of the biggest figures in the development and evolution of the study of archetypes were Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung, and comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell. Both have been instrumental in our understanding of archetypes, and their research served as the springboard for more recent examinations by noted authors and experts in the field of personal transformation.

Before we delve into the world of archetypes, we need to understand the levels of the human mind and how they operate. The most obvious to us is the conscious mind, which basically is the present and aware mind we live with on a daily basis. It is awake, rational, analytical and observant, but also preoccupied, overwhelmed and distracted. It is both clear mind and monkey mind, and the level of mind we use to interact with others and our physical environment.

Just below the level of the conscious mind lies the mighty world of the subconscious, where the vast majority of our behaviours, thoughts, actions and personalities emerge from. Like the base of an iceberg, the tip being the conscious mind, the subconscious is the ‘driver’ of the vehicle and is a place of shadows and darkness, buried experiences and embedded patterns, old beliefs and fears and all sorts of programming that has built up over the years, often at the hands of external influences like parents, peers, teachers, religious and political figures and cultural beliefs.

Where the conscious mind makes plans, the subconscious mind often derails those plans because of old patterns we don’t even know are there. So, it makes sense that most of who we believe ourselves to be is not even who we really are. Rather, it is the product of the vast expanses of the subconscious. And it is very hard to find the programming within, let alone change it!...<<<Read More>>>...