To understand and identify an archetype you must first understand your own motivations for your behaviors. The action isn’t enough to accurately identify an archetype, you must also understand what drives that action. Let me give an example.
- Action: Controlling behavior
- Archetype: The Judge/Critic
- Action: Controlling behavior
- Archetype: The Magician/Manipulator
- Action: Controlling behavior
- Archetype: The Bully/Defender
The behavior appears to be the same, a tendency toward being controlling but the archetypes are different. What makes them different is the motivation for the behavior. The motivation for the behavior varies dramatically from one archetype to another. Investigating into your own motivation is a worthwhile endeavor. Doing so will lead you to a clearer picture of your inner patterns because motivation drives patterns, especially unconscious motivations. Here is an example some possible motivations for each archetype and how they differ from one another.
- Action: Controlling behavior
- Archetype: The Judge/Critic
- Shadow Motivation: Desire to impose your own ideas of fairness
- Action: Controlling behavior
- Archetype: The Magician/Manipulator
- Shadow Motivation: Desire to create or maintain an illusion
- Action: Controlling behavior
- Archetype: The Bully/Defender
- Shadow Motivation: Desire to feel powerful and avoid feeling weak
After you realize the underlying motives for your patterns you can notice the methods you enact to meet those desires. Here are some typical methods for acting on these motivations.
- Action: Controlling behavior
- Archetype: The Judge/Critic
- Shadow Motivation: Desire to impose your own ideas of fairness
- Method: Quick to condemn anyone or anything that appears to challenge your idea of what is fair and just.
- Action: Controlling behavior
- Archetype: The Magician/Manipulator
- Shadow Motivation: Desire to create or maintain an illusion
- Method: Dishonest and/or deceptive to protect the image you have created. Distorting other’s words and actions to meet your own agenda.
- Action: Controlling behavior
- Archetype: The Bully/Defender
- Shadow Motivation: Desire to feel powerful and avoid feeling weak
- Method: Puts others down, refuses to show any vulnerability and lashes out verbally and /or physically if weaknesses are exposed.
Lastly you can discover the lesson embedded in the archetypal pattern. What must a person learn to transform the archetype to its conscious behavior? Here are a few possibilities of the lessons found in the archetypes.
- Action: Controlling behavior
- Shadow Motivation: Desire to impose your own ideas of fairness
- Method: Quick to condemn anyone or anything that appears to challenge your idea of what is fair and just.
- Archetype: The Judge/Critic
- Lesson: To be discerning rather than judgmental; withholding condemnation and remaining neutral to the facts without losing the ability to empathize and have compassion.
- Action: Controlling behavior
- Shadow Motivation: Desire to create or maintain an illusion
- Method: Dishonest and/or deceptive to protect the image you have created. Distort other’s words and actions to meet your own agenda.
- Archetype: The Magician/Manipulator
- Lesson: To expose and reveal the truth about yourself, your ego, your hidden secrets, to be completely open and visible and recognize the magical power of revelation.
- Action: Controlling behavior
- Shadow Motivation: Desire to feel powerful and avoid feeling weak
- Method: Puts others down, refuses to show any vulnerability and lashes out verbally and /or physically if weaknesses are exposed.
- Archetype: The Bully/Defender
- Lesson: To create trust and safety for yourself and others not through intimidation and posturing but through careful restraint and holding your ground.
This is just a sampling of the motivations and lessons in these three examples. There are many deeper aspects and nuances to be explored once you are sure that you have this archetype. Understanding the lessons and motivations of archetypes is the best way to identify them as your own and as a means of working with them.
