Welcome to Mindset, Mood and Movement, a systemic approach to human behavior, performance, and well being. Our psychological, emotional, and physical health are all connected, and my guests and I endeavor to share knowledge, strategies, and tools for you to enrich your life and work. Welcome to Mindset, Mood and Movement, a systemic approach to human behavior, performance, and well being. Our psychological, emotional, and physical health are all connected, and my guests and I endeavor to share knowledge, strategies, and tools for you to enrich your life and work.

Hello and welcome. Today we are looking at how to navigate a crisis of meaning by understanding archetypes. Now, don't worry if you don't know what either of those factors are, crisis of meaning and archetypes, we are going to explain. But really it's about helping you understand perhaps some of these, really useful things that archetypes deliver and show us, and perhaps the shadow side of them as well, and actually how we can use them if we're having a really difficult time and really struggling with. meaning or life or what that might be. I'm delighted to join by my friend, Greg, Greg Donaldson, who is a psychotherapist and an all round archetype genius. He knows a lot about this field. He's worked with me and is a, is a great font of knowledge. And I have been privileged to learn about archetypes a lot. They are something which are an embodying description of something that transcends people. So I'm going to get Greg to explain more on this, but this is where we're going today, guys. So, and I'm going to hand over to Greg. Greg, welcome. Good to see you.

Good to see you too. Archetypal genius. I'm not sure I can handle that, that, that label, we'll see as we go on. Maybe an archetypal good enough

That's all right with me. All right. the thing with, archetypes that there is, we need to understand it. So I think the first thing I want to ask you, Greg, is could you define for us what an archetype is in your definition?

In my definition, an archetype is a, an energy that can come through and be transmitted through us. So when you, when we talk about archetypes we normally thinking about kind of Jung's work and when you and and part of Jung's work is talking about the collective unconscious so this kind of idea that in the unconscious oneness of everyone there's this there's this sort of storage of different types of energies and archetypes that are playing through so so the idea being that you know it's like these are known Uh, site, uh, parts when sometimes life throws us a, a lesson that actually, Oh no, this is, okay, maybe I need, this is the time that I'm going through with this archetype, I need to bring this into my life. yeah, so it's difficult to explain if you're very realist in terms of, materialistic, it's just about, the, the physical reality, because there's something quite spiritual to it, and unseen, it's really hard to describe what goes on in the unconscious, because it's not like a thing that we can measure or see. so archetypes are useful in terms of thinking about energy, energies or themes that you can use to empower you or to notice what's going on in your life. so I come from a background of psychosynthesis which is a kind of, is a, a form of, or map. of psychotherapy that is born out of a combination of Jungian and Freudian kind of thought and and, and psychosynthesis kind of marries them both together and goes a little bit further in terms of using a creative way to think about your life. So in psychosynthesis, instead of archetypes, we talk about sub personalities. We all have these sub personalities or players in the orchestra within us that Mostly go unconducted. So part of what therapy would be is about, is about, noticing that you have a conductor and that you need to step into relationship to all these different parts. In Jungian therapy, we can think about it more in terms of general themes and archetypes that are coming through that we might want to notice what's happening in our lives or what, or what's going on around us, who we've got attracted to us.

Yeah, really interesting. Thank you. and a very eloquent description. and you're right. Some people haven't come across archetypes or may have just loosely determined you. It is a big, a big field and we can, but we can also use the other names. So yes, sub personalities. I think character types, character traits, personality types. Many of us would have come across some of these descriptions to describe it. attributes and characteristics and behaviors and energies of people. And we all know it, it's a bit like, some subtle ones, the playful one, the serious one. We've all had this very general terms, but what Greg and I were going to is some of the more specific ones that, that, that are powerful, that are encapsulating, but also where they're helpful and not helpful. Now my interpretation of an archetype is for me personally is to understand where my whole mind, body, energy system is at. So if on a day I wake up and I'm feeling great, I might be in a sort of a powerful archetype and I can really meet the day. And I might have a certain label for that. Perhaps it's the King archetype or the Explorer archetype. And some days I might wake up and it's not all going so well for me. And I might want to be the, the cave dweller archetype and hide away. And I think it's very helpful to. make sense of these things. And as we said, at the top of our show, that if you're having a crisis is some kind, or even a crisis of meaning at the deep level, really understanding your self and these parts of yourself, which may or may not be working together is really helpful. Greg, when we talk about understanding parts of ourself. For, for someone who's not really sure or hasn't really heard about the aspects of being different parts, could you go a little more into this? And I was going to caveat that because I do know when I work with people who don't know this, they say, I haven't heard of this, but then we have the phrase like, part of me wants to do this and part of me doesn't. So we often speak in this part, part, aspect anyway, but perhaps you could explain a little more from your. a professional understanding how these parts interrelate or don't interrelate. So we can understand it better.

Absolutely. yeah, and just to highlight again, this is just like where I've come to in my own understanding and kind of the reading that I've done and the way that I find it useful to look at life. I come from a background of being an actor for 20 years, so there's a sense that there's something. Without sounding pretentious, there's quite something quite shamanic in that art, actually, because what you're doing is you're jumping into different character aspects and then performing it on a stage or in front of a camera. And actually part of what that's about is being able to fully immerse into another human being's experience and then being able to present that out, hopefully in an entertaining or useful way in the world. I already Start from a place where, I'm interested in, the experience of the other, and actually, and how that's possible for all of us, so it's you could talk about, recently there's been a, TV program, on BBC One, starring, Jimmy Savile, right? Now, I don't want to go off tangent here, but it's like, when you think about, people who have committed those sorts of crimes, or people who have committed murder, or whatever, actually, when you think about it in terms of, the human experience, we are all capable of that. Like we're all capable of going there and as an actor you can see that because it's like well Yeah, how'd you get into the mind of a someone who is a pedophile or a murderer or whatever and actually you realize that? There is always something traumatic or forgiving or something about, about any human experience and how they've got there, so that's my kind of upfront speech about it, but about where, why I'm coming at it is because actually I feel like looking into parts and aspects of ourself is just what I've always done in a way that I've always thought about it. often,

yeah, I was gonna say I'm really intrigued because your, your, your backstory as an actor is something which is different. Certainly, I, I, I've done, I've done, I think I played maybe years ago, but I'm not very good. But being an actor, of course, the great actors of, of, of, many... TV shows and movies, they're captivating and, and, and great actors can step into these different roles and they're literally different people, and yet it's the same human being. So I think for, for me, I totally understand archetypes when I look at, a great actor who's plays a, perhaps a comedic part or a villain part, or a gentle part. And you think, actually it's the same human being who's got this skillfulness, who's tapping into something such as, the villain or the good guy or whatever the, the, the part is. so you have an inside line on that. And when we think about those parts, because as an actor, they're to do a job well, you have to absolutely embody that. You have to really be that part. Otherwise it's, it's see through, you're not a great actor, right? But what about real life? So when we're dealing with stuff, how does those, how do those parts certainly for you work, when you might need to be a certain part or archetype? How do you use that in your own life?

if you think about it, it is similar, because, it's like the Shakespearean thing of, like, all the world's a stage and we're just players in it. And actually, the thing that the ego loves the most is, this sort of sense of safety, this reaching for, I am this. I am this. And, When you think about that on a deeper level, it's just, it's not helpful because, it, just the language of that is like solidifying, it's making, turning you into an island, it's, you are becoming an identification of whatever I Whatever the statement I am is, there's curious experiments done, I don't know if you know the kind of magician, Alistair, Alistair Crowley, back in the days, he was this dark magician, but he used to do these sort of tests, like language, like taking things out, like Not saying the word I to anything, and if he did, if he caught himself, he would cut himself or something like this. And then in the, in the 70s, there was a guy called Robert Anton Wilson who tried a similar experiment. And, basically every time he used the word I, he would bite his thumb. And it was a kind of reminder of yeah, anything that you attribute I am to is becomes a... becomes an identification, and, and when you've got identifications that you are a certain thing, then you start having very heavy opinions and convictions about life, which isn't that helpful, so he famously, he used to say, convictions cause convicts, so you become a prisoner of, of your own identifications. So the way it answers your question, the way I find it useful, is to see it as a kind of ongoing, theatrical event or filmic event, this life that we're that we're passing through, that is non static, and so therefore, It's always gonna be changing, so it, so, I'm gonna have, a cast of characters within me. And some of them are villains. Some of them are sweetness and light, and some of them are sorrowful martyrs and some of them are, complete, I don't know, materialists, and some of them are mystics. so this is the, the issue we face as, being a human being with a kind of psychological awareness and a cast full of characters is that actually we have this kind of paradoxical, oppositional characters within us. And, and a lot of the problem. of life comes through, thinking that I have to choose one and be one, and then once I've found that one I'll stick with that, my work as a psychotherapist is about, mostly, or a lot, about discovering who people have got in their cast of characters and how perhaps they, might understand a different way of working with them.

Yeah, that's so interesting, isn't it? Because my upbringing, my, my early upbringing was that you were, you, you were this name, you're the name that you're given and this is what you do. And you, you, you follow that groove. that's what happens to a lot of us. And it's either either for a crisis of meaning or you, for some reason you might seek therapy or you have personal development. Somehow you've got into that space or perhaps you've been on a yoga journey or something like that. That's, that's opened you up to this multiplicity. But you're absolutely right. And it reminds me of my old philosophy teacher, Ann, and she used to say a sentence in the mind is a sentence indeed. And it's, it's true, isn't it? And this is some of the problem stuff, which in my space of coaching and moving people beyond stuckness, where the I statement is often very rigid. I am X, I am this, I am this. character, this person. And actually there's something interesting about going to the shadow sides and the, the deeper parts where Oh, what about the, yeah, let's say the villain or the rebel, the person who's really got it all together, but. There's a rebel in there. It's interesting, isn't it? So when we allow those, those parts to be seen, and the multiplicity I think is really interesting. I know family systems talks about this a lot as well, and I know you've spoken to me a lot about this in Psychosynthesis, having an understanding of who we are, as in all, all of the I, all of the aspects of eyes, absolutely fundamental. Because if we have, an internal conflict, I don't like the rebel in me, or, the serious part of me is boring, or whatever that thing is, we've got an issue because it's you. It's still you, but what part of it? So thinking about these, these, all these parts, if we are... I tell you what, I really wanted to speak to something here. So I work with a person and, again, with all my people, I alias them for their own privacy, but I work with this person and they were displaying the archetype of a savior. So they're going around and perhaps we could call that the hero archetype. So they were definitely, taking care of things, very male domain, being the carer, being the savior and we were doing some work around their levels of stress. And I was like, okay, did you know you're probably working from this archetype more than you think? And they hadn't even seen it. And on a behavioural level, it played out like this. Every one of their team came to them with a problem, and they, and this person, solved this, these people's problems. So then they ended up coming to this person all the time. So their, my client's workload was through the roof. And it's like, why can't these people just, do what they need to do? And I said, because we've set, you've set up a paradigm here. You've set up a saviour paradigm, which always implicitly means that it is someone that needs to be saved. And the minute... He shifted from that, the conscious shift out of, I'm not gonna save this person, I'll be kind, and I'll be caring, but I'm not gonna save them. Oh my god, literally, it was a sea change, not only in the way they behave, but how people behave to them, and I find it so intriguing. Have you got an example of, maybe someone, an alias of course for privacy, but have you got an example of when you've seen an archetype at play that hasn't been helpful and you've helped someone work through it?

probably millions, but I can't, I can't, I wanted to respond to your client, to be honest,

Yeah, please do then, yeah.

yeah, because there's something interesting about that journey, really fascinating, like just even that moment that you're talking about there, where it's Feels like it's obvious you've hit a, you've hit a theme, it's like this guy's trying to save the world one person at a time, right? And then, actually, So when you look at that, you can look at that in a few different ways. It's not just like random, the fact that he's doing that, right? There's a kind of, some habitual thing that's happened. So he, there's something, when you look at any archetype, you can look, or subpersonality, you can look at the kind of, Light side, positive, transpersonal side of it, the helpful side of it, but also there's going to be a shadow side to it, so it's really useful to think about that, I think, when you, especially when you're talking about saviour complex, and there's plenty of that going around in the kind of healing fields, it's in the sort of scene of psychotherapy and yoga and, anything to do with healing the other is like a way to, potentially be working on some level to healing your own family, or healing your own history, or healing the divide within you, and so So yeah, it's great to hear that you, you can use that in terms of look, there's an energy coming through here and now let's look at why that and, and how that's developed because just noticing it doesn't necessarily change it, right? so there's this, so there's always a sense like, oh, now I know that and I have that in mind. It's now I need to see where that's helping me in my life or not helping me, I certainly resonate with it in terms of my own journey as a therapist. there's a, there's a kind of, sense that you set that up from the beginning. you say, you put your website up and you say, Look, come to me and I'm going to, help you with all your problems. Hopefully, what you're not saying on your website is I'm going to fix all your problems. because as soon as you start promising something like that, then... You're in your kind of saviour complex. But even if you don't write that on your website, and someone comes to you, and they're sat in front of you, and they're saying, that this is all the stuff that's going on in my life, and this and that and that and that, can you help me? the real answer is, yeah, I can walk alongside you, and I can help you see what you need to see, but I'm not gonna fix you, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna wave a magic wand, and you're gonna be better. I'm going to help you learn to step into a relationship with yourself and, hopefully that will help you improve your life.

Yeah, that's so interesting. And yes, you, I think you're right in the healing fields, in the yoga field, therapy coaching that there is a sense that if you haven't got your internal act together, then you could be coming from that archetype. I know my psychotherapy master was like, You need to take care of your own stuff before you do any work, right? That's, that's absolute mandate in what we, what we were training, cause it was vital. It's really important to do your work yourself and make sure that you're not, you're conscious of your own stuff as well as you're working with clients.

Yeah, yeah, just a sort of note to that as well, because there can be a big, emphasis on, yeah, you've done, you've dealt with your own obviously, but, But as being a human being is endless, it's endless, you never get there, right? so yes, I agree that there does need to be a sense of you know where your triggers are and where your, where your work is, but, but you're still walking alongside someone, you don't have to be like perfectly healed yourself as long as you, you've got the, uh, reflective, um, skill to know. That's where you might get triggered and who you might work, that might, have a kind of bearing on who you work with.

Yeah, that's that's that's such a good point is that that self awareness is so vital. And it makes me think of the culture that we're in. I grew up in school and I think school is not that different today. It's very didactic. People tell you what to do. People tell you information, they give you all this stuff, as opposed to how you think and and I've come across so many people, both And if they're in the corporate workspace or the working field as opposed to entrepreneurship, there's often a sense that there's this sort of hierarchy that the manager or the senior manager, they, everyone tells everyone what to do. Whereas a more of a inquiry led approach, what I would call a coaching approach, but it's an inquiry would ask a question, say, so how come you're doing that? And what's that for? Would be interested in pulling out of the other. Whereas a lot of our culture is about telling people what to do, which. I know from my experience, certainly in, as a man, a lot of that male domain has been about, we'll tell you what to do. And it's, I do wonder, is that this sort of the power archetype of some kind coming through there in a, in a general way? It's, it's a question I don't know if we need to answer, but it's just a question that comes in my mind. What, what are your thoughts on that?

it's interesting when you talk in that way because what I, I always think about life, how you, how it's experienced outside in terms of it being a projection of what's going on inside. So you can look at the world. If you look at the world today, and there's so much opposition and war, and you can see what's going on in Palestine and Israel and the Ukraine and Russia and just in general human history, there's this like oppositional kind of like, I'm gonna wipe you out, kind of thing, And so why would that be any different to what's going on in, in our, in our psyches? And it's a perfect, example actually really of, of what you're saying is look at all these structures that we have that are to do with. Management and Hierarchy. It's exactly the same thing that goes on in our heads, and so that's why we love it, because we want it, we're like, we're building the same things that go on in our heads, but actually, now we're coming much more round to this idea of being, living in a, in a place where it is much more of a kind of where it isn't more of a curious discussion, and hopefully that's how it is in our heads. Do you know what I mean? And that's how we can, we start to realize that we're living with a kind of, the board members of our own psyches. And so we have to find ways to communicate with them. We can't just go in there. and bang our fist on the table and say, this is how it is from now on. But, but most of, mostly all of us do live in a dictatorship, or a cult. That's one of my sort of favorite ways of thinking about it is actually we're all in a cult and, and we don't know we are. because we've signed up and so we're agreeing to all the kind of the, the rules of how to be and how to operate, and it's only when we come up against possibly a, an existential crisis or, or, or a place where, oh my god, I like, I can't find any more meaning in my life right now, it's because the board members have all gone on strike because they don't want to live in a dictatorship anymore, so it's a natural reaction is to go into Some sort of melancholy, or meaninglessness.

that's so interesting and many of us might be hearing this thinking, really? Is that how it rolls? Is that actually how the mind is? But we do know it, don't we? We know, of course, the classic example, is perhaps getting, having a few too many drinks, alcoholic drinks. So the person who's got their act together, maybe works hard, perhaps a parent, does all the really good stuff, a couple of glasses of wine or beers, and suddenly they're like, yeah, I don't care. And, and this is very different character. Now we could talk about inhibition, how the brain works, and we won't get caught up in that, but. What is interesting, I think, is that sometimes those shifts, whether it's chemical shift or whether it's an existential shift, it brings a part forward or an archetype forward that may be in the recesses. And I find it very interesting that you're right. There's this sort of perhaps leader. in our minds. And it could be, I don't know, let's say it's me. I'll take my example, Sal, the, the coach, and it's diligent and this, that and the other, and really committed to what I do. Sometimes I'm just a, I'm just a great big kid. I just like to play and I'll do really playful things and, and I can be multiple things. And, I've had the fortune of great teachers and, therapists to help me through that and understand that better. But I think when we don't have a clue of this stuff, it's really, it can be overwhelming. But what I would say is, and I'm going to cycle back to the original description, a really good movie, or play if you like the, the deck, the boards as they say, a really good movie has a lot of characters in it. And it's got all the parts, hasn't it? It's got to have all the parts. And I think we are so capable of having all these archetypal parts. and perhaps if we suppress them and not understand them because we're scared of it, we're in deep trouble and then you're absolutely bang on. This crisis of meaning can come up because actually it's an internal crisis. I'm going to speak to the word crisis as well because I'm an etymology fan. Crisis is the Greek, it means to make a decision. It's a decision point. So we use crisis in our current language as if, as in the word catastrophe, but it's incorrect. So if we really are having a true crisis of meaning. We need to make a decision and that might look like I'm not going to be a Mr Boring anymore, I'm not going to be a hero archetype anymore, or I'm not going to be a victim archetype anymore. It could be one of these things that is okay, that's got to shatter because there's other parts are going to come through. Now, Greg, I know you're, you're super skilled at this. How? Do we allow those other parts to come through? And of course through a school of psychotherapists is a vital way, but if someone's, is listening now and thinking, okay, I get the sense of this. I've got the sense of that and the different versions of me. how how do we start to allow those parts of us to come through on a, even on a daily basis?

good question. I think we have to be careful not to overdo it. Because, um, I remember myself when I first started doing my psychotherapy training, and there was like one exercise where you close your eyes, And you get on a bus, and you're on a bus, and you realize that you're on a bus with all these characters on the bus. And then at some point it gets revealed that they are you. They're parts of you, right? And so then when you get off the bus, the idea is that you stand there and then you like, label them as they go, Oh look, there's Mr. Thingy. Oh yeah, he, oh look, there's Mr. Depressed. Oh yeah, there's the magician, there's the pragmatist, there's all these. But what starts to happen is You can get overwhelmed with this sort of sense of Oh my god, am I just gonna go crazy? Because I've got like all of these archetypes or sub personalities in my head. so my first invitation would be, Really, it's only really crisis that actually calls you into working or understanding these parts of yourself, because they're the parts that are necessarily not quite working, they're the part, or they're the parts that are, you're depressing, or, or pressing away, that's why I always think about depression, is that actually, depression is, if you think about it, you're talking about etymology, I mean I don't know the meaning of that word, but actually if you get into, actually what it, it, how it sounds, it, de pressed, I'm, I'm pressing down, Uh, I'm pressing away a part of myself. if you, if you, if you press away your vitality or some aspects of you that you were taught in your family cult wasn't acceptable, then you become depressed. so there are simple ways to do, to find out what, the simplest way to find out what you might be, hiding away or depressing is to, is simply right. put a line, get an A4 piece of paper, write a line down the middle and on the, on the left hand side write me, and on the right hand side write not me. Okay, and then in the column of the me column, just write down everything you identify yourself as. I'm this, I'm this, I'm this, I'm this, I'm this. List it all out. And then, and then, have a really close look at that. And then in the not me column. Look at the absolute opposite of what you've written down and try and equate them up. And that's not to say that, you've got all of this stuff in the Not Me waiting for you to be expressed, but there's a pretty big clue that there's something that you don't think you are in that Not Me column. And that is a very simple way to find out actually what you might need to learn to bring out in your life, what you might need to bring. for instance, if you are, sensible, I am sensible, in your not me, it might be I am careless, or I am spontaneous, or, so you find that and then it's like you go, alright, so it's pretty obvious that on some level I'm not allowing myself to be, careless or spontaneous. So how am I gonna do, how am I gonna and what, but the, so the next thing is to, is to think about this in terms of so that line down the middle, what that, what that actually represents in psychological terms, is a kind of, a little bit like a wall actually, and I'm coming, coming back to Israel and Palestine, it's like there's a wall, usually between what we think we are, and what we think we're not. And everything that we think we're not, gets put in, the not side, right? And it, and it, and, and locked down in there. And then what we do is we put guards on that little wall, or that massive wall, that are basically, put there in order to keep the equilibrium, right? You are allowed to be this, but you're not allowed to be that. And that, and so there, then someone depressed, or having a crisis of meaning comes into therapy. And, they just basically want you to strengthen that wall for them. usually they're like, I just want to feel better about who I think I am. and actually, the way I see it is, let's find out who you're not. And celebrate that as well. But the only way to do that is by digging under the wall. And creating, little escape hatches. And then, so you start to irrigate. You start to irrigate the energy. So you bring across spontaneity, you bring across a carelessness. you can still be sensible, but you are irrigating the conscious mind with a little bit more other energy from the, from the not allowed side. Does that make sense?

It does make sense. And I love that. I know, I've been privy to this work. It's fantastic. what, what, what my thought comes up in a sort of a straight away to that is Yeah, but what if I do something bad? So let's just say you've got the sensible archetype, whatever that is, let's call it sensible. And then you've got the spontaneity, spontaneous or the reckless. And it could be easy to, oh my God, but I, I can't be reckless and maybe I've got a family or got work or business and I, I can't do that. So there can be some, I, I sense some fear around that. which I can only guess is that I don't understand it. That's what's coming up in my mind. If there's fear coming up, there's a lack of trust, and if there's a lack of trust, it's because I don't understand it. And I don't feel I can deal with it. Which I wonder how you might answer to that. So if a person's having the same question, what if I do let the reckless part come up when I'm actually quite sensible, and I need to be, and I'm scared of that part, but part of me does want to be a little bit reckless sometimes. How would you help that person navigate, maybe that fear I've named, what would you do with that?

Well, the first thing that I would say to them is that it'll be more dangerous not to let that part out or not to irrigate that energy across. Because, I don't know if you've ever experienced this in your own life, I certainly have, when, when I ignore a part of myself, or, or something that needs to be expressed, I either get depressed, and feel, and feel the me, and cry, crisis of meaning, or, I act out, this part, this part that's being depressed, or put, kept on the other side, will just break the wall down, and come through, and take over, and that's usually why, why, why people are coming to therapy is because something like that has happened. The reckless part of them has come out and said, I've had enough of this. I'm not living in this cult anymore. I'm gonna go and wreck the whole village and comes out into the psychological village and starts like, Punching everyone and dragging everyone through the streets and it's like the sensible part goes Oh god, no, what's happened? What's happened? And then they they come to therapy in order to like have the wall fixed again and the recklessness put on the other side so of course You're exactly right. It is a fearful situation because it's not one or the other. It's not like I am sensible now I need to be reckless It's like, what would you do if you mixed sensibleness with recklessness, what would you find in that? Probably some kind of magical potion that creates enough sort of spontaneity and enough aliveness that it brings a kind of fear, but it also brings an aliveness, which is an antidote to meaninglessness, right? When, I think this is another part of what we're talking about in terms of crisis of meaning, is that actually, usually, usually that comes from being too safe, to some respect, because the wall is too well defined, so actually when you add in, what I call, stepping over the edge, then it needs to feel like stepping over the edge, So for someone who is very identified with their being sensible, standing on the side of a mountain with a parachute is going to feel like I'm basically, I'm going to die, this is it, I've reached the end, so So that feels challenging, and I'm not saying literally you're standing on the edge of a mountain, but it feels like to bring in a bit of, like, spontaneity may feel like standing on the edge of a cliff or a mountain, and so am I gonna fly, am I gonna jump, and will the parachute take me, or am I gonna plummet and, and die, and the ego will always go for, want to go for the safer option, will always want to just head to that place.

So interesting, is it? I love what you said. I love that idea of this irrigation. And I'm just imagining the sensible part in me and then perhaps the reckless or the, the not sensible part and, and that irrigation, you're right. It's so easy to get caught up in a black and white mindset or binary mindset. it's either this or that. I'm either sensible or reckless. And when actually it's like, actually life doesn't really work like that because. If you have all these parts in you, all these archetypal parts in you, then it's probably more of one part and less of one part, like a sort of a graduation. And I love what you said about irrigation and what might happen. Because of course, that's a brand new piece of chemistry. Psychological chemistry is going on there. It's something magical. And if you're stuck, If you have a crisis and there's something needs to change then we actually do need something magical to happen there and and that's a really beautiful way of describing it. That really struck me so thank you. I think one thing I think about the ego and again ego gets a bad rap. I used to be in yoga for a lot and people say, Oh, you get rid of the ego. I'd be like, why would you do that? We all need the ego. There's nothing wrong with the ego, but I think ego in my experience is actually quite a habitual thing. It's like we have a habit of being the, the I, that I know, whether that's the serious person or the coach or the joker or the playboy or whatever the thing is that's, that's your. Dominant type. And we get quite, it's like a habit. It's like a habit itself, like smoking or, going to gym, whatever habit, good or bad or healthy, unhealthy. Our ego feels like it can be a habit and there's a default. So if we look at brain science, it's, it's always the path of least resistance. It's go to what you know. So there's no surprise that the habit repeats, even if it isn't helpful. And. What might happen if we were to become clear on archetypes? A question that's come up in my mind. we, I'm going to give you an example. I've worked with a client and she was having a real problem with... communication with other people. And she felt like there was a lot of dominating characters in her, the place she was working and her company. And we spoke about what archetype, what version of you shows up at the conversation. And it was actually a bit like a fighter, but actually more of a victim as if something's going to get, I'm going to get a beating here. I'm going to get a verbal beating. So she was already on the defense. So neurologically, she's in a flight state. She's already prepped and ready. And Instead of a conversation, it was always a An argument that was her belief pattern. So we explored a little bit about the archetypes of the victim, and it's always happening to me and what that might be. And we played about, what version of you could step up to those conversations differently. And we looked at the queen archetype, and this was her, her term, not mine, her queen. And I got her to describe what her queen archetype was, and it was more of a powerful. More of a person who had some power, some, skill, some strength, as opposed to a smaller sort of squashed down person. And it seemed to help this person really well, but I know you are very clear on this, that we have to be careful of the archetype and perhaps the shadow and the light. So using our queen analogy, and I know you've said this to me before, but what might we want to look out for if we, if we step into that without really thinking it through? What type of queens might there be?

this is it. I think I know what you're getting at. if you look at actually royalty and, and dictatorships throughout the, the ages, you can see where, that kind of sovereign power can be also abusive or, or, shadow it's like I am the absolute, truth, I'm the connection to God, I think, I think, royal archetypes are really useful in terms of like king, queen, even like in the tarot with the sort of, Prince and Princess, it's all the, it's like a sort of sense of oh yeah, you're on your way, you're on this journey to king, to your kingdom or to your queendom, but, but that's not to say also that, that the more kind of, Sort of like, if you think about like in the, in the Queen of Swords, which is in tar, in a tarot deck is about like becoming like absolutely sharp, mentally focused and, and then, at work, for instance, with your client, it's not about her needing to come like, oh, the friendly queen that will like, look after everyone. It might be the queen that has to be like, looks at one eye, and kind of sees what sees what her domain. And then the other eye is purely, a cold eye, no, it can see what needs to happen, off with their heads. I can't hire these people anymore. Look, they're absolutely useless, I need to get rid of them. and that becomes, that's useful, but it's still, can be powerful, and it's not like the Queen of Cups, for instance, that would be... I am the loving queen, the loving mother of creativity, and this is what I need to imbibe in my people, this sort of sense of, let's all share, and I will share my wealth, and all this kind of stuff, which is another great archetype, so yeah, you're right, there has to be kind of specificity to these kind of, thinking about these archetypes, and actually what they might offer in their shadow as well that could, could get attached to that power, right? That's why you might need, also need the fool in there, to come in and tell the truth with humour. in case the, King or Queen get, carried away with their own sense of power. You

That's, yeah, it's such an interesting point, isn't it? Because I'm picturing, I'm very visual, so if you can play along, I'm imagining a stage, because Greg being an actor, and on that stage, you know, the, actor at that moment steps forward and does their lines and delivers their piece. And then, of course, if it's all very serious and the idea of the, of the, The performance is to be quite comedic. You might get someone butt in and make a, like an absolute joke of them. And it could be the joker or the playful one or whatever it is. And of course, if we don't allow those aspects of our mind to step forth and step back to graduate in and graduate out and to balance, then we're slipping to a very, uniform way. Aren't we? As in one. And of course the problem with one is that. If we need to be a certain way because we always need to be a different way. it's, you, you don't want to be at work how you are at home. if you lead at work, you don't walk into the house and go, Everybody dinner at six. You're not an MD you're a dad, a mom or something or if you're playing with your kids you don't go, I don't know. You don't become like a different archetype. That's not helpful rather than the dad archetype or mom archetype. So I think there's a skillfulness, isn't there about what? version of me, what archetype, what aspect of me needs to come forward at this time? And I think that's what I've learned from this work is that if we don't understand what's needed at this time, Either a habit will happen, which would be an old habit and perhaps an unhelpful one, or if it's predicated on fear or something like that, it might just become a defender, batting off everyone, instead of an explorer who's Wow, this is a brand new exciting thing. I've no idea what's going to happen. So I think there's a skillfulness, isn't there, about if we're in a crisis of meaning, if we're really struggling with where we're at, how we can embody and tune into archetypes, but no, What's appropriate now, and maybe it's a bit of a blend, it's like the queen and the joker need to come together to the meeting, or perhaps it's the, I mean there's the sage archetype, one of my favourites, because it's got stuff I like to do, but the sage archetype is of course is all wisdom and light, but what about the explorer who's like, well I don't know, let's go have a look, so if we bring forth the right balancing, we're going to shift, and if it is a crisis of meaning, You need to make a choice. And it's which one are you going to choose? Or which several are you going to choose to come forward? I'm interested to know, Greg, what are your, I know there's some, if we look at Carl Jung's work, and there's guys, we'll put some links in the show notes, but there's some overarching archetypes, aren't there? Are there any that really stand out for you that are helpful when we're going through a crisis?

Yes, there are. there's a brilliant book by Rod Boothroyd called Warrior, Magician, Lover and King. And that's a really useful way of looking at those kind of four archetypes, especially for men, I think there might even, there's the same version for women as well. but it's, it's about setting up your council, if you like. So it's like the king is the, is the overall purpose holder. It's I look at my life and this is what I want to experience, this is how I want my life to be, these are my values. And then you, and then you go about, with the team, the team of warrior, magician and lover. So you've got your kind of warrior who will go out into the world. and do the whole kind of career thing or do or basically work out a way to be in the world make sure that you're fed and housed and taken care of. The magician is more like the the kind of puzzle, he's the one that kind of comes up with the, the solutions to the puzzles of life. you give him the, the kind of, oh, how do I need to think about this, this, this problem? Or what's this thing that's going in my life? And the magician can help with that. And then the lover is about, like, how you do relationships, isn't it? Like, how am I gonna, can I bring intimacy into my relationships? Not just, romantic relationships, but, like, all relationships. And so you've got these, amazing team of archetypes there, led by the king. The problem that we see a lot is that the king abdicates, and just puts his feet up, and then those, those other three, they go off and just do their own thing. So if they don't have a leader... then they can be, they can start working for their own causes, which then leads into another whole load of other trouble, So that's one lens you can look at it through. Another lens that I like to look at things through is Caroline Miss. she talks about, archetypes and these kind of contracts that we, we come into this life with and lessons to learn. Alright, and she's got this idea that there are four archetypes that we all share. Now, two of them you might find quite surprising, right? So you've already mentioned the victim archetype, and the other one is the prostitute, right? And it's really, that's really, I find that so fascinating, because actually, no one wants to identify themselves as having a victim archetype. But actually, we're all, we've all suffered, right? It's if you go into sort of like the Buddhist teachings, it's the first law is like, life is suffering, right? And so, and so the victim archetype speaks to that in terms of yeah, we, we, we do, we all have suffering in our lives, no matter what that looks like. Some of it might be more, look more extreme, in terms of like childhood abuse and childhood trauma. But, but whatever happens to us, we come through our childhood and we're traumatized to some level, right? you could say with a small t, but it's like you might get ignored, or you just being born, traumatic event, right? so the, the thing about the victim archetype is if you get identified with that one, then actually what you attract to you are the archetypes, she's talking about the The triangle, the victim triangle, the, you get into this kind of you'll get people who are going to come and rescue you out of that, or you're going to get people who are, become your sort of perpetrator, become the person that's bullying you, right? So then, so then that circle of those three archetypes gets to just play along, and then, but then on another level, think about that in terms of that's an internal triangle, it's like when I'm in my victim, then who comes along? The, the, the person in me that thinks they know better and that they should get rid of this victim and stand up for themselves, so that might be useful, but it also might not be useful. so I, I can do a lot of work with people around how to, almost build, what I get people to do is I get them to build a statue in their own mind to the victim, right? It's yeah, you make it big and gold and shiny and massive, As big as you like, and then bow down to it and give it everything like yes, you have suffered, and then get up and walk away from it, alright, and you know it, you know it exists, it's there in your psyche, but now I'm going to go over here and do this, too many people set up camp at the bottom of that, that statue and go I'm just going to live here, because this is, this is much, This is all I need actually, it's just like my, my, my enjoyment of this suffering, when I say enjoyment of suffering, it's that comes from the sort of tantric view of like, all of these, demons that we have, or all of these archetypes, that we can, even if they're in the shadow side, there's some pleasure we're getting out of it. There's such a pleasure of being a victim. I can, it's like I'm eating suffering for breakfast, it's like I get, get something from that. so all the work is, I find interesting, it's just about yeah, whatever's there, notice it and honour it, and find out why you need to honour it. And then, and then, coming back to what you were saying about transitioning, learn how to become a little bit more of the witness or the conductor. So you can direct the energies through. It's like, oh, now I feel the rebel coming through, or Mr. Sensible needs to come back, or, or like a mixture of the two, which creates an alchemy of skillful will. You know what I mean? We'd say in psychosynthesis, once you bring love and will together, you get this skillful will. And so you could say the same about archetypes when they maybe start working together, collaborating together. like the King, the Warrior, the Lover, Magician thing. Suddenly you get this alchemy of expansion and creativity

Beautiful, beautifully put. There's images in my mind, I'm very image led. I've got this, because being an actor, it's all on stage right now, but I've got this image of all these parts, all these archetypes, and the spotlight is shining down on one. But if you're cool, you can be a light, lighting conductor as well. And you shine the light on different archetypes. You might be brighter on the king, a little lighter on the lover or, um, bright on the, on the warrior archetype. And you can start to play and brighten up and add people in. It's, it's fascinating, isn't it? of course it's a huge field and we've, we've, we've obviously touched on it. and to obviously give everyone a feel and I think in a way, perhaps some understanding that you're way more than perhaps just the identity you might be attached to. And that's a good thing. That's a healthy thing. You can be way more. And when you start to gently understand these aspects of self, and I've done a lot of work on this myself, understanding the bits that we've hidden, the bits that are shameful, the bits you don't like or don't understand. When we start to bring everyone in the room, in the mind, you start to go, Oh, okay. So all these parts, and instead of it being terrorizing or scary, you start to understand it's more of a, a collage or hologram of sorts, where this beautiful contrasting nature of all these parts can actually reside together. But we need the light of awareness to understand this and we need the light of awareness to, to bring things together and, and, and as you say, Greg, to alchemise, to really use that. take a breath. Greg, thank you for your time, your knowledge and your thoughts and sharing with us about archetypes and, and how they may help. If you're struggling with crisis of meaning. Perhaps I invite you to really feel this, that there's something possibly coming through and it's actually a chase, a point of decision and change, not necessarily something terrible. And I think this is such a thing I've learned from my psychotherapeutic background, into my coaching work. And Greg, of course, has shared a lot with me that actually a difficult time isn't necessarily bad. It could be the right catalyst for change. So it can be like, OK, I'm really struggling right now. That's telling me something shifting as opposed to I got to get rid of it. So I hope that this is an inspiring, insightful line of thinking that you can take forward. And of course, we will leave Greg's details in the show notes. We'll add some bits around the books Greg mentioned. And yeah, perhaps when you go away from this session, sit for a second, get that pen and paper out, draw the line down the middle. Who are you? And who are you not? I just get super interested in that because what we don't look at is often really insightful. so it's an amazing simple, yeah, elegant exercise Greg's given us. thank you, dear listener. Thank you, Greg, for your time and your wisdom. And, I'll talk to you on the next one. Take care.

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