On Archetypes and Creating Your Own Life Story

In SWC’s complimentary monthly Women’s Wisdom Circle, we have been exploring feminine archetypes. I find the topic fascinating and a new way to look at personal energy, leadership concepts, and stereotypes, among other things. It seems to me that if archetypes are used over and over to tell women stories about themselves, recognizing and understanding these archetypes will allow women to control their own narratives. Understanding feminine archetypes, in particular, can give a woman more self-awareness and guide her into creating the life story she desires. Carl Jung famously introduced the concept of archetypes. His theory was that since fables, myths and fairy tales from all over the world have so many archetypical characters in common, it proves that we all share a collective experience. The idea of a collective consciousness is one I find appealing. It means to me that we have more in common than we think, for one thing. It helps explain why we respond to symbols. All women are some combination of the 7 feminine archetypes — often referred to as the Maiden, the Mother, the Huntress, the Wise Woman, the Wild Woman (or Mystic) and the Queen. Each archetype represents a different type of female energy. Each archetype is also associated with a chakra (part of our esoteric energy system) and a goddess figure from mythology. Each archetype also has a shadow side. Clearly, there is a lot of juicy stuff to talk about when we focus on this topic! Our discussions so far have been rich with connection and meaning, as we share our stories through the lens of a particular archetype. In the next Wisdom Circle, we will focus on the Mother. It doesn’t matter whether or not you have children, the qualities of this archetype are ones to which all women can relate. We hope you will join us on March 11th at 7:00 p.m. We can’t wait to welcome you! With love and light, Denise