How Are Archetypal Energies Influencing You?

How Are Archetypal Energies Influencing You?

By Carl Greer, PhD, PsyD

Understanding archetypal energies helps us to better understand the momentum of our lives, and to plan for ways to bring in or amplify energies that can help us write and implement new stories for ourselves. Archetypes appear within the collective unconscious we all share and in human cultures around the world and across time. Often, they are personified as figures such as the hero, the trickster, and the sage. Symbols that appear to you in dreams or when meditating may be manifestations of archetypal energies that are influencing you. Some may be human figures while others might be animals or even inanimate objects, such as a tree or a boat.

Archetypal energies are always affecting you, but you may not be conscious of their presence or effects. What is in your personal unconscious and the collective unconscious is hidden from your conscious mind. Dreams, Freudian slips, or strong feelings such as anger or shame that quickly and fiercely arise in a seemingly innocuous situation can be signs that universal, archetypal energies from your personal unconscious and the collective unconscious are active and influencing you.

Archetypes can influence you in different ways. You might experience the archetype of the fool as a playful clown, encouraging you to take life less seriously. Yet the same archetype might be experienced by someone else as a cunning and sophisticated court jester who dances on the edge of danger by revealing truth through humor. Your story and your everyday experiences influence how you perceive and are affected by any particular archetypal energy, and vice versa. There are benefits and downsides to all the many ways in which archetypal energies can influence you.

What archetypes seem to play a role in your life? Would you like to change them, or would you like to change how they influence you? How might you work differently with them to reap their benefits?