Let Your LOVER Be Your Guide

 

So yesterday once again I was walking the labyrinth path and received this impression:

“Let your Lover be your Guide.”

I recognize that since this is near the end of the month of October in which I have been focusing this blog around the Lover archetype, this message meant for me to let Her lead the way for me as I go forward with some wonderful new opportunities surrounding my book, Your Life Path.  I am about to step forward into a whirlwind of activity, it seems, to complete the final polishing edit and then, after it is published, to promote it so that it will reach all readers who can benefit from its life mapping Tools.

But I also realize this message is meant for you all.

LET YOUR LOVER BE YOUR GUIDE!

images are from pixabay.com

Archetypal psychology is largely about INTEGRATING your inner archetypal personas, harmonizing them to work together as Allies as you go forward to manifest your goals and to live your greatest life.  While any one or another of your inner archetypal parts-of-Self might dominate for this or that situation, putting the Lover in you first can mean,

Let LOVE lead the Way!

What would Love do, right? I invite you to contemplate and then to put into practice the Path that Love shall forge.

Be a Wayshower: Positive Role Models

Role models are often our greatest Teachers without trying to be.  We see in others examples of what we are striving to achieve in our own lives; we emulate those who exhibit and live up to our high ideals and strong values. Role models illuminate the pathway we are set upon, as we follow in the footsteps of those who have gone before.

Who have been your greatest Role Models or Wayshowers?  Spiritual prophets and faith leaders demonstrate the canonical Wayshower form.  Religions have formed around the heroic spiritual values of their founders. If your role model is a spiritual Wayshower, what have you applied to your own attitudes and behaviors based on the values your role model has exhibited?

“What would XXX do now? (Where XXX might be Christ or Buddha or Mother Theresa or the Mahanta or Muhammed, or your parent or a primary role model teacher or friend.) You might ask yourself this question when you seek to arrive at a positive decision or course of action that resonates with your deepest values and beliefs.

Some of what I have gained from my Role Models (I invite you to write your own list and I welcome your sharing in Comments or stories):

• Practice, practice, practice to attain self-discipline (from my fencing coach in college when I was on what became a highly successful intercollegiate fencing team);
• Edit, edit, edit to arrive at writing that ‘sings’ (from writing books and teachers);
• Contemplate, read deeply, dream to arrive at spiritual awareness and realizations (from spiritual authors and Guides);
• Do not sell yourself short, go for your Dreams and persist to manifest your ideals to advance creatively and to be of service (from several teachers and author role models);
• Accept, forgive, love unconditionally to attain a balanced viewpoint free of negativity (from my pets and closest friends and family).

My Sophia

So also consider, in what ways are you and can you be a role model Wayshower for others? Learning from role models and applying these lessons is a reciprocal process that allows us to be of service to others as well.  So remember to be a positive role model, allowing your attitudes and actions to inspire those around you, whether in public or with your closest loved ones.

images (except My Sophia) are gratefully from pixabay.com

You never know who is watching and listening, and what their needs might be that you could help them with, even unknowingly. In fact this mode of being a role model simply by the example of your highest or most mindful attitude or behavior is the highest order of teaching for its humility bespeaks the authenticity of the role model’s overall effectiveness in practice.

Better Endings to You!

 

Elder Leader as Pathfinder: Change It Up!

On Sunday I blogged about Chefs as Elder Leaders bringing about a new fusion of cultural traditions in our globalizing world. Reflecting further on this theme, “change it up!” comes into focus as a statement about personal growth.

The Elder Leader archetype is a harbinger and often an agent of change. When you become too settled into established routines or habits, beliefs and attitudes, you can always call upon your archetypal Leader persona to set you forth in a new direction. This is because Leaders are Pathfinders. They are not content to stay in a situation that feels stuck or stultifying for very long. When you do resist change or feel hampered by limiting conditions, your Leader might “submerge” and cause a feeling of dissatisfaction—that is a Shadow leader trait—or else it will seek a new direction and set your course in the direction of exploration or, at least, envisioning a future set of possibilities.

I have been feeling somewhat impatient or hedged in about my own creative development lately. I have been getting plenty of things “done” to fulfill my responsibilities, yet now that some of these projects are completed I see a break in the “busy-ness” cloud and I have become more aware of what I wish would be happening beyond my day-to-day routines and workload. So it is a good time to enter into Archetype Dialogue:

LW: Calling Elder Leader; come in, please!

EL: Very funny. Watts’ up, Doc?

LW: Very funny in return!

EL: Droll perhaps, but hardly funny really. What can I do for you?

LW: I feel stymied.

EL: What is it you are wishing for?

LW: Are you my Genie in a Bottle, then?

EL: That is an apt metaphor, at least.

LW: Well in the biggest picture of things, I want to go Home!

EL: What do you mean?

LW: To find my place, my REAL place or space … you know?  Where I belong, where what I do can be effective and reach those hearts I strive to connect with in a dynamic, helpful way…my Family (both literally and metaphorically). Where I can serve my kindred well and be progressive with my own Soul Journey.

EL: You wish to leave this earthly plane?

LW: No, of course not; you know that is not what I am saying.

EL: You want the world to change around you, to better suit your ambitions?

LW: Yes I suppose, I do want the routines to dissolve so that NEWness can enter. New conditions, new activity, finally proceeding to Live my Dream fully, here and now.

EL: What are you going to do about that?

LW: I thought you are the Leader, the Pathfinder for change.

EL: I am; You are!

LW: You seem rather placid lately; you lead me to act toward my goals but seem content with that activity (writing, resubmitting earlier today).

EL: Are we doing all that we can do, Now?

LW: On the level of basic activity and productivity, yes. But I sense there is more I COULD be doing that could facilitate the greater change. What is that?

EL: Perhaps you are referring to the Law of Attitudes or Assumptions.

LW: Change my beliefs or postulates?

EL: Be open to all that which Spirit offers; do not hold back. Sometimes ANY small change is a step in the right direction, like rejoining the Y as you have done recently.

LW: Yes! Physical activity or “returning to fencing” has always been a way for me to shake off the cobwebs to make greater progress.

EL: Then do two things better: Contemplate better. Trust more.

LW: Thank You.

I invite you to open a dialogue with your own Elder Leader, whomever and however you might perceive that to be!

Of Great Valor: Heroic Leaders

When tragedy strikes a community, the Elder Leader rises from the masses as heroic individuals step up to the tasks of search and rescue, repair, and restoration. One of the clearest examples in our current times is responses to terrorist attacks on innocent, average people. When the attack on the Twin Towers wreaked havoc in NYC, firefighters and a host of other officials including police, politicians, journalists, psychologists, doctors, nurses, social workers and emergency vehicle personnel rushed immediately to the horrid scene to recover victims and tend to the injured of both body and heart. Many of these heroic leaders have sacrificed their own lives or health while trying to rescue as many as possible from the rubble. The Leader steps forward where others might shrink away from fear of a dangerous situation.

Sometimes people who demonstrate heroic action, like a neighbor rushing into a burning house to rescue a child or a pet, might ask themselves later, “where did that come from?”, referring to their own instant courage and ability. It is at least in part from their Elder Leader archetype stepping forth to conduct their behavior.

Then there are the driven Leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mother Theresa, who step up in full exercise of their leadership strengths to bring about positive change by their examples for the entire world.

So get to know your own Elder Leader persona. I invite you to dialogue with your Elder Leader part-of-Self this week, or to write about how and when your Elder Leader has been most active in your life.  The more you reflect upon your deep archetypal potentials, the better “integrated” they will become, and the more available to your conscious awareness and outlook.

And re-blogging from Finding My Inner Courage on this Martin Luther King Jr. holiday:

https://findingmyinnercourage.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/img_0655.jpg

I welcome your insights and stories!

 

 

Take Me to Your Leader

This week we are pairing—or aligning—the Elder Leader archetype with the monthly life metaphor of Life is What You Make It. This is an especially fruitful alignment because it is a very natural, common combination culturally.  Leaders “make things happen” by their inherent character, so long as they are manifesting archetypal leadership qualities more in Strength than in Shadow mode. Villains (Shadow leaders), on the other hand, interfere with positive growth or survival potentials, requiring a protagonist’s leadership potentials to be ‘stepped up’ in order to meet the challenge.

Consider the prototypical science fiction line, then: “Take me to your leader!”…what’s that about? First, this line recognizes the archetypal nature of a Leader; we expect to find a leader of some sort in any society, on any planet. The Leader is conceived of as a single, central persona figure, representing an organizing principle for that society.  The Leader’s own character permeates all of the alien or subordinate ‘others’ by virtue of her or his influence over their world and lives.

Second, the visitors want to talk with the Leader because presumably it is s/he who makes the important decisions and gets things done. If the visiting astronauts are ever to get Home, they know it is only the alien Leader who can facilitate their Return and implement the necessary process to make it so. The visitors’ main concern is that the Leader might be in Shadow, a villain; then they will need to count upon their own intrinsic leadership strengths in order to overcome that opposition and find a solution that can get them Home under their own steam, as it were.  Either way, it is archetypal qualities of the Leader that must be appealed to in order to achieve the protagonists’ goal.

To be clear then for those fairly new to this blog or to the concept of archetypal character modes, archetypes can be defined and understood in two interconnected ways. Archetypal characters in one sense are simply character MODES; that is, they are typical forms that are found in fictional, mythical and everyday situations around the world. The Leader is found everywhere with fairly normative character traits, albeit each society may attribute to the Leader archetype some culturally relevant traits.

In another aspect, archetype character modes–according to archetypal or depth psychologists such as Hillman and Jung—are also found in each of our personal unconscious makeup, so that the Leader is a complex of potential character traits inherent in all of us.  The fact that universal archetype modes show up in the day to day SOCIAL ROLES we occupy as well as in our nightly (or daytime, waking) DREAMS simply shows that as we grow up in and are socialized within any given cultural milieu, we internalize facets of these archetypal character modes as a matter of adapting to our social personas in life.  These sorts of archetypal layerings of our psyche may be more or less conscious to us, and their positive and/or Shadow traits may become embedded in our general personality orientations.

So then, a useful active imagination or creative visualization technique we can try this week is to contemplate a sticky situation or a difficult decision in your life right now. Imagine you are a member—the leader—of a visiting astronaut crew, shipwrecked on some alien planet. Inwardly imagine a group of aliens approaching and surrounding you. Step up and address the one who appears to head up this alien delegation, and ask: “Take me to your Leader!” Imagine what transpires after that on your own, focusing on the situation about which you are seeking greater clarity.

******   ******

I invite and welcome all of your comments and stories!

The Elder Leader Archetype Ally–a Role Model of Service to All Life

“Make it So!,” utters Captain Jean-Luc Picard, and once again the Enterprise and its crew survive yet another harrowing threat.

Leaders are found in all societies throughout time and around the world. They are often the stuff of legend as culture heroes, yet villains are also often portrayed as Shadow leaders; that is, individuals who have gone over to the Dark Side. In general, a positive Elder Leader offers support, protection, or guidance to others; he or she SERVES OTHERS by developing and sharing from their own inherent strengths of character. Those negative, Shadow Elder Leaders usually aim to serve only themselves.

Followers are another aspect of the archetype of the Elder Leader. To become a Leader, one is first an Aspirant, an Apprentice, an Acolyte or a Disciple. So a true Follower of a bona fide, positive Elder Leader figure aims to develop their own leadership skills and potentials based on the role model provided by their respected Leader as mentor or guide.

Leaders STEP UP when the situation calls for that; they drive ahead without looking back, forging a path to success or survival for all those they can. There are various leadership styles and strategies, some more direct or more indirect, more humble or more directive. But the Leader creates a pathway or shows the way for people to accomplish their goals with a sense of clarity and responsibility.

Still, many people fear the Elder Leader in themselves, especially if they have been raised by Shadow elder leaders rather than fully positive ones. Many parents—who are models of the Elder Leader in either positive and/or mixed positive and Shadow mode for most of us—may fall short of always being able to manifest positive leadership traits; so as children we might struggle in developing our own highest leadership potentials.

Mythic and fictional stories present collective ELDER LEADER scripts that we all can learn from; again both in positive or else in Shadow formations.  The very stuff of Good vs. Evil tales is the manifestation of this Elder Leader duality.

So this week I invite you to contemplate your own Elder Leader potentials. Who are your most positive role models, either in your life or in mythology or fiction? What makes them the leaders they are? What are your own greatest leadership traits? What situations bring out the best of these in you? And, what of Shadow leader traits? How can you increase your own positive Elder leader traits to help you achieve a valued goal?

I welcome all of your insights and stories!