The Power of Archetypes: How to Use Universal Symbols to Understand Your Behavior and Reprogram Your Subconscious
225
The Power of Archetypes: How to Use Universal Symbols to Understand Your Behavior and Reprogram Your Subconscious
225eBook
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Overview
Deep within your mind is a realm filled with powerful symbols that drive your thoughts, behaviors, and actions—often without your knowledge. This is the hidden world of “archetypes”: universal symbols responsible for who you are, how the world sees you, and what you believe about yourself and your life’s purpose.
The Power of Archetypes will help you identify, understand, and work with the archetypes that exist beyond your conscious awareness to create your reality “behind the scenes.” You will also learn how to clear out old symbols that may be blocking you from the happiness and success you dream of. You will examine:
• The roles of the subconscious and collective unconscious in shaping your identity, and why it is so hard to change “you”
• The most common archetypes and what they symbolize
• Global archetypes in religion, politics, and pop culture, and how they affect you
• Ways to identify archetypes working in your life and the skills to change them and become more authentic.
Archetypes reveal your plot and your purpose. The good news is, if you don’t like them, you can choose more empowering symbols to create a completely new story of your life.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781632659026 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Red Wheel/Weiser |
| Publication date: | 06/23/2023 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 225 |
| Sales rank: | 854,945 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Multilayered Mind
Before we can learn to change our minds and, therefore, our lives, we must understand how our minds work. Not knowing this keeps us trapped in old default patterns, programs, and plotlines we didn't mean to write, but were written for us. The problem is we focus too much on the conscious mind and what it reveals to us, and not enough on the deeper levels, where the real work is being done behind the scenes, shaping who we are, what we think we want and need, and how we view ourselves out there in the bigger world. We believe we are single-minded when the truth is we have many aspects to our mind.
We live life consciously aware of everything around us, certain that our perceptions of reality are complete based upon this awareness. The mind sees, hears, feels, smells, and tastes; it makes choices, decisions, and assumptions based on the collected data that is processed in the brain. To be consciously aware is to be alive and functioning. This is our waking state, where we take things at face value by the sheer fact that we can experience them with one or more of our five senses.
Unbeknownst to most of us is the fact that a very large part of our reality comes from a deeper level of consciousness where symbols are the chosen language and information is shrouded and veiled in subtleties and vagaries, left for the conscious mind to interpret — if it is even aware enough to know how to interpret them correctly. The idea that what drives our actions, behaviors, personalities, desires, and psyches comes from the conscious mind is somewhat false. In fact, there is ongoing debate as to exactly how many levels of the mind we use to create, perceive, and even manifest the "real world."
Some scholars and scientists say we have three minds: conscious, subconscious, and unconscious. Others group the subconscious and unconscious into one for the sake of simplicity. Others still add on two other critical levels, as we shall see. All of these work together to create the personalities and identities we call our own.
Conscious Mind
Our waking state is the world of the conscious mind. This is the state of awareness of our environment and how we interact with it. One might say being conscious means being able to function, using our minds to think, process information, retain and recall memories, and formulate perceptions based upon our surroundings. To be conscious is to be engaged in life with some or all of our five senses, and to interact with others, too.
Imagine an iceberg. The tip of that iceberg is the part visible above the surface of the ocean. Though it may be 100 feet high, the part of the iceberg below the surface is massive in comparison. The conscious mind is the tip of the iceberg of the totality of who we are. It's just the tip and yet we tend to focus on the conscious mind as being primary to the forces and influences that make up our personalities and drive our choices and decisions.
Because we exist in a visual culture, what we "see" on the surface is what we think is most important. Because we cannot see below the surface of the water, we tend to give less importance to the functioning of the remaining parts of the mind. This is a huge mistake when it comes to understanding how we, as human beings, perceive ourselves, others, and everything around us. But we are programmed to do so.
The conscious mind exists in the present moment, although we do spend quite a bit of its time dwelling on the past and the future. The conscious mind likes to think it's in charge, and that it is very linear, objective, and empirical. It demands proof. It has to see it to believe it. It's like a bully when it comes to understanding the truth about things, because it insists on going with what it sees on a surface level only, often ignoring messages and intuitions that come from deeper levels of the mind.
When we think of our lives and ourselves, we do so from the conscious mind. We plan and move toward goals. We see ourselves in a certain way and take actions based on that vision. We behave in accordance with external influences, assumptions, and expectations so that we can put forth the best face possible. We create the story of our life with tangibles, the stuff we can grasp onto that appears to be real. The conscious mind drives our lives and determines our destinies. It is the "what you see is what you get" mind.
Those who have told us that we are what we think about all day long are only partially correct. We are probably more what we don't think about — at least not consciously. Beneath the tip lies the massive body of the iceberg, where powerful forces are at work shaping our personalities and personal storylines.
* * *
That our thoughts, conscious behaviors, and actions are responsible for the life we are now living, the good, bad, and ugly, is the biggest lie we can ever tell ourselves, because the truth is that the conscious mind is more of a reactor than a creator, more responder than activator. It is more imposed upon than it imposes upon. This is why so many people live lives that are unsatisfying, unfulfilling, dull, inauthentic, and well, "lifeless." It's because they are operating from the conscious mind, and that is not the realm of dreams, inspiration, or the desire to express authenticity and truth. The conscious mind is the realm of will power, intellect, thought, surface self-knowledge, factual understanding, deliberation, alertness to environment, processing of information and data, objectivity, ego identity, and present moment awareness. It takes perceptions and gives them interpretations, meaning, and a place within our accepted world view. Usually those interpretations are limited and based on our sensory input or thoughts, which we then accept as the truth of our reality.
This truth couldn't be further from the truth. We are told to "know thyself," but too often we stop seeking self-knowledge beyond what our conscious mind tells us, thinking we now understand why we are who we are!
So, what then is the level of the mind that lies beneath the surface of the ocean, dwarfing the conscious mind in size, power, and influence?
Subconscious Mind
Here is the base of that massive iceberg, the place where the actual activity occurs that helps us to process and perceive our personal and collective realities. We each have an iceberg, above and below the waterline. The subconscious mind is the powerhouse that is most responsible for things such as our emotions and emotional responses, intuition and gut feelings, habits and programming, memories and projections, subjective beliefs, and the imagination. Although we may have a conscious idea of who we think we are, the realm of the subconscious tells us who we really are through repeated behaviors and thoughts that often occur under the radar and make it very difficult to overcome or change them.
The subconscious might be described as the dumping ground for every perception, belief, idea, bit of information, and experience we've had since birth (maybe even before!) all churning below the surface, continuing to drive the trajectory of our lives long after the dumping occurred. It lies beyond our focal awareness and includes automatic processing responses to data and information that are not readily available to us in an immediate sense.
In the subconscious, all of our past programming, ideas, beliefs, thoughts, impressions, and assumptions exist in a kind of primordial soup from which the vast majority of our actions and behaviors are created. This soup is outside of our waking state, but we can indeed access it via things like deep meditation, hypnosis, and other methods of quieting the intellect and monkey mind to allow the deeper mind to speak its language.
The subconscious is rife with activity, constantly applying symbolic meaning to what we are experiencing on the surface, what our five senses are absorbing. Memories of the past live here, including those of the deep past, our childhoods, long ago, which may not be retrievable by the conscious mind unless a lot of hard work is applied, often with the use of trigger images, sounds, and smells to help activate them.
The subconscious sees and notices everything, even if the conscious mind doesn't register it. Imagine sitting with a friend having lunch and a pink, polka-dotted Volkswagen Bug drives by. Because you are so immersed in what your friend is telling you, your conscious mind doesn't even notice the goofy car, but if someone later asked if you saw the crazy VW Bug driving around town, you would remember it and possibly in great detail. You didn't even notice it, but your subconscious took a very detailed "picture" of it that is now imprinted upon your memory and stored in the warehouse forever.
Many psychologists and scientists state that up to 90 percent of our personality, beliefs, and behaviors originate from subconscious programming that we are usually not even aware is running. It's like having a computer on all the time, running programs in the background, while we are busy focused on other things, and we don't realize those background programs are literally driving all of our thoughts, emotions, actions, and moods. Without knowing this, we look for conscious or external things to try to fix what isn't working in our lives. If we are unhappy, we try to "figure it out" using the intellect and rationalization, and then we wonder why we still can't change or make our situations better.
It's because the subconscious is running the show, leaving little wiggle room for the conscious mind to redirect our habits and behaviors toward those that will better serve us. How could it, when it has no idea why we are the way we are, or why we do the things we do? Have you ever tried to quit being a codependent or lose weight and exercise more on sheer, conscious willpower alone? Some may succeed at going it cold turkey, but for most people, even though they want to quit and know mentally and intellectually why they should, they can't! It's due to the subconscious "tapes" running continuously, influencing everything they feel, think, and do, and doing it "out of sight" so that they are not immediately identified as the reasons for failure and struggle.
Brian Tracy, author and motivational speaker, states on his website that the subconscious is like a huge memory bank, and that everything that happens to you is stored for all eternity in this massive and unlimited storehouse. By the time you reach the age of 21, he claims you've already stored more information than that found in the Encyclopedia Britannica one hundred times over! He says: "The function of your subconscious mind is to store and retrieve data. Its job is to ensure that you respond exactly the way you are programmed. Your subconscious mind makes everything you say or do fit a pattern consistent with your self-concept, your 'master program.'"
Because this is a subjective part of the overall mind, the subconscious cannot think or perceive independently, and instead obeys any commands given by your conscious mind. You say you are feeling fat and ugly, and your subconscious accepts that as true, allowing that thought, however negative and untrue, to grow like a plant. "Your conscious mind commands, your subconscious mind obeys," Tracy says.
If you attempt to do anything outside of the programming of the subconscious, or outside of your comfort zone, you will feel anxious and awful. But until the subconscious is examined, and reprogrammed if needed, you will continue to repeat the same patterns of action and activity again and again, for better and for worse.
The subconscious is also responsible, though, for keeping our bodies running via the homeostatic impulse, which keeps body temperature and pulse regulated and allows us to breathe and have a heartbeat without having to think about it or make it happen. It works with the automatic nervous system to make sure all our organs and parts are properly functioning — and we don't even have to consciously be aware of it or direct it.
So when we do recognize things we wish to change, we must first clear out the negative programming within this powerful and influential realm. Otherwise, our attempts at change won't stick, even if they are positive and would make us happy. We are, in some ways, like preprogrammed robots that repeat the same movements, patterns, and thought processes continuously until we go a bit deeper to see why.
Unconscious Mind (Personal)
Famed psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalytic theory, posited that the subconscious and the unconscious mind were one and the same. Although we may look at unconsciousness as being in a dangerous state of health, such as in a coma, he saw it as akin to the subconscious, in a realm below the surface mind where symbol, theme, and imagery prevailed. Freud's psychoanalytic view perceived the subconscious as responsible for the inner forces that direct our behavior and often result in slips of the tongue and verbal mistakes that are known as "Freudian slips" for their representation of the inner influencing the outer at the least likely of times.
In the unconscious realm are thoughts, emotions, memories, desires, motivations, and all that does not exist in surface mind. But, like the subconscious, it is the main originator of our personalities and identities, or those we show to the external world. To Freud, this is a reservoir of often unacceptable and uncomfortable information we choose to suppress and deny, yet which continues to shape and mold us nonetheless.
For the sake of this book, we will use the term "subconscious" to represent this part of the mind because there is another, even deeper part that is referred to as the collective unconscious. To keep it less confusing, the subconscious will encompass the unconscious personal mind, the realm of stored information from the present, past, and distant past.
Although the subconscious/unconscious is most responsible for much of what exists in our minds, there is an even deeper level, far more vast and expansive, that is more likely the true origin point of our personalities and psyches. This realm, or level, influences the subconscious and conscious realms in mysterious but significant ways.
The Collective Unconscious
Going back to the iceberg analogy, the collective unconscious is the water itself, larger in size and more powerful and potent in its functions and implications. The water is all around the iceberg, keeping it afloat, affecting its size, shape, and melting and freezing rates during different kinds of weather.
The collective unconscious is the work of Carl Jung, who was a student and colleague of Freud's before breaking off to develop his own theories and directions in psychoanalysis.
Jung realized that behind the world's myths and origin stories were symbols that appeared universal to every region, creed, race, culture, and even between cultures that have never interacted with each other. These symbols were, in Jung's mind, thought to be the result of patterns in the unconscious that were of both genetic and non-genetic origin. These patterns are inherited by each generation, and exist in this reservoir of symbols and patterns called the collective unconscious.
As the storehouse of symbols and patterns, the collective unconscious can be accessed by anyone, with certain symbols or archetypes emerging into our conscious experience, depending on what is happening in our conscious world. This is also the realm of latent memories from our distant ancestors and distant past that are passed down through generations via genetic memory.
Jung believed there were actually two levels to the collective unconscious, but that the top, more surface level was actually the "personal unconscious," filled with elements based on our own personal, individual experiences. The collective level was underneath this. In The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Jung writes, "this personal unconscious rests upon a deeper layer, which does not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition, but is inborn." This deeper layer is called the collective unconscious because "this part of the unconscious is not individual, but universal; in contrast to the personal psyche, it has contents and modes of behavior that are more or less the same everywhere and in all individuals." He goes on to liken it to a "common psychic substrate" that is more of a suprapersonal nature. It is present in every single one of us.
Jung likened it to the "spiritual heritage of humanity as a whole," and that it was born in the brain structure of every new individual as a depository of ancient wisdom and knowledge, like a giant library of the experiences, ideas, and beliefs of our ancestors all the way back to the beginning of human existence on Earth. He also believed that mental illnesses could be linked to experiences embedded in the collective unconscious, as influences from other people in another time, and that to be healed it was a matter of reharmonizing the personality with the greater collective.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Power of Archetypes"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Marie D. Jones.
Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Introduction,
Chapter 1: The Multilayered Mind,
Chapter 2: Archetypes: The Language of Symbols,
Chapter 3: Archetypes and Their Meanings,
Chapter 4: Global Archetypes: Pop Culture, Politics, and the Collective World View,
Chapter 5: Who Are You and What's Your Story?,
Chapter 6: Be This, Not That! Tools for Transformation,
Chapter 7: Working With Guides, Symbols, and Dreams,
Chapter 8: New Narrative, New You,
Conclusion: Been There, Done That,
Notes,
Bibliography,
Index,
About the Author,