One of Carl Jung’s primary archetypes, the caregiver archetype is the same as the servant archetype. Many people lump a whole host of archetypes under the umbrella of the caregiver which can confuse our understanding of this fundamental archetypal pattern.

Selfless Service of the Caregiver Archetype

The main attribute that characterizes the caregiver archetype is a desire to serve others and to forget oneself in doing so. The path of the caregiver archetype is the same selfless action that Lord Krishna and the Buddha teach about. Also known as charity, this altruistic service is a key component of the spiritual path. Many spiritual seekers endeavor to befriend the caregiver archetype and hold her in high esteem.

For those of your born with the caregiver, this archetype can seem more like a curse than a blessing. A natural, automatic tendency for taking care of others can be exhausting. Burn out that causes a complete system collapse is a reality when you are ruled by the caregiver archetype.

The Caregiver Requires Service to the Self

The healing path of the caregiver archetype involves discovering ways to prioritize taking care of yourself. The caregiver may compulsively give of herself until she runs out of gas. A caregiver bereft of energy finds she resents the exact people she’s tried to help. Burn out also erodes at the reliability of the caregiver. She’s always there until one day she’s not. Her beneficiaries then resent her for leaving them high and dry.

The most extreme form of burn out for the caregiver archetype is called “compassion fatigue.” People suffering from secondary traumatic stress experience an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and harmful negativity. Compassion fatigue leads to addictive and compulsive behaviors as well as general meanness and aggression towards others. Too much caregiving results in a person who starts harming herself and others either through her words or actions. Anyone who’s worked in a non-profit focused on helping humans or animals in need is familiar with these consequences.

Here is a link to a list of behaviors representative of compassion fatigue:
http://compassionfatigue.org/symptoms.html
If you suspect you are suffering from this condition, now is the time to act and make some major life changes.

Within the caregiver archetype is a basic lesson about the law of conservation of energy. Nothing is created or destroyed. When the caregiver pulls from her own essence to take care of others, she has a limited pool of resources. This energy bank must be replenished.

The caregiver archetype in the light aspect knows how to set time aside for self care. Balance is a cornerstone of this archetype.

Holy caregivers have learned through intense prayer, meditation and contemplation how to draw from the sacred well in service to others. They fall into a completely different category. Think Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Be sure not to fool yourself into thinking you are pulling from this well. It is better to assume for now that you have a limited reserve and routinely take care of yourself. When the time comes for grace to fuel your service, you’ll be guided appropriately. And, in the end, you still need to eat, sleep and breathe.

A further resource for dealing with compassion fatigue is this article on “Why Caregivers Need Self-Compassion” from Dr. Kristin Neff: https://self-compassion.org/why-caregivers-need-self-compassion/

Humility of the Servant Archetype

The caregiver archetype and servant archetype are closely related if not interchangeable. If I had to tell the difference between the two, I would point out that the servant is more often associated with a lower social class. The servant archetype is also the expression more likely to involve being paid for one’s services.

Many people shun the servant archetype and jobs in the service industry because these jobs can be humiliating. I know from experience as a waitress, florist, and grocer that it is easy to go unseen. I’m not sure which is a worse feeling – being invisible or being ordered around by strangers. Those encounters were humbling, if not frustrating, and have helped me endeavor to say “thank you”, look someone in the eye, smile, and give generous tips when I’m being served.

The servant archetype is a master of humility, able to show up for whatever is needed without worrying what she looks like.

Caregiver Archetype Examples

We’ve been reintroduced to the caregiver/servant archetype through the PBS Masterpiece series Downton Abbey. Many have fallen in love with the servants in this show. If you are looking to know more about the light aspect of the servant and caregiver archetypes follow Mr. Carson’s lifelong loyalty or Mrs. Patmore’s tireless toiling. Mr. Barrow’s scheming to gain status and Daisy’s frustration with how the servants are treated teach plenty about the shadow of this archetype.

The Shadow of the Caregiver

Those suffering under the burden of the caregiver archetype will complain of being held back by a lack of money, connections or status. On the other hand, scarcity can be used as an excuse for a lack of ambition. This archetype swings into selfishness when the wick runs low. This breeds martyrdom but is not be confused with the martyr archetype. The traps of codependency, an over-bearing nature and excessive worry are found in the pattern of the caregiver. Some with the caregiver archetype carry a fear of being seen as selfish. The shadow caregiver is more concerned about her reputation than her works. Caregiving can provide an escape to avoid difficulties in life. An example is the cancer diagnosis that leads to a headlong plunge into taking care of others.

The Gifts of the Caregiver

I’ve touched on many of these already, but the gifts are worth repeating. Humility is the primary gift of this archetype. The humble person is immune to ridicule and the more insidious snare of caring what other people think. Humility begets gratitude and shuns craving. Other gifts include loyalty, reliability, balance, and compassion. Both compassion and self-compassion are skills the caregiver archetype in the light aspect posses. Kindness and generosity are attributes we gather from exchanges with the caregiver. So many of the virtues of a holy person are contained within the caregiver.

Many people say the caregiver has a hard time making rational decisions and that she comes from emotional response. In the business world the caregiver archetype is pitched as a great helper, but poor decision-maker. This is a two-dimensional portrayal. An empowered caregiver is intimate with how much energy is needed for an action as well as how much the action is needed. In the light aspect, the caregiver can make some of the most balanced, level-headed decisions there are.

 

Explore your relationship
with the servant/caregiver archetype…

The “Nurturer Archetypes” Online Class

All three archetypes love to care for others and pour their energy into giving. They reach their full potential once they complete the journey through the self and into their unique form of service. The divine mother aligns with the cycles of life. The loyal companion softens the hardened heart. The humble servant embraces service to all.

 

It is no surprise that the seeker archetype is one of the most difficult to define. Pinning down this roving icon becomes more complicated the longer you spend following her this way and that. She’s like the seed of a dandelion cast on the wind.

The Lost Seeker Archetype

When she starts out, the seeker archetype continually wanders to find something undefined. The unevolved, shadow seeker isn’t sure what she is seeking. She knows that she is after something, but committing to what that something is can prove tricky. This results in her feeling like something is lost. That something may be her. She becomes the consummate lost soul.

Typically the seeker is certain that the search has something to do with learning about the way life, the world, and maybe even the cosmos. She may refuse to get more specific than that for fear of pigeonholing her quest. The seeker realizes that by framing the question, she is already determining the answer.

This ambiguity does not water down the confidence of the people influenced by the seeker. The seeker carries at her core an intense inner drive to continue on regardless. This is part of the gift of this archetype.

The Seeker’s Quest for Answers

The seeker has a habit of asking unanswerable questions and not allowing them to rest. The seeker wants to know why life is the way it is not just for humans, but often for the entire universe. The questions that the seeker asks are not necessarily questions that can be answered such as “Why are we here?” and “How did life begin?” and “What other life is out there?”

Just because we can’t answer these questions, doesn’t mean they are is not worth seeking after. These inquiries bring a deep sense of meaning for all of humanity, calling us to something greater than ourselves and bringing us out of our day-to-day existence. The seeker archetype serves us all in this way.

Asking about the meaning of life brings meaning via the search. This is the classic, “the journey is the destination.”

Astronomers as seekers use highly evolved telescopes to look and listen far out into the universe. They are trying to find out, “Is there more life out there?” Think of how many astronomers looked for many decades and died without ever coming to the answer. That doesn’t mean that their search was fruitless. They gained so much along the way – wonder, immersion, discovery, bliss, anticipation, and more.

Literal to Symbolic Search for Truth

The seeker often starts out her journey expecting to find truth and answers some where; that is to say in some physical location. She moves about the earthly plane hoping truth will be found under a rock, in the heart of a city, swept up in romance, bowing at the feet of a guru, following the road to a holy site, gazing at a wonder of the world, or laying in a field of sunflowers. The truth she seeks is personal truth.

The maturation of those with the seeker archetype brings the realization that the search is not an outward search. The ends of the earth can be reached. The seeker turns inward to travel beyond the senses and beyond this world. She finds a limitless terrain vast enough to match her enormous questions.

As she evolves, the seeker archetype looks for a thing, a feeling, a knowing, an experience called truth. This is not truth with a lowercase t mind you, but Truth with a capital T. She goes beyond personal truth to universal Truth. Concrete physical facts or data that satisfy scientists and engineers are a bore for the seeker. She is different than the student archetype in that she doesn’t like a syllabus and a course schedule.

The answers she seeks leave concern for tangible things. The seeker wants to know what she cannot touch with the five senses, and this desire ultimately leads her beyond this earthly plane.

The Wanderer Archetype

One of the variations of the seeker archetype is the wanderer. The wanderer archetype has less fire for an outcome than the seeker. She is lulled into a quiet, comfort that comes via endless travel be it outward or inward travel. The wanderer is more comfortable with uncertainty than certainty, which is both a blessing and a curse. The wanderer can abandon loved ones and commitments. She forgets the important truth that connection and community bring wisdom too.

The comfort with uncertainty helps those with the wanderer archetype to practice the spiritual grace of detachment, embracing the present moment. As long as the wanderer stays intent on not being attached to being detached, gifts of the now flow freely.

The Seeker’s Light & Shadow

Suffering comes when the shadow seeker longs to be like everyone else, wishing she could be content with the simple, stationary life. This is not an archetype meant for putting down roots, although friends and community may be exactly what the seeker needs to keep from becoming a lost soul.

The shadow side of the seeker is also someone who doesn’t let go of the answer she expects. If she sets out to find a treasure chest full of gold and instead finds self-love, she misses the opportunity. When she thinks the answer is “out there” and refuses to return home, she misses the cosmic Truth that what she is searching for was under her feet the whole time. She keeps trying to find the person she thinks she should be instead of who the journey has made her into. 

The light aspect of the seeker archetype is the brilliant opening up to the universe. An expansion occurs for all of humanity when just one person begins to question. This creates a ripple, then a storm of cosmic Truth that helps the whole wake up.

Detachment and openness are the light side of the seeker. The seeker brings solace in the aloneness that sometimes comes along the path. The tie to something larger than herself brings faith and courage to the seeker archetype.

Seeker archetype examples in movies: The Way; Contact; Close Encounters of the Third Kind; Seven Years in Tibet. 

Seeker archetype in books: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, The Conference of the Birds by Attar, Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

 

Explore your relationship with the
seeker archetype…

The “Learner Archetypes” Online Class

In this four-part audio course, “The Learners,” Stacey Couch goes in-depth into the student, dilettante, and seeker archetypes. These archetypes share a perpetual love of learning, driven to know about the nature of life. The student converts experience into knowledge and wise action. The dilettante turns information overload into the grace of awe. The seeker transforms ambiguous questions into universal truth.

 

 

archAll of us have the child archetype. We all experience her literally in our childhood and carry her within as the inner child that likes to play. This archetypal pattern is a fundamental part of human nature, a template for us all. The lessons we gain from struggles with the child archetype are what bring us into our divine nature, and our authentic selves.

The Inner Child & The Child Archetype

Any modern day discussion of the child archetype likely must start with our understanding of the inner child. The concept of the inner child emerged in psychology, counseling and healing therapy in the 1960’s and came quickly into popularity in a wide variety of professional and communal contexts over the next thirty years. The inner child is basically understood as the component of our psyche that contains what we learned and experienced as children.

Work with the inner child endeavors to uncover unmet desires and needs from childhood as well as immature, shadow patterns that drive detrimental behavior in adults. Depending on the therapist and the client, the inner child can be seen as an aspect of self that needs healing and care and/or an aspect of self that must be parented, mended, and raised up.

The child archetype is different in that it is not purely an aspect of the mental psyche. It is an element of soul. The child archetype is timeless and although aspects of our childhood affect the perspective of our child archetype. It is not set in the past. The child archetype  is with us in the here and now, a part of our soul that requires we engage with questions of both innocence and maturity.

Healing the Inner Child

The concept of the inner child is commonly linked with ideas of healing. Many people who have had traumatic childhoods benefit from a process of healing the inner child. Engaging compassion and understanding for the part of themselves that suffered helps patients open up and allow light to shine on memories that may have been hidden away for years. This is beautiful and transformative work that applies to one aspect of the child archetype, the wounded child.

Many people do not have the wounded child archetype, although, so seeing the child archetype in the context of the inner child is too limiting. The child archetype is not composed merely of trauma and memories. The child archetype has many current day motivations and desires that serve people of all ages.

The Motivation of the Child Archetype

First and foremost, the child archetype is concerned with the tension between independence and dependence. Individuation and the need to belong are constant draws for the child archetype within us all. When considering your own child archetype, ask yourself how do you manage the balance between these two extremes? Do you bounce from independence to over dependence? Would you rather not be too dependent on anyone? Do you take on too much responsibility or try to have as few strings attached as possible?

There is no right answer here, just an opportunity to enter into a candid conversation with your own child archetype to start to see how the archetype operates in you.

Understanding your relationship to and feelings about responsibility, will help you understand more about your child archetype. Who do you feel responsible for? I am responsible for my two cats and two horses. They depend on me. Who is responsible for you? Some of you will be able to say “no one”, but many others will have a spouse that is responsible for helping you remember to pay the bills or a parent who is still responsible for reminding you of your sibling’s birthdays. Oftentimes, our supervisors at work are responsible for us whether we want them to be or not. You may feel your doctor is responsible for your health.

Also exploring how involved you are in your family or community will show more about your child archetype. Going with the flow of the group or standing up for yourself are key challenges for the child archetype.

The Art of Presence & Play

The child archetype symbolizes innocence, playfulness, wonder and awe. Nothing helps us better come into the moment and learn the great skill of presence that spiritual masters discuss than the child archetype. Being present is nothing more than detachment from the past or the future and absolute absorption in the moment.

Think of a child at play. Nothing exists but what they are doing at that exact moment. Spiritual seekers spend their entire lives trying to seriously recapture this gift. Enlightenment is mistaken for maturity, but the great teachers tell us that we must embrace innocence and playfulness to find God.

The child archetype is not merely a side of us that needs attention, but a gifted, powerful force within that can help us grasp some of the most profound of life experiences. The child archetype is ever present in the world around us and in the One. Why else would animals play? It is an essential aspect of living, a way to shirk the fears and troubles of the world and for a moment at least come into communion with all that is beautiful.

If you find yourself struggling with how to become present, stop studying, stop trying, just stop with the effort. Take a break. Invite the child archetype in to show you how to play. Play has no obvious purpose, isn’t on a timeline, and draws us in. Find what you like to do, forget what time it is, and put the to-do list away.

The Different Child Archetypes

There are many variations of the child archetype, and we experience different ones to different degrees. Two or three loom large over the course of our entire lifetime, while others come and go. Some names for different child archetypes are the Adult Child, Divine Child, Eternal Child, Golden Child, Invisible Child, Magical Child, Nature Child, Orphan Child, Scapegoat Child, and Wounded Child.

The light and shadow expression of each of these child archetypes is quite different and we may see nuances of more than one of these child archetypes acting in our lives. it is helpful to single out just one that has a primary influence and dig deeper into her patterns.

 

 

 

Listen to Online Class
“The Child: Freeing Your Imagination”

– Determine which child archetype patterns are yours
– Balance the paradoxical sides of the child such as innocence and maturity
– Intentionally incorporate play in your life
– Find your imagination as a faculty of your soul

 

All of us have experience with the saboteur archetype. We all experience her literally in the daily decisions we have to make and carry her within as our active free will. This archetypal pattern is a fundamental part of human nature. The lessons we gain from struggles with the saboteur archetype are what bring us into our divine nature, and our authentic selves.

To Deliberately Destroy

The definition of sabotage is to “deliberately destroy, damage or obstruct something, especially for political or military advantage.” A saboteur is someone who conducts sabotage. Now, how could that help our survival? In more ways than you can imagine!

Inherent in the force of destruction is change, and this is the gift of the saboteur. Each archetype has a light and a shadow side, bringing gifts or trouble. When we become conscious of how the archetype operates and learn the potential inherent in the archetype, we have the option to tap into great power.

The light side of the saboteur archetype also helps us deliberately strengthen, build and support the lasting change we want to create in our lives. By making key empowering choices, the saboteur archetype can help us rise to new levels of who we are meant to be and what we are meant to do in this lifetime.

Just think of one time in your life when you made a big choice to change something in your life for the better and stuck to it. That’s the saboteur archetype working in the light! We so often focus on how the saboteur drives our poor choices, but the saboteur directs the fruitful one choices too when she’s in the light.

The One Who Drives Change

The saboteur is the archetype in us that drives us to change. When we resist an intentional change, the saboteur will cause upheaval covertly. Ever wonder why you have those days when you just can’t seem to walk without falling on your face? That is the saboteur. A grease stained shirt, broken dish, and missed appointment all carry the signature of the saboteur. We know what it looks like and we get frustrated by it.

However, we don’t realize that the positive changes we instigate are also the jurisdiction of the saboteur. When we choose to allow plenty of time to dress and prepare for an important meeting we are embracing the saboteur. When we decide we’ve had enough of the old, ineffective way of doing things and we’re ready for a big change, that is the saboteur.

Like anything, this all happens along a spectrum, just as a refusal to change can be the shadow of the saboteur, so too can be the over infatuation with change. We all know that someone who changes things just to change them destroys progress before it’s even begun. An important aspect of learning to work with the saboteur archetype is to be present with the change we are making. It is not about the change itself, but our active participation in choosing the course of change.

Making Better Choices

When we gather a fierce determination to make better choices, we are acting in the light aspect of the saboteur. This is the part of ourselves that makes solid, far-reaching, and forward-thinking choices. The saboteur archetype is in close connection with the  law of cause and effect and understands deeply the impact of our choices. This can be a position of immense empowerment or incredible debilitation. Like the woman in the photo above, all the options and ramifications of our choices can really bring us down.

In calling on the wisdom of the saboteur, we can make our way through the mire and find a solution. The ability to make an informed decision that relies on our faculties of intuition and foresight is a gift of the saboteur.

Fear of Power

The saboteur is that part of us that knows deep down inside that we can attain greatness. And we are deathly afraid of this happening. We think we aren’t afraid, but we are. Simply imagining that we had all the money and all the time in the world sends us into a tailspin of questioning. We wonder… How would I make a difference? What would people think of me? How would I make sure I’m making the biggest impact? Should I stop world hunger or prevent the spread of disease? Would I do the right thing?

[ct_focus background=”#f3f3f3″ gradient=”eeeeee” color=”light” style=”normal” ]”Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” – Marianne Williamson[/ct_focus]

Dare to Dream

The saboteur archetype is motivated to achieve success. In the definition of sabotage we saw that the destruction is for a “military or political advantage”. Both military and politics are directly related to power. The saboteur in the light is where a personal advantage, personal power, comes in. The saboteur empowers us to live the life of our dreams. Without the help of this archetype, we would never have the courage to make choices that lead to achieving our full potential.

We are fascinated by movies that feature the rise of an unrealized genius because we love to see how choices unlock greatness. Good Will Hunting, The Pursuit of Happiness, and Proof are all key examples of the triumph of the saboteur. The protagonist is ultimately faced with the realization of his or her success and must destroy the fear and resistance that blocks the way using the strength of the saboteur archetype in the light.