Hey friends, it's Dora here.
Let's be real, bedtime can feel like a constant battle.
The tantrums, the stalling, the screen fatigue, it's a lot.
That's why we created Wiggle to Wind Down, a brand new kids sleep podcast from Headspace and Cocomelon.
Each episode helps your little one move, breathe and settle into a soothing bedtime story so they can relax and you can finally exhale.
Search for Wiggle to Wind Down wherever you get your podcasts and make bedtime a little easier for everyone.
Hello, Sam here.
Have you ever thought of yourself as a magician?
What about a warrior, a king, or a queen?
What if I told you that we have all of these characters, and more within us, helping us to make decisions?
During a recent coaching session, I was talking about how I tend to respond to a behavior that I find annoying with my partner.
I told my coach that I tend to shut down or distance myself when this pattern emerges, because I feel like I have no control or influence over it.
She asked me to consider other ways of responding, ways that have been helpful for me in the past.
I immediately thought about the perspective of empathy.
Tapping into my own experience that mirrors what my partner is going through.
And this ability to respond from different perspectives reminded me of working with archetypes, something I became familiar with in graduate school.
Archetypes a term coined by Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung, are characters or symbols that are widely recognizable and relatable.
Many archetypes are passed down to us through stories and movies, as we retell tales of kings and queens, heroes and wizards.
Tapping into our own version of these archetypes helps us to access inner resources that we didn't even know we had.
In graduate school, my professor showed us a video of motivational speaker Tony Robbins leading a discussion between an Orthodox Jewish man and a Muslim man hours after they got word about what happened on 9-11.
His intention was to help them have an honest discussion about thoughts and feelings surrounding their religious and political beliefs.
And their work with the archetypes allowed them to access empathy and true connection.
They became really good friends and even co-founded a peace organization.
Tony asked them to speak from different parts of themselves using four archetypes.
The four he used were the magician, warrior, sovereign, and lover.
They represent distinct perspectives from which we can see a situation.
The magician is the part of us that sees no obstacles, only opportunities to discover solutions.
The magician approaches problems with lightheartedness and is open to possibility.
The warrior is pretty self-explanatory.
It's that part of us that buckles down when things are tough in pursuit of something meaningful.
It's the part of us that is fierce yet compassionate, allowing us to uphold important boundaries and forge difficult but necessary conversations.
The Sovereign is our wise decision maker, taking input from all the other parts and moving us forward with clarity and discernment.
From the perspective of our brain, the Sovereign is like our prefrontal cortex, giving us the ability to see the big picture, weigh consequences and manage our impulses.
And the lover is an embodiment of our love, our compassion, and acceptance.
It represents our ability to empathize, soothe, and reassure ourselves and others.
I've called upon these archetypes when I've faced big decisions in my life, and it's been really helpful to give voice to parts of myself that tend to be overshadowed by another dominant default perspective.
Over time, I discovered that I resonated strongly with the magician archetype, because I often look for creative solutions to problems, never believing that I'm truly stuck.
To me, the magician takes what works and then leaves what doesn't.
I also discovered that I wanted to get more in touch with my inner sovereign, as I have a tendency to get flustered when making weighty decisions.
The warrior comes into play when I need to assert a boundary around my health and my safety.
And I'm nurturing my inner lover by incorporating phrases of self-compassion into my daily meditation practice.
As you reflect on these archetypes, are there any that resonate with you or that you'd want to give more airtime to?
If you want to experiment with these archetypes, I recommend journaling about an issue in your life from each perspective, allowing each archetype to weigh in.
If you're working on accepting a difficult situation.
What does the voice of the lover have to contribute?
If you're at a crossroads in your life, what is your sovereign's take on where to go next?
If you need some help getting started, Andy has a great meditation on creative writing that you might want to check out in the Headspace app.
And if you experiment with the archetypes and want to share what you discover, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram, at anchored underscore sam.
Till then, have a lovely rest of your day and I'll see you back here soon.
