I discovered Caroline Myss' new book Archetypes at the bottom of the mail pile this morning. As someone who works daily with the "Muse" archetype -- helping people every day to access their Creative Muse -- I immediately ripped open the package and read with relish.
In the Introduction, Myss offers the promise that understanding your archetypes can improve your health, relationships, well-being and your whole world because archetypes help you grasp your true essence and "assist you in opening to the full expression of your life." Specifically, your archetypes help you fully access your intuition, a powerful tool in every aspect of living fully.
As a Spiritual Seeker -- yes, that's one of the archetypes highlighted in Myss' book -- I'm interested in this question of how I can employ the archetypes personally. As a book coach -- and a bridge to people's Muse -- I understand how the book Archetypes can help aspiring authors write their books in a very powerful way.
People often struggle with writing a book. Sometimes they take years in that struggle -- or never get beyond it. I know from experience that's not necessary, but I know there is often healing to be done, beliefs to be released, to get that book written with relative ease and get it out in the world doing its good. You need tools and insights to progress beyond the struggle -- and that's where Myss' Archetypes comes in.
Writing a book requires stepping into your power -- and Myss contends that, "Archetypes are the keys to our personal power." I reasoned then, that once you understand your dominant archetypes, as well as other archetypes needed in the process, you can use this knowledge to support your book writing -- and write faster, better and with more ease and enjoyment.
Let me provide an example. The first step I have people take in writing their book is to clarify their vision and goals for the book. Myss would say they are tapping into the Visionary archetype. It takes that visionary energy -- which we can all access to some extent -- to write a book.
Here are other archetypes you'll likely employ in writing:
- You'll need to develop some kind of structure and framework before you start writing -- employing the Intellectual archetype.
To break through blocks, it can be powerful to work with additional archetypes. You may need to recognize the Wounded Child and help her overcome her wounds or you'll be sabotaged by -- you guessed it -- the Saboteur. If you're not much of a Healer, perhaps someone with a strong Healer archetype can help you with this part. In fact, you can get support from others with any archetypal aspects of book writing -- Visionary, Creative, Intellectual and otherwise. In that case you'd be employing the Networker archetype.
Understanding your dominant archetypes will also help you bring ease into the process and actually complete and publish your book:
The Hermit or the Visionary might need to go on retreat in a remote cabin to complete her book -- especially if she's a mom.
A Queen/Executive may decide to hire a ghostwriter or at least someone to perform the more gritty research for the book.
A Networker may thrive in a collaborative environment such as a book writing class.
So, if you want to write a book, tap into the power of your archetypes. And if you want to feel better, grow or contribute to the world more powerfully, ditto. And, yes, Archetypes by Caroline Myss provides a perfect place to start.