Your archetypes give you instant access to powerful, unlimited knowledge, skills and experience. At their best, their timeless wisdom will guide you through life once you build a relationship with them. Each archetype contains a downside and upside, pitfalls and benefits, weaknesses and strengths. This means that your highest potential is hiding in each of your personal archetypes.

One way to access the highest potential of an archetype is to think about it like this: you’re downloading the greatest strength of an archetype from the cloud of Archetypal Intelligence and allowing it to flow in and through your body, soul and spirit.

Another way you might also like to think of downloading is to perceive it as an energetic process, where you open your mind to receive high quality insights, guidance, or inspiration from a higher source, such as your intuition, the Divine, the collective consciousness, or the wisdom of humanity.

This process puts you into your Sacred Self state of being, where you can easily recognise the Sacred Self within the archetype, and then absorb its knowledge, skills, experience and wisdom. You can’t access this if you download the worst of an archetype. The worst of an archetype is destructive. If you want to achieve some good in life, it’s easier and healthier for everyone involved to work with the highest potential of an archetype rather than the worst of it.

Consider the Bully archetype¹. A person with this archetype thinks like a bully, lacks compassion like a bully, and behaves like a bully. They identify with, embody, project and express the worst of the archetype.  

There are no bad archetypes, however, some behave badly. They do this when they need you to heal their wounds. Every archetype has a dark side and a light side. For example, too often you bully, torment and even terrorise yourself by allowing your fears to taunt, harass and overpower you. The Bully archetype will eventually teach you to recognise when you’re at risk of being bullied by your fears. This archetype can manifest as intimidating or protective behaviour. This is why it pays to know your personal archetypes

Gail Goodwin 2025

If a person is trapped in the worst of an archetype, the only way out is to heal the wounded archetype by Self-authoring² it. When a person downloads the worst an archetype, their body, soul and spirit will eventually pay for it, because the worst of an archetype can throw their energy into debt. That debt may be financial, physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.  The worst of an archetype will at worst, consume your body, soul and spirit, and then overflow its detrimental effects onto everyone within reach.

By downloading the highest potential of an archetype, you’re making a conscious connection with the most evolved, positive, and empowering aspects of that archetype and then channelling it into your life. It’s about aligning with the archetype’s essence in its most elevated form and integrating its wisdom, qualities, and energy to enhance your personal growth and your soul’s purpose.

Here are the steps to access the highest potential of an archetype:

1. Identify the archetype you want to work with from the table above.
2. Set an intention to align with the archetype’s highest expression. For example, the Artist’s highest potential could be expressed as boundless innovation, creativity, inspiration, and the ability to manifest beauty by aligning with your flow.
3. Research or reflect on what the archetype represents in its empowered, most ideal state. For example, the Artist archetype represents visionary thinking, originality, and inspired action.
4. Practice expressing the archetype’s qualities in your actions, thoughts, and decisions to get a sense of its energy within you.
5. Acknowledge the fears, doubts, or limiting beliefs tied to the downside of the archetype. For example, the downside of the Artist might play out as fear of failure or success, being a one hit wonder, running out of ideas, starving for your art. When you acknowledge the worst potential of an archetype, then embrace the best of an archetype, the elements in opposition are brought together and unified, so your transformation begins. Positive and negative forces coalesce because of a third, catalytic agent. That catalyst is your spirit, which has taken over.  This is how you can free your mind to make the shift from being stuck in self-doubt and into new possibilities.
6. Take actions that align with the archetype’s highest potential. For example, if you’re collaborating with the Artist archetype, dedicate yourself to your craft by making a regular practice of it to hone your skills and experience. Do this by aligning your energy with the highest potential of the archetype each time, before you start.

As a result of downloading and expressing the highest potential of an archetype, any archetype, you can expect to feel more empowered, authentic and in the flow experience of your Sacred Self.  This is where you discover new strengths and wisdom that will enhance your capabilities, and your critical and creative thinking, because you’re absorbing and therefore integrating, the archetype’s qualities in a way that feels natural and true for you. By tapping into the highest potential of any archetype, I can say without exaggeration that you will gain access to more solutions, ideas, productivity and opportunities than you have ever thought possible.

1. There are no bad archetypes, but some behaving badly. They do this when they need you to heal their wounds. Every archetype has a dark side and a light side. For example, too often you bully, torment and even terrorise yourself by allowing your fears to taunt, harass and overpower you. The Bully archetype will eventually teach you to recognise when you’re at risk of being bullied by your fears. This archetype can manifest as intimidating or protective behaviour. This is why it pays to know your personal archetypes. ↩︎
2. Send me a message requesting the Self-author process and I will email it to you. ↩︎