Everyone has a story. Archetypes are stories. Your personal archetypes are your stories. But you are not your stories, so you are not your archetypes. You have archetypes. Personality archetypes that grant you access to your inner wisdom. Who you are is distinct from your stories, and therefore who you are is separate from your personal archetypes. Because you are so much more than that.

Archetypes are like the finger pointing at the moon, but they are not the moon. Your personal archetypes are the signposts pointing you towards the wisdom of your soul.

Identifying too closely with a particular archetypal story can be limiting. It can trap you in a fixed identity, keep you stuck in unfavourable habits, and prevent you from growing beyond past experiences. That said, archetypes can be used as tools to transcend your stories, redefine yourself, and create new narratives.

Stories are narratives that we create to make sense of our experiences. Archetypes capture the essence of our stories. They simplify and distill our experiences into coherent narratives, nuances, contradictions, and the multifaceted nature of human life. Your personal archetypes help to explain your life’s events, the different parts of your personality, your thoughts, emotions, behaviours, habits and of course, your potential. All of this is not who you are, but you can use archetypes as pathways to find this out. You can use archetypes as steppingstones into your soul. You can use archetypes to find out who you are not.

Your Self is at the centre of your Soul, around which your personal archetypes are grouped.

When you embrace an archetype, for example, the Mother archetype, you take on the role, and when you’re done, you will return to your Self. Then you would take on another, according to the situation. You might take on the role of Mother in the kitchen, Lover in the bedroom, Athlete in your personal training business, and Artist in your studio. Your personal archetypes are roles you play as required. You can only play one role at a time.

Narratives are constructed from memory, imagination, archetypal and cultural influences. They are not the raw, unfiltered reality of who you are. People are complex beings with thoughts, feelings, and potential that go beyond the stories they tell or are told about them.

While your personal archetypes are a meaningful part of how you understand and communicate your experiences, they are not the totality of who you are. Recognising this distinction gives you the freedom to continually grow and redefine yourself beyond any one of your narratives.