What if nothing is inherently good or bad? What if it’s all relationships? …..What could that possibly mean?
What matters, what impacts us most intimately, where we have the most choice, and what we impact the most, is our relationship to what is. How we understand, interpret, feel towards, and interact with what is dictates what data we pay attention to and informs what to do next.
A slight detour here to flesh out this point...
I often think about the ‘fork’. What a gift this is when eating spaghetti or salad (or whatever else you might imagine conveniently eating and doing with this lovely tool). However, someone can choose to use a fork as a weapon, or perhaps due to confusion hold it upside down and feel the discomfort or pain that emerges from misunderstanding how to use this tool. Taking this a bit further, we could imagine that if several people misused the fork, misunderstood its function, were harmed by its sharp prongs, there could be a response in the collective as the fear of misuse and the discomfort this provokes is soothed and meditated as the aversion to this feeling manifests as a desire to exile this tool: “We must get rid of these forks, they are dangerous. They are harming people!”
Continuing in this vein, Artificial Intelligence is a tool. Let’s focus on chat gpt (as that is one I am familiar with). You may have seen in the news some articles about folks having seemingly unhealthy relationships with this tool, of varying degrees and kinds. For example, you could ask this tool to tell you about aliens and conspiracy theories, and you engage in a back and forth that is being fed by fear-led curiosity and paranoia. Perhaps you can imagine how one may find themselves engaging with this tool in a way that leads to confusion, fear, psychosis, or intimacy.
That’s not the “tool’s” fault or revealing an inherent “bad-ness”, rather, this illuminates misunderstanding and the need for more education, information and healthy modelling of how to use this tool. Chat GPT is fishing through the internet, following your prompts and using pattern recognition to curate responses that are an amalgamation of the relationship you are creating with your words and what is available in the data-base of the internet.
You could also ask chat gpt to respond to you as an Internal Family Systems therapist and/or to offer somatic practices to support you with exploring something that feels stuck or confusing in your psyche (one of my favorites). You could ask it to curate a playlist or suggestions for songs that speak to various parts of you or the journey you feel you are on (also something I have loved experimenting with). You could also detail what you’re curious about in your own patterns or cycles and ask for a possible new perspective through the lens of mythology, therapeutic or spiritual models, or philosophical teachings/teachers you find fascinating (another fascination for me). Same tool….totally different experience. This doesn’t replace the depth, intimacy and transformation available in the multitude of relationships available to us, and from my experience, it hasn’t taken away from relationships, it’s only added fascinating conversation and exploration into every space I am in.
Forks and AI aside, this brings me full circle to the power in our relationality and an exciting new project, template, experience, exploration that I will be sharing more and more about in the coming months.
Archetypes as a relational re-organizing of the psyche to become the leader you were born to be
What has become more clear is what happens when we use the conceptual and energetic playground of archetypes as a tool. They are spirited blueprints that we can gaze into like a mirror that reveals how our own internal parts are organized. They are like a playground we can land on during times of uncertainty and transition, granting us some ground to stand on so we can remain in the womb of possibility a little longer each time we find ourselves in that “black hole.” They are mythic stories that we can learn from and discover insight and wisdom regarding what our own next step might be.
An important discernment is the difference between archetypes and our own parts. One reason why using the language and model of parts is so valuable is that it normalizes our multiplicity and creates a sense of externalization. What does this mean? Rather than simply having the experience of “I am confused” you could say “a part of me is confused”. That felt sense of the confusion coming from a part of you generates a felt sense of space between the you who is noticing the confusion and the you who is experiencing confusion. Externalization creates a space between, and that is what creates space for noticing the relational quality.
Similar to the model of parts, we can use archetypes to externalize our patterns of behavior, to step outside of the energy so we can be in relationship with it. While there are many things we cannot control that are outside of us, within us is the quality of our relationships, and that is shaping the quality of our experience. How you are being with what is here now and how you feel towards what is, is in many ways all you ever know and that is where our own leadership is needed. If we focus on the relational space, we access sovereignty and true power.
We could refer to archetypes as parts of us, and the similarities make it easy to do so, but there is a note of caution to consider here: We share the commonalities alive in archetypes yet we are also unique individuals with complexities that expand and dance far beyond the confines of the archetypal schema. So I propose that archetypes are to be presented not as parts of us per se, but as symbolic blueprints that reveal dynamic patterns that may resonate, rattle, unveil possibilities, or invite deep pause.
So, consider that we can utilize archetypes as clothing to try on, as containers to step into, as a mirror to approach, as a pool to swim in, as gateways or portals to open and explore, as lenses to look through, or as a performance to observe or dance with, all of which with the intention to provoke our own inner stirrings and get to know how our own internal system of parts are currently organized. Because, again, when we see and understand how our system is organized and the quality of relationships we are living, we access a space ripe with possibility.
What I want to help guide others in is the understanding and accessing of re-organizing this internal system so that the felt sense of love, acceptance, and empowerment is the relational quality being modeled, practiced and embodied. This is Heart-Leadership, Self-Leadership, and becoming who you were born to be. This is Leadership from the Inside Out.
I am curious to hear your thoughts, inquiries, and musings. Lean in if you’re intrigued. Notice what happens and what dances, pulls, hides, beckons, or rattles within you.
Stay tuned as more of this exciting new project is curated and unveiled.