Rising Rooted

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We don’t just tell stories. Stories tell us.

They shape how we see ourselves. What we believe we’re capable of. What roles we slip into without even realizing it.

The underdog. The caretaker. The rebel. The one who keeps it all together—until they can’t.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re playing out a pattern you can’t quite explain… you’re already brushing up against archetypal psychology.

Where This Work Comes From (and Why It Still Matters)

Archetypal psychology has roots in the work of Carl Jung, who proposed that humans share a collective unconscious—a deep layer of psyche shaped by recurring symbolic patterns.

Later, James Hillman expanded this into what we now call archetypal psychology: a way of understanding the psyche through image, myth, and imagination rather than diagnosis or pathology.

But let’s be clear.

These theories didn’t emerge in a vacuum. They were shaped by:

• colonial worldviews
• rigid gender roles
• Eurocentric mythologies

So if we’re going to use this work today, we don’t just inherit it.

We work with it. Challenge it. Expand it.

Archetypes are not fixed roles or identities.

They are living patterns—fluid, cultural, personal, and evolving.

What an Archetype Actually Is

An archetype is not a label. It’s not “who you are.”

It’s a pattern of energy, story, and behaviour that moves through you.

You’ve seen them everywhere:

• The Orphan → shaped by abandonment, searching for belonging
• The Trickster → disruptive, chaotic, creative, rule-breaking
• The Caregiver → attuned, giving, often overextended
• The Warrior → decisive, protective, sometimes rigid

These patterns show up across mythology, film, literature—not because they’re fictional, but because they’re recognizable.

They live in us.

And most of the time, we’re not choosing them.

We’re being moved by them.

***If you’re curious about Depth Psychology and Jungian Ideas, check out my other posts about it!

Why This Work Hits Different

A lot of therapy asks: “What’s wrong with this pattern?”

Archetypal work asks: “What story is being lived out here?”

Instead of trying to eliminate parts of you, we get curious about:

• what role they’re playing
• what they’re protecting
• what they’re trying to express

This is especially powerful if you:

• feel like you don’t fit into neat categories
• think in images, metaphors, or stories
• have tried “logical” approaches that didn’t quite land
• experience yourself as multiple, layered, or contradictory

Because archetypal psychology doesn’t flatten you.

It gives you more room.

A Real Example: Inviting Hestia into the Mess

I am not, by nature, a tidy person.

I love the idea of order. The reality? A bit more chaotic.

At one point, my therapist invited me to work with Hestia—the Greek goddess of the hearth. Not as a belief system. As an energy.

Hestia doesn’t clean because she “should.” She tends the home as something sacred.

So sometimes, when I’m staring down a kitchen that feels like too much, I pause and invite that energy in.

And it changes things.

Not always into calm, quiet devotion. Sometimes it looks like: music blasting, a toddler banging pots, movement instead of perfection

Because I’m not just Hestia. I’m also Trickster. Also Chaos. Also something else entirely.

The point isn’t to pick the “right” archetype.

It’s to expand the range of who you’re allowed to be.

A Practice: Start Working with Archetypes

You don’t need to know mythology to do this.

You just need something that clicks.

Start here:

1. Notice what draws you in

A character. A story. A figure you keep coming back to.

2. Name the pattern

What do they represent? Survival? Rebellion? Transformation?

3. Get curious about the resonance

Where does this show up in your life?

4. Let it speak

Journal from its voice. Draw it. Imagine a conversation.

5. Expand the cast

What other archetypes might balance this one?

This isn’t about fixing yourself.

It’s about building relationship with the forces already shaping you.

An Art Ritual (Instead of Insight-Only Work)

Pick an archetype that feels alive for you right now.

Not the most overwhelming one—just one you feel resourced enough to explore.

Then:

• create a simple visual (collage, sketch, symbols)
• give it a space (your journal, a corner of your home)
• return to it over a few days

Let it evolve. Let it contradict itself. Let it surprise you.

If things feel intense or unclear, this is where a therapist or trusted other can help you stay in relationship without getting overwhelmed.

This Isn’t About Becoming One Thing

If anything, archetypal work dismantles that idea.

You are not:

• one personality
• one identity
• one fixed way of being

You are a constellation.

Some archetypes are loud. Some are buried. Some are waiting.

This work is about:

• bringing them into conversation
• loosening rigid patterns
• creating more choice in how you live

If This Speaks to You

This is the kind of work I weave into therapy and into my creative offerings—especially inside A Map of One’s Own, where we explore the psyche as a living landscape.

Not as something to fix.

But as something to meet, map, and relate to.

The Invitation

You don’t need to become someone new.

You might just need to meet the characters already living inside you.

And let them tell you: who you’ve been, who you’re becoming, and what’s been waiting to emerge all along.

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If this spoke to something in you, there are a few paths you can follow from here:

Each door leads somewhere different. It is my hope that all of them lead back to you.

<3 Rachel