Men, the Answer Is Right in Front of Your Face and Has Been Around for Centuries

I’ve always loved globes. In an age where Google Maps and GPS rules the day, I still find solace spinning a globe on its axis and locating random places in the world. There’s something about the dimensionality of a globe that brings me back to my roots.

I feel the same way about structures that help us understand life and the world around us. Things like Spiral Dynamics, The Enneagram, The Hero’s Journey and the Four Male Archetypes. They’re all frameworks around which to build our lives. They give us a larger understanding of how to operate in this world because they were around long before us and will be around long after.

They can, however, be quite esoteric.

I often find myself in conversations about the men’s work I do, trying to explain the work in relation to 4 male archetypes established by Moore and Gillette — The Lover, The Warrior, The Magician and The King.

I see people fading off right about the time I start explaining the Magician archetype…

“Oh…yeah… that’s really interesting…” they say as they change the topic to the weather or the latest sporting event.

Sometimes these concepts are too vague, too abstract. They seem like relics of the past, not applicable to our modern day lives.

But if we look a bit deeper, we uncover the gold that’s been hidden by centuries of dirt abstracting us from its shine!

The Male Archetypes in Daily Life

So as an exercise in making these archetypes less abstract, let’s apply them to a common, everyday occurrence that can happen to any man out there:

You end a busy workday and get home to a hectic household.

You’re being pulled in 10 different directions at once. The garbage, kids, laundry, partner, dinner, cleaning are all asking for your attention. You want more than anything to just sit for 15 minutes and unwind but instead you jump right in and end of feeling resentful and tired the rest of the night and wake up frustrated and angry that you have to face a whole new day.

So how can some silly archetypes help in this situation?

Remember, the archetypes are really just symbols, representations of parts of you that capture the essence of that part of your being. And in order to approach your problems in this world, you must be able to access these pieces of yourself and act accordingly.

So here’s how each one of the archetypes come into play in this situation:

Lover — your lover represents your ability to feel. You must first be able to feel what’s going on, feel the feelings coming up in your body. You must be able to stop, take a breath, pause and be present with what’s going on when you walk through that door. So stop, drop and feel. Take 15 minutes to just pause and find some space for yourself.

Warrior — your warrior executes on the orders it’s given, and as such it’s able to truly face whatever it has to face to get the job done. This takes courage to encounter whatever’s happening and take the correct, self-directed action. Tell your partner “Honey, I really want to help and am excited to be home with everyone for an enjoyable evening, I need 15 minutes to unwind, relax and then I’m ready to jump in.”

Magician — your Magician sees the bigger picture and is able to guide with wisdom and direction. The Magician creates space between the emotions, the situation and your reactivity. Your Magician is able to see that these feelings are not necessarily you, but a part of you. Perhaps you had certain needs that didn’t get met in the past, the Magician is able to distinguish between the feeling and your true, authentic self. After finding space and feeling your feelings, then facing your emotions, your Magician is able to say “Oh, I felt very rushed all the time as a kid, pushed into doing things I didn’t want to do. I wasn’t able to tell my family what I needed when I was growing up so when I feel pushed now, I get anxious, frustrated and upset.” Your Magician sees those feeling as old feelings. As you take your 15 minute break and come back to the situation, you possess a deeper knowing and understanding of your internal roadmap.

King — When you return to the living room to help with dinner and play with the kids, you can return to your family with love, compassion and blessing. You have, as Ken Wilbur says, “transcended and included” the pieces of you that felt separate and unintegrated and now you’re fully connected to yourself. You can allow those feelings to be part of you again, give that part of you blessing, kiss it on the forehead (as you kiss your wife and kids), say thank you and include it in your kingdom.

…

There are no exact instructions for how to live life. But there are maps, blueprints, and frameworks and we can use on these frameworks to set the direction of our lives.

It’s important to have a map to guide in healthy directions so we arrive fulfilled at our final destination.

The 4 male archetypes give us a framework, and when distilled down to the purest sense, it’s as simple as: feel it, face it, transcend it, include it.

Lover, Warrior, Magician, King.

Wholeness, oneness, peace…achieved.

You’re Welcome! 🙂

—

This post was previously published on medium.com.

***