How to Work with Archetypes for personal and collective Liberation

The journey of a thousand steps, starts underneath your feet, and the journey to everything you wish for in life starts with remembering who you really are.

The Wheel of Colours helps you remember the choices your soul made for you so you can learn and contribute in the best possible way during your time here on earth.

Remembering these choices now, allows you to become your true & authentic self and to thrive – joyfully.

But to be able to live these choices, you also have to unlearn all the harmful and limiting beliefs you’ve accumulated while growing up in an unhealed world, in the matrix.

Working with Verena’s Archetype Oracle Card Deck can help you here, as these archetypes show you the roles you play, the characters you take on, that keep you at a distance from your true & authentic self, and with that from true, unconditional love, abundance and freedom – all of which only comes easily, once you start rediscovering and living as your authentic self and start embracing and using your unique gifts & and talents more and more.

Why Archetypes for personal and collective liberation?

In 2019, I went on an excursion to explore the concept of freedom, and in the process I interviewed 25 different people from all around Europe and beyond about what freedom means to them, and if you like, you can listen to their answers on my finding freedom podcast.

What has stuck with me, however, is the Buddhist concept of freedom, that defines freedom as the moment between a trigger and your reaction. Once you can prolong that time enough, to be able to choose, consciously, how you want to react to a situation – you are free.

And then there was Freud (and some others) who pointed out, that freedom is always linked to responsibility, which is also true. Because consciously choosing how to react to a situation requires for you to take on the full responsibility you have for your life – and your thoughts, words and actions – something that most people still try to avoid.

When we’re not consciously choosing, however, when we’re not accepting our full responsibility, and when we’re acting on autopilot, ‘as people do’, or in a ‘normal’ way – when we’re just walking down the path that what carved out for us – we’re not free, we don’t exercise our freedom, as we don’t consciously choose how to act yet.

And the thing is, that most of what we see around us, the basis of our society, the world, is built on unconscious choices, that are convenient for some, but not for the greatest good of all. They are based on fear, use fear to limit people and keep us in a state of dependency – so we don’t exercise the freedom we do inherently have.

Yet, the second we realize that – we have the freedom and the power to change that.

On a personal level, recognizing this freedom can mean that you choose to become a different kind of mother or father or zaza, than the generations before you, or that you choose to follow your passion instead of working a job just to survive. With this, you become a cycle breaker, and choose to create a different, more loving and more empowering life for yourself and all those around you.

On a collective level, it can mean rethinking leadership, and how we can consciously create societies, communities, workplaces that are based on allowing and even encouraging personal development and growth, and bringing in and sharing our unique gifts, and creating an environment in which all people can feel safe and prosper collectively, despite and because of their differences, instead of consolidating the power and gain of a few.

Working with Verena’s Archetype Oracle Card Deck can help us, as it allows us to become aware of the subconscious images we’ve created (of leaders, parents and other roles we take on and interact with daily) and invites us to become consciously aware of them and to question them.

Once we become aware of our subconscious image of a mother, for example, we can see where we are headed on autopilot, and if we don’t like it, we now have the power to change it by creating a new image, that matches the reality we would actually like to create.

This way, the archetypes can help us to take responsibly for our lives, and to fill them with joy and love and abundance and everything that we wish for, instead of what previous generations had or have, and they help us to exercise our personal freedom to decide the fate of our lives – hence they can help to liberate us on a personal and collective level.

Where do the Archetypes come from?

The first person who has been recorded to mention Archetypes was Plato. He called them forms and described them as the pure characteristics of a ‘thing’.

We can imagine this as what we think of when we hear a certain word, like human, or fox, or tree – we immediately have an image of an ideal or stereotypical human, or fox, or tree – a form, a representation or an archetype in our minds, and, in that short moment, don’t think of all the different kinds of foxes, trees or humans – we think of an archetype.

What exists in reality is never this ideal or archetype, but variations, different individuals, each unique and complex, but since we can’t always process all that information at once, we create an archetype and only look at the individual version when necessary. Which is absolutely valid – as long as that image we created doesn’t limit us in our freedom to joyfully live this life and expand.

The word archetype itself, originally comes from Greek and could be translated as ‘original pattern from which copies are made’ (Wikipedia) which gives us a bit of a better understanding as well, even though it is not necessarily how it’s used any more, as today we use it more as a simplification of complex realities.

Archetypes can be formed collectively, in cultures and individually, through personal experience.

In the last century, the Swiss psychiatrist C.G. Jung familiarized a wider audience with the concept of archetypes, when he used them to describe unconscious or subconscious patterns of the human psyche, such as the mother, father or child archetype or that of the maiden or wise old man or woman.

Jung described these Archetypes as ‘a tendency to form such representations of a motif’, (Wikipedia) which he saw as inherent in all human beings, as universal, and as a process that was happening unconsciously.

And to stay with the example I used above, he pointed out, that, as a result of this image that we create in our minds, we then unconsciously, when we become a mother, for example, copy the behaviour of our own mother because that’s the behaviour that we, in our subconscious, have attached to that role, image or archetype.

So, even though we can all picture a mother archetype in our minds, we might all have slightly different ideas of this archetype, yet, would be able to identify it as the same archetype nonetheless.

As an example: What I believe to be motherly or fatherly qualities might not be the same for you, though we can surely agree on some of the same characteristics or markers of a mother or a father.

More recently, Caroline Myss has been using Archetypes as a way to help us understand ourselves and our path in this life better by suggesting that each of us has made an agreement or contract before birth to live through 12 main archetypes in this lifetime, which show up in different intensities in different phases of our life.

You can learn more about this in her wonderful book Sacred Contracts. In the way she uses archetypes, their characteristics give us a better understanding of ourselves, as she gives us the option to see ourselves in some archetypes more than in others, and with this allows us to understand our path through life better.

Her work has directly inspired me to create this deck, as I loved her work, and actually started to draw the first archetypes as a way to understand them better, but also felt excluded because of the heteronormative views that just didn’t match my reality, and I also felt like we shift through these archetypes much faster now.

Our consciousness, on a collective level, has shifted immensely since Caroline Myss has written her book, or since Jung has first described the different archetypes and so these new times, also call for an update, that matches our current realities.

Because of this, I added more gender variety to these archetypes, and also added and omitted a few others, to create a workable deck (of 113 cards) that allows us to touch on all necessary aspects, when it comes to our occupations, our relationships, and our light and shadow aspects, and how we can shift and integrate our views on them.

So, as you can see, archetypes have been used for personal development and to gain a better understanding of the human psyche in the past and present, and they are ever evolving.

But archetypes also appear in art and culture, especially when it comes to storytelling.

We’re all familiar with the hero, victim or villain archetype which appears in films and stories everywhere.

Joseph Campbell most famously wrote about the hero’s journey as a motif that can be found in different variations throughout all cultures and times. Because of this universality, working with these archetypes can be especially helpful when we think about creating a New Earth, or a Golden Future, or Heaven on Earth as a collective, as they can help us to re-imagine ourselves and to re-write the stories we tell each other and to open up new possibilities for ourselves and others.

Currently, most of us still live in division and not in our oneness, and even if we already recognize our oneness as individuals, we are still divided by geographical and political borders, class background, skin colour, religion, cultural patterns and gender, even though these borders dissappear more and more as we become more familiar with residing in our higher consciousness.

And, as a result of this familiarization with our multidemensional existance and oneness, more and more of us wish to overcome this division in the physical world as well. To make that a lived reality, howerver, we need to be able to recognize our subconscious ideas, and create new ones that serve us better, and so I created the Archetype Oracle Card Deck as one tool that can help us with this transition.

Here are a few cards that show you some of the archetypes:

SEE ALL CARDS

A new & more fluid approach to working with Archetypes

We’re in the middle of a big shift, in which it becomes more and more apparent that the binary, individualistic, exploitative and oppressive ways, using force, wars and violence instead of creating powerful attraction and living as our divine and ever-evolving selves, no longer serve us.

And those of us, who still recognize their inner truth, listen to their hearts, and connect to the collective consciousness, and those who are starting to rediscover this, despite all the conditioning we went through, to keep us in the matrix, have been and continue to create what is necessary to move from ME to WE, from a survival of the fittest, individualistic and hostile view of the world, to the realization that we are all one, and always supported, and that whatever we do to another we do to ourselves and vice versa.

And I can literally feel and hear the sighs of relief that we can all make because of that, even the souls of those who don’t see this yet from their human perspective.

So if you will, just pause with me for a second and imagine a world in which you have nothing to fear because you know that you are, your soul is, immortal and that everything is always working out for the highest good.

What would it feel like if you could just be your authentic self?

No masks, no roles that have to be played in a certain way, nothing to be afraid of, just you being you, joyful, relaxed, following your inner callings and knowings and exploring life freely and to the fullest?

Because that is what you can do, once you have liberated, freed yourself from all limiting beliefs.

And we can all start creating this reality right now, by doing the work we need to do to come to terms with our past, and transition to live with inner peace and following our soul’s calling and longing. The Wheel of Colours is a wonderful tool to help us here, as it allows us to remember what we came here to do, why we are here on earth, and what we need in all situations to thrive.

Once we are aware of our callings and our needs, it becomes our responsibility to implement the changes we need to live accordingly, though, so we can contribute in the best possible ways to the highest good of all – and free ourselves from the limiting beliefs with which we were raised while we inspire others to do the same.

In this process, we come to see that we really do have the power to change any situation, not with our hands, by doing something, but by changing our minds, more specifically, what we believe and think about ourselves, our situation and about others. In any (uncomfortable or frustrating) situation we find ourselves in, we can ask ourselves what the best possible outcome would be (instead of limiting ourselves with fears, negative expectations, worries or feeling unworthy) and then do what we have to do, or think what we have to think, to achieve that desired outcome.

Yet, as this is not always easy, or easier said than done, the archetypes can help us by creating new guiding images, and support us in embodying or letting go of certain characteristics, qualities or tendencies that either serve us or hinder us.

So, while in the past, archetypes were mostly used to explain and see certain patterns (Jung), today, we can go beyond just recognizing these patterns in ourselves and others and living through them or waiting for them to pass (Myss), but instead use them to actively create a better future for ourselves, individually and collectively by consciously giving them a new meaning.

When we look at an archetype, like the victim, it can help us to recognize certain qualities or patterns in ourselves, like the avoidance of taking responsibility for our lives, and if we don’t like what we see, we can change begin to change.

Or when we look at an archetype like the lover, or the amateur, we can connect to our playful and loving and sensual side, and if we think these qualities will serve us well, in everyday life, we can begin to nourish them in ourselves with the support of the universe, or by bringing a poster into our home, that reminds us to nourish these qualities whenever we look at it.

As we, as a society, are moving from a fixed to a growth oriented mindset that is in alignment with the most recent research on epigenetics, we can also move beyond seeing ourselves as a representation of certain archetypes, but can instead use these archetypes to move from harmful behavioural patterns to more helpful ones.

As a coach and spiritual teacher, but also just as a human being, my main goal is always to help everyone I’m working with, or love, to feel empowered to live the life their soul truly desires because that is the best option for the individual as well as the collective, which is also just a representation of the individual and the other way around.

The qu_ing, our highest self, also part of this Archetype Oracle Card Deck, can serve as an image of who we may be when we live out our full potential, when we live as our true self, and it can support us in creating a clear image of where and how we would like to be in this world. Because only when we know where we want to go, can the universe line up all that is necessary to support that, and can arrange everything so we can reach our goals and live our dreams and with this also help to create a more peaceful and kinder world.

And, as this is often misunderstood, and people think it means to push themselves harder, instead of allowing themselves to be their true selves and to stop limiting their inherent inner genius: What does living our highest potential actually mean?

I believe it comes down to three things. Clarity, confidence and connection, which is what I teach in the CREATRIX School. Because you have to become a CREATRIX, someone who is aware that they are co-creating their life, before you can become a qu_ing, your divine and highest self.

Becoming your highest self or living your highest potential, never means to push, struggle, manipulate and fight to get somewhere or change something, or to judge yourself for not being ‘there’ yet, but to allow, learn and unlearn, experience, accept, love, enjoy, flow and thrive.

If we choose to, we can all learn to live our highest potential, and Verena’s Archetype Oracle Cards can assist us in getting there.

So, apart from embracing the fact, that we are fluid in the sense that we are constantly changing and evolving, and don’t have to stay stuck in a role, or archetype but can choose and adapt our roles to our liking – you might notice from looking at the cards, that I used animals to represent the archetypes, to attempt a genderless and raceless, universal representation.

On the physical plane, we are still struggling for gender equality and recognition of all genders and trans* people, and we’re still struggling to overcome racial, class, geographic and political division.

On the mental plane, we are, however, becoming aware that we need to overcome these divisions altogether so that each person can express themselves freely and without limitations, to contribute their excellence, genius and beauty as it is necessary for the whole, and that there is nothing right or good or beneficial about keeping some people in a constant state of disempowerment.

Collectively, we are also becoming more and more aware that we each have masculine and feminine parts, which need to be balanced to live a fulfilled and happy life.

So, the archetypes are here to help us decide what we want to cultivate or let go of, and they can show us that we’re not doomed to a certain expression, existence or direction for the rest of our lives, only because we’ve lived a certain way so far, but that we have the power to create our lives – first as a CREATRIX, a co-creator of this life and then as qu_ing, our highest, limitless and multidimensional self.

About Verena’s Archetypes Oracle Cards Deck

I read the book Sacred Contracts by Caroline Myss some time in 2021. In this book, she suggests that every person has made a contract with 12 archetypes before our birth, to live through in our lifetime.

She described many different archetypes in her book, but I found it difficult to really get an overview of everything she suggested, and so I started making illustrations as a way for myself to understand the archetypes better.

During this process, I recognized that I actually have a quite different experience and relationship with these archetypes than Carolyn Myss describers in her book, so I figured that the approach that I was developing might be interesting and relevant to some other people as well.

I experience my life, and the lives of my clients, as more fluid and think that we are at a time when significant changes occur. People may have made these contracts in the past and lived through these 12 archetypes over the course of their lives, in the past, but today we move much more quickly. Her approach does make a lot of sense for people who are older now and past generations, but it didn’t for me – yet I find there is so much power in working with these archetypes.

Today, we have the possibility now to change much more quickly, work through things and find enlightenment, or move on to become multidimensional, simply by becoming aware of the possibility. It only takes an instant to create fundamental change, by simply becoming conscious of it.

And this quickening is necessary, too, if we want to save humanity and our planet or go with the natural evolution of this planet and support the transitioning to a new earth.

So instead of searching for our 12 archetypes, to represent our lives journey, I decided to actively work with all of these 113 archetypes to help us work through our shadows and empower ourselves – to fully liberate ourselves from past conditioning.

I even added a few cards representing our supernatural helpers: our ancestors, angels, god_desses, the qu_ing, our galactic friends, unicorns and dragons and Lady Gaia herself, so we can see who can best support us in certain situations.

The cards are split up into four categories.

The first ones are the source archetypes & the magical helpers, the second one the relational archetypes, the third the occupational archetypes and the fourth the occasional archetypes.

For personal development, these Archetypes Oracle Cards can be used, in the more traditional way, by simply pulling a card or laying a spread to learn more about your subconscious state and what that may lead to (rather than to predict the future) and to understand yourself, your situation and needs better in that moment.

But they can also be used by simply looking through them and seeing which cards, archetypes or qualities attract you, so that in combination with the description of the cards, or posters,  you can tackle the areas of your life, that could use more love and peace, ease or joy.

If we wish to do everything we do in life with joy, love, confidence, clarity and feeling and living our connection to it all, we don’t have to do much more than to set our intentions accordingly.

But, if we haven’t lived this way yet, it’s hard to even imagine such a life.

Which is why I offer new perspectives and ideas about these archetypes in my descriptions.

If we’ve never seen or experienced a healthy and loving relationship, it’s difficult to make one up from scratch, and it helps immensely to have a role-model. The same is true for an abundance mindset.

So, working with these archetypes can help us here, as they support us in find clarity and defining the roles we may want to take on as partners, as bosses or co-workers or in stressful situations, so that our autopilot will be set to lead us in the direction we want to go instead of the one we were born into.

I opened the CREATRIX School to assist with finding this clarity in practice, and I created the Oracle Cards for the same reason, which is why we use it in the CREATRIX School as well.

Using the Archetypes Oracle Cards over a longer period of time and for different aspects of your life, will also make the choice you have in every moment to go into love, expansion and joy or fear and distraction or avoidance become much more obvious.

To get a better understanding of how this may work, you can start by reading more about the two Source Cards, which represent the most important choice we have to make at any moment.

Creating this deck has been such a joy.

And I’m excited to start using it now, and I hope you are interested in doing the same, so we can all live with more abundance, ease, joy and love and co-create the New Earth together.

You can have a look at the whole deck of Archetype Oracle Cards here, and you can also book a reading or a coaching session with me, or join the CREATRIX School, if you’d like to explore this more.