Soul Archetypes Library
You’re working with 12 archetypes in your Natal Wheel.
4 of your 12 archetypes are preselected for you as we all share the 4 Primary Archetypes.
When you find yourself moving through the decision process of selecting your other 8 Archetypes, it can be overwhelming to sort out the details and distinctions of each. However, be confident in the following truths:
there are multiple ways to group + organize the multitude of Soul Archetypes;
you have Archetypes representing the whole of you that encompass multiple groupings of Soul Archetypes;
you shouldn’t rush. It takes time to deepen the voyage of self-discovery;
choosing a guide to be a mirror outside of yourself can help you see your blind spots (both your gifts and your murky parts).
Soul Archetypes are listed on this Library Page alphabetically.
While the Soulpath Guidance™ Library is currently under development, note that Soul Archetype Cards designed by Caroline Myss, are a useful tool and can be purchased in complete decks on Amazon. You can also reference Caroline Myss’ online Index of Soul Archetypes.
If you feel you have an Archetype not represented in materials here or elsewhere, describe the patterns of behavior that you identify as archetypal in nature, and come up with examples from mythology or the arts.
— Soul Archetypes are listed alphabetically —
THE ADDICT ARCHETYPE
The Addict Archetype aligns with the 12 steps. The 12 steps born out of AA are crucial in seeing how an addiction controls someone’s life.
How do you determine if The Addict Archetype is part of your original 12 Archetypes? We all seem to crave a way to help us numb intense feelings. We try to fill a void. This is familiar and we have our own flavor of this. We have quick fixes that help us cope. Some of us clean, binge watch shows when we should be sleeping, shop, eat, smoke, drink, overwork, over-function, etc.
We find when we want to have a sense of control in our lives, we end up over doing it on one of our ways of coping … which leaves us out of control even more. When life gets more intense, we may swing in the opposite direction. The positive side is we have fantastic looking kitchen counters 24/7. Underneath this though, we are trying to fill a void.
The Addict Archetype creates chaos in your life just when you feel like you have it all in order. The chaos is how the Addict Archetype takes back control in the shadow. What also accompanies the Addict in the shadow is lying to others and yourself to succumb to the craving. We often tell ourselves we deserve it. What is underneath this is about power.
The Addict Archetype moves into flow when admitting their life has become unmanageable.
Confronting the addictive behavior in your life means going beyond that Costco-sized bag of your favorite chips. Looking at a lifetime of addiction means looking at how you manage the addiction or manage someone in your life with an addiction. Either way the addiction is being “managed” by someone. When determining if the behavior is coping in stressful times or an addiction, look at the power exchange. What is underneath the compulsive addiction is about power. Does the addiction have more power over you that you deceive yourself in order to have it?
In growth the Addict Archetype accepts that she has faults and begins to listen to her gut.
THE ARTIST ARCHETYPE
People of the world needs artists to usher them into their own interiors, describe the indescribable and help people process the highs and low of life. Artists have long been a gift to human evolution and have not always received the appreciation for their gifts in society. Beliefs about being an artist have been passed down through generations: “Art doesn’t pay the rent.” “Artists are flighty.” “There is no room for an artist like you in the creative field.” “You don’t belong with those outcasts.”
Shadow Artists
Many Shadow Artists are hiding out as production assistants, art gallery owners, teachers, critics, editors. Creativity requires attention. If this is an archetype that has been with you your entire life, and you’re experiencing it in shadow, you may be looking at accomplished artists through eyes of admiration or jealousy and telling yourself “THEY are an artist. Not me. THAT’s what an artist looks like. Not me.” You can feel how deflating + devastating this can be.
There may be times when you don’t feel like you’re enough or what you’re creating is enough, yet you create anyway. Otherwise, the shadow of the artist archetype comes through starving themselves from making art. The Starving Artist holds not only the lack of being paid or valuing what you are worth in the external world, but it also holds the lack of creating art on one’s interior. This lack of creating art can be quite painful for an artist. She is starving herself.
Artists who are hiding out in the shadows require a lot of support. They may be posing as non-artists and keeping their emotions in check. Tapping into emotions and the sensitive part of their interior brings truth to performances, paintings, photography, dance, needle work and writing, and it brings truth to the world around them.
Blocked Artists
Artists use both the pain and the joy of their lives to make art. Embracing the ability to convey cosmic-sized impressions through vulnerability captivates the inner drive of The Artist Archetype. An artist may be gifted and blocked. Blocks provide an unopened door to a new portal. At a deep level, the artist knows this is the way to move closer to their brilliance and on the surface, fear of the unknown and being judged creates and keeps the block. Blocks also surface from past wounds and trauma when making art. It’s important to seek professional help when these moments arise. Creating art can be therapeutic but it is not therapy.
An Artist’s Journey
The pull between universal impressions and earthly duties creates a point of tension for some artists. Flightiness can capture an artist when everything seemed to be rooted. It can be a challenge for the artist archetype to calibrate to time and life in the ordinariness of the day-to-day.
Multi-layered, The Artist can get lost between worlds of expression, internal and external judgement, and a path of personal healing. An Artist’s path is theirs and theirs alone. Comparing where you are to where someone else is or where you think you should be eclipses the brilliance of your Soul. The path of the Artist Archetype is to not only dangle your dream in the light but to make space to create. In a world that may believe that not everyone can be an artist, those with The Artist Archetype know a deep pain about finding their place in the world.
If you find yourself at a stage of recovery or embarking on a new beginning with artistry, deepen your connection to your sensitive nature, embrace your flightiness, find ways to keep your feet on the ground, employ your self-compassion, and trust the inner river that flows through you. Find or build a tribe of other creatives that can carry you in challenging moments. The Artist Archetype knows how to create — you just need to decide to show up. Art can change your world and the world around you if you let it.
Artists: Inspire. Heal. Transform. Connect. Love. Influence. Motivate. Rouse. Captivate. Feel. Harmonize.
THE FASHIONISTA + THE METRO-MALE ARCHETYPES
Whether it’s putting together bold colors, accessorizing, or taking underused high-quality designer clothes to a consignment shop, The Fashionista is looking fabulous. While this may be true, it is also surface-level thinking, and we need to go deeper. There is a soul quality here that takes the Fashionista into herself for a soul-empowerment journey through the trends of glamour. The core of the Fashionista is power and identity.
“Telling a fashionista not to spend money on designer clothes is like telling the sun not to rise.”
The pull to spend on fashion is real and it requires a way to finance it. Clothes, shoes, and purses may take priority over saving for a something that you really want. In the shadow, one of the hardest lessons for a fashionista is learning is how to save when you really want to consume more fashion. The pull to grab a brand label at 15% off versus saving 15% of that week’s paycheck to go toward something bigger that requires saving — like a home, car, college tuition, paying off debt or vacation — creates tension. When The Fashionista chooses not to be a slave to Fashion, she moves into the Light side of this archetype: for the Love of Fashion.
Weaving in another flavor that shares the core inner work of The Fashionista and the pursuit of beauty is The Metro-Male Archetype. This archetype emerged in the 1930s and 1940s through places like Muscle Beach in Santa Monica, CA and Venice Beach, CA drawing bodybuilders and celebrities. You can find another expression emerging in urban areas where heterosexual males are very attentive to grooming, enhancing appearance with fashion + beauty treatments. Holding up a mirror to watch for facial lines, The Metro-Male Archetype can become obsessed with male vanity.
The Ugly Duckling
Being a Fashionista or Metro-Male isn’t just about fashion and appearances, it’s about self-empowerment. But how can you grow real self-esteem? You have incredible, beautiful inner qualities that don’t require a closet or a gym membership, they require soul endurance. Whether you perceive yourself as the Ugly Duckling or others created that experience for you, the verbal whipping can be intense. The conditioned inner pull to feel desired pushes you to groom, style, and consume products that claim to make you beautiful. The contrived standard of beauty is a false truth that The Metro Male + The Fashionista hold as truth for themselves. Lifting weights or shopping for ways to cover up what they see as ugly leads them to Botox, dieting, a pair of lifts or heels. Celebrity culture expands and even enhances this.
“I will not be judged by you or society.”
With the action of “holding fashion” as archetypal expression, allows an approach to your life that reflects an empowered version of you. You know who you are on the inside and embrace the truth that clothes or a toned + ripped body doesn’t make you an empowered person. The way you see yourself is the path to unapologetically becoming the Inner Swan. Taking this conscious path lessens competitive tension with other people, and you awaken the power of grace, self-esteem and inner beauty.
The Fashionista and Metro-Male have a brilliant way of using fashion and glamour to maintain a whole identity through knowing who they truly are in both the light and shadow. Deepening your Soul qualities take priority over another designer outfit for your closet. You embrace the joy of being you and release the urge to compensate for chronically low self-esteem and negative self-image.
Taking the excitement into themselves, the Fashionista + Metro Male discover that the most exciting and luxurious love lies within. They know that fashion trends + the body don’t last forever, but their love for themselves never goes out of style. They allow themselves to age without giving up what they love – beauty and Soul empowerment. They use their creative instincts outside of fashion and generously help those who are not fashionistas find their style. They create capacity to burn the superficial layers of themselves away, and allow their flaws to be part of their identity. However, a Soul-empowered person can still wear the latest Manolo Blahniks and maintain a ripped body.
The challenge to hold for The Fashionista and Metro-Male is to design your entire life from an empowered place so you feel good inside of your skin AND in the clothing you wear. Confidence steeped in authenticity and not feeling superior to others creates the pathway for your interior to shine. Your body is your canvas, but so is your whole being — and you set your own standards of beauty.
THE SEEKER ARCHETYPE
The Seeker Archetype seeks deep truths, goes where the wind blows + finds answers in the journey not the destination.
You know that “Lost Feeling” and the desire to find Truths - personal, universal, mystical Truths? This is what sends The Seeker Archetype on a quest to find meaning and answers.
Oftentimes this archetype appears to be wandering without a cause or destination from someone looking at this pattern from the outside. She thinks the Truth she is searching for is “out there,” but the journey to the Truth she desires is within.
The Seeker is searching for something that feels like a big, cosmic-sized truth. This can create a rub because The Seeker doesn’t like to get pinned down, confined because she doesn’t know what she is seeking. On the move, she will not return home.
She can feel frustrated as she sits with mixed feelings and contradictory ideas. She craves the journey and believes the answers are waiting for her in the destination.
To grow with this archetype, she asks a question. Curiosity pulls the seeker down into herself. She finds her staying power. She commits to an inner path where cosmic truths are experienced. She has Soul stamina that carries her to the Soul Agreements she was born to live. This expansive light radiates inside of her, and she detaches from the search.
THE SHAPE-SHIFTER ARCHETYPE
The Shape-shifter Archetype can change form externally or internally.
Whether its new hair styles, outfit changes throughout the day, or trying on a unique facial expression she notices on someone, reinventing herself over and over offers a preference over appearance to match her constant changing inner world. The Shape-shifter Archetype does not only change shapes to alter outward appearances, she also energetically moves in and out of levels of thought and states of reality much like a genie in a bottle shows us.
Vying to know herself, despair may trickle in because she can’t figure out who SHE is. She can’t quite figure out her own shape, form, texture, color. She sees herself in everyone else and experiences herself as a nobody which can lead her to slip into a passage of empty space inside of her.
To others, she can appear elusive and noncommittal. For example, appearing in one moment strictly as an artist, the next moment a savvy businesswoman … and the next moment, she’s gone with the wind. To her, she can tune into a frequency that will carry her to new places of thought, states of consciousness that to others can appear as fickleness and lack of conviction.
The gift of The Shape-shifter Archetype is they can spiritually journey into different levels of consciousness which leads to the ability to heal.
In the light, the Shape-Shifter realizes that she may not be the center of her own transformational path to healing. In letting go of grasping to knowing herself, she lands within the movement or dance of her Soul.
Shadow Prostitute vs Shadow Shape-Shifter
There is a distinction between the shadow Prostitute Archetype and the shadow Shape-Shifter Archetype. The shadow Prostitute abandons her true nature, Soul gifts, and Soul’s values in exchange for energy like approval, love, appreciation and money.
The shadow Shape-Shifter changes appearances + energy for the thrill of it — change is her nature. She may change her energy to please someone, and she may change her energy to confront someone. She can camouflage herself while she changes forms and she may choose to be seen. Disguising herself to conceal her identity is the motivation in the shadow.
THE THIEF ARCHETYPE
The question of ownership is how the Thief Archetype navigates power. The Thief wonders: Who really owns anything here after we die? Did we ever truly own it?
The Thief Archetype in the light reminds us that our possessions can be taken away at any time (including our time here on Earth), and from this high perspective we are left with the capacities of our Soul. In letting go of attachment to possessions (hers and others), she drops into her spiritual nature.
The gift of the Thief is that she knows when something has value the moment she comes in contact with it. This includes a good idea, money, pirated music, other people’s time, etc. The shadow Thief wants it for her own use. For example, showing up late to an appointment is a form of stealing someone’s time.
There is a thrill of taking something that doesn’t belong to her. Like we see in the 2018 movie, Ocean’s 8, the Thief is only sorry she gets caught. She believes that what she takes will make her complete as she strategized that one last job.
In the light, the Thief knows that everything she needs resides inside of her. She had it within her all along. The Thief in the light has incredible capacity to discern what she already has and its value to her. This is what will lead her to fulfillment and her highest potential. She doesn’t need to steal someone else’s creation; she has an abundance of gifts she was born with.
If an Archetype you’re looking for is not represented here, reference Caroline Myss’ online Index of Soul Archetypes.