Building Success Habits

S10 E31 The Warrior Deep Dive

“Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths”. — Joseph Campbell

The inner Innocent dreams big dreams; the Orphan recognizes the impediments to those dreams; but without the Warrior, those dreams seldom come true. For the highest-level Warrior, the real battle is always against the enemies within – sloth, cynicism, despair, irresponsibility, and denial.

There are five levels of the Warrior:

1. Shadow - Ruthlessness, unprincipled and obsessive need to win, us of power for conquest, a view of all difference as a threat
2. Call - Confrontation of a great challenge or obstacle
3. Spiral One - Fight for self or others to win or prevail (anything goes)
4. Spiral Two - Principled fight for self or others; abiding by rules of a fair fight or competition; altruistic intent
5. Spiral Three - Forthright assertiveness; fighting or competition for what really matters (not simply personal gain); little or no need for violence; preference for win/win solutions; conflict honestly aired; increased communication, honesty

Imagine something of great value that you want very much. It can be an object, a person, an honor or a position, a righting of a social wrong, or anything that has a strong attraction for you. Imagine yourself mounting a campaign to get what you want, using all the firepower you can muster. Your firepower might be guns and tanks and grenades or it might be words, political influence or making others feel guilty. Whatever your means, imagine yourself fighting as long and hard as you need to fight to obtain your goal. If you feel resistance to such no-holds-barred fighting, remember this is only a daydream, not reality. When you have succeeded in attaining your goal, take time to let yourself really enjoy it and to process whatever feelings you may have about doing so.

S10 E30 The Orphan Deep Dive

“Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain” – Joseph Campbell

If we were not wounded, we would remain in innocence and never mature, grow or learn. At the highest level of Orphan, we learn to welcome all of our prodigal children home.

There are five levels of the Orphan:

1. Shadow - Cynicism, callousness, masochism or sadism; using the victim role to manipulate the environment.
2. Call - Abandonment, betrayal and self-betrayal, disillusionment, discrimination, victimization.
3. Spiral One - Learning to acknowledge the truth of one’s plight and feel pain, abandonment, victimization, powerlessness, and loss of faith in people and institutions of authority
4. Spiral Two - Accepting the need for help; being willing to be rescued and aided by others
5. Spiral Three - Replacing dependence on authorities with interdependence with others who help each other and band together against authority; developing realistic expectations

Sit in a quiet, comfortable spot where you will not be interrupted, and breathe deeply and slowly. Allow yourself to experience the desire to be cared for by others - a desire natural to the child in each of us. Let yourself know whom you wish would take care of you (eg, you might imagine a person, a type of person, God.) Then tell yourself that no one is going to care for or rescue you. You will have to act in your own behalf. Allow yourself to experience any feelings you have of sadness, disappointment, and cynicism, or the sense of your own powerlessness or ineptitude.

You may leave the daydream here or go on to imagine yourself joining a group of people who feel just the way you do - people who agree to support each other and share their feelings and knowledge with one another. Be aware of feelings that emerge as you imagine functioning in the context of such peer support.

Preparation for the Hero's Journey Deep Dive

The first four Archetypes help us prepare for the journey. We begin with the Innocent and learn optimism and trust. When we experience “the fall” we become Orphans who feel disappointed, abandoned, betrayed by life and people who were supposed to care for us. The Orphan teaches us to provide for ourselves and stop relying on others to take care of us. The Warrior teaches us to set goals and develop strategies for achieving them and the Caregiver teaches us to care for others and eventually to care for ourselves.

“Your life is the fruit of your own doing. You have no one to blame but yourself.” — Joseph Campbell

There are five levels of the Innocent:

1. Shadow - Denial, repression, blaming, conformity, irrational optimism and risk taking
2. Call - Safe, secure environment; a desire to be protected, to experience unconditional love and acceptance
3. Spiral One - Unquestioning acceptance of environment, authorities; believe that the world as it is being experienced is all there is; dependence
4. Spiral Two - Experience of the “fall” - disillusionment, disappointment - but retention of faith and goodness in adversity
5. Spiral Three - Return to Paradise, this time as a Wise Innocent; trust and optimism without denial, naivete or dependence

Give some thought to when, where, how and how much the Innocent expresses itself in our life.

How much or how little is the Innocent expressed in your life? Has it been expressed more in the past or present? Do you see it emerging more in your future? Is it expressed more at work, at home with friends, or in dreams? Who are some friends, relatives, coworkers and others who seem influenced by the Archetype of the Innocent?

Is there anything you wish were different about the expression of the Innocent in your life?

Since each Archetype expresses itself in many different ways, take some time to describe or otherwise portray (eg. draw, make a collage, use a picture of yourself in a particular costume or pose) The Innocent as it is expressed or could be expressed in your life. What does or would it look like? How does or would it act? In what setting does or would it feel most at home?

In your daydream, allow yourself to experience a perfect childhood, one in which you have everything you need: love, possessions, security, stimulation, encouragement to your growth in every possible way. Allow yourself some time to process your feelings. Be aware that no matter what the reality of your actual childhood, you can give yourself a perfect childhood anytime you wish in your fantasy.

Allow yourself to indulge in fantasies of rescue, whether it is “someday my prince or princess will come” or dreams of the perfect therapist, great boss or political leader who will restore Camelot. Imagine how faithfully you wait for rescue, how good and deserving you are. Allow yourself to experience being rescued and taken care of by this caring, benevolent and powerful person. Then imagine yourself becoming like that person. What does that feel like for you?

E28 Expressing Ourselves in the World

“As you proceed through life, following your own path, birds will shit on you. Don't bother to brush it off. Getting a comedic view of your situation gives you spiritual distance. Having a sense of humor saves you.”― Joseph Campbell

The Fool in each of us sees through and deflates our sense of self-importance, bringing us down to earth. The Fool part of our psyche takes away any sense that we control our fate and takes us beyond a heroic stance toward life. The Fool accepts all parts of our inner psyche and savors the beauty and joy of each unique and different moment and individual.

Rulers and Magicians work hard to redeem and heal the planet. Sages struggle and strive to maintain truth. Only the Fool simply trusts the moment and savors life in its fullness, without judgment, appreciating not only life’s joys but also its sorrows.

The Fool then has the openness and the creativity of the Innocent without the Innocents need for denial and protection.

The Fool’s recognition and acceptance of human fallibility is to motivate laughter - not judgment, despair or even social activism.

When the Fool is in our lives, we know joy because we are released from all the collective “should’s” to really live.

When we let go of the Ego and the need to be important, we can open up to joy. This state is not the end of the journey. It continues throughout our lives. But it does change the quality of the journey. Once we have moved beyond heroism, into the dance, we experience much less suffering.

The Fool, then, is the Archetype that connects us to instinctual life and helps us experience greater joy.

E27 The Fool and The Hero

“Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends.”― Joseph Campbell

The Fool elements of the psyche spit from its heroic elements. Our hero starts the journey as the Innocent and is full of integrity, faith and courage. The Trickster shows up as a sidekick who provides street smarts that the hero needs to survive, but who may not be consistent with the heroic self-image.

The hero’s foolish elements need to split off just enough so they are not in control, yet not repressed. Keep these elements as the foolish sidekick.

Using the more “heroic” Ego and the Trickster or Fool sidekick allows a strategy to be found for saving the victim (Orphan) that is both clever and moral so they do not have to take on obstacles directly.

The Ego identifies with order. It wants an orderly world and is horrified by chaos in the culture or the psyche. The Fool, however, is allied with chaos and disorder. It is only when we have developed a long standing relationship to our internal Fool sidekick that we can “trust the process” even in challenging times. When that trust is well developed, we can enjoy the ride, like people do on a roller coaster.

People who have taken their journeys and developed an integrated Self can trust their instincts. When they live by their deepest, essential Selves, they can “follow their bliss” without fear of doing harm to themselves or others. They know how to trust the process of life, and when they do so, life can become a dance – an expression of pure joy.

E26 The Trickster and the Development of Self-Expression “We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”― Joseph Campbell

The Trickster is our playful, creative and curious part of our psyche.

Tricksters learn mastery through experimentation. The Trickster’s curiosity helps us learn what kind of work we like to do and provides us with at least beginning-level skills to start that work.

The Trickster’s energy can and should be bound and channeled but it should never be totally repressed.

In our lives, things like vacations and creature comforts help us stay sane, happy and well-balanced, as does a good sense of humor.

In old age, the Fool teaches us to let go of the need for power and goals and achievements so that we can live each day as it comes. We can feel this way any time in our life when the awareness of mortality leads us to savor each moment of life.

The Dance … Beyond Heroism The last Archetype of the Hero’s Journey is the Fool. It is included with the Archetypes on the Return Stage of the journey because it governs the expression of our selves in the world. In truth, the Fool can be found in other places along the journey. Before we receive the call, the Fool is aligned with the primitive parts of the psyche. We are literally acting the Fool until we begin the first iteration of our journey. Today we will go beyond heroism and explore the Fool’s Dance.

E25 The Trickster and the Development of The Ego

“Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.”― Joseph Campbell

While we might laugh at the Trickster, Jester or Joker because we feel superior to its foolishness, we are all quite capable of letting ourselves get out of control and become destructive. If you ever had a hangover or cheated on a diet you have experienced what we are describing.

As children grow, they learn to distinguish their own emotions from their parents and as they grow older, they start to make connections between certain actions and their consequences.

Adults still have a difficult time differentiating between their genuine thoughts, values, feelings and opinions from those of their parents and friends or what they see and hear in the media.

Either we get caught up doing what someone else wants us to do because we can’t separate our desires from theirs, or we simply assume that others share our views, without checking to see if this is in fact true.

The Trickster part of us is activated anytime we need to find out what is “me” and what is “not me.” Stories of the Trickster teach us to connect parts of ourselves in order to become an integrated whole.

The Fool is never really bound by conventional society, but does learn the rules of that society and how to play the game effectively.

The Trickster in each of us needs some time to wander and explore the world, simply to respond to our hunger for sensations and experiences and to find out who we are, what we like and do not like, what we feel and do not feel, what we think and do not think. Without this we never have any true sense of identity.

E21 The Responsibility To Be Conscious |IBGR | Donna Kunde & Londina Cruz “The key to growth is the production of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.” — Lao Tzu All Selves are fundamentally wounded when Ego and Soul are disconnected from each other. Most of us have experienced calls to the quest - great loves, passions and losses; internal and external suffering and conflict; and opportunities to create and miscreate our own lives – but if we take them in stride without recognizing their Soul purpose, we may not find the miracles.. Transformation happens when we wake up and experience wonder instead of sleepwalking through life. We need to ponder these events, ask to have the meaning revealed and allow ourselves to recognize that we have been touched by something greater than ourselves. The Self is not fully realized until we are willing to accept the burden of consciousness and not only have our initiating experiences, but also allow the wisdom they bring to be integrated into consciousness. This is done when we accept the responsibility of knowing what we know – and also inquiring what we might know.

Make sure you leave some thoughts in the comment section below. We are interested in continuing the conversation.

Connect with Londina at Londina.com Learn more about Donna here…

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E22 Questions Asked To Find The Self |IBGR | Donna Kunde & Londina Cruz “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”― C.G. Jung On our journey to finding The Self, meaning is revealed when we open our Souls to living life from a deeper level. This deeper level is found in the questions we ask ourselves. The first question to ask is what to do with our Call and with our lives. The second question is to uncover what ails us. Revealing this shows our readiness to be healed. The third question requires us to ask what we must sacrifice. The fourth question calls us to ask for clarity around what we truly need so we can separate what we truly need from what we think we need or want. Finally, we open ourselves up to receive the answers in order to become whole and to ask what our Souls then require of us. When we ask the proper questions we get the answers to be healed and experience transformation. To be conscious is to wake up and take a new kind of responsibility for being true to ourselves and constructive members of the human race. This is what it means to be fully awake: conscious in your body, feeling your feelings, able to express who you are in the world, and willing to take full responsibility for your life. Experiencing the self is not simply about being virtuous. It is about tapping into the fullness of our capacities. Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever. Sooner or later this consciousness will split and the journey will begin again.

Make sure you leave some thoughts in the comment section below. We are interested in continuing the conversation.

Connect with Londina at Londina.com Learn more about Donna here…

Listen to Live: IBGR.Network Subscribe to Our Podcast: Building Success Habits Podcast

TAGS: IBGR, IBGR Network, Donna Kunde, Londina Cruz, comfort zone, get out of your comfort zone, how to get out of your comfort zone, the comfort zone, what is comfort zone, leave the comfort zone, comfort zone meaning, how to expand your comfort zone, breaking out of your comfort zone, how to get out of your comfort zone tips, life begins at the end of your comfort zone, new comfort zone.

E23 Expressing Ourselves In The World |IBGR | Donna Kunde & Londina Cruz “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that creates it.--Albert Einstein When we commit our lives to the service of our deep Soul purpose, we can never go back to life as we knew it. There is a loss as well as a gain. The issue for us today is not simply to create the unified Self - connecting Ego and Soul, heart and head, male and female - but also to express this Self in the everyday business of living our lives. The wandering Soul or pilgrim in each of us needs to be coaxed into developing an expanded, deepened consciousness by awe and mystery while staying grounded by the task of ordinary living. We are called to the challenging task of moving from the divine to ordinary work of day-to-day living. We must integrate the uncommon and the ordinary. It is not the separate, transpersonal experience that matters, but rather how the experience guides the way we live our lives. This is what the return is all about.

Make sure you leave some thoughts in the comment section below. We are interested in continuing the conversation.

Connect with Londina at Londina.com Learn more about Donna here…

Listen to Live: IBGR.Network Subscribe to Our Podcast: Building Success Habits Podcast

TAGS: IBGR, IBGR Network, Donna Kunde, Londina Cruz, comfort zone, get out of your comfort zone, how to get out of your comfort zone, the comfort zone, what is comfort zone, leave the comfort zone, comfort zone meaning, how to expand your comfort zone, breaking out of your comfort zone, how to get out of your comfort zone tips, life begins at the end of your comfort zone, new comfort zone.