I am passionate about the study of archetypes. As a Holographic Energy Worker/Emotional Intuitive, who “reads” the energy fields of my clients all day long, I get to witness the most amazing archetypal patterns. 

During my earlier years doing this work, I would attract so many clients with archetypes like Ms. Control, Mr. Know It All, Ms. Perfect, Mr. & Mrs. Tough, and Ms. Denial of Feelings. All fascinating personality types, particularly since these patterns resembled me so much at that time. 

Growing up as the only girl, with three boys, in a lower middle class, Catholic family, I never felt quite good enough, pretty enough, or smart enough. I always felt very different from everyone else and desperately wanted to fit in. 

So, I learned how to put on masks, which eventually grew into my archetypal patterns. I acted like I had everything in control, pretended that I knew what everyone was talking about at dinner parties, and maintained a cool exterior that made me appear unflappable. 

What a joke? Nothing could have been farther from the truth. Actually, I was (and am) hypersensitive, highly intuitive, and someone who feels intensely everything around me. 

As I started understanding these patterns, more patterns came to light. The work of Medical Intuitive and author Caroline Myss had a huge impact on me. She spoke of how each one of us is born with a Sacred Contract and that we each have 12 archetypal patterns to work through in this incarnation. 

Ms. Myss believes that we all must work through the Victim, the Saboteur, the Wounded Child, and the Prostitute, among others. Once we understand their beautiful lessons, we can work their opposites, or positive aspects. 

For example, the Victim teaches us to take responsibility for our lives and to stop giving out power to others – to be the Victor. 

The Prostitute teaches us to stop compromising our bodies, morals, ethics, time, energy and money to get love and approval in return. Doing so enables us to become the Lover, to love ourselves so much that we will no longer compromise our spirits. 

The Saboteur teaches us to go beyond our fears, stop sabotaging our lives and become the Magician who makes magic and miracles; thus enabling us to finally go beyond our pain, to forgive our past, and to learn how to play, live, and love again – freeing up our Creative Divine Child Nature.

 
Ms. Myss’ teachings had a life changing effect on me and my work. Suddenly I could understand why I was seeing Wounded Child archetypes with 95% of my clients and why so many people felt victimized and sabotaged by life itself. 

Almost every client that came to see me would be taken into their past by their Higher Self, to speak to their Wounded Child. 

The Wounded Children would choose names that they wanted to be called, and would make it very clear to the inner adult on my table that the inner child part of them needed love, attention, nurturing, and time to play! 

Over and over in my readings I would see my clients’ painful childhood experiences; situations in which they did not get the opportunity to express their pain, feelings of abandonment, hurt, disappointment etc. For them to heal their past they needed to go back and make peace with that inner child part of them. 

I will never forget the gentleman who came to see me, not for himself, but to check me out because he thought I was a charlatan. Let’s call him Terry. 

His two lovely daughters were both clients of mine and had been seeing me quite regularly with very positive results. He felt threatened by this and he wanted to “see my stuff”. 

I felt very intimidated at first until I reminded myself that I had nothing to prove since I was only going to share what came from his Higher Self anyway. I resolved to just “Let go and let God.” 
There he lay on my Reiki table, arms folded, looking critically at me with an attitude that said, “Okay, what do you see?” I took a deep breath and the first impression I got was that of a little boy, and the number eight. 

The boy was balancing on a fence, free and happy. Then, in the next moment, I got an impression of the boy on the ground and his arm was dangling, nearly ripped off his shoulder. 
The third impression was of the boy’s father, dressed in a military uniform, looking at the child with rage.

 
Since most of what I see is quite symbolic or metaphorical, I asked, “Terry, have you ever felt emotionally ripped off or ripped apart by your dad?” 

Terry looked at me with wide eyes and responded, “At age eight I fell off a fence and nearly lost my arm. My father, who was in the military, was very dominating. He was so angry that I climbed the fence, that instead of comforting me and asking me if I was okay, he yelled at me and told me what an idiot I was.” 

Suddenly a fourth impression flew onto my screen – Terry as an angry grizzly bear. Terry had grown up to be just like his dad, dominating and controlling. Now I also understood why he was so darn protective of his daughters. He never wanted them to be hurt the way he had been hurt as a child. 

This experience showed me that each one of us has a whole collection of animal archetypes and that each archetype has both a light and a shadow side. I also realised that Spirit was using me as a vehicle to help people understand their true natures and their “pure potential”. As I began to study Shaman Ted Andrew’s book, Animal Speaks, I learned that each one of us is born with animal totems or animal essences and my gift of clairvoyance allowed me the honour of reading these, along with they myriad of other archetypes that we develop. 

As the session progressed with Terry, I also got to see the lighter side of his Bear essence and was able to help that wounded boy inside him to understand who he really was before age eight. The Bear is the teacher of teachers, the shaman, the healer, and has the ability to go within (hibernation), to name just a few of its qualities. 

The insight that Terry gained from learning about his Bear totem was that he could get what he wanted without going into Grizzly mode. 

My point in this article is that I agree with Ms. Myss, that we signed a sacred contract and we come into each incarnation with a cast of archetypes that will allow us to experience our soul’s evolution in the best way possible. 

However, I have also concluded that there is a whole crew of animal totem aspects to us (kind of like Noah's ark – an inner family, or what I like to call, “the tribe of the true self”), and that if we learn all we can about these aspects we will better understand the dark and light sides of our natures. This will enable us to experience life in a more fulfilling way. 

We are far more complex than any one set of “archetypes” can express. There is so much magic inside of us. If we pay attention to our dreams, and to the animals that cross our paths, we can learn so much more about ourselves. 

Through the study of animal totems, I have learned that I am not unworthy, undeserving and uncared for, but that I am EAGLE, full of grace, a teacher of teachers and creative visionary; that I am HAWK, greatest of the flyers, a messenger to others; and, I am DEER, gentle, compassionate, sensitive, and kind.