I've been totally fascinated by Dr. Carl Jung lately, because with my study of archetypes and tarot his name is mentioned non-stop and so I've taken to reading books about him and learning more about his teachings. While this post won't have much to do with tarot, it will touch on archetypes.
Jung taught that the human psyche works in such a way that our personal unconscious as well as the collective unconscious tries to be in communication and understood by our conscious minds. This can happen in a lot of ways - for example through dreams. In a dream, our unconscious sends images to our conscious minds, typically in the form of symbols. The unconscious also communicates via archetypes - that is, pesonalities, experiences, ideas or lessons that are common to all of humanity. I like to look at the archetypal fairy tales and myths, like for example Robin Hood. Robin Hood himself is an archetype - a hero - and the Sheriff of Nottingham is an archetype, and their rivalry and experience is archetypal in that any person, from any culture in the world, any religion or language, who hears the story of Robin Hood, can relate to it. The story and its characters are meaningful to every human being.
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Jung also taught that the most important work a person can undertake in their psychic, or mental/emotional/spiritual, development is to achieve a balance in themselves between the mysterious unconsciousness and the conscious mind or ego.
One of the mechanisms of our minds that moves us towards this balance is the presence of an animus or anima. A male psyche, as it develops from childhood, and experiences the contrast of the female, will develop a sort of inner-female-personality, called the anima. This is like the voice inside of his head that speaks for his "female" or sensitive, mysterious, emotional and spiritual side. A female psyche develops an animus, which is the same as the anima, but instead is male oriented - so it speaks the voice of logic, reason, present moment living, etc. The mind, as it is trained and taught by life to identify itself with one gender, or take gender out of it, as it identifies with one polarity, it will automatically create an opposite polarity to balance it out.
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It's like this. Take a stone. Carve a sculpture out of it. Now the stone is "defined". And then take all of the chips, dust, and shavings that were removed as you carved the sculpture and save them on the side. The chips, dust and shavings are there to remind us of what the stone was before it became defined as a sculpture. They also serve to remind the stone that even though it has been defined as a sculpture, at it's core, in the end, it is still a stone.
Our animas and animuses remain in our minds to remind us of the wholeness that we once were (before being born), and that one day we can return to (at enlightenment or after death). They also motivate us to find companions in our lives that will complement us and challenge us to achieve greater psychic balance. They are our inner relationship coaches and the source of that deep-seeded attraction towards certain "types" of people.
Ok, so now it's story time. When I was something like 13 years old I met a boy that I decided was my soul-mate. His name is D.
D and I dated on and off for a few years and I became obsessed with him. He eventually told me he wasn't interested and moved on.
Heartbroken and lost in life, I decided to serve a mission for the church I participated in at the time. I moved to Chile for 18 months to work as a volunteer for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While in Chile, I met another person. His name was G. G was a leader of the church at the time, in Chile, and he was (and is still I believe) married for a long time - G in fact was about 30 years older than me. He had children almost my age.
I struggled in Chile and found myself in a very vulnerable state because there was a lot of social pressure as a missionary and I found that I didn't like the church I was promoting. When G expressed an interest in me (I was about 24 at the time) I allowed him to believe he stood a chance, even though it was totally inappropriate. There was something comforting about an older man, established in his life, with a cute foreign accent, showing interest in me.
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Ultimately nothing happened between us, and I returned home to the States. I have harbored bitter feelings for G because I feel like he preyed upon my vulnerability in many ways with a purpose of inflating his own ego. (I won't go into the details about this because I don't feel like it really matters for this post).
When I returned from Chile, after some brief re-encounters with D, he married another girl, and I decided to move on.
That's when I met C. C actually is a lot like D.
So C was and is wonderful. He and I dated/lived together for about 2 years. We had a lot in common and in particular we had complementary senses of humor.
But in the end after two years, we agreed that the relationship wasn't fulfilling either of us. And we broke up. (That was about 3 months ago).
And that, my friends, is my love-life in a nutshell. Pretty great, huh?
So now I'm in a space of wondering what type of person I want to be a in a relationship with, so that I can feel fulfilled, challenged, and satisfied. When I was 16 my friend Loni and I went to a palm reader on Hollywood Blvd and she said that I would marry a man from overseas and have 2 children. At the time I thought, "That's ridiculous - I'm going to marry D." But recently her prediction has come back to me and I've wondered. I keep imagining that my happiest relationship will be with a foreign man, older than me, much older and established in his life. And then I remember G and I cringe and think, "There's no way in HELL I'll ever be with a man like that." But when I dream and fantasize about it, the same figure keeps coming back into my mind, and I'm living in New England, and I'm happy and quite alone (because my older, foreign husband is off doing his things) and I have so much freedom and also so much love.
This is when I came across Jung's anima/animus theories.
In this book I'm reading right now, called "Teach Yourself Jung" by Ruth Snowden (2006) I read the following about Jung:
"Jung first became aware of his own anima when he was analysing his fantasies during his midlife crisis. He asked himself what he was actually doing, and was startled to hear a woman's voice quite clearly announcing, 'it is art'. He felt cross about this and replied that it was nothing to do with art, but the voice again insisted that it was. The voice was the voice of his anima. ... Jung soon realized that by personifying an archetype [as his anima] he was able to bring it into relationship with his own consciousness.
... For a man to be in touch with his anima is therefore healing and balancing. The anima is not a specific woman - her archetype contains all the ancestral impressions of what it means to be female. Her personified form in the individual psyche will depend very much upon a man's personal knowledge of women, which is rooted in his relationship with his mother, plus impressions gained about other women as he is growing up. Passionate attractions occur when the anima is projected onto an actual woman, so that the man falls in love. If, on the other hand, the man over-identifies with the anima, he may become very moody, resentful or effeminate. If a man's anima is very weak then he will find relationships with women difficult" (p. 61-62).
Also: "...it is useful to get in touch with our anima or animus, because they have valuable messages for us. They also have a huge role to play in making relationships with the opposite sex successful" (p. 63).
Ok, I don't know if that meant anything to you, but it meant a whole lot to me. The part where his anima actually speaks to him hit home. I sat and pondered this as I read it, and then all of a sudden it happened - my animus spoke to me.
In my mind's eye, I saw a totally black space with an open door in the distance, and light shone out of the open door (kind of like what you would see in Dick Tracey). Then, a man stepped into the doorway, with the light on his back, so I couldn't see his face, and so that his shadow was long.
Then he spoke. And he said nothing, but I knew instantly that he was Anthony Hopkins. Ha ha ha. I'm serious! My animus looks and talks just like Anthony Hopkins.
He doesn't really say anything to me, but now that I'm aware of him, I know that if I sat down and took the time to have a conversation with him, he would. And that still kind of scares me because I don't know what he'll ask me to face.
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Ok, so the anima/animus is formed based off of father figures and other male figures in the life of a person when they're young. Later, through life, you'll encounter more people and your anima/animus may change a little but his/her strongest aspects will be defined in early childhood.
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You know how people always say, "You marry your mother!" or "You date your father!" - like you're attracted to people you remind you of your parents? That's how the whole anima/animus thing plays out.
Now each of my siblings (there are 8 of us) has a totally different relationship/take on my parents. But my relationship with my father, as a child and kind of to this day, looks like this:
- I'm awed by him and he seems unreachable and unapproachable
- I'm intimidated by him, so I try to not get noticed too much
- I'm quite rebellious towards him and I like to challenge him but without too much personal interaction
- As a child he and I mostly connected on an intellectual level - we talked about science and math and world affairs
- I prefer to see him interacting with others and enjoying his fabulous personality vicariously instead of having his focus on me
- My dad never liked me dating D or C. He thought they were both underachievers.
- He's mysterious and mostly quiet. He has little to say, but when he looks at me I know he's watching my every move and has me figured out (think Hanibal Lector)
- When he does talk, it's mostly small talk about things like science and world affairs - just trivial things.
- He doesn't like my taste in guys. He doesn't like that I'm the more active person in my relationships. He says (and I'm hearing this in my head right now as I type) that if I'm going to be running the show in a relationship, I'd be better off alone and that he wants to see me in a relationship where I'm empowered and then left to follow my own passions.
- He's very critical. And he's not afraid to express his dissatisfaction to me. But he's never critical of me, just of my choices. He likes me a lot and is totally intrigued by me - in fact the puzzle that I am consumes him - he's eternally fascinated and finds my resistance and rebellion fascinating and exhilirating (sorry if that's too graphic ha ha ha). He thinks he has me figured out and is perpetually curious to see if I'll act like he expects me to. When I don't act like he expects is when he gets cranky with me...but then his curiosity is revived.
Here's the thing with animas/animuses. They're in your head. Forever. They are a part of your psyche. If you piss them off, and don't respect their input (which is meant only to guide you towards balance) they'll nag at you forever. You gotta make your peace with them.
Have you ever been in a relationship with everything is smashing, going perfectly well, and there's this itch in your brain that you have to get out of it? I know that a lot of people experience this. "Why did I cheat on my husband?" they ask me - "I really love him a lot and he's SUCH a good person and there's really nothing wrong with him! I'm just not happy and I don't know why," Well, my guess is that you're not happy because your animus doesn't think your hubby is a good match and he's not going to shut up (even if your husband is a "good person").
Here's the big problem with animas/animuses - their personalities are based off of your life experiences with people of the opposite sex. So let's say Dad was abusive - well guess what? Your animus is likely going to be abusive and he'll encourage you to get into abusive relationships. Let's say mom was absent and self-absorbed. Anima is going to push you towards relationships where you do all of the work.
Now the reason they do this, is because if you were an abused child, your psyche and personality formed around abusiveness, so in order to be balanced, you have to be reacting against abuse. I don't know Jung's theory, but mine is that as you become more balanced in your reactions to abuse, your anima/animus will stop pressuring you to seek abusive realtionships. But this explains why there are so many battered wives that are perfectly happy in their abusive relationships.
So take a look at your life. If you are dissatisfied with your relationships, is it because you look for people based off of the "right" qualifications, or based off of what you're "truly" attracted to? If you are in a relationship because your partner seems "stable and healthy" do you find yourself craving adventure and risk? Did you pick someone beautiful, only to find yourself craving to be adored by your partner instead living in their shadow? If you picked someone strong, do you find yourself craving to overpower them somehow?
Think about this: D and C are very similar in that they're both my age, neither of them has any career path or even ambition for that matter, they're both dependant on their mothers to a great degree, and they both have enormous sweetness and gentleness. I think I'm attracted to guys like that because I like to resist my animus - I don't want to give in to him. But in my perfect relationship with C, I was totally dissatisfied.
Isn't that interesting?
The problem is that because of the surrounding circumstances with the G situation, I'm really, really resistant to trusting my animus, because G fit the mold much closer than C or D did. Ew and the thought of a relationship with anyone like him pisses me off.
And here's another thing - since I broke up with C, D magically reappeared in my life ... divorced. Naturally I'm excited and express interest ... and true to his nature he strings me along for a little while and then ignores me.
I'm clearly not learning my lesson!
But now that I'm clear on what my animus is (and I think I'll name him Anthony Hopkins) and on what purpose he serves, I think I'm in a path to trusting him and using his council and personality to lead me towards a fulfilling and balancing relationship. And THAT is exciting!
So watch out world ... of single, foreign, rich men who are ages 30-42 (sorry but a 17-year is gap is all I can swallow at this point.), who want to be in a relationship with a mysterious, independant, and spontaneous whackball 25-year old who researches things like Jungian psychology and tarot and the Bible for fun! I'm READY for ya!
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
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