The Child Archetype
In our previous article, we briefly explored the four survival archetypes. We discussed what archetypes are, the contracts we sign, and why understanding the four survival archetypes is essential for our healing journey. Archetypes represent our relationship with our power. When we express them in their highest form, we experience freedom and empowerment within ourselves. When we express them in their shadow form, we experience a loss of freedom and a sense of disempowerment.
Where do these patterns originate from? Why do we have contracts with certain archetypes and not others? To understand this, we must travel back to the beginning.
We are born into this world as a helpless and powerless child. As a child, we are completely dependent on others for our survival. We have not yet learned how to feed, care , and support ourselves on a foundational level. Our caretakers, usually mom and dad, become our lifeline. The most important thing for a child is to stay connected to their parents (or whoever plays the mother and father archetype role.)
The more loved and connected a child feels by mom and dad, the safer we feel, and the more they are ensured their needs will be met. Children begin to learn more about themselves based on the feedback we get from the outer world. They don’t have an internal sense of self yet and are still discovering themselves based on their relations to others.
For example, if we see mom happy, we might think, “Mom is happy with me.” If we see dad angry, we might think, “Dad must be angry with me.” We learn what choices and behaviors offer us a sense of love and connection and what may jeopardize that.
As this process evolves, we learn “who we have to become” to get our needs met. This might involve becoming a people pleaser, approval seeker, or perfectionist. Based on our experience of our caretakers, we begin to take on certain archetypes to ensure our safety and connection.
This is the essence of the child archetype. In the shadow expression, our inner child represents the part of us that feels dependent on others. We often outsource self-responsibility, look to authority, or give away our power of choice. We look for a “mother or father” archetype to take care of us as a means of getting our physical and emotional needs met.
In the light expression, our inner child represents our playful nature. We are curious, lighthearted and see everything with a beginner’s mind. Children often hold tremendous gifts, and part of the healing journey is reclaiming these gifts.
The journey of the child archetype begins with innocence and purity. We are all born a unique expression of The Divine and come into this world as pure potential. We have not yet acquired the programming and social conditioning that entraps us in our ego structure.
Over time, as we adapt to our environmental demands, we shape our sense of self based on “who we have to become.” We acquire core wounds and sign archetypal contracts to protect these wounds. We build an ego structure that becomes our inner child’s survival team.
All other archetypes are recruited to protect the wounds of the inner child. If we were judged and criticized as a child, we might recruit a “perfectionist”. If we were abandoned as a child, we might recruit a “people pleaser”. If we were controlled as a child, we might recruit an “inner rebel”. All these archetypes are there to preserve the safety of the inner child.
The healing journey is truly about healing the inner child, and the spiritual journey is about healing the inner child. All our defense mechanisms and ego structures are there to protect the inner child. Once we reconnect with our child archetype and create a sense of safe connection, we no longer need the archetypal survival team.
To begin exploring your child archetype, ask yourself the following questions through journaling or self-contemplation:
How would you describe yourself as a child?
How would you describe your childhood?
How do you know when your child archetype is taking charge?
When you connect with your inner child, how old are you?
What are the gifts of your inner child?
What is your inner child’s survival strategy?
Who does your child archetype love?
Who does your child archetype despise?
As you explore these questions, you begin to create a breadcrumb trail back to your original nature. You reconnect with your natural state of being and begin to reclaim the gifts of your inner child.
You also begin to learn the people, places, and situations that trigger aspects of your child archetype. You can notice what these triggers are, who they are, and what archetypes we recruit to protect these vulnerable parts.
As we begin to parent these inner parts, we begin to create more safety, love, and connection within. We begin to become the mother or father to our inner child that it may have needed but never received.
The essence of the healing journey is the journey of the inner child. We are born in a state of wholeness, but we naturally acquire childhood wounds (the core wound). As a result of these wounds, we recruit the rest of our archetypes to protect these wounds (the contract). These contracts are our inner defense mechanisms and self-preservation tactics.
The healing begins when we examine these contracts, see how they relate to the core wounds, and how we can rewrite them to create more freedom and empowerment within ourselves. This is the medicine.
Most of our physical and mental pain or illness is related to these contracts. Pain arises in our body and mind when the old contracts that kept us safe are now holding us back from being free. The journey from the ego to the soul is the journey from safety into freedom. Exploring the nature of the child archetype allows us to begin this journey towards greater freedom.
Greg Schmaus
CEO of Healing 4D, a Holistic Health Practitioner, Shamanic Energy Healer, Massage Therapist, the creator of “Healing The Mind,” a 21 day holistic mental health program.
https://www.healing4d.com
