Creative Freedom
This is a 40-day interactive online course designed for you to meet your creative spirit.
It involves six one-hour Zoom calls which I will record for anyone who cannot attend live. In between these calls, there will be three emails during the week with homework. Homework will involve reflecting on the topic, free association writing, and drawing/doodling or movement of some kind.
The course covers the following topics with their respective archetypes.
1. The Child archetype. We don’t have one inner child, we have many. We look at the Good girl/good boy; the nature child, wounded child, magical child, adult child, invisible child, divine child, charmer and scapegoat. This is where we look at early patterns of conditioning when we swapped our authentic spirit for safety and security… where we left our centre and started attaching to the external world as our source of energy.
2. The Judge archetype or the Inner Critic. Again there are many voices of the inner judge. This is where we look at developed behaviours of people pleasing or people impressing. It’s where we disconnect from our hearts and become cynical or disconnected from our own needs to meet the needs of others. This archetype usually emerges in late childhood as a response to issues of vulnerability around the heart. It’s where we learn to control as a means of creating order out of chaos.
3. The Lover archetype. In this module, we look at issues around the heart and the archetypes of the Knight and the Damsel. We have both inside us. The Knight is defended but romantic and heroic; the Damsel feels all the feelings but is trapped in the feelings and can’t seem to get out of them too easily. This is where we look at the duality of being the lover of what we desire and the person receiving love. The Damsel feels heartbreak when love is inconsistent or taken away. The Knight feels guilt when unwittingly breaking hearts through independence or inability to commit. The integrated version of the Lover archetype is to be the lover, the loved, and the love itself.
4. The Hero archetype. In this. Module we look at the dynamic of Winning and Losing. Win and lose are two sides of the same coin. Most of us have been raised in a model of competition. We compete consciously and unconsciously to achieve success, to overcome adversity, and ultimately to win. Unfortunately winning frequently brings unconscious guilt as deep down we know that if we are winning, someone is losing… which is why, as soon as we “win”, happiness is short-lived and we have to set another goal so that we can win again. It also means we become habituated to sacrificing happiness now for happiness in the future. We’re never in the present moment where we can experience true feelings of success.
5. The Creator archetype. We are all artists – we just need a new way to define both art and creativity. As in the Win/Lose combination, creativity has an opposite side, which is destruction. Everything in nature is being born (emerging) or dying (transforming into something else or returning to source). The same is true for us. Creativity comes from outside us. We are the vessel for that creativity – if we can allow it to move through us without blocking it.
Unfortunately, we often try to control creativity, which slows it down or blocks it completely. Or, we resist creativity entirely and say “I’m not creative” which isn’t true because we’re all wired the same way. Creativity is a relationship with our essence or our source energy. If this relationship is out of balance, or affected by unconscious belief patterns we can be seduced into the addict archetype, the destroyer archetype (we’re usually self-destructive rather than destructive, as we’re so nice!), or the starving artist archetype. These archetypes sabotage our creative expression. In fact the Saboteur archetype fits within this module.
6. The Mystic archetype. Here we go full circle back to the beginning as the opposing side of the Mystic is the Orphan child. As a mystic, we know our true parentage is divine. When we separate from divinity at birth this leads us to feel orphaned. We repress this feeling very quickly but for some of us, it leaks through as a melancholy or a feeling of being in the wrong place or the time. Forging a relationship with the Mystic ends this suffering and brings joy and true connection. We integrate both the Orphan and the Magical Child, which is a joyous reunion.
If our old model of evolution is one where we pledge allegiance to someone higher up a ladder of progression – in the past, the King and Queen were at the top with subjects below, or the Master at the top, with slaves below. These days the CEO is at the top with employees below – or you could argue that our new master is the cell phone. We’ve certainly pledged our fealty and we follow by slavishly scrolling. In our new model of evolution, we claim our sovereignty – not in an egocentric way, but in a surrendered way. Through the integration of the Mystic archetype, we enter an equal relationship with the divine.
Doing this process, course participants have experienced huge leaps forward in their creativity, shifts in perception, and an overall sense of knowing themselves at a deeper level.