Female Power Archetypes

Whether you realize it or not, there’s a story that governs your relationship. Most of us have unconscious patterns, stories, myths, and programs that we believe about ourselves and others, and these beliefs shape our behavior and how we function in our relationships. We go about our days repeating the same behaviors, day in and day out. More often than not, we’re not even aware of how our thoughts work to shape what we do. Unless you’ve made the effort to stop and examine the patterns and stories at play in your relationships, you’re probably engaging in the same old behaviors time and again. To recognize and change these behaviors you need to know how power archetypes are at work in your relationships.

You have a dominant power archetype, as does your partner. That archetype determines how you react in times of need, and being overwhelmed, stressed, and afraid. Your power archetype has both balanced and shadow aspects. As a child, (for whatever reason) you believed your caregiver did not accept or approve of a part of your personality. Intuitively, you split and separated yourself from the personality traits you believed were bad. You were ashamed to have those traits as part of your identity. Those unaccepted traits became your shadow, or denied self.

Identifying and understanding your archetype will help you see the stories at play in your relationship, along with how you and your partner interact with those stories. It will also help you uncover your shadow aspects and see how they influence your relationships when you feel you are losing power. Knowing and understanding power archetypes will help you stop struggling to take power from others and realize that you can instead gain power—and have healthier relationships—by making conscious choices. By learning your dominant power archetype you can uncover the heart of the conflict in your relationships and move into a place of confidence, balance, and happiness.

By absorbing and practicing the lessons in this book you will:

• Be encouraged to take full responsibility for your behavior, thoughts, feelings, actions, and reactions

• Be supported in digging deeper and understanding what is really going on when you compete for power with your partner

• Understand what inside you is driving your external reactions

• Understand the power dynamics happening between you and your partner and why these competitions for power occur

• Move from unconscious to conscious behavior when you are triggered in your relationship

• Make conscious choices, and transform your reactions to responses

• Reduce power struggles and conflict in your relationship

• Strengthen a loving bond between you and your partner

• Understand what you need from your partner to feel safe and secure in your relationship

• Find yourself able to communicate your needs effectively and appropriately

• Promote listening and understanding between you and your partner

• Encourage growth and compassion in your relationship

• Feel supported in opening your heart to your partner, and feeling and connecting with your partner

• Feel supported in making conscious choices to move towards solutions and an interdependent relationship

• Learn how to shed light on the shadow aspects of your power archetypes

• Transcend the dominant shadow power archetype and access the positive attributes of the archetype to your advantage

• Move from fear to love in your self, your life, and in your relationship