Where are you only seeing one side to an archetype or personality trait?

What do you perceive are the negatives of that archetype or trait?

Do you have that archetype within you?

I have two doozies of mine to share with you today. The first was about coming to terms with my inner cheerleader archetype. I was looking through very lopsided glasses on that one – whenever people would mention me as an encourager/cheerleader or make comments that linked to cheering I felt embarrassed by the comment as I interpreted it as me being loud, fake, ditzy, the supporting act rather than a champion, too rah-rah and having no depth. All of them equaled being less. I had missed all of the beautiful traits that make for a great cheerleader – dynamic energy, to be good at drilling the important stuff, to be a great team player, strong, disciplined, playful, …..In other words I’d missed their light side and could only see the shadow, therefore seeing myself as less.

The second has taken me much longer to get to grips with and it is something I have fought for a long time. And that’s the archetype of a teacher. My boxed thinking on that one was largely only focused on the shadow side. My list of traits for a teacher archetype included being domineering, controlling, apathetic, hiding out from the world, rigid, inflexible, being an oddball, often times poor communicators, and it filled me with such dread and horror at the thought that people around me suggested that teaching would make a good career path for me…..”You’d be such a good teacher.” Is that all I’d be good at I thought, which means I am all of that negative stuff right?

Wrong.

I hadn’t seen the guise that teachers come very often in other forms – some of the teachers I most admire are big players in the world – Thought Leaders and Game Changers. And others that I admire just as much are little people, around me; locals, people in my environment.

Thank phew my view has really changed on that one and that I can see a very different side to the teacher archetype now.

I am a teacher, and always have been. According to my close fam members – I was teaching my teddies before they knew their ABC’s!! And what a privilege to be able to teach another. It also assists me live one of my highest values in life as to be a phenomenal teacher (and thank you to those crummy teachers who crossed my path, as you gave me a yard stick of what not to be and how not to educate) you need to be the best student in the room. Ahhh, lifelong learning, you gotta love it.

On a totally different note, but related if you get what I mean – there was a great NZ movie that came out about 2 years ago called ‘What we do in the shadows’. Has nothing to do with the above mentioned shadows but is a laugh out loud kind of watch if that’s what you need right now. Ridiculous, creative and very very funny.