Shadow Aspects of the Archetypal Caregiver

Today within this article I am going to talk about the Caregiver Archetype, both the good qualities, along with some of the Shadow aspects of The Caregiver. Before jumping into the deeper qualities of the Archetype, I would like to mention that each and every archetype has its positives as well as its negative aspects. This important thing to take away from this article is to know that, being made aware of both the positive and negative aspects can help you in your personal growth and development, and can help you transform your world. It is also important to state that we will usually have a primary archetype within our lives that often takes president and becomes the natural role that you play.

Also within this article I will share some of my personal experiences, as I play the natural Caregiver in my world. Like with every archetype, it has it positive aspects, problems to overcome and also learnings. In fact, throughout your journey, you will grow through the different layers of the archetype as you change within your life and learn from different experiences. I will speak more about that later…

The Goal of the Caregiver is to Help others, and make a difference through love and sacrifice. As a therapist, a coach or a healer, the caregiver has some great qualities. From looking at this archetype, you could say that it is the ideal archetype for a coach, therapist and healer as they often put the needs of others before their own.

The caregiver though it is concerned about the good of others as well as ourselves. It may well be a form of Ego that looks out for the survival, not just of the individual, but of the family, tribe, community or species. The Super Ego will push us to sacrifice our own good for others so that ultimately the group can survive.

The Shadow aspects of the Caregiver can been seen as over giving and being taken advantage of, this can result in becoming the suffering martyr. This happens in situations when the Caregiver goes too far and will end up as victims. Is it when the Caregiver takes the role of enabling behaviours, that of other peoples addictions, irresponsibility, or narcissism.

With that in mind, let me share some of my not so fondest experience of “When a Caregiver goes to Far”

It was an experience many years ago now, where I carried out some work for a couple. I would often help them out with little of nothing in return as I just wanted to help and support them as they were growing their business. It was my way of giving back and making a difference, after all my help could go a long way and create a lasting impact for them.

After some time,I was asked to produce some video work for them where I would record,edit and produce video over the course of a week. Due to the demand of that work, I had little choice but to charge for that work. Once I charged for that work, I could sense straight away the bad feeling and energy, I know something was not right. Out of the blue towards the end of that week, I was demanded to stop my work with a expectation for a full refund. I knew straight away that it was not the quality of the work but the bad feeling before I even started work.

It was only a week later that I realised the couple had spread nasty rumours about myself and my work. All of which were fabricated, with no truth behind them. Within an instant I became the martyr an victim and I wrongly took responsibility for things that went wrong. This experience haunted me for a long time, as all I wanted was to help and make a difference, little did I know the consequences. The truth is though, is that there is a lesson in that, and this brings me on to the levels of the Caregiver.

Lessons of a Caregiver and Transitioning through the Phases:

Level 1: You have a conflict between your own needs and the needs of others. You have a tendency to sacrifice your own needs to what other needs or want from you! You play the role of rescuing. Level 1 is where I find myself with the story above.

Level 2: Learning to care for yourself, so that caring for others is enriching not maiming; learning “tough love“; empowering and not doing for others.

If you find yourself in situations like myself, it is important for your to find that balance within yourself so you are not being exploited or taken advantage of.

Level 3: Generativity; willingness to care and be responsible for people. (and perhaps also for animals and the earth). This then goes beyond the needs of self and others to then extending that to community building.

There is also one last learning, and this is not specific to the Caregiver but more so to your Spiritual Journey and Soul Pathway. Throughout your journey, you will also encounter other archetypes some that become part of your team and others that provide you with lessons for you to learn from. The Trickster archetype is the archetype that springs to mind here:

The Trickster is an archetype that represents both Trust and Mistrust. On the surface, they are seen to have your best interests at heart, yet on a deeper level they have their own agenda and intentions. The couple in my story where a perfect example of the Trickster archetype as they represented trust and mistrust but also gave me a very important lesson. This lesson for me was to learn to have that balance between caring for others and caring for myself. The other lesson in this situation was to learn to trust your instinct and intuition. You intuition will be your inner guidance system that supports you on your journey.

Thank You for reading, I hope you have found this to be useful. If you have any questions or comments, please be sure to leave them in the comments section below.

I wish you all the best on your Spiritual Journey and Soul Pathway.