Psychic Archetypes: The Mother

A psychic archetype represents a core energy expression that we feel defines our psychological and spiritual journey, in this, previous, and future lifetimes.  While we may engage in various forms of life practice, like being a soldier or a doctor, we are one particular archetype, which could be the Warrior or the Healer.

This article will explore the psychic archetype of the Mother.

One Archetype, Many Guises

History is replete with warrior priests and soldier healers (medics).  Educators can be athletes and athletes can be educators.  We can wear many guises over the course of our lifetimes, but we most often operate from a single psychic archetype.

Sometimes necessity and circumstance can force us into a guise that is far away from our spiritual purpose, or so it will seem.  If we look closely enough at our actions within any circumstance, we will be able to see the consistent psychic imprint of our representation.

I have a varied work history, which includes construction, website design/management, teaching (college English), and now spiritual advising.  Through each iteration of my work opportunities, I found myself in the same role repeatedly … as a spiritual and emotional advisor to the people around me.

The Mother

I have had my fair share of experiences with women and men in parental roles, especially after I became a parent in 2005.  Fewer women than I might have thought demonstrated what I would consider the Mother archetype, and more than a few fathers I met, had more Mother energy than Father energy. A Mother archetype individual truly and deeply loves caring for their child or children as the main purpose of their existence.

Mothers exist outside the family construct and can be found in any profession, just like all the archetypes.  Their ability to care for, nurture, and protect applies to work, friendships, and family.  When we need any form of emotional safety and support, Mothers provide the energy, knowledge, and action to support us.

Each archetype travels through lifetimes to gather experience inside and outside its ideal representation to enjoy and understand the full range of human experience while learning lessons associated with completing his or her work and/or being kept from being able to complete his or her work.  Lessons cut both ways, but they do not have to.

• Psychic Archetypes: The Healer

The Ideal Society (Utopian Vision)

It really is not hard to imagine an ideal society in which each person discovers their psychic or spiritual archetype and is given a way to express that archetype through work and interactions with the other archetypes in the world.  Bringing such a world into existence would require a large-scale and comprehensive acceptance of balance between science and spirituality, between creativity and necessity, and between compassion and integrity.

Reality is an ebb and flow of balance, imbalance, and re-balancing, which is where all the learning for the spiritual soul occupying a human or animal body learns lessons that cannot be found in utopian visions or the spirit realm.  We choose to be here; and psychic or spiritual archetypes indicate that we choose a singular type of role so we can experience true mastership.

Are You a Mother?

Each archetype has definable and distinguishable traits.

Drawn to Emotional Needs

We all want to be able to be vulnerable and unguarded with another person, especially our Mothers, which is why it can be especially damaging when the mother figure in our lives is not a Mother archetype.  The Mother is the safe harbor for our feelings of insecurity, trepidation, hesitation, and worry, so we can retreat from the world and recharge, then go back out into the world.

Mothers “move” towards need; they are not repulsed by it or afraid of it.  They are drawn to and invite others to lean on them emotionally and ask for help.  Mothers do not fear emotional messiness; rather they respect and honor the need others have to feel their emotions, both negatively and positively so they can process them.  Mothers are there to help with the processing.

Drawn to Teaching Lessons

Mothers represent the first and most intense teachers, both with regard to practical skills (like preparing food) and relating (how do deal with people who conflict with you).  The Mother moves through the world and “gets activated” when they see someone in need, financially, emotionally, or physically.  As a society or community, we want Mothers to be “there for us” in our times of greatest need.

• Psychic Archetypes: The Warrior

Protect and Prioritize Children

Mothers, like all archetypes, work to master their craft, which is how they are distinguished from other archetypes who may perform the same practices, but not from the same place of soul and spirit.  A surgeon can be a Mother, who sees disease or injury as something to heal to protect the life of a child or parent of a child.

The best Mothers master caring and nurturing knowledge; they study the needs of children as a way to teach the children, protect the children, and understand the children.  Mothers are “protective” people, who want to help souls’ transition from childhood to adulthood. 

The “need to care” part of the Mother is the defining quality that separates him or her from other archetypes that perform the same roles.  The motivations are different and unique to each archetype more so than the practices.  All archetypes can learn how to care for and raise children, but their motivations will be different.

The Mother is motivated to connect with the fear, worry, and anxiety that comes with the life transitions of childhood: learning to walk and talk, developing emotional growth, and forming a core identity.  Mothers understand the important timing and quality of meeting a child’s needs in the right way to help that child be part of the world in a healthy and productive way, both for the child’s sake and the sake of the world.

Are Leaders

Outcomes matter to the Mother archetype; they work best with when resolving emotional and developmental problems.  They know they are the first teacher in most situations of early life development.  In their highest manifestation, they can be understood as the moral fiber of all societies. 

The Mothers show others what is necessary and how to act when trying to address and understand one’s needs.  This way through the world is fundamental to helping them understand their place in the scheme of the community of archetypes.