Archetypes in the 2nd half of life + What is an archetype?
In the 2nd half of life, you are faced with things you hadn’t thought much about in the 1st half. You begin to notice recurring patterns that have played out in your life.
If you can work with these patterns, they’re a powerful way to develop self awareness and consciously choose a path in the 2nd half of life.
(Pause before you read.
Can you SENSE your breath?
Can you SENSE bottom of your feet?
Can you FEEL the warmth of your heart?
Tuning into your 3 Centers will help you with staying focused on this piece.
Pause and notice how the images land in you.
Do you like it? Why or why not?)
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Carl Jung, called some of these patterns, archetypes.
In Jungian psychology and mythological studies, an archetype is a universal pattern or motif that arises repeatedly across cultures, stories, dreams, and human experience.
It’s like a deep template or blueprint that shapes how we see the world, behave, and relate to others.
An archetype is not a fixed image or role (like “a wise old man” or “a hero”), but a pattern of energy, behavior, or experience that can express itself in countless forms.
For example, the Mother archetype isn’t just a literal mom—as an archetype, it’s a pattern of nurturing, creating, sustaining, or even smothering and devouring, depending on the shadow side.
Archetypes usually operate beneath our conscious awareness. They exist beneath our personal stories and surface identities.
As Jung put it, Jung described archetypes as being like riverbeds that have dried up but water can always find again.
He also referred to them as old watercourses where the “water of life” flowed for centuries, creating a deep channel that the water is likely to return.
So, an archetype can be dry for awhile and then something awakens an old archetype.
Enneagram Archetypes
The Enneagram types themselves can be seen as archetypes—deep, recurring patterns of human motivation, worldview, and behavior that show up across cultures and histories.
Each of the nine Enneagram types represents an archetypal way of:
- Perceiving and making sense of reality through patterns of attention and energy
- Preserving and sustaining idealized self
- Defending against core avoidances
- Feeling safe and secure. Bonded and connected. Feeling power and control.
Below are the Enneagram Body Center types as archetypes, along with common titles and the deeper archetypal energy each one represents.
Keep in mind these aren’t rigid roles but energetic patterns that can express themselves in both light and shadow.
Enneagram Body Center Archetypes
Types 8/9/1
Archetypal drive: Power. Control. Right relationship with surroundings. Strong bodily FEELINGS and SENSATIONS.
Yes/No. This/Not that. I like it/don’t like it. Right/wrong.
Shadow: I will NOT be controlled.
Dig in Blame. Judge. Hold ground. Hardening of the heart. Resist.You won’t touch my vulnerability and take over.
Don’t boss me around.
PATH TO PRESENCE:
Hold Paradoxical ideas and nuance.
Open the HEART CENTER energetically. Breathe.
When you begin to soften into your vulnerability, you’re able to see more clearly. Nuance and paradoxical views arise.
Type 8
Archetype Pattern: Protector, Warrior, Rebel King or Queen, Defender of Truth
I seek autonomy, strength, justice, and truth. I want to live without betrayal. To know who I am. To never be taken advantage of again.
Shadow Distortion
To stay strong, I harden.
I avoid tenderness, vulnerability, and innocence—those soft places that once felt unsafe.
My human ANGER expresses itself—verbally, energetically, even silently—at anything that reeks of weakness, manipulation, or phoniness.
In the throes of this energy, I control, blame, shut down, and intimidate.
I stop listening. I enforce.
Because there is one truth—mine.
But beneath this intensity is a hurt I don’t name.
A deep grief for the innocence I lost.
For the simple, beautiful things that feel crushed in a world too violent to trust
PATHWAY TO PRESENCE
Then… I PAUSE.
In that pause, something cracks open.
I begin to touch the places I’ve armored over—my tenderness, my vulnerability, my forgotten innocence.
I open my HEART CENTER to compassionate presence.
I learn to listen—not just to others, but to the wisdom within.
I no longer need to dominate to be heard.
I no longer need to bulldoze to protect.
My anger, once volcanic, begins to metabolize through conscious, grounded practices.
I move. I breathe. I soften.
And from this place of embodied power and presence, innocence is what’s left.
I come fresh to each moment,
no longer imposing my truth—
but holding space for the WHOLE TRUTH which is always present.
Type 9
Archetypal Patterns: Peaceful Warrior, Divine Dreamer, Embodied Harmonizer
I seek inner and outer peace. I long for a world where all is well. And I forget… I am part of that world.
SHADOW DISTORTION
To keep the peace, I disappear.
I avoid conflict, discomfort, and especially my anger—yet that anger I avoid helps me access my inner ground, my agency, my life force.
In the name of harmony, I’ve handed over my POWER—not to a tyrant, but to a deep slumber of numbness and distraction.
And when I see someone standing in bold, unapologetic aliveness, sometimes ANGER rises in me and sometimes LIFE FORCE.
Not because they took my power.
But because I gave it away.
The world feels like too much. Too fast. Too loud.
And my innocence—the gentle love of simple, beautiful things—feels trampled by it.
PATHWAY TO PRESENCE
But something stirs…
I begin to awaken to my own energy.
To the quiet hum of life inside me.
I open my HEART CENTER to compassionate presence—first, for myself.
My inner boundaries grow deep like roots.
My energy reaches wide like branches, moving gently with life’s winds.
Ahh… here I am.
This is my life force.
I learn to FEEL, notice and metabolize my anger (and all its children—numbness, irritation, resentment) through conscious awareness, movement and creativity.
I walk. I run. I laugh. I create. I garden. I love.In this place of embodied power,
RUGHT ACTION doesn’t need to be forced.
It simply… arises.
Type 1
Archetypal Patterns: The Reformer, Moral Warrior, Idealist, Wise Teacher
I seek integrity, goodness, and a better world. I want things to be right, fair, and true. I strive to be good—to do what’s right—even when no one is watching.
SHADOW DISTORTION
To be good, I tighten. I contract.
I hold myself—and others—to high standards that often feel impossible to meet.
My inner critic is relentless. It tells me I must improve, fix, correct, strive, save, set straight.
I try to make the world better, but underneath, it’s never quite good enough.
My ANGER simmers just beneath the surface, often disguised as irritation, disappointment, judgment, tension, dissatisfaction or quiet resentment.
When things are out of order or unjust, my whole body tenses. I react. I correct. I clench. I tighten.
Sometimes, I lose touch with joy.
I grieve silently for a world that could be so much more beautiful and serene
if it weren’t for the parts lf I’ve exiled in the name of self-control.
PATHWAY TO PRESENCE
Then… I PAUSE
I begin to remember:
I am already good.
Not because I strive, but because I am already Whole.
I open my HEART CENTER to compassionate presence—toward myself and the imperfect, beautiful world I live in.
I learn to FEEL my own life force without suprressing my anger
I stretch, breath, move, create, rest.
I practice noticing without fixing.
Appreciating without perfecting.
In this place of power and presence,
grace waits.
Here, I remember:
Wholeness is not found in perfection.
It is found in presence, SERENITY, and love.
Working with Archetypes in the 2nd Half of Life
In the 2nd half of life, you’re faced with distinctly developmental tasks. They are different than the 1st half of life. They take us to the shadow we avoided while making our way in the first half.
We become tired of 1st half of life patterns.
If you’re a Body Center type, how do these 1st half of life patterns still live in you?
- The achievement treadmill.
- Living for other’s expectations: we all internalize parents, family, culture
- The busy-ness trap: This one blew me away in my 30s. People were over-identified with being busy and important.
- Surface level relationships: We never share our inner life. We talk only of others and events.
- The consumer culture: We live in it and are endlessly marketed to buy one more thing.
- Perfectionism and control: this tends to be big for Body Center types. If not perfectionism, then control!
- Competition and comparison: While this is a big one for the Heart Center types, we’re all vulnerable to this energy.
- Neglecting the inner life: Body types say they can be “lazy” about the inner life.
- Always living in the future planning the next milestone: the next wedding, big birthday, bucket list event.
- The invincibility myth. One of the first portals of entry into 2nd half of life work is loss of someone or a health crisis.
The 2nd half has core developmental tasks center around a fundamental shift from external building to internal integration and transcendence.
Here are the essential 2nd half of life tasks:
- Moving from Achievement to Meaning**
The primary shift is from asking “How can I succeed?” to “What does my life mean?” This involves discovering purpose beyond career advancement, material accumulation, or social status. People begin seeking work and activities that feel genuinely meaningful rather than just profitable or impressive.
. - Individuation and Authentic Self-Discovery
Carl Jung called this the central task of the second half – becoming who you truly are rather than who you think you should be. This means shedding false personas, exploring suppressed aspects of personality, and integrating previously rejected parts of yourself. Many discover creative talents, personality traits, or ways of being they’d never allowed themselves to express
. - Accepting Mortality and Life’s Limits
Coming to terms with the finite nature of life paradoxically brings freedom and urgency. This isn’t morbid dwelling on death, but using mortality awareness to prioritize what truly matters and let go of what doesn’t. It involves accepting that some dreams won’t be fulfilled and finding peace with that reality
. - Generativity – Contributing Beyond Yourself
Erik Erikson identified this as caring for future generations and contributing to something that will outlast you. This might involve mentoring, teaching, volunteering, creating art, or building institutions. The focus shifts from “What can I get from life?” to “What can I give?”
. - Integration of Life Experience
Making sense of your story by weaving together successes and failures, joys and traumas into a coherent narrative. This includes forgiving yourself and others, finding wisdom in difficult experiences, and seeing patterns that weren’t visible earlier. It’s about becoming the author of your own story rather than its victim. You no longer blame others. You accept the human condition and claim full agency.
. - Deepening Relationships and Love
Learning to love more fully – with less need for control, fewer conditions, and greater acceptance. This often involves healing family relationships, deepening partnerships, and cultivating friendships based on genuine connection rather than convenience or networking.
. - Developing Wisdom and Perspective
Moving beyond just accumulating knowledge to developing true wisdom – the ability to see life’s complexities, hold paradoxes, and offer guidance born from experience. This includes developing what some call “the long view” – seeing beyond immediate circumstances to larger patterns and meanings.
. - Spiritual Development
Whether through religion, nature, philosophy, or personal practice, most people in the second half seek connection to something larger than themselves. This might involve exploring questions about God, purpose, interconnectedness, or the mystery of existence that seemed less urgent when focused on building a life.
. - Learning to Let Go
Perhaps the most difficult task – releasing attachment to outcomes, control over others, the need to be right, and the illusion of permanence. This includes practical letting go (possessions, roles, responsibilities) and psychological letting go (expectations, resentments, perfectionism).
. - Preparing for what to Leave Behind
Considering what you want to leave behind – not just materially, but in terms of values, wisdom, love, and contribution. This involves both practical preparations (estate planning, passing on knowledge) and deeper reflection on the impact you’ve had and want to have.
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These tasks don’t follow a linear progression and often circle back throughout the second half of life. They’re not about retirement from engagement with life, but about engagement at a deeper, more conscious level.The second half can be the most fulfilling period of life when these developmental tasks are embraced rather than avoided.
Working with archetypes help me with becoming more of who I am without exiling so many parts of myself to get approval, recognition,
- Dreamwork (Lee Fields and I are facilitating a Dream class to help you understand how your dreams reaveal patterns, Summer 2025)
- Identify archetypes operation in your life right now. Name them.
- Speak in their voice through journaling, collage, creativity.
- Move your body. Postures. Breathwork, somatic awareness
- Contemplative practice
Support for your 2nd half of life journey.
Choose which suits you:
- Body Center Master Class
- Enneagram and Shadow Work: Embodied Shadow Work in Self and the Collective
- Dreamwork class (LIVE only in Summer 2025)
- Wednesday Morning Contemplative Pause: Free, Drop in 30 minutes
- Thresholds: 2nd Half of Life Passages: Self Paced Exploration of Conscious Aging in the 2nd half
This is less a class and more an exploration into your dreams. It is small on purpose! We have room for 8 people.