Alchemical Power Of Archetypes: Interview W/ Carolyn Wallace

Season 1 Episode 5 of the Women's Dream Enlightenment Podcast hosted by Megan Mary of Women's Dream Analysis.

This episode features Carolyn Wallace, LICSW, psychotherapist, Spiritual Director, and Archetypal Consultant, and explores how women can awaken their divine gifts, activate their highest potential and tap into their unique soul blueprint through the power of archetypes.

Music: An Mhaighdean Mhara, Margot Krimmel, solo harp from Ever the New Time Comes

Transcript

You're listening to Women's Dream Enlightenment.

Dream decoding,

Deep discussions,

And spiritual stories of self-discovery to inspire your personal enlightened journey.

I'm your host,

Megan Mary,

Founder of Women's Dream Analysis.

Let's bring in the light.

Welcome.

So today we have Carolyn Wallace.

She is LICSW,

A psychotherapist,

Spiritual director,

And archetypal consultant with almost 20 years of experience guiding people through the process of transformation through archetypal consulting sessions,

Speaking,

And writing.

She helps spiritual women stand in their own authority with unapologetic,

Radiant confidence,

Tap into their unique soul blueprint,

And activate their highest potential through the power of archetypes.

She is also a certified yoga teacher,

Dance teacher,

And Reiki master.

Welcome,

Carolyn.

Thank you for being here today.

Thanks for having me,

Megan.

I so appreciate you being here.

It's always wonderful to speak with another woman that's uplifting other women and helping them live a radiant life,

Right?

So your business is called Radiant Life.

Oh,

Your Radiant Life.

Your Radiant Life.

Yes.

I want people to know that they have their own radiant life.

Not anybody else's,

Their own,

With their own authority that they can claim it as theirs.

Perfect.

So my first question is going to be,

What does enlightenment mean to you?

So that's a big question.

What enlightenment means to me is we all are here on this planet living our lives,

And we are living in some degree of expansion or contraction at any given moment.

And what enlightened means to me is how expansive,

How full can we make our lives as we're living them here on this planet?

So Cynthia Bourgeau,

One of my spiritual teachers,

Has an image of,

You know,

When you see a crescent moon,

Just a sliver of a moon up in the sky.

But you can really see the outline of the whole moon.

It's just only some of it is lit and the rest of it is dark.

But you can see like almost the potential for the whole moon to be lighted up.

She says,

As we do our spiritual work,

As we do our shadow work,

As we make the effort to come into better versions of ourselves,

We can become more and more light.

That circle of the moon that we can see up in the sky can become a little more brighter and brighter each time we overcome something or don't react in a way that would be our default way.

Or if we do react,

We go back and see what we have done wrong so that we can do better the next time.

So I think that is the process of becoming more enlightened.

And we'll see how far we get in each of our lifetimes.

Yes,

That's a beautiful metaphor.

I love the metaphor of the moon for enlightenment.

I mean,

It's because that shadow part on the moon is part of the whole.

It's part of the whole circle.

And we exist with it and we need to integrate with it and we need to make it part of our wholeness so that we can shine just as the moon does.

Through the phases that we go through as women.

Good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's all the unconscious parts being exposed.

And as we work on fuller and brighter and more radiant.

Yes.

Well,

I love that.

So tell us about your enlightenment journey and what brought you to create your radiant life.

Well,

That's a big question.

My enlightenment journey.

You know,

I there's so many different pieces,

But I think the piece that really put me on the track that I am on today was when I was in my early 30s and I had a year long experience of this devastating shoulder back pain,

Sciatica pain.

And I had been a very,

Very healthy person.

I did a lot of biking.

I was living in Washington,

D.

C.

At the time.

A lot of bicycling,

Some backpacking,

Hiking,

Just a busy life.

I had just started my yoga studies,

Knew that I wanted to be a yoga teacher,

Really on a good trip.

I woke up one morning and I could barely move my body.

It was just as terrible,

Like almost like a frozen shoulder.

But then it traveled down my back,

Became sciatica for one full year.

It stayed with me.

I call that my year of being handicapped.

It was a year actually to the day from when I got well again.

So I think that whole process really made me think about life in a different way and really,

Really highlighted the fact that,

Well,

While my physical body can can be sort of ahead of the game,

My emotional body was not up to par with where my physical body was at the time.

And I wasn't going to be able to progress in life until my emotional body had caught up with my physical body.

So my physical body kind of shut down to give my emotional body a chance to catch up.

And that's what took me out of here.

But then after that,

I knew that there was more to life.

There was more to symbology.

There was more just like setting a goal and going after it and reaching it.

There was there was more to life than that.

Absolutely.

That's that's a that's a very poignant story because I think so many women have gone through that.

And I know I have as well.

So just that analogy of your your body breaking down or saying,

I've gone as far as I can go.

Now you need to go in and start doing that inner work for us to continue.

That's right.

Yes.

I didn't be here for a while and I just felt incredibly victimized for most of that year,

You know,

Not understanding that concept.

But when I finally understood the concept,

Things started to turn around.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

And I've I've I've heard listen to some of your talks and you talk about the victim actually being one of the archetypes.

And so I'd like you to talk a little bit more about that.

And as well as the shadow piece,

Tell me more about the archetype work that you do and how that leads women to spiritual awakening.

Well,

We all have access to archetypes and there's hundreds of them that exist in the collective unconscious.

And I've studied with Carolyn Mase,

Her program,

Sacred Contracts.

And so the way her program is is is set up is that we each have four that are the same for all of us and then the rest of the eight.

So we have 12 in total.

The rest of the eight are individual to each of us.

So there's the four that we have in common are called the survivor archetypes.

And the victim is one of those survivor archetypes.

So we can all relate to the victim because we all have it.

And the victim is one that I know very well in my life.

And in its unenlightened state,

In the shadow state,

The victim feels like there's some oppressive force just keeping them down,

Not allowing them to move forward with their life or not allowing them to have the things they want to have.

And they people who are stuck in the shadow and the victim really believe that this is true.

And so they can start to feel sorry for themselves.

They can start to talk to all their friends about how hard their life is and their friends will get on board and say,

Oh,

Yes,

Isn't that terrible?

So that's how they gain a little bit of power.

Like,

Look at it.

Look at me,

Everyone.

I'm really being victimized here.

And people,

I get on board and agree with you.

And that's a way that you can have power.

Or alternatively,

You can become blaming and blame the person or circumstance that you think is oppressing you.

So these are all the way the victim in the shadow can be expressed.

And so when you start to take a step forward,

Maybe a step forward into enlightenment a little bit,

We call this stepping into the Kairos phase of consciousness.

You start to say,

Wait a minute.

I am certainly the creator of my life.

Is there a way I could be thinking about this?

That is more empowering.

What responsibility do I need to take here for being in this victim?

What are some steps forward I can take?

Or do I care about this identity as the victim so much that I'm not willing to change?

You know,

That could be the case.

But if you're wanting more for your life,

You're wanting empowerment,

You're wanting to create instead of being a victim.

Then you have to start thinking,

What are the steps I need to take?

Where can I have boundaries?

And what the victim does is she can take on a warrior type energy,

A warrior quality,

Where you can start to protect yourself from not only the things outside of you that you feel like maybe oppressing you,

But also your own thought process.

So you can start to say,

Instead of saying,

Oh,

I'm not allowed to have this.

You can say,

I will not allow this to continue.

And you can say it firmly.

You can say it 100 times a day.

I will not allow this.

And sometimes it's against someone or something or a circumstance.

But a lot of times it's against our own thoughts.

If I catch myself in victim mode,

Which I find myself in quite often before I even realize I'm doing it,

I tell myself to knock it off.

What's a more empowering thought?

And that becomes my process.

Who's leading here?

Do I want the victim to be leading or do I want this warrior energy to be leading?

And ultimately,

Where the warrior leads us is to the highest light of the victim archetype,

Which is called the guardian of self-esteem.

And the guardian of self-esteem knows that she can protect herself.

She can protect herself from her own thoughts.

She can say,

I will not allow without harming anyone else.

She can have very strong boundaries without attacking.

And be the creator of her life.

So that's kind of the trajectory of the warrior archetype.

I mean,

I'm sorry,

The victim archetype.

The warrior is the second stage before the guardian of self.

And so it's like that,

But I think it's an easy way to look at it.

It's an easy way to break it down.

And it's that transition into that self-empowerment,

Then sort of standing,

Holding that space for yourself,

When you then become your own guardian,

Your own guidance,

Essentially.

Yeah,

And what's cool about when you get to the guardian of self-esteem,

We call that the cosmic level of consciousness.

So we make choices,

Our individual choices and efforts are the Kairos level of consciousness,

Which is where the warrior who creating the boundaries exists.

When the Kairos,

When we step into the Kairos level of consciousness,

It's not just all us anymore.

There's a divine quality that comes in that kind of rides on the coattails of our efforts.

So the guardian of self-esteem has a divine quality that we can't create ourselves as humans.

We can do the work in Kairos,

But then the divine potential comes in through the efforts of our individual work and kind of meets us halfway and then creates life in a much bigger and better way than we could have ever even imagined for ourselves.

I like that because it sounds like very much connecting with the higher self,

Which is another realm,

Although it is inside you.

And you have to be prepared and open yourself to connecting with that to attain the gifts it has for you.

Carolyn Mace calls that,

It happens in your ninth chakra,

Which is what she describes as the chakra above your head.

And it's the chakra where we have symbolic sight,

Which I think dreams would probably fit into that as well.

Definitely.

It's symbolic.

Yes.

And all of the things that,

All the recurring patterns that might be represented in the archetypes and all of the default reactionary behavioral patterns,

All of that lies within the subconscious because it's the initial way that our psychology and our identity was formed when we were younger.

And all of those things dictate how we perceive the world today.

And when we dream,

Those come out in the form of stories and metaphorical aspects and speak to us about what we might not be addressing in our waking life.

And I feel like there's a lot of correlation between the archetypes and what is represented in the dreams.

Jung talked about archetypes as well,

Of course.

And I think that that's just in that same way of looking at it in terms of the synergy between what we might not be aware of,

But what is actually influencing our lives.

That's right.

We're unconscious of a lot of our behaviors and patterns,

As you were saying.

We call that the Kronos level of consciousness.

We're not even aware we're doing it.

I could sit in a meditation in the morning with the intention of tapping into my divine potential and realize that I just spent the past 30 minutes in Kronos in victim mode.

And it won't even occur to me until I get up from my meditation.

And then I think,

Whoa,

Okay,

There was some time that I could have used differently.

And for the rest of my day,

I'm going to step into a different level of consciousness and do my very best to watch out for that.

And how do you help your clients transform that pattern that they find themselves in?

I think becoming conscious of the pattern is the first step,

Because without consciousness,

There's nothing we can change.

And when you start to do regular meditations,

When you start to read the works of enlightened people,

There's a way that you start to feel,

And it feels different from being in the shadow of a victim or the shadow of your own saboteur energy where you sabotage yourself,

Or the feeling of when you're a child.

It feels different.

It feels more oppressive.

It feels maybe more angry or more withdrawn or more depressed.

So the more we can practice feeling better,

Feeling empowered,

That's when we start to notice,

Okay,

Here I am in Kronos.

This is the way I'm feeling now.

I must be in a Kronos energy.

Let me see what I can do to step forward to become more in a Kairos energy where I'm actively taking responsibility for my thoughts and feelings and behaviors.

And I actually wrote a meditation,

And I actually have a recording too,

And on my website.

My new website is coming,

I think,

Next week.

It's yourradiantlife.

Net.

You can download my free meditation called Unleash Your Inner Diva for free,

Because what I want people to do is start to practice feeling like,

If diva is not your word,

It doesn't have to be that,

But this meditation is for people who want to remember what it's like to imagine themselves.

Imagine that you walked into a room and you knew you looked the part,

And you knew you looked good,

And people were going to listen to you and value your opinion,

And that you did not have to tolerate people wasting your time,

For example.

And you took on this diva quality.

I would like people to practice that.

I know I needed to do that when I was first starting out,

And sometimes I still need to go back to it.

So when you start practicing that and walk around for a few hours of your day,

Feeling like you are diva or a goddess or whatever it is that you want to invoke,

Then very quickly you start to notice when you're not being that.

And then that's your cue.

Okay,

Here I am.

I'm back in Kronos.

I'm back being unconscious.

Where is my diva meditation?

I'm going to pull it out,

Change my energy,

Change my pattern,

And go through the rest of my day as best I can in a more empowered state.

I have a question about the warrior state and how it's different from necessarily an anger state.

Yes.

So what the warrior does in this context,

It doesn't attack or harm.

It only protects.

It has strong boundaries.

And I think sometimes,

Myself included,

When women are not used to having boundaries,

When we start to take on boundaries,

We feel like we're being mean.

But that's actually not the case.

Having boundaries is our birthright.

Saying,

No,

Thank you.

I am not interested in continuing to date someone,

Or I'm not interested in being treated such a way,

Or no,

I'm not interested in this particular salary.

I'd like this higher salary.

When you have boundaries,

We're allowed to have boundaries.

We've just been conditioned to think that that's being aggressive,

Or that's being mean,

Or that's being too much.

It's simply our birthright to say what you will accept and tolerate and what you will not.

It can be very simple without a whole lot of drama around any of it.

But I think it's conditioning that we have to,

You know,

That's another unconscious pattern that we have to step out of.

On your website,

You mentioned the spiritual transformation through the alchemical power of the archetypes.

And I like that phrasing,

And I wanted to have you speak a little bit more about the alchemical power.

Well,

That's a,

Yeah,

That could be a whole book in itself.

Well,

What an alchemist does is takes some kind of earthly substance like lead and adds some kind of heat or fire to it.

And then whatever else they do with this substance,

And it can become radiant gold,

Right?

So that's what we're doing with our subconscious default patterns.

It's like we can think of them as a piece of lead that's not very helpful.

It's not really helping anything.

But when we add maybe some fire,

Some heat,

Some transformative process,

Like when I was handicapped for that year,

You know,

That put me through,

That was a big one.

And I know we all have those stories,

Right?

Kind of pushes you,

And the process isn't always very pleasant.

It can be very painful.

It can hurt.

It can be emotionally painful.

Think of a butterfly,

I mean,

A caterpillar,

Just sort of disintegrating into the cocoon.

That's an alchemical process.

And when the caterpillar is disintegrated and it's chrysalis,

It probably doesn't feel all that wonderful about itself.

It doesn't know what's coming.

But then when it emerges as the butterfly,

It's bigger and better and far more beautiful than it was before it went into the chrysalis.

But it had to go through an alchemical process to get there.

And that's what we're talking about here.

It's the alchemical process of our own transformation and the sacrifice of our own transformation that brings that cosmic energy to us.

I love the metaphor of the butterfly.

That's so true.

So what's your favorite thing about what you do,

Working with archetypes and helping women?

My favorite thing is what I do when people enter my 90-day program.

I have a 90-day archetypal transformation program called Elevate Your Voice and Purpose.

I lead people through choosing their 12 archetypes.

And we cast them in the archetypal wheel.

So in an archetypal wheel,

It's the same as the astrological wheel.

There's 12 houses.

And when we see each of their 12 archetypes fall into each house,

Which is a separate area of your life,

Like distinct areas of your life,

And we start to talk about each area of your life,

How this archetype works in this particular area of your life,

And how it shows up in a shadow,

And what is the potential for it showing up in the light.

And as you start to go around this chart,

My program is about 13 weeks long,

It almost leaps off the page what their life is,

The potential for what their life could really be about.

And it happens every time I work with a woman.

Oh,

Look,

In my first house,

I have this,

But in my fourth house,

I have this.

And look how that can work together when we get around to the 10th house,

Which is your highest potential.

And look at how all of these archetypes work together to create something just so beautiful that they never realized they had it within their grasp to be all of those things.

That's my favorite part of this work.

When you see it landing in someone's eyes,

And the energy just changes,

That that's their divine life,

The potential for their divine life.

That sounds amazing.

It sounds very insightful,

The process itself.

And I think that just like you said,

It's inside everyone.

It's just how you get there,

How you figure out what your true potential is,

And what you're missing,

And also probably what you're not embracing.

And what stories are you willing to let go of in order to get there?

Right.

The things that you've defined yourself with,

Told yourself,

This is my life story.

And then almost pigeonholed yourself into living that one path,

Because that's what you've told yourself,

And that's what you told everyone else,

So that must be what it is.

Yes.

Yes.

I used to be someone who used to say,

Oh,

I could never have any kind of a job in the public eye.

I have too much anxiety for that.

And that was the end of the story.

I have too much anxiety to ever do that.

And that was the story I told myself,

And my life was much more limited when I told myself that story.

Now that I've made choices to think differently,

And to realize there's more potential for my life,

Can break out of the old pattern,

And it's not that it's easy.

You need a lot of courage to break out of your old patterns,

But then the world can just open up when the cosmic comes rushing in.

Think,

Oh,

I never realized life could be as good as this.

Yes,

And I completely resonate with that,

Being an introvert and being afraid to be out there,

And feeling that same way,

And realizing that the only way anyone was ever going to hear my voice,

Or hear what I had to say,

Is if I had the courage,

And overcame that.

And I think that you talk about that on your site,

Or somewhere I read that you said,

When the universe sees us taking those steps of courage,

And striving,

Even when it's scary,

Then we achieve the cosmic level of consciousness.

It's an invitation for the cosmic to come in.

That's right.

And I really,

Yeah.

I was going to say,

I don't think there's any act of courage,

Or striving,

That is not somehow recognized by our higher selves.

And I really believe that,

And it's true,

And I've seen it happen.

So I find that a very powerful statement for everybody out there that's looking to activate their highest potential.

So what routines,

Or habits,

Or tools have you found to be most helpful in your personal development?

Routines and habits.

Well,

The first thing I do,

And I am very,

Very lucky,

Is every Tuesday night I meet with a group of women who've been on this archetype transformational journey with me,

As we've all become certified through the Carolyn Mace Saker Contracts Program.

And these folks,

We've been together now for at least a year,

We meet every Tuesday night without fail,

And we talk about our lives,

And we're real about it,

And we call each other out on when we're being stuck in our shadow patterns,

And we don't let people off the hook.

We say,

What's the next step?

Now,

What's the next step?

And you're not allowed to stay stuck in your story in that group,

And there's a lot of love and compassion and fun.

So that's one of my favorite things.

But I do a lot of writing.

I do a lot of journaling.

If I feel there's a part of my life,

Just whatever part of my life,

Where I feel stuck,

I think,

Okay,

What archetype is being activated in me?

And often it's the victim or the child or one of the survivor archetypes,

And I do some writing,

And I'm like,

Okay,

Let's get real here.

What would the victim in the light is the guardian of self-esteem?

What would the guardian of self-esteem do in this situation?

What would the sovereign,

If a child can't quite protect themselves or doesn't have the tools or skills they need to create something that they want to create?

The light side of the child is the sovereign.

The sovereign makes choices for their lives because they can,

And they make happen in their lives the things they decide to make happen.

So if I was coming from a perspective of a sovereign,

What would she do?

How would she handle this situation?

What if I can't wasn't an option?

If I need help,

Great.

The sovereign would say,

Go find someone who can help you and do it,

But stop staying stuck in the shadow.

So really journaling,

Becoming conscious of what's going on,

Being conscious of where I'm stuck in the chronos,

Which is the default,

And actively taking steps to pull myself out of it so I'm living a more empowered life,

That's something I do frequently.

I cannot underscore the importance of journaling,

Particularly with dream work,

But just in any kind of self-reflection.

Definitely,

Everyone processes in a different way,

But that's definitely one of the ways that I process quite well,

Is writing things out.

I think when you put things on paper,

It leads you to pull them out of that subconscious and reflect them back to yourself when you're actually in the act of writing,

In the act of bringing it out of there and into this world.

It also makes you then a little bit softer about how you,

Those things that you're writing down,

It soothes the way you feel about them,

Leading from that disempowered state to a more empowered state.

Right,

As long as you're not using your journaling to keep yourself,

To keep affirming why you're stuck,

Right?

I mean,

That can be the first part of it,

For sure.

Everyone has those feelings,

And those feelings need to be validated.

But then to take the next step,

What are we going to do now with this information?

How am I going to transform this disempowered feeling into the next phase of empowerment?

So what's the biggest takeaway you hope listeners learn from our talk today?

The biggest takeaway,

That we are the powerful creators of our lives,

That we have access to the divine potential that's inherent within who we are.

And archetypes is not the only way to find it,

But it is the most powerful way that I personally have found to tap into that,

To find it.

When you have 12 archetypes,

You know what you're looking at.

They're all just so you.

You know,

You pick your own archetypes,

And they're,

You know,

You have the four that are the same,

And then you pick the ones that really have resonated with you since you were a child,

Since childhood patterns,

And you have the potential to evolve them.

We don't get to change them,

But we get to evolve them.

And it just,

There's,

It's so very exciting.

So,

You know,

A disempowered state isn't the end of the story.

That's what I always say.

It's really only the beginning.

So let's take a look at what archetypes are active in your life,

Where they're keeping you maybe in a disempowered state,

Where some of them maybe are already very much in the light.

We'll celebrate that and use those to pull the other ones more toward the light.

The archetypes work together.

So,

It's fun.

It's a lot of fun.

It sounds fascinating.

Well,

Carolyn Wallace,

Thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today.

Well,

Thank you for having me.