119 Orpheus Archetype: How To Integrate Your Romantic Side

A lot of guys dissociate from their romantic side. So it ends up coming out in cringey ways. The best lessons on integrating this come from the Greek myth of Orpheus... Here, I break down the myth of Orpheus and how you can integrate this archetype successfully.

Transcript

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So I was speaking with a client a couple days ago who has this issue where when he really really likes a woman he ends up going super cringe.

It's like his romantic side comes out,

Like the floodgates open up so big that he ends up turning off every woman.

And I think a lot of guys have this issue.

And this guy specifically,

If you met him on a normal day you'd think,

Oh this guy,

He's super charismatic,

He's super grounded,

He's very masculine,

You know,

He's very icy some would say,

All qualities that make him very attractive in normal dating settings until he finds someone he really likes.

This has happened a few times the last couple months.

He meets a woman,

He really likes her,

He's head over heels,

It's like the woman he wants to date,

Be with,

Whatever,

And then he ruins it by being,

His romantic side comes out in this really weird way.

So of course I wanted to explore this with him.

So we explored his past because I figured there must be something dissociated here,

Right?

Like there's got to be some reason why this guy who normally acts so,

He does everything right normally with women except when he likes someone.

What is it that makes him do the opposite of what would be attractive in these situations?

So we went through his past and as most guys he had an early life heartbreak,

Particularly when he was really head over heels,

It's kind of like imprinted him and colored the way he behaves with women,

Specifically when he really likes a woman.

And I think a lot of guys could probably relate to this where maybe your first girlfriend or the first serious crush you had,

This kind of colored maybe many of your experiences,

Maybe the rest of your life's experiences with women.

So he was telling me about his first heartbreak and about how he was so romantic,

Like he wrote her songs,

He kind of got her by writing her music and poetry and all like the really sappy stuff that when you hear about someone doing it,

Maybe you cringe a little bit.

But at the same time,

This is the same exact stuff that's in the rom-coms and the romantic comedies and I could relate a little bit to this.

I'm sure a lot of guys can when you're younger,

Maybe the first time you fall in love,

You know,

You've seen all these or you're aware of all these rom-coms where like John Cusack holds the boombox up or writes the song or Heath Ledger sings from the bleachers,

All these things that are like are so cringey if they're done wrong,

You just think that's the way to do things,

It's the way to express this emotion of romance and love that's deep inside of you.

And very often,

Unless you were particularly lucky or she happened to like you already or you happen to be born with this romantic side super integrated,

Probably didn't turn out that well.

And if you're like me,

If you're like a lot of guys who've had a heartbreaking experience when being very romantic and vulnerable,

There's a good chance you turned it off,

You shut it down,

You turned the music off,

So to speak.

And then you see this with a lot of guys who,

This is one of the reasons why I think a lot of guys live in their heads when it comes to love and romance because they've had this experience that made them shut off the fire hose of their like deep emotions.

And as we know,

With any part of our psyche,

Any archetype,

They can't be destroyed,

We can try to suppress it and repress it and swear,

I'm never going to feel this way about anyone again,

I'm never going to act like this way again.

But then of course,

Many years later perhaps in a new setting when we're older,

When we're in the presence of someone that can pull or some situation that can pull these heartstrings so we can make this part of ourself resonate again,

That part comes out and it feels irrational and it maybe feels addictive because you're trying to do the opposite and it makes you end up doing weird things such as send a really long cringe text message or maybe you lose yourself or maybe you lose the parts of your personality that you actually value or try to convey.

It comes out in a weird way basically.

Anytime you dissociate your archetypes or suppress a part of yourself,

It will eventually come out probably in a weird way.

So the solution of course is to integrate these archetypes so they don't come out in some weird rogue fashion,

Instead you can express this part of yourself in a way that's conscious and intentional and in line with all the other parts of yourself.

And specifically we're speaking about this romantic side,

More specifically the romantic side or the feminine romantic side of a man,

Straight man we're talking,

It can be a little challenging because it's so counter to everything else that's masculine in a masculine individual.

So this romantic side of a masculine person I'm calling the Orpheus archetype,

I'll explain who Orpheus is from Greek mythology and essentially this is the romantic side of a masculine man and if you can learn how to integrate the Orpheus archetype then and only then can you be romantic,

Can you feel the sappy feelings,

Can you feel the things that kind of make a guy feel soft or sometimes effeminate if it's done in the wrong way.

When you can integrate this part of yourself then you can finally be romantic in a way where you don't lose your masculinity,

You don't lose yourself and you certainly don't do cringe things.

So before we go into principles and actions we need to understand who Orpheus was and why I'm calling this the Orpheus archetype.

So Orpheus was a man from Greek mythology and he was the greatest musician of all time.

He played music so beautiful it made the gods envious.

His music was so charged that like no one could listen to it without having an emotional reaction,

Like that's how powerful his music was.

And actually one of Orpheus' first appearances in Greek mythology was actually in the Odyssey and I mentioned this story in the lover archetype episode where Odysseus was sailing by the island of Sirens which were these man-eating female creatures that sang music so beautifully that it made sailors go off course and crash into the rocks and if you caught that episode on the lover archetype I spoke about this as a metaphor of like the lover archetype and how men need to learn how to relate to the feminine without letting it consume them and crash into the rocks.

So I told that in a different setting,

From a different perspective.

This Orpheus archetype which certainly relates to the lover archetype.

Orpheus was actually on the ship with Odysseus.

So when Odysseus tied himself to the mast so that he can hear the music of the sirens call he could take in the beauty of the feminine without crashing into the rocks.

It was actually Orpheus,

I didn't say this in that episode,

It was Orpheus that actually finally helped them defeat,

You know,

Defeat in quotes the sirens because Orpheus played music that was so beautiful that even the sirens who were these creatures,

Non-human creatures that could play intoxicating music,

They became intoxicated by his music.

He was so,

This guy is,

You can imagine what he represents,

He was so in his feminine that he out-feminined the most feminine women,

Essentially.

But the part of the Orpheus myth that is relevant to us integrating our romantic side actually comes to one of his tragic events,

The one that most people know about,

Which is with his wife,

Eurydice.

So Orpheus,

Who was like,

You know,

One of the most attractive gentlemen of all time,

Who could play this amazing music,

You think of all the rock stars combined,

This is Orpheus,

He falls in love with this woman,

Eurydice,

Or Eurydice,

And his wife gets bitten by a snake,

Gets sent to the underworld,

Where dead people go according to that Greek mythology.

Orpheus,

The romantic that he is,

Of course is terribly heartbroken,

Will do anything,

Will walk to the ends of the earth to bring his bride back.

So Orpheus finds a way to get down to the underworld.

There's different tales of his adventure,

One where he,

Mostly where he uses his music as a weapon,

Uses his,

You know,

You could say his feminine side,

He weaponizes his anima,

If you will,

Where he lulls Cerberus to sleep,

Cerberus was a three-headed dog that guarded the underworld,

He's able to lull this terrible beast to sleep with his music,

He gets down there,

He plays music for Hades,

The god of the underworld,

And his wife's Persephone,

And even they,

The god of the underworld,

Even Hades is moved by Orpheus's tune and his love,

And he's like,

Okay fine,

Hades says,

You can have your wife back,

You know,

I don't normally let dead people leave,

But you can have your wife back,

But here's what you gotta do,

You have to walk out of the underworld and not look back,

Right?

I promise you that your wife,

Eurydice,

Will be following you,

But you can't look back,

If you look back at any point before you leave the underworld,

I'm gonna keep her forever,

But if you can walk all the way out of the underworld,

I promise you she will follow.

So Orpheus,

Very excited,

His plan worked,

His tools,

His romantic music worked,

So he starts walking,

He's walking,

And he's not sure if she's behind him,

I mean Hades could have been lying,

But he keeps walking,

And he keeps walking,

And he keeps walking,

And he finally gets to the opening,

He finally gets to the,

He sees,

He's seeing daylight,

And he sees like,

Oh I just have to walk a few more feet,

And then I have the love of my life back in my arms,

And I don't have to,

You know,

This whole thing was worth it,

But right before he gets to the opening,

Right before,

Like right,

Because he was so tempted by seeing like the future image,

By this outcome of him and his wife being reunited,

He was so like moved by that image that he turned his,

Turned around a little bit too early,

And he looked at her,

And because he didn't follow the deal with Hades,

Because he looked back too soon,

Key phrase,

He looked back too soon,

She's taken away,

And he never has her again,

And I remember here like learning about this myth maybe as like a seven-year-old or eight-year-old in school,

And really not really,

Obviously not thinking about the psychological applications and like,

Okay,

That sucks,

I don't know why,

Why was that a thing,

It was funny,

I remember this came up again much later when I started being interested in girls and thinking like,

Man,

There's something about this,

Right,

Like because even young boys can kind of recognize like if you lay it on a little bit too thick or if you're a little bit too forward or if you're a little bit too obsessive with a woman,

She kind of goes away,

I actually remember being in track camp as a freshman in high school,

I was 14,

And I remember listening to like the upperclassmen,

Boys who had all kissed girls and been with,

Have dated in some capacity,

And they're like kind of trading secrets of like,

Yeah,

What do girls like,

And all the,

All the freshmen were crowding around like listening,

And they're all saying something along the lines,

Like an observation most young boys,

Young men will observe like,

If you,

I remember,

I remember this junior,

This kid I looked up to said this very clearly like,

If you like girls too much,

They don't like you back,

But if you act like you don't like them,

They like you,

And like a lot of guys were like,

Oh yeah,

That's true,

That's true,

And most of us have probably observed some level of this as a young boy or man,

This is only a superficial understanding,

Because what's actually going on here is essentially neediness,

And neediness is what happens when your Orpheus archetype is not integrated,

Because in the Orpheus myth,

What happens is,

He doesn't have enough faith,

Essentially what all of this represents is that he didn't have the faith to keep walking in the direction he had to walk to,

He had to turn back to his woman and check if she's still there,

And that's how he lost her,

So a 21st century application of all of these symbols is like,

When instead of just doing the thing that you should do,

Like you have a date set,

Or instead of just trusting that things are gonna work out,

You end up checking on her too much,

You text her too much,

She texts you something short,

You text her something really long to get out,

To vomit out all of your feelings,

Because there's some insecure part of you that feels like,

If you don't put everything out,

You're gonna lose her.

Ironically,

That's what happens when you look back too soon,

When you don't trust and you don't have faith,

You end up losing her too soon,

And that's where we have all these moments,

Like these cringe moments that we see or hear about in people,

Or hear about in guys who like just don't get it,

Who like,

You know,

Do this romantic gesture that maybe they're copying from a John Cusack movie or something,

I don't know why I'm bringing up John Cusack,

But they're copying from some rom-com and it just doesn't work,

It just makes you cringe,

Or like they send the text that's too long,

Or they dump out their feelings on the first date in a way that just does not make sense for the situation.

This is essentially their romantic side,

Their Orpheus archetype,

Doing the thing that Orpheus does,

Where he's so in his feelings,

He's so in his emotions that he doesn't realize that he just has to walk a few more feet,

He just has to keep walking in the direction he's going,

But instead he goes,

He turns back too soon and he loses her.

So the first principle to take from the Orpheus myth is that you have to have faith,

Especially if you're playing this romantic side of you,

You know,

It's very easy to get overwhelmed by your emotions,

Like Orpheus did in his tragic tale,

Right,

He got so overwhelmed by his emotions that instead of just walking the few more meters or few more feet where he would have the love of his life,

Where she was following him,

All he had to do was keep walking the same direction,

He turned back too soon to check that she was still there,

And he lost her.

So what does this mean in action?

This means doing all the things that you know,

That confident people do,

Even when you're overwhelmed by your emotions,

Right,

Because this is where a lot of guys abandon themselves,

They're doing everything right,

Right,

They maybe have been working on themselves,

Becoming confident,

Becoming grounded,

Learning about dating psychology,

Watching videos like this,

Whatever,

But the moment they get overwhelmed by their emotions,

They throw it all away.

Orpheus did not trust that if he just kept walking in the direction he's supposed to be walking,

If he kept doing the thing he's supposed to do,

And this could also mean,

You know,

Continue following your purpose instead of throwing your life away for a woman,

Like that's not attractive,

Actually,

If you do that for most women,

They'll actually become uninterested in you,

Right,

Because what makes a guy chase a woman is a lack of faith,

He thinks that,

Oh,

She's not going to love me just by me being me,

She's not going to love me by me pursuing my interests or doing the things that I feel are right,

I need to,

I need to throw everything away and grasp for her,

I need to chase her,

Right,

And when a woman feels that chasing,

Grasping,

Needy energy,

She gets a subconscious signal,

Oh,

This guy obviously doesn't believe in himself,

This guy obviously,

You know,

He's demonstrating his low opinion of himself that he needs to go chasing after me,

And even before she consciously processes this,

She's already dried up,

She's already like,

Ah,

This is clearly not the type of guy I want to be with,

A guy who's so needy.

So I'm going to use texting as an example because it's concrete and observable and most people can relate to this,

Is that you want to make sure that the energy is balanced,

So a lot of,

You may have heard this from other dating advice people of like,

Oh,

Only,

Only text her as often as she texts you or only text as much as she texts you or something like that,

Right?

It's not that that's wrong,

It's actually,

You know,

It's not a bad thing,

But when you look at things that superficially,

It can kind of put you into this robotic headspace.

I would actually rather think of it,

Allow you to engage your feelings so you don't have to think so much,

You get out of your head and actually behave more instinctually,

And the principle that I share with my clients is make sure the energy is balanced,

Right?

And I'm not talking about like cosmic energy,

I just like the amount of attention,

The amount of effort you're putting in is balanced,

Right?

So the obvious thing with texting,

The reason why I'm using this as an example is that we can all visualize this,

Like if she texts you one sentence and you text her 20 pages,

That's kind of,

It just feels weird,

Right?

It feels weird because,

You know,

Why would a high self-esteem guy give,

Or a high self-esteem person,

Right,

This is not gendered,

Why would a high self-esteem person give so much energy to someone who's only giving them a little bit of energy back,

Right?

And if you could start to think of it this way or feel into it this way,

Where in every interaction you want to have a balanced energy,

You know,

You don't have to think so much about when should I text or what should I say,

It's like you can share as much as true for you as long as it's balanced with the person.

Now that is kind of a training wheels example because the place where you really want to get to is where you don't even have to think about that anymore,

Where your romantic side is so integrated that you can now become totally detached from the outcome and love for the sake of loving.

Now this is something that I think is pretty rare in a lot of guys because most guys,

Especially if for whatever reason you've suppressed your romantic side,

Probably because you fear it on some level,

When a guy does employ his romantic side because he can't help it,

He becomes very attached to the outcome,

Right?

A great example of this,

Someone who does this really well,

My friend Zan,

Zan Parian who you may be familiar with,

He is so detached from the outcome because he just loves being romantic like this is just in him,

Right?

You know,

He loves expressing himself and appreciating beauty in women and if they respond,

Great,

But he feels so abundant in himself and he just loves the act of loving that he doesn't care about what the response is and because of that,

Usually the response is good.

It's like when you can be,

This is also,

You can take this principle outside of romance and outside of like this type of,

It's any social interaction.

If you can enjoy sharing your truth,

Then it automatically becomes not needy because you don't need anything from the other person to validate your actions.

It's like,

I just wanted to tell you,

I think you're awesome or I want to tell you,

You can say something negative too.

It's just like,

I just want to tell you,

You're beautiful.

I mean,

That's obviously,

It's more like maybe a cold approach application but with someone you're on a date with or someone you've been seeing,

You know,

Often I would frame it or when I started integrating this part of myself of like,

You don't have to respond,

I just want to tell you,

I feel this way about you and sometimes a woman will be like,

You know,

Maybe not respond to it perfectly.

A lot of people,

Especially when you tell a vulnerable truth,

They're kind of like thrown off balance but the real test is,

Can you take whatever reaction they're taking and still commit to your action,

Right?

Who cares about their reaction like you're committed,

You want to feel,

You wanted to love for the sake of loving and that's what's making,

That's what's giving you the win so you don't need any response for them because when you achieve that point,

At that point where you're no longer attached to outcome,

You're naturally following your feelings,

You're doing things for yourself so you're not creating these deficits where you're outpouring a ton of energy and getting nothing in return because when you're loving for the sake of loving,

You're already getting the thing that you want by doing your action,

Right?

You become totally independent of the outside world which gives you freedom and when you get to that point,

That is when you can express your romantic side and never worry about being cringe like that is when you can just like love for the sake of loving and that's actually the thing that romantic comedies are made of or that is the thing that romantic poetry and music is made of,

This like commitment or like devotion to the act of loving or the feeling of romance where you no longer need anything from the other person and ironically,

That's exactly what has her follow you out of the underworld into your arms.

So that's the Orpheus archetype,

The romantic side or the femininely romantic side of a masculine man,

It's something that I think a lot of guys are afraid of and a lot of guys because they're afraid of it because they tend to repress it,

People,

Men tend to repress the side and it's coming out in weird ways and if you want to make sure you don't end up becoming needy when you fall in love,

You don't become beta eyes where you don't send long cringe text messages,

You have to integrate this part of yourself.

I hope you got a lot out of this episode.