How to Discover Your Feminine Archetype

Robert Maldonado  00:45

I found it incredibly interesting, mainly because it’s really an important part of Jung’s theory that evolved through his relationships with women. How women helped him develop the concept of the Anima and the Animus, and what’s called the Syzygy, the interaction of the Anima and the Animus. We thought it’d be interesting to have a conversation about some of these themes in the book. Of course, we have you so we can pick your brain on what you were thinking about when you were writing these things, the creative process itself is interesting. Let’s begin with the four feminine archetypes because that’s the heart of the book. You do talk about the non dual philosophy, which is where the title comes from.

Debra Maldonado  01:47

Eastern philosophy, yes. Where do you want to start? We will do some other episodes on the eastern philosophy aspect of it. The name, “Like a Spark From Fire“, I read a book translated from the teachings of Adi Shankara, which is one of the early, probably around the time of Buddha, he was a young monk and he taught non dualism.

Robert Maldonado  02:17

He was a lot later than the Buddha but definitely an early—

Debra Maldonado  02:21

Around the time when Buddhism first started coming through India. Vedanta was the older religion, and he wanted to refresh Vedanta and revitalize it in a way. They don’t know exactly when he lived, but it was about 300 AD, so thousands of years ago. People would come to his temple all the time and ask him questions. One question someone asked is “Who is the true self?” He said “The true self is like a spark from fire.” The soul is like a spark from fire, the fire is the divine, and the soul is identical to the fire, just like the spark is actually made of the same substance, because it comes from the fire. But if you can’t really separate it, they’re exactly the same except with name and form. He said “Just like we are, our soul is really connected to the self”, which is the universal, collective self, that oneness that we talk about. Within our soul, within each of us, we have the power of the universe. I just thought it was a really interesting take on personal development, for people to feel empowered, to get out of that fixing mode, to realize that deep within them is pure potential. That’s what the book is about. Another reason I wrote the book is because I love Jung, you introduced me to Jung longer than a couple of years ago. A lot of Jungian books are written by academics. I found we really had a hard time with our students trying to give them books that really speak in a practical way and how to apply these high end theoretical ideas from Jung. I thought, who better than me to interpret a way to look at the shadow, look at the persona, look at that individuation process in the beginning and make it accessible to everyone. That’s my little background. In the book, I call it the four persona types because they’re first working on that conscious level, the persona level.

Robert Maldonado  04:44

Let’s talk about Toni Wolff because she played a big role in helping Jung develop his early theories on feeling, thinking, sensation, and intuiting. Of course, she went on to become an analyst herself and a scholar, and formulated these feminine archetypes as well in one of her books, four feminine archetypes. Hers were a little bit different than your conceptualization.

Debra Maldonado  05:30

She even said the names don’t matter. Hers were the mother, Tara which is what I call the lover or is commonly called the lover type, the medial type, which is the medium between spirit and matter, I call that the mystic just to make it easier, medial sounds so different. Then Amazon, I call it the professional type because I think a lot of modern women are warriors in the world, they’re out there, basically taking on that masculine role of taking action in the world and being active force, conquering the corporate ladder and conquering success. As women were the modern warriors, that would match. But I didn’t feel like Amazon has such a negative connotation that we’re all these big, giant people, it’s really that powerful, independent woman. So I call that the professional. Mine are the mother, the lover, the professional and the mystic.

Robert Maldonado  06:34

Toni Wolff, an interesting relationship with Jung. We love Jung and his theories, but we’re not about hero worship. We know he wasn’t a saint. He wasn’t a perfect fellow. Controversial, a lot of marital problems, irregularities maybe. When we visited his home in Zurich, we got the sense that he is still controversial. He still hasn’t been fully accepted as one of the famous sons of the city.

Debra Maldonado  07:20

If you think about it, if he lived now, it would be so much different, but in the Victorian times, it was very conservative, women’s roles were very limited. That’s actually a good point because that’s why Toni Wolff came up with her types. She said women typically just fall into these patterns. They’re either the mother and stay home with their kids. They’re the lover or the other woman, which she was, or they’re the professional who don’t take on a husband, don’t take on children, they’re just very professional. Or they’re the mystic, they’re outside of society, they’re still not taking on children and the typical societal roles, they’re the wise woman that lives at the end of the corner, out in the village, that you go visit, she is a mystical, non-integrated part of society. She said that’s the roles women were defaulted to play. When we think about Jung’s time, that would be very controversial to have a wife and a lover who are both happy about it. I don’t know if they were both happy about it. But it was a unique situation for them.

Robert Maldonado  08:32

Let’s recap the story because people might not know the backstory of Toni Wolff. Toni Wolff came to Jung early in his career, Jung was still working with Freud or associated with Freud at that time. In one of his letters to Freud he actually mentioned Toni Wolff as a great find, he really admired this young woman for her intellect. She was brilliant and had a good feel for religion and dreams or something like that, he wrote to Freud, his mentor at that time, expounding her virtues. Toni had come for analysis with Jung, she was young, maybe 19-20-21, somewhere around there, her father had passed away. She sought analysis, then they went their own ways after the analysis. Sometimes analysis at that time would last a year, maybe more. But it was relatively brief for that period of time. Then he reports he had a dream about her, the dream was indicating that he should contact her and invite her to be anatomist perhaps, or part of his work, part of his life. He said he was looking for an anima type, an anima woman to project his anima on. Very similar to what artists called the muse, someone to serve as a muse, for his thinking, his ideas.

Debra Maldonado  10:27

Emma couldn’t be that at the time because Emma was raising five children, she was not educated. They didn’t educate her, even though she had a very abundant lifestyle, very wealthy family, they didn’t educate women back then, she was groomed for marriage. I think she didn’t get trained to later on, so he wanted someone who had that training and education as well. There’s also this idea of the muse being the unattainable, imaginary woman, not your practical wife, outside of that.

Robert Maldonado  11:10

Emma was Carl Jung’s wife at the time, she was from a wealthy family, very well established in the community. Jung was an up and coming psychologist, doctor, researcher, thinker, philosopher who was revolutionary in a sense, because he was bringing these very new and fresh ideas into psychology at a time when psychology was just starting out. This affair with this young woman who had been his client or patient for a while, who becomes then his collaborator, she starts to train in his method. At that time, it was called analytical psychology, still called analytical psychology, which is the Jungian analysis. She was for a while considered the top analyst besides Carl Jung himself in that field because she really absorbed the work. She worked for at least a decade very closely with Jung, they would spend a whole morning or afternoon poring over the manuscripts and developing these theories. She is given credit for helping him develop the idea of the Anima and the Animus, fleshing it out a lot more, as well as the shadow and individuation. Needless to say, there was some tension. When we toured the Carl Jung’s house, the tour guide mentioned that Toni was allowed to come into the house, of course, to work with Carl Jung during the morning, they would spend most of the day together. But she wasn’t allowed to come into the family dinners, except on Sundays.

Debra Maldonado  13:52

Emma drew the line. But one of the things Emma said later on, when she was older and had done all the training herself too, was “Thank God for Toni because she was able to give Carl something I couldn’t give him at the time.” She’s basically saved him, she helped him in so many ways. She ended up becoming grateful for the woman that she wasn’t and that Carl needed at the time to build this. She was thinking less of her ego but more of the bigger picture of this work being developed. Emma had come into her own as well after the kids got older. She asked to be educated, she got herself educated and then started doing analysis as well, and taught classes at the Jungian Center, had patients. She ended up moving into that role as well.

Robert Maldonado  14:50

We can only imagine in Victorian times, these three people, Carl Jung and his two mates in a sense, or two wives, showing up to public affairs together and lecturing and teaching. They must have stirred up a lot of rumors and a lot of gossip.

Debra Maldonado  15:20

He looked into a lot of very controversial subjects when he talked outside of the traditional psychology.

Robert Maldonado  15:29

That’s where their relationship split, Toni and Carl Jung, because when Carl Jung got interested in alchemy and started studying the ancient manuscripts from Europe, looking into alchemy as a parallel to individuation, Toni Wolff advised him not to go there. She thought it would derail his career, he would be relegated to the nut jobs that are into mysticism. To some extent she was right.

Debra Maldonado  16:10

He still is called the godfather of the New Age movement because people think, because he looked into all that, he was very extreme that way. He was more looking at it from a psychological standpoint, why do people have these images in their mind? Why do they seek mediums and the spiritual life of a person? He said “They’re seeing images of God, images of the future and intuition.” How does that happen in the human mind?

Robert Maldonado  16:40

I can see why if you read his alchemical works, they’re hard to get into. But if you persist, they’re some of his most penetrating and depth aspects of his work, incredible insight into how symbolism works, how people project their individuation process into ambiguous stimuli. For him, these alchemists who were working on these mysterious processes of turning base metals into gold were really talking about individuation, that personal development.

Debra Maldonado  17:21

Toni decided to leave, they went their separate ways. I think that’s maybe where Emma came in and started doing more work with him. It was meant to be in a way, she and Marie von Franz came in after that. When you think of Jungian, you don’t think of these feminine types, I did a lot of research and looking for where this is anywhere else. It was really hard to find. But I see that she initially got it from thinking, feeling, sensing, intuiting personality types that he came up with very early on in his career. That’s the very first part of what he came up with. But if you think about it, the mother is the feeler, the the lover’s the sensing, the professional, or the warrior, is the thinker, that logic. The intuitive is obviously the mystic. If you know what your predominant type is, some people look at the Myers Briggs and there’s 12 different types in there, it’s complicated. But if you think is nurturing your go to, is sensation and loving your life and loving food and drink and sex and falling in love, very emotional, is that you lead with? Or you lead with that pragmatism, logic, got to get things done checklists? Or are you the mystic, everything is just intuitively guided, you don’t even want to be in the world, you want to be somewhere else, escape. The goal is that as women, we all need to integrate these aspects of ourself into our life. When we’re in a default personality, we end up pushing the opposite in the shadow.

Robert Maldonado  19:27

Maybe we should explain a little bit about the persona and its role in the individual’s evolution. The major part of the persona is to give the individual a mask to wear, a role to play in society. These types are essentially their masks, masks that a woman wears and plays out in society, so that she has a role to play in society.

Debra Maldonado  20:08

You could see even clothing that people choose. If you picture a mother, what would a mother wear? What would the lover wear? What would the mystic wear? She would wear a necklace like this and maybe have flowy clothes and maybe yoga pants. The lover’s a little sexier, and professional with the suit. We all have this archetype, and I guess it’s the persona that we put out, that defines us. When we think of persona, it’s a psychological clothing. A lot of times our physical clothing represents a part of our mask as well.

Robert Maldonado  20:47

But the aim is to transcend this.

Debra Maldonado  20:50

There’s a default, we’re going to talk about this in future episodes. But the influence of the mother highly influences the daughter in the type she chooses unconsciously, it’s an instinctual choice. I want to be just like my mom, or I want to be the opposite, or whoever had the power, that’s what the child would choose. Some daughters want to be like their father, he’s the businessman, I want to win daddy’s approval, I want to be like him. We choose these roles based on that. As we go through life, I have a test that people can take to see, how you act in your personality, which type you default to. But we’re all a little bit of both, but we lead with one. That’s really not who we are, but our conditioned way from early in life observing our mother, she’s our first image of a woman. We say “Do I want to be like her? Do I want to be like my dad’s girlfriend, or my step mom?” There could be a lot of influences in early childhood as she sees women. Then she makes her choice unconsciously. This isn’t something that happens consciously, but we learn to adapt and find something that fits in for us.

Robert Maldonado  22:11

Before we go into each one, the goal is to integrate all four of these, or is it to define which one fits your particular persona, and what the goal of that particular archetype is?

Debra Maldonado  22:34

The very first step is to find out your default and look at the shadow aspect of that part. Usually, the opposite of the mother could be the lover. You’re integrating that as well, just by the qualities. Ultimately, over time we want to bring in all of them into our life, have a mystical part of ourselves, not from a persona standpoint but knowing that unconsciously these archetypes are running through us. How do we be fully whole within ourselves, where we’re being mystical not because we need to defend ourselves or be mystical to the world, we’re doing it because it’s who we are on a deep level. We’re being the mother and nurturing out of choice. We’re having fun out of choice, not to push something away, push commitment away or responsibility away. It’s all about really choosing and knowing that each one of us has that capability. A good example would be a mother who has had a couple of kids and wants to start a business. There’s a conflict between being a professional, being an entrepreneur and starting her business. You start with a mother and then look at the shadow elements, that’s going to help you integrate that professional role as well, because you’ll find that a lot of them are similar, but then there’s other parts that are not. It’s not an exact science, the psyche is so unique for every single person, but I wrote it in the book because I felt it gives people a little bit of structure in this unstructured psyche to step into these ideas of persona-shadow that Jung brings. I thought it would be more accessible to people to say “I’m the mother, I’m the one who pushes away being irresponsible. I’m the one who needs to take care of everyone. I can’t be cold and uncaring. How does that run my life?”

Robert Maldonado  24:23

As an example, you have a little girl growing up, she idealizes her mother, she wants to be like her mother. She says “When I grow up, I want to be just like mom.” She’s identifying with the mother, the way her mother is. Let’s say the mother is a stay at home housewife and really has bought into that mother role. That’s her purpose, her life.

Debra Maldonado  24:57

She doesn’t question it, that it’s a bad, it’s not something she wants, that’s just what I was born to do.

Robert Maldonado  25:05

So the little girl is going to grow up and develop persona that is the mother essentially.

Debra Maldonado  25:13

Or, watching the mother, say “That looks like a trap to me, that looks like a lot of responsibility. I see my mother stressed out all the time, she doesn’t have any freedom.” It depends on the child. You’ll notice that even in the same family, different daughters, if there’s more than one— we have three girls in our family, we all took different aspects of our mother. But we also learned to adapt our persona based on what we saw. For example, a woman like me, I love my mother and I wanted to have kids, but there was a part of me that saw that as a trap. Not that my mother ever said it was but it’s really down to your perspective, your perception, there’s something unique in you that’s like “Does it really fit?” That conflict kept me single for a long time because on a conscious level I wanted to get married and have kids. And unconsciously, there was a part of me that thought it was a trap. It was like my lover was in my shadow a little bit. Even though I put it out, I was fun loving Debbie, there was a conflict between those two personalities, I wasn’t clear on who I was, I really wasn’t awake. I was reacting to life. You can either be rebellious against the mother, or you can be like her, but feel the same traps and frustration. A lot of my clients have had kids and they love their kids, love being a mom. But they’re like “There’s something more”, they feel this conflict of “I want to be a professional, I want to be an entrepreneur. But I don’t want to abandon my children.” That’s really where we see the practical way of seeing these types as the shadow of mother being a professional is that she doesn’t care about her kids, she’s abandoning her children. Not really but that’s the impression or the unconscious assumption that’s happening.

Robert Maldonado  27:21

A person or a woman that identifies with a mother role, you would say, would have problems or come in a conflict with playing out other aspects of her personality.

Debra Maldonado  27:37

The mother is hyper responsible, so the lover is that carefree woman that can go and have the girls’ weekend with martinis, “Kids, your dad’s gonna pack your lunches this week, I’m just going to go on my girls’ weekend.” A woman that has a strong bond attachment to her mother persona will feel incredible guilt. They might not even go for that girls’ weekend or night. Instead of spending an afternoon at the spa, she takes that money and makes sure she buys the kids clothes versus for her. It’s that conflict, it feels rational, but it’s not really at a free choice. They think they’re doing the right thing but they’re really just operating on conditioning, this unconscious message who a mother should be, who a lover should be, the judgments about those corporate women that are climbing the ladder, they’re just cold and heartless. Of course, I don’t believe that. But we think about the cultural assumption of these roles for women is much different. It’s different for a man. Maybe it’s different now, but 50 years ago when a man went out to work and wasn’t there for the kids, it was okay. It was just “Noted”. But now it’s like “He should be spending time with his children.” There’s a lot of conflicts with that.

Robert Maldonado  29:17

That would be a natural question. Do these types correspond to men as well? Do they have their set of the father, the lover, the professional?

Debra Maldonado  29:29

The only difference is the mother would be exchanged for the father. I think men are influenced by the mother but I think they’re also influenced by their father because they’re a man so they’re going to take on that animus of the man. The lover role would be the— whatever they call them, this suave guy, the guy who’s always single, the romantic guy but never commits. Then there’s the father type that’s very responsible and feels burdened maybe by his responsibility of his family. The worker is commuting. Then of course, the mystic, you see men that are gurus. Deepak Chopra would be a mystic.

Robert Maldonado  30:24

There’s a lot of professional women nowadays, entrepreneurs, executives, women climbing the ladder of corporations. What’s the psychology there? What conflicts do you see for professional women?

Debra Maldonado  30:44

First of all, for all these types, it’s very externally focused, the persona is looking externally, looking for other people that make them feel loved, other people to feel the things out there, to feel successful, material items. The lover’s constantly looking for external sensational pleasures from the man, chasing the man. The mystic is almost the opposite, rejecting the external and not wanting to integrate. The challenge for the professional would be, she has a hard time wanting to settle down because if she is a single professional, she’s built so much up, she’s afraid someone’s gonna mess up her life, if she brings out a man, take away her financial security. She’s very worried about that. Again, attached to the external. Also maybe not being able to have fun, “How can I go out and have fun? I have to be responsible. I can’t have kids right now because I’m working on my career.” How many women fear getting pregnant because they’d be passed up for the next promotion. Of course, there’s laws against that now, but still, there’s that “I’m gonna have to only work part time if I have a baby”, that conflict. The professional needs to integrate bringing in her personal life, making more of a balance in her life because you can make a lot of money but at the end of the day, you really need to nurture yourself and your human personal life, relationships, friendships, lovers, getting married. I see a lot of professionals that are married, but their partnerships sometimes are an agreement between her and the husband, they’re power couples, but they don’t have the love, they have a contract. Maybe it didn’t start off that way but then we can get into that if that’s our default, we forget the love and romantic part. For some professional women, I find most of the time they’re conditioned to not feel. Maybe they had a mother who was cold, or maybe their mother was totally emotional, it caused a lot of upset in their life. They decided to be the opposite, “I don’t want to look like a chaotic wreck in the world. I’m going to create this persona professional that works in the corporate world.” They don’t know how to get in touch with their feelings many times as well.

Robert Maldonado  33:23

The mystic, I imagine, somebody like a new age person.

Debra Maldonado  33:30

They reject money. There’s always the ones that don’t, but a lot of times they feel that money is evil, or that to take things from people, take money from people is a terrible thing. They take vows of poverty, not only in the new age, but any kind of woman, like a Christian woman does, a nun, you don’t have that material desire because you just desire God. One of the other things I noticed with the mystics is that they can be very judgmental about the world, the right and wrong, they’re very attached to being good. That could be really terrible. Because if they mess up, they’re the hardest on themselves. They hurt someone’s feelings, “I’m creating bad karma.” That inability to integrate the human part of their life, we have an ego, we have conditioning, we’re not always going to be perfect and to understand even though you’re in touch with that spiritual part of yourself, you can also be a mess sometimes in relationships, it’s okay, it doesn’t make you less spiritual. I think there’s a lot to each type and finding balance in your life, what are you pushing away and what we talk about in the book, The Shadow, is the things that we reject about aspects of personality that we don’t accept about ourselves or don’t allow ourselves to express. To express abundance, express being a wreck emotionally because I’m the mystic, I have all the answers, I need to be calm, I need to be wise, I can’t be the frantic person.

Robert Maldonado  35:16

The idea is to become aware that you are playing these roles, your particular role or your particular type. Then to find a balance in some of the other roles, if you’re the mother to bring in perhaps a little bit of the lover, or the mystic are the professional, to balance that roll up, but also to integrate the shadow, meaning the aspects that you pushed into your unconscious, that didn’t necessarily fit your conception of a mother, what is a good mother.

Debra Maldonado  35:55

I say what emerges out of that is the true personality. We have this true personality, which is not defined by these labels, that’s why I hesitate to have a personality test because we don’t want to be defined by them. But it’s really showing us our conditioning. But the true personality is our true self. It’s the ability to, let’s say the default is mother and the shadow is being the irresponsible person, that you make a decision outside of those judgments. There’s social judgments of “I really want to drop my kids off at my mother’s and go to the spa this weekend with my friends.” To not feel the guilt and to be able to make that choice versus being triggered by emotions and feeling that you don’t have a choice, because a lot of people feel trapped, they feel the world is giving them some limitation. But when you realize it’s just your mind, these rules of society and social personas that we put up, that are actually holding us back from making that free choice. When we make that free choice, that’s where the true personality comes in, where you’re not irresponsible, you’re not responsible, you’re not the mother, you’re not the lover, you’re being you, this other you starts to emerge that’s your spark, your true soul that is unlimited, that is unlabeled. The ego hangs on to those labels to function in society. But we don’t need it anymore, we can transcend that. That’s what individuation as Jung would say is all about, it’s about making a choice.

Robert Maldonado  37:35

It’s not about just rejecting these traditional roles.

Debra Maldonado  37:40

It’s honoring that. I was raised by my mom, she’s the most loving person, you probably appreciate my nurturing ways. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just that if that’s your go to all the time, you feel like you can’t be anything else, then that’s a trap. Because in each type, there’s a limitation. If you’re a professional, there’s a limitation. If you’re a mystic, there’s a limitation. Even in a lover, there is a limitation because you never can commit to anything. You never have that long term relationship. You never have lasting pleasure. It’s always that quick fix, that pleasure chasing all the time and dissatisfaction. I’m not a mother but a lot of people say it’s the most wonderful job in the world. Why would you not want to have that experience? It’s not making any of these wrong. It’s about saying “That’s my default. There’s more though, there’s more to me than just this persona.”

Robert Maldonado  38:43

One of the great things about your writing is that you reveal yourself, you talk about your own experiences in the process. I can imagine some listeners are asking “How do you do this? How do you identify your type? How do you integrate it? How do you work with it?”

Debra Maldonado  39:06

You get the book, there’s exercises in there. No, truly, there are step by step exercises. But overall, you take the test, personatypetest.com, you can go there and get your test. You work with a coach. Do the book first if feels right for you. We have coaches on our coaching training program, it is a great way to go through it if you’re interested in getting trained in this type of method. But the first step is to identify your type and just ask yourself “How is this limiting to me? What are things that I can’t do or won’t do because I’m attached to being this?” What you’re going to experience is emotions that trigger you around your type. When someone calls you irresponsible or when you feel like you can’t get everything done, or your child is mad at you because you weren’t there for them, you picked them up five minutes late and they’re crying, you’re going to be triggered because I’m a bad mother or I’m not doing enough, or the child is struggling in school. You just get why you’re triggered, because you’re so attached to keeping up this persona. That would be having the book, also exercises, how to work with the emotion, how to deal with triggers. Then I think the main thing is non attachment to everything showing up according to your type. You have to know your type first to know what you get hooked into. The mother is attached to being responsible, the lover’s attached to having fun and freedom, she doesn’t like to be structured or trapped. The professionals attached to success and social standing. The mystic is attached to being good and God like or spirit like. It sounds like those are good things but when we’re attached to them, it causes us unhappiness.

Robert Maldonado  41:11

Understanding your type is not about just identifying yourself as this type and that’s the end point. It’s more about understanding what are my challenges in moving forward, in finding that balance and integration, in your own personal development. Knowing your type can help you understand what you will face and what you will have to work at.

Debra Maldonado  41:42

Once you find your type and read the description, you’ll say “That’s why I get triggered around this, that is why I feel so guilty or shame around this area of my life.” It’ll start to make sense to you. What you want to do is first get insight because you need insight to do anything. But insight is not transformation. You have to start with insight but the transformation happens when you work with the emotions and actually invite these other aspects of yourself in, these hidden aspects, or unlived aspects of yourself that you’ve pushed away, bring her out to be whole, as a whole woman, as an empowered woman in the world. I think the more we can be ourselves and express our true personality, the more permission other people have to be themselves too, we’re less judgmental of others as well.

Robert Maldonado  42:32

Awesome. Next time, we should talk more about Adi Shankara that you mentioned because it sounds fascinating, this whole idea of non dualism, which is not a well-known philosophy, but certainly up and coming as people start to question more what is the nature of consciousness. Meanwhile, leave us a review, subscribe to our YouTube channel. We’ll see you next time.

Debra Maldonado  43:10

Go to likeaspark.com and find out more about my book. Get a copy today. It’s available anywhere. I also have an audio version with my hypnotic voice. If you want to listen to a relaxing voice, you’ll like it. Take care everyone. Have a wonderful day, we’ll see you next week.

Robert Maldonado  43:30

On Soul Sessions. 

Debra Maldonado  43:33 

Bye.