Deepen Your Practice With Archetypal Awareness
When we separate the mind from the body and the body from the environment, we lose touch with our real nature. The result? Conflict. See Tantra: Path of Ecstasy (1998). To reconnect, body-based practices are a good place to start, but something deeper happens when we recall that the body is our vehicle for transformation as taught by Eleanor Criswell. Now yoga therapists like Nya Patrinos are blending Jungian therapeutic techniques, active imagination, dreamwork, and yoga to support personal transformation. How can this help you?
For individuals, working with archetypes and yoga can bring deeper awareness to your practice.
For therapists, learning to work with archetypes and yoga together can bring another dimension to how you support others.
For anyone new to yoga as therapy, this is a perfect introduction to how yoga therapy can go deeper than a single yoga class or private session.
What Is An Archetype?
by Nya Patrinos, MFA, C-IAYT, E-RYT 500, YACEP
An archetype is a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, a "first" form. Or you could think of it as the model that other statements, patterns of behavior, and objects copy, emulate, or merge into. Archetypes are recurring symbols, motifs found in literature, painting, mythology, and life across all cultures and traditions.
The concept of archetypes dates back at least to the ancients Greeks and Plato, who called them forms. For Plato, forms embodied the fundamental characteristics of a thing. Plato also believed that forms were imprinted in the soul before being born into this world. In the 17th century, Sir Thomas Browne and Francis Bacon both used the word "archetype" in their writings. Browne, in The Garden of Cyrus (1658), attempted to depict archetypes in his usage of proper symbolic names.
Swiss psychologist Carl Jung proposed the idea of a collectively-inherited unconscious, defined as a pattern of thought or image that is universally present in individual psyches. He theorized that psychological patterns could be derived from historical roles in life, such as the Mother, Child, Trickster, and Servant, as well as universal events or situations, including Initiation or Death. For Jung, the collective unconscious was inherited, not developed (nature, not nurture), and was composed mainly of archetypes. Jung wrote,
Archetypes can be positive, taking an active role as guardian or inner ally. Archetypes can also have a negative or “shadow” manifestation. The shadow draws its power by remaining in the dark: when we deny its presence, it becomes more powerful. But when we acknowledge and work with the shadow, we can find a balance in which we may learn the shadow’s lessons.
Where Do Yoga and Archetypes Meet?
The Sanskrit term most similar to archetype is purvaja, which means ahead of all others, prototype, ancient, and many other things. In yoga the archetypes we work with are elements of nature, characters in mythological stories, spiritual symbols, and geometrical patterns and shapes. Yoga poses embody archetypes. When we practice yoga poses while connecting an intention within a pose to the archetype of that pose, we explore the deepest part of ourselves. In our practice, we also notice which poses we feel drawn to or repelled by. Acknowledging and working with this attraction and aversion (raga and dvesha) can be a powerful call to a greater understanding of life patterns, conditioning, and ultimately the nature of the True Self.
“For example, someone who has a troubled relationship to the Father archetype may find it easier to work through the Lion pose than to rehash painful childhood incidents.”
How To Use Archetypes In Yoga Practice
Working archetypically with yoga poses can offer insight into ourselves that is very different from traditional talk therapy. Here is an example you can try right now. SPOILER ALERT: it is deceptively deep. Here are the first two steps:
Read the following lunar meditation;
Practice Soma Namaskar with the chart below.
Here are the last two steps:
Take note of any sensations or awareness that arise; and
Close the practice grateful for what was brought to light.
LUNAR MEDITATION
Imagine space, see the dark night sky.
Experience the darkness.
Absorb the primordial energy.
Connect to the emotions and feelings that arise as you find yourself in the emptiness of night.
Notice the stars filling the heavens.
Watch them shining and twinkling.
Breathe here for a some time under the protection of the canopy of night sky.
Take in the vastness of the universe.
Examine the stars again and notice them fading.
ASANA PRACTICE
Here are the last two steps again:
Take note of any sensations or awareness that arise; and
Close the practice grateful for what was brought to light.
How To Use Yoga and Archetypes In Therapy
Archetypal Yoga Therapy is influenced by the Jungian therapeutic techniques of active imagination and dreamwork with the yogic investigations of Swami Radha Saraswati. In Archetypal Yoga Therapy, yoga, pranayama, yoga nidra, and meditation are used to foster dialogue with the subconscious and unconscious minds.
IN ARCHETYPAL YOGA THERAPY
The therapist can—
Encourage investigation of archetypes and associations developed from yoga asanas, yogic philosophy, and Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist deities;
Connect these archetypes and/or associations to concerns, issues, or problems the client wishes to investigate or work on;
Foster dialogue or journaling about these archetypes or associations; and
Develop, share, and support rituals to make the archetypes concrete.
Yoga and Archetypes, Learning More . . .
YOGA THERAPY WITH LUNAR AERCHETYPES
If connecting your practice or therapy sessions with archetypal awareness resonates with you, Nya Patrinos, MFA, C-IAYT, E-RYT 500, YACEP, leads training in Lunar Archetypal Yoga, a comprehensive eight-limb approach to yoga therapy focusing on lunar archetypes and practices. The course provides therapeutic strategies and skills to implement in your own practice, or individual and group yoga therapy plans, using the lunation cycle as a model for health and wellness. The 45-hour training is approved for professional development by the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT).