The Warrior Archetype (The Action Taker)
In its simplest form, you could see what we have historically known as the Warrior archetype as being the holder of the very energy of life itself.
When a child begins to separate from his or her Mother in the first year of life, it is Warrior energy, which at this stage we could simply term “life energy” or “vital energy”, that allows the child to develop a sense of himself as being separate from mother and father.
One way in which you can see this happening is the way in which young children play with the word “No”. Often “no” is not simply a response to something unwanted, such as doing what th eparents want, but a way in which the child can assert its separation and independence from its parents. This early development of boundaries – which we can describe as “the discovery of where you stop and I begin” – is the first stage in the child’s formation of its own identity.
This stage is important, because the declaration of self as a separate being to Mother and Father is an affirmation of the child’s right to exist in the world on his or her own terms.
Video – podcast – the Warrior
Warrior Boundaries are essential
And of course this is not the whole story. The development of a separate identity is intimately connected with a child’s ability to assert its own boundaries. Whether they are allowed to do this successfully or not will determine how strong their boundaries are an adult.
And the truth is, many adults don’t have strong boundaries. Some don’t even understand what a boundary is, not really. One of the easiest ways to grasp the concept of boundaries is to think of the idea of personal space. Each of us has an area around us, which varies according to circumstances, in which we feel “safe”. We begin to feel uncomfortable if somebody else intrudes into that space.
In normal conversation this personal space might extend three feet or a metre outwards feet from our body; but when somebody seems threatening to us, we might want them to stay further away. And during lovemaking, our boundaries tend to contract so that we welcome the presence of our lover very near to us.
However boundaries are not simply a measure of feeling safe about the physical closeness of another person. Boundaries exist in many forms. For example, each of us has an emotional or psychological boundary which determines our response to how people speak to us. You might be clear and assertive about your right to say “no”, for example, or to express your displeasure or dissatisfaction with someone who speaks to you in a way that you find offensive.
On the other hand, if your emotional and psychological boundaries are not well formed, you might find it hard to object to the way you’re being treated.
Another example: think of the physical boundary of what you allow inside your body: what food do you eat, and what substances do you allow into your body? Different people have very different boundaries in such matters.
We can think of boundaries, be they physical, emotional or psychological, as a function of the Warrior archetype because ultimately they are about self-protection (or a lack of self-protection).
One of the clearest ways in which the Warrior archetype serves a protective function is when our physical or emotional safety is threatened, and we experience a rising sense of anger in response to this threat. This is an innate reaction, part of the well-known “fight or flight response”. The high levels of adrenaline that accompany this reaction prepare our body for action, whether that be fight or flight.
So part of the Warrior’s role is all about setting boundaries. This is a means of establishing who we are in the world, and asserting our right to exist as a separate individual.
Warrior Assertiveness
You see, the Warrior’s energy of assertiveness gives us the ability to speak out for ourselves and express our needs and wants in a way that is neither threatening to other people nor damaging to ourselves. The Warrior archetype gives us the sense of our right to exist as a separate, unique, distinct individual.
Healthy, balanced Warrior energy is also the energy of doing, of action in the world. It’s the energy that gets us out of bed in the morning ready to take action in the world. And as we’ve already seen, it’s also the energy that allows us to make an impact on the world, either through setting our boundaries, or being assertive, or taking action to achieve our objectives.
Anger and Rage are the preserve of the Warrior
Beyond that, it’s the energy which allows us to express anger either as a defensive or, if needed, an offensive reaction to circumstances. And sometimes it is expressed as rage. The fact that anger can inflate into rage brings us onto another important point: there is a balanced and an out-of-balance way of expressing each archetypal energy. That’s because the natural, “healthy” expression of any archetype can be impacted by our emotional experiences during childhood. If we’re emotionally wounded in one or more archetypes, their energy won’t be expressed in a balanced, natural way, and some part of our energy may go into shadow.
In a moment we’ll look at the concept of emotional wounding and how that impacts us, or, to be more exact, how we respond to emotional wounding by putting parts of ourselves into shadow.
For the moment, however, it’s useful to separate the concept of Warrior energy as expressed in warfare, fighting and assault from the concept of Warrior energy as a life force. It’s a life force that allows us to show who we truly are in the world, and to make an impact on the world which and the people in it which allows us to get what we want.
Our alternative name for the Warrior reflects these functions: the “Action Taker”. In the end, however, the Warrior, or the Action Taker, is all about our existence in the world as a powerful autonomous being. More than that, it’s about our very right to exist in the space we occupy.
(If you’re interested in reading a much more detailed account of each of these archetypes, you can find extensive descriptions of them in my book Warrior, Magician, Lover, King.)