The King Archetype
This is the part of your personality which is responsible for leadership, vision, purpose and mission in your life.
When we talk about leadership in coaching sessions we’re not just talking about leadership in your own life, but also your leadership of the lives of others for whom you have some kind of responsibility. This could be your family, your employees, your colleagues, your friends, and so on.
In some sense every one of us is a leader. The qualities necessary for successful leadership include wisdom, discernment, balance, strength, good judgement, fairness, clarity of decision-making, and a concern for the long-term benefit of all the people who fall within your remit area of influence. To what extent do these need developing in you?
Then there’s mission. Do you have a life mission? Something that equates to a life purpose, a reason to get out of bed in the morning which is personally meaningful? Something you would regret not having done when you die? We can work together in forming your life mission, which may change over time.
And do you have a vision for your life? A vision is necessary to plan your journey. It’s like a destination, a goal, a desired outcome. In fact, you can have a vision for every area of your life: financial, family, employment, work, leisure, home….
The value of having a vision for every area of your life lies in the power of having well formed goals: they are massively empowering and give motivation and purpose to our actions. Without a vision, you have no destination in life. Which raises the question – where is your journey taking you? Would coaching help?
Sovereign or Leader Energy and You
In the archetypal model which I use for coaching men and women, leadership, vision and mission are part of the Sovereign archetype.
The idea of archetypes is very useful, because they serve as a useful shorthand to describe different aspects of our personality. The Sovereign archetype, clearly, is all about leadership of your own Kingdom or Queendom, or, to put it another way, your realm.
But whether you call this archetypal energy the “leader” in your life or the “Sovereign” makes no difference, really. Our objective in coaching is to strengthen and develop this area of your personality so that you can fully embrace your innate power.
In coaching, I start from the belief that we are all born with unlimited potential and power. Yet, as we all know, life has an unfortunate habit of suppressing or diminishing our personal power. For one thing, we don’t truly celebrate leadership, magnificence, success or achievement in our culture. For another, few children are brought up in a way that encourages the expression of this Sovereign energy.
The great news is that if your leadership potential, your Sovereign, is not showing up fully in your life, archetypal coaching can bring it out in all its majesty, power, and shining brilliance.
So I’d like to develop your understanding of these concepts by showing you a video which describes the functions and importance of the Sovereign archetype.
A Video to Introduce The Sovereign Archetype (also known as the Heart Centred Leader)
The Sovereign takes the form of King energy in men (read on below), and Queen energy in women (click here to read about the Queen archetype).
The most important qualities of your Sovereign archetype are leadership, vision, and mission.
Good leadership means leadership with justice, discernment and wisdom, leadership for the benefit of the whole kingdom.
That kingdom may be your family, your business, your world, or even just your own mind, your own life.
Good leadership is essential for success in any enterprise, at any level, and so it has been throughout the history of the world.
Leadership provides clear direction to the people for whom the King is responsible.
Leadership provides a sense of security for the citizens of the realm. It provides reassurance that someone is on hand who has the power and ability to take charge in a crisis, and lead his or her people through to a better place.
Whether the kingdom you are leading is a community, a business, your family, or yourself, is irrelevant. The principle is always the same: a strong King or Queen who can stand in his or her power and hold the wounds of the realm is a Sovereign who people will look up to and admire.
A Book Which Explains Archetypes In Full
In this book, Rod Boothroyd describes and explains all the characteristics of the four main male archetypes of King Warrior Magician and Lover in a way suited for our times. You can buy his book from Amazon.
Why Is There So Little Sovereign Energy In The World?
Very few men and women develop their full potential for leadership or express their full power in the world. But even fewer have a vision for their lives or a mission, a sense of purpose in the world.
This is where Life Coaching can be very helpful to you: it will enable you to access your natural leadership, power and potency in the world, and it will show you where you may be blocked or limited in expressing this energy.
In turn, this will enable you to find your own personal vision and “mission” in the world.
A vision is essential – it is your destination, your objective, your goal. Without knowing where you are going, it hardly needs to be said, you are unlikely to end up in the right place!
Some people think of mission as the thing “you just have to do”, the reason you were put on the planet. Others see mission as an expression of who you truly are, the calling which will most powerfully express your natural gifts and talents – and, by the way, give you the greatest satisfaction.
But however you see it, all these qualities – leadership, vision and a sense of mission – are necessary to achieve the levels of success in life and business which you desire.
Working with you, I will use some extremely effective life coaching techniques which will quickly help you understand your vision, mission and develop your leadership, both in your own life and more broadly in the world – in your own Kingdom. You will truly become the leader in your own life.
Using this very special coaching method of working with your archetypes, we will build up your Sovereign energy where it’s lacking, and bring out your full magnificence and power if that’s currently in shadow.
Truth is, it’s hard to imagine what the magnificence of a human being in his or her full power and potential looks like until you begin to experience it for yourself.
But whether you access your leadership all at once, or build it up bit by bit, you certainly can become the person you were always meant to be, the person you were born to be.
Video – The Sovereign Archetype
Kings & Queens Come In Many Forms
Think of the King or Queen archetype as representing the leader within you, the manager, the director, the chief – whatever word you care to use. When you develop this archetype into its fullness you embrace the qualities essential for the well-being of your Kingdom or Queendom.
Some of the most important are leadership (obviously), wisdom, discernment, happiness, and offering a space in which other people can explore and express their potential.
Sovereign energy also means being able to maintain order, integration, and integrity. It means controlling extremes of behaviour and feelings. It embraces stability, calmness and centredness.
For Sovereign energy is a balancing energy which maintains peace and harmony, purpose and function.
In its most mature form, a woman or man’s Sovereign energy embodies the full potency and power of the sacred masculinity and femininity which resides within all of us. This is the central archetype, around which the rest of a your personality and your entire unconscious mind is organised.
And because your King archetype is your central archetype, a lack of King energy is destructive to your power and presence in the world.