Caroline Myss - The Shapeshifter (The Power of Archetypes)

those who stand the greatest chance of surviving the that may come their way are those who can adapt or change to the shape adapt shape shift to what their circumstances require whether the circumstances are short a week a month whether the circumstances require that we adapt for a few years that changing shape is in fact our lifeline [Music] hi everybody it's time for another archetypal video um it's so much fun to figure out like which archetype am I going to do next and so today I decided to do the shape shifter which is uh and you know I have to tell you the more I research these archetypes the more fascinating they become and just just as a bit I mean the shapeshifter is one of the oldest archetypes ever in the whole spectrum and the whole family of archetypes and and probably one that has intrigued myth so much because from The Shape Shifter we get you know the werewolf we get vampires we get all the creatures of nature that change their forms all the gods and goddesses that change their forms and how many stories about the gods that come down and they look like this and they look like that and even the Egyptian god Set looked could take on the form of an ox or it could he could be a bull or he could be a crocodile or the the many different forms that higher power can shift in and blend Into The Human Experience now from an archetypal point of view I mean this just fascinated me um what is that about I mean what is this Fascination that people have always had we still have it's my doggy back there she just had surgery so she's she's just mending herself anyway um with the changing of forms well and why are the forms so oftentimes so ominous or so um threatening or creatures of the night like vampires uh that change forms and they're about one time and then they're they're a creature that you know assaults your neck and um the Frog to princess to Prince the these creatures that are can have been punished people human beings who've been punished by having their form taken away from them and they're reduced to being reptiles or or other kinds of creatures it's so fascinating to me but let's think about that what people fear the most is change is changed Sudden Change that comes out of nowhere that apps to have the shape of your life suddenly change right from under you to um have a shape that you count on the shape of your life the shape of your body the shape of your home to have this shape suddenly like in Turkey and in Syria to have an earthquake shape shift your reality in the blink of an eye that is for most human beings and I will admit I'm one of them one of the most terrifying terrify of experiences we could possibly have to have the world as we know it suddenly shift and we are we find ourselves in a whole new shape of our own world Rubble our apartment gone our home gone our family gone the entire shape of our world gone it positions power as in in the way that says we have no power over the whims of Nature and so it is not surprising that the cast of characters that mythologically and in Legend and in stories that come down to us um uh as shape shifters the capacity to instantly change the shape you're looking at or change something familiar to something else is so terrifying and they so they take on an ominous terrifying form because the the idea that something could change the shape of your life that fast is in fact horrifying because it does actually happen earthquakes and tsunamis and fires and accidents suddenly it is an experience of a shape-shifting event so the shape shifter is not just like a person or or a Mythic creature like a werewolf or it's also the fact that events happen that change the shape of the whole of our life and they're unforeseen they just happen nobody expected that earthquake it just happened and now more than as of as of this recording over 20 000 people are gone and who knows how many more and how long it will take to reorganize and rebuild the lives of all of these people in turkey and in Syria and who knows who knows but the shape-shifter is a force an archetype a pattern that goes from one shape to another but remember when I said a couple of videos ago that archetypes are not negative so this sounds like I'm giving it a whole big negative you know presentation but it's not what is terrifying for us is the experience of having to change shapes like this or having the shape of our life shift like that at the same time foreign the capacity to shift your shape is one of the um how do I say this it's my biggest it's one of the um assets of survival to change your shape to adapt to what's happening around you to be able to accommodate if this is happening if I can't do this then I have to do this in the moment to survive the capacity to change your shape to adapt to what is required of you in the moment I think of a book that I I read several of them on on people who survived the Holocaust and and I was so impressed with this one book written by a um polish Jewish historian who unfortunately tragically did not survive the Holocaust but his notes his research did and he um as the shape of Europe was changing rapidly the shape-shifter most certainly rapidly and the Jews were put into the ghetto in Warsaw this gentleman Rosen Rosenbloom I believe his name was he was a historian but and his field of History was the history of the Jews in Europe and when he became a historian he um went into that particular area because he noted that most of the history of Europe had been written by Christians and so they excluded the history of the Jews so prior to World War II prior to the Nazis invading Poland in in the September 39. um he had set up his his research and he had become known for it in Warsaw and he was acquiring the genealogy of Jewish families as they came to to Warsaw and and and the surrounding towns and when the the ghetto started and the Nazis came in in the ghetto he in a small group of very trusted allies packaged all of his research and brought it into the ghetto where it was found after the war but during that time in the ghetto he became obsessed with acquiring as much history as he could as he realized that in fact people were not safe in the ghetto that they were all going to be exterminated that that was the plan and he wrote about this and he wrote his observations and one of the observations that I thought was so astonishing was he said when people would come in and the Jews were coming in from all parts of Poland thinking they would be safe in Warsaw because they thought of it as the New Jerusalem and that this Insanity that was going on in all these other places surely could not happen in a sophisticated City so they got there and he would say tell me what it was like for you where you were from and he noted that if he did not get the trauma and their history down within a period of a few days that the capacity to survive would automatically kick in and they would rewrite their own history in order to survive the place where they had to where they were now living they would somehow in order to survive they had to adapt in order to adapt they had to minimize the horror and they had to say well that other place wasn't so bad and if that wasn't so bad this we could make I mean they had to minimize the they had to change the shape of The Nightmare they were living and he said that if people those who stand the greatest chance of surviving the horrors that may come their way are those who can't adapt or change to the shape adapt shape shift to what their circumstances require whether the circumstances are short a week a month or whether the circumstances require that we adapt for a few years that changing shape is in fact our Lifeline I will never forget that and it had it it truly made it deep and profound impression on me and if you think about it all life is all life is is the constant changing of shapes and forms that's all that happens every day it is a 24 7 operation nothing changes the same nothing stays the same everything is constantly shape-shifting in front of us it's the speed at which it happens the drama at which it happens and what exactly changes shape that terrifies us we can see for example trees fault leaves falling from trees in the Autumn and we expect that and so we think as the as the tree in front of us reshapes itself we expect that and we're not threatened by it but if we turn around and watch the roof cave in on our house and it changes shape that terrifies us so we unders you can understand how we have become accustomed to trusting that certain forms will never change that this house will never change this will never change because we're terrified of anything changing its shape especially rapidly especially rapidly and yet the whole journey of life is about shape shifting and shapes shifting what they are from this to that from from seeds to plants from Plants back to the Earth from it's constant like that now when that shapeshifter takes its position within a person um because we expect people to be somewhat consistent it's a The Shape Shifter is a very interesting archetype for a person to have I think about actors for example that you know you see them in one series or you see them in one movie and you see them in another and you can't even recognize is that really that person that's a shape shifter they have a quality in them that allows them to just adapt to a part so completely I think of Tom Hanks how he looked in Philadelphia how he looked in this he looked in that that part how he he all the weight he lost for what was that movie he's talking to a ball named Wilson oh come on somebody talk to me what was the name of that he's a FedEx guy you you know what I'm talking about but again he changed his shape and he is known for that his his capacity to so thoroughly become the shape of the movie Meryl Streep is another one who can just totally become whatever she needs to become for a part there's no distance between her and what she's playing she somehow absorbs the force of it and and and that's why we love these actors because they become the shape in front of our eyes on the other hand the shadow side of the shape shifter is someone who absolutely boggles the imagination George Santos comes to mind who changes his shape and story with everyone he talks to one day he's a he's a Broadway producer another day from volleyball he has two knee Replacements and it's school that he never even went to he changes his shape constantly constantly everything that comes out of him is this illusion about what he would like to be what he thinks you might want to see it's like a spellcaster shapeshifter he'll just change the shape yes I was here yes my mother was in 9 11. oh she died there that I was here oh I lost people in that I lost friends in the pulse Massacre I just constant constant constant constant and that kind of of shape shifting is pathological that's where you realize something this person has no Mooring inside there's there's no anchor there there's nothing this person will do in this archetypal pattern will just change with anything that's in front of him or her as the shadow side of the shapeshifter but the the positive side think about this when you're watching TV and then and you watch these advertisements for like um a weight loss or um exercise what they're doing is they're appealing to you and saying we can help you change your shape we can shape-shift you this product can shape-shift you this exercise program these bicycles that you get on by yourself can shape-shift you they are selling shape-shifting products and and convincing you that your shape can look like that shape if you just buy this pill or you just sit on this bike and let this machine talk to you and you can change your shape and what is is so extraordinary is you know you think about it and it's um the fact that maybe at some level I'm winging it here by the way I'm just winging it here because it it occurs to me that it's some deep level the idea of being bound by a shape is um anathema to the soul to the soul not to our personality so much but to the soul that we are in fact boundless we are shapeless energy is shapeless what what shape does energy have I mean I'm surrounded by energy I'm surrounded by oxygen but it has no shape it has no shape if it were freezing in here you'd see my breath and would see a little of that but the shape would go so there's a part of us that has no shape and it's and our shape is but temporary and we are always changing our shape every every every day and you know you get up one morning and you look at yourself and say when did I get that old or where did that come from but you it's just constant it's just constant it's absolutely constant and I think you know that the shapeshifter when a person has that archetype when it's really a primary archetype in a person they're great storytellers they change the shape of of something they become someone a clown for example they become someone who can take comedians they can reshape the world we're looking at and make us see something differently there's a lot of positive that comes from being able to take something and say look at it this way look at it that way let's change its shape the shadow side is a George Santos or other people who are pathological liars and are completely trying to reshape your reality your reality trying to Gaslight you trying to say you really didn't see what you saw that that's when the shadow side of this archetype shows itself and I have to say that people who specialize in fake news for example they're shape shifters they try to shape shift they try to shape-shift what's going on and the world around us and even though there's more than one perspective at some point some things become absolute unmitigated lies and it it really comes up to each person to develop the to develop discernment to be able to trust your own powers of perception in a world that is really spinning more rapidly than we can possibly imagine so that's the shape shifter um you know and by the way before I I sign off on this there's so many movies that are about shape shifters you know I mean all those movies about werewolves and vampires and zombies and these are creatures the people who through circumstances of being bitten or infected or this or that they're shapes changes but I find it fascinating that our Airwaves are loaded with these stories now loaded with them series on Vampires series on on zombies series on The Walking Dead these are all shapeshifter series and they're about some part of us in the collective is sensing that we are changing our shape somehow that some fundamental part of us is very vulnerable very vulnerable we don't these these movies aren't just happening because they're quote popular they're popular because we have are sensing something that's off the rails within ourselves something that's not right The Walking Dead reminds something that for me has come out of the the opioid crisis the the massive drug crisis it has not so many people's psyches out of commission that there's so much happening in the world that people can't process lives changing so fast shape the shape of lives changing far too fast for emotions to catch up with and process and so anxiety goes skyrocketing and all the support systems human beings were always used to are not intact so that the shape of support has changed and it leads to people to find artificial support through medication and that's like The Walking Dead so I don't have an immediate remedy for that what I just have to say is that I what we're looking at is a world that is moving so very fast and everything in our world we're the engines of what gets created we are it's not happening to us it's happening through us so the more you understand about your inner power the more Clarity you bring to even the smallest choices in your life okay that's this week's little message okay thank you for listening

Channel: Caroline Myss

Views: 42,719

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Id: KKBXhdKIh7I

Length: 24min 30sec (1470 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 14 2023