The Warrior Archetype - King, Warrior, Magician, Lover

Welcome, guys and gals, to the Mantalk Show. I'm Connor Beaton, and today we are going to dive into the third archetype in the series of King, Warrior, Lover, Magician. I seem to be going in reverse. I started off with magician, went to lover, and today we're going to dive into the Warrior archetype, which is arguably one of the most prominent archetypes within masculine culture. And for thousands of years, we have really embodied this in one way or another. And historically, the Warrior has been primarily associated with men and a deep sense of masculinity, and it's probably one of the most controversial archetypes for many reasons, many good reasons, because many men and women and children have suffered under the shadow form of the warrior, which is the bipolar dysfunction. And that's actually where we're going to start today. But before I dive in, I just want to give a quick reminder to all the guys that are out there and a huge thank you so much. So, because of you, because of you, because all the men and women that are tuned into this podcast, we are over half a million downloads. We're actually close to three quarters of a million downloads in the last few years. And I just wanted to take a second to say thank you so much. I shared it in the Facebook group and the Man Talks community, which, guys, if you aren't a part of that already, please do so now, because it's a great community. But I just wanted to say a huge thank you to each and every single one of you for sharing this podcast on a consistent basis, for continuing to tune in to, you know, leaving us reviews, to subscribing to the podcast, to writing me and leaving me messages and hitting me up on Instagram. When you share this, I mean, I am just humbled daily. It. It really is an incredible experience. And so I just wanted to take a moment of. Of this podcast to say thank you for being a part of this community. And I'm gonna. I'm gonna say that again on the the next one because I want to make sure that everyone hears it. So thank you for being a part of this community. Thank you for tuning into this show and, you know, please continue to share this podcast because a lot of time and effort and energy goes into it. And feel free to hit me up on Instagram mantalks and let me know what your favorite episode is, as I'm going to be putting together something special for everyone that tunes in. So without any further ado or delay, let's dive into the Warrior and we'll start with the shadow warrior. And because that is a part of our culture right now that seems to be quite prominent where the shadow warrior is really being called out. The shadow warrior really sort of revels in sadistic and masochistic behavior. We've seen a lot of this in movies. But he's often masking his hidden insecurity and unresolved emotional issues. Because in many ways, this. The shadow warrior becomes created because he has suffered, because he has suffered, because he has loved so deeply and lost, because he has been abused at the hands of another shadow warrior, because he has been taken advantage of in some way and he hasn't been able to heal. And we can see this in pop culture, right? Just look at Star wars, for example. When you look at Star wars and you look at the character of Darth Vader, that character. When you look at how that character came to be, and you look at his upbringing, you know, and you look at how he falls in love with Padme, and their love needs to be hidden. So it's sort of, you know, this. This thing that's this healthy, beautiful gift in his life that he wants to celebrate so desperately needs to be hidden in the shadows, away from his masters, away from the people that are training him to be a warrior. And so he has to hide a huge part of. And it creates this rift, this crack in his psyche. And Padme gets pregnant with their. With their child, which ends up being, you know, the twins, Luke Skywalker. And. And basically.

Basically, when. When Padme dies and she gives birth to. To the twins and she. She dies. And he's had a premonition that this is going to happen, but he can't get help from Obi Wan Kenobi or from Yoda because the fact that he's in this relationship with Padme and the fact that they've now had children is very against the Jedi way. And so because of that, he's had to hide it, and then she dies, and it creates this massive crack in what's happening in his psyche. And he feels an immense amount of pain. And the only one that he's being mentored by is the Sith Lord. And I know I'm using a Star wars reference to outline this, but. But we can see how the shadow warrior is created, right? We can see how it's created in that very real example, because he loves something so deeply and he loses it, and he feels this sort of irreconcilable amount of grief, and there's no healthy guidance to help him heal. That wound, he just feels this deep pain within him.

And the person that's there to mentor him, guides him on the path of destruction. That sort of uses that pain to then act out cruelty and violence and rage against society, against other people. And that's really the archetype of the shadow warrior. And we can see in Moore and Gillette's book, who are the authors of King, Warrior, Lover, Magician, they actually argue that despite the justified fear and suspicion of the warrior, despite the fact that a shadow warrior exists, the warrior archetype should not be approached with hostility and condemnation. They actually write in the book, we can't. This is a quote from the book. We can't just take a vote and vote the warrior out. Like all archetypes, it lives on in spite of our conscious attitudes towards it. And like all repressed archetypes, it will go underground eventually to resurface in the form of emotional and physical violence. And so really, here, what they're saying is it is incredibly important that we do not sort of demonstratize the warrior archetype, that we shouldn't look at the warrior archetype in our culture and say it is wrong and it is the one that is causing all of this harm. We actually need to be able to point it in the right direction. Because what a lot of psychologists and scientists and what really Moore and Gillette are saying in this book is that we all have this primal warrior part within us. And we can see that in the psyche, right? We can see that in the, in the makings of, of the brain, just the neurological parts of the brain and, and the parts of the amygdala that create fear and that, that allow us to move into these spaces of fight or flight. And, and really, what they. They also go on to say is that if the warrior is an instinctual energy form, then it is here to stay and. And it. And it pays to face it. So what that means is we can see that instinctual energy is really a primal part of our body, of our biochemistry, of our neurology. And that when we pretend like we don't have this primal part in us, it's a very, very dangerous game because it will be repressed and suppressed within us. And we can see this happening culturally, right? There's a big movement to sort of try and repress and suppress and villainize the warrior archetype. And a big part of the revel, sort of the rev against things like the MeToo movement and the revolt against the feminist movement is this shadow archetype. Of the warrior coming forward saying, you know, I've been hurt too, and why, why must you cast me out? And it sort of takes on this victim mentality. So there's a few parts of the shadow warrior that we're going to dive into. And in the. In the book King, Warrior Lover, Magician Moore and Gillette really explore how men can relate themselves to their inner warrior in a more healthy and mature. And that's what I'm going to talk about towards the tail end of this podcast episode, which is actually being able to embody and embrace and, yeah, embody this healthy warrior archetype so that it doesn't turn into this shadow. And how we can see this shadow energy in the rest of our lives, because the warrior really fuels our willingness and our ability to defend ourselves, to defend the world and our community and our families and people against injustices, against harm and against tyranny and villains, basically. And it helps us fight for survival in hard times. So let's look at the different parts of the shadow warrior. So first off, let's look at the hero, which is the immature warrior and the hero. There's a lot of confusion around this archetype, but really the hero is in fact a form of advanced boy psychology. It's sort of the most advanced form and the peak of the masculine energy of the boy. And we can see this because the boy really wants to save everyone. And the hero acts out in this way of wanting to save and nurture absolutely everything that it possibly can. And the hero energy calls upon the boy's masculine sort of reserves and wells within himself, which. Which will be defined and refined as he matures in order to establish his independence. And so it serves this great role as we, as. As we move from boys into manhood. And you can see this in young boys going through puberty, right as they go through 12, 13, 14, you know, they move into their 20s. We can see that it actually helps the boy move into this more mature masculine. It allows him to face some of the challenges of life. It sort of forces him into the world and it allows him to. To curate his innate abilities that are starting to come forward. And it allows him to push himself outside of his normal way of being. Allows him to push himself into the. More. Into the. Into the. Yeah. Allows him to push his edge and, and see what he's capable of in testing against the difficulties of life. And here the hero actually enables the boy to begin to assert himself and define himself as distinct from all others. So the hero actually allows him to Break free of the family system initially and sort of break free from the mother bond and the father bond so that ultimately, as a distinct being, he can relate to them more fully and more creatively and more empowered. And the hero also throws the boy up against the limits, against the seemingly inevitable challenges that life will give him. And it encourages him to dream sort of impossible dreams. You know, have these big, massive dreams that might just be possible, but also allows him to face that with courage. So it empowers him in many, many ways. The downfall of this is that there is a limitation to the hero. There's a limitation to the hero that really is symbolized in the death of the hero. And the death of the hero comes. It's sort of like the death of boyhood and the end of boy psychology. And it is the birth of manhood and man psychology within a man. And this death of the hero in the life of a boy or a man, depending on when he experiences it, is when he finally encounters his own internal limitations, when he really meets his edge, when he's met the enemy within himself, and he has met his own dark side, his own, quote, unquote, unheroic side. And again, to go to Star wars, we can see this in the journey of Luke Skywalker, right? Luke Skywalker is turning with Yoda, and he goes into this very sort of dark space. And I can't remember if it's in a. I think it's in a cave of some sort. And he meets Darth Vader in that cave, and they fight. And Darth Vader's mask ends up falling off. And I think Luke chops off Darth Vader's head in this vision that he has, and the mask evaporates, and he sees that it's himself. And so, in this way, Luke Skywalker meets his own darkness, and he realizes that he has this darkness within him, this capacity for just absolute evil. And this is a part of what the hero must do. So the hero serves this rule for the boy to enter into manhood. But the challenge is that.

It can really paralyze a man because it'll prevent him from actually entering into the full embodied version of manhood. Because a man can stay in this space of wanting to be the hero for his family, for his mother, for his father, for his girlfriend or boyfriend or husband or wife or his kids, and constantly wanting to save them from themselves, all the while not realizing that sometimes there are parts of life that he cannot save people from, that he cannot save himself from, that. Surely there are consequences in life that he cannot rectify or fix. And this is the limitation that a man must face to move past the hero archetype and to sort of have the death of the hero. And it really signals the boy's or the man's encounter with true humility, which consists of knowing our own limitations and knowing when we need to get help. And that is the power, because a true warrior knows that he is actually stronger with the support of others. And we can see this in the warrior archetype of King Leonidas, who sort of leads this incredible group of 300 in the movie 300. He leads this group into battle and he realizes that there is strength in numbers. And that is the ultimate form of the warrior. Now, the next dysfunctional form is in the grandstand or bullying. And this is a boy who has embodied the warrior energies, who has oftentimes taken on this sort of narcissistic or over aggrandized version of his sense of self. And he may have been taught that his right as a man is to dominate those around him. And so he sort of claims this spotlight, the center stage, as his birthright, that he should stand above all others entrepreneurially or in a relationship. And if he does claim this sense of special status.

When that status is actually challenged by his partner, by his business partner, by people that work with him, that oftentimes ensues in this sort of rageful display or attack on the person that has questioned his authority or questioned his sense of special status. And the real difference between the hero and the mature warrior is precisely the difference between something like Tom Cruise's character in Iceman, the movie Top Gun. The movie is really a story about a boy becoming a man. And the man who possesses the grandstand or bully archetype or pole of the hero's shadow has an inflated sense of his own importance and his own abilities. And we can see that in the character of Iceman in the movie because he's got a very sort of grandstanding sense of who he is. And you know, the, the grandstand or bullity are often the men that we come across that. That are very arrogant, that are incredibly conceited. They sort of use sometimes humor to position themselves as better than or more superior than everyone around them. They might use judgment to. To put others below them. And. And really, they are constantly living in such a way as to position themselves as better than other people. But in many ways this is a defense mechanism against their deep sense of insecurity. And they always seem to be hiding something. They always seem to be hiding a sense of insecurity. Now, this brings us to our last part, which is the coward, and this is the boy that is possessed by the coward, which is the other pole of the hero's bipolar shadow shows an extreme reluctance to stand up for himself and in mental or emotional or physical confrontations. And he'll usually run away from a fight, oftentimes excusing himself by claiming that it's the more quote unquote manly thing to do. And we can see this in men in modern culture who really disavow and denigrate and disregard the more primal side of masculinity. And they sort of look down on the idea that men have a primal side within them. And they look down on the idea that men have and can require a tuning into and embodying of this more primal archetype, because they are scared of it. They're terrified of the shadow warrior. They're terrified of the warrior in general because there is a worry that somehow they will be embodied by this warrior archetype and that they will hurt others. And so because of that, they shy away from. From actually embodying it. So, all right, these are a few different parts of the shadow archetype of the warrior, and there's many, many, many different examples. But let's move into. Let's move into a healthier version of the archetype. And just to remember that we live in a time when people are generally uncomfortable with the warrior form of masculine energy, because a lot of the times masculine energy has been demonstratized in modern culture, and there's a lot of looking down on masculine energy because it has harmed, right? Not. Not masculine energy itself, but the shadow parts of the warrior, the shadow parts of the king, the shadow parts of the lover, the shadow parts of the magician. They have harmed men, women, children. And so because of that, masculine energy, especially the warrior, is often frowned upon and for some admittedly good reasons. And women especially are uncomfortable with this part of us because they have often been the most direct victims of it. They've been the most direct victims of the warrior shadow form. So let's look at the warrior in his fullness. Well, the warrior in his fullness characterized the characteristics of the warrior in his fullness amounts to a total holistic way of life. And he sort of has an assertive stance and an ability to face life that rouses energy, energizes and motivates. And so we can see a man in his warrior fullness when he sort of has this unrelenting energy to face life. Whatever happens, I know within myself when I feel this unrelenting sort of optimism within myself that I can face anything, that I can go lift the weights, I can face the challenges. I can face the challenges in the relationship that I can. That I can sort of self energize, that it feels this directness. It's almost like we become the spear soaring through the air of life, and it pushes us to take the offense and to move out of the defensive or holding position when it comes to life's tasks or problems and proper assertiveness in the right circumstances. And we can even go so far as to say aggressiveness, because it sometimes takes a little bit of aggressiveness to face some of life's challenges. Sometimes this energy under the right circumstances.

Strategically and advantageously give us the upper hand when it comes to facing some of life challenges. And the warrior knows through understanding, through critical thinking, through discernment, that he is able to make right actions. Because the warrior is always alert. He's incredibly awake. He's never sleeping through life, he's never really on autopilot, and he's not numbing out. And we see this very prominent part, and this is the biggest, one of the biggest, biggest challenges that I see within modern men today is that there is a culture, there is an acceptance of numbing out, and that so many men are half asleep in their lives simply because they. They don't want to embody the warrior energy that it would take to face some of the challenges that are happening in life. And as a function of his clarity of mind, the warrior's clarity of mind, he is a strategist and a tactician. He's not afraid to be real about some of the challenges that he's facing and to be able to move into a space of starting to confront them. And here's the difference between the warrior and the hero. Because the boy who's accessing the hero, as I've talked about before, does not know his limitations. He sort of romanticizes this idea of being invulnerable, of thinking that any situation can be overcome, any challenge can be overcome. Whereas the warrior, on the other hand, through his clarity, through his critical inquiry, is able to realistically assess his capabilities, his limitations, his situation in life, and he can take action from that place to move him forward. Now, the warrior traditions actually reinforce that. And I'm not going to go too much into that, but what I will get into is how we can start to embody this warrior archetype, this warrior energy. The first thing that we need to do is to be able to face some of the wounds that we have had in the past, to be able to know what we're still carrying around in our psyche and to be able to know how those wounds have harmed us, how they have shaped our lives and our willingness to face life. Because some men are, they numb out through smoking weed, through drinking constantly, through playing endless amounts of video games, and they don't embody this warrior sense of energy, of being able to sort of attack life in the way that they know they are capable of. And so they sit back and they contract and they feel stagnant in their life and they feel like they are a victim of life's circumstances. And for, for us to embody this warrior energy, we need to be able to confront with a little bit of aggressiveness, our own internal limitations. We need to be able to push our edge and sometimes, you know, confront our inner critic. We need to be able to confront our sabotager that's within us, that's constantly causing us to numb out, that's constantly shit talking us and putting us down and causing us to self deprecate. We need to be able to face that part of ourself and say, I've had enough and embody this primal warrior energy. To say, I'm going to go do the thing. I'm going to go and work out this morning. At 6:30 in the morning, even though every part of my brain is putting me down and telling me not to go do it. I'm going to have that uncomfortable conversation with my boss because I know that it's an important part of me moving towards what I want in life. I'm going to face the uncomfortable situation of going to talk to that person that I feel attracted to and actually move towards the things that I want, the relationships that I want, all of those parts. So even when accessing the positive warrior.

Operating within this space can be challenging because we will oftentimes want to revert into that boy energy, into that.

Sort of like hope that everything will work out without us having to take action. The second part is that we actually need to take a stand for ourselves, to face our own shadow, to face our own darkness, to realize that there are parts of ourselves that do sabotage in our relationship, in our sexual intimacy, in our communication, in our partnership and in our work. And when we can start to face those things with compassion and assertiveness and we can start to move through those things, we can start to embody the warrior energy more fully and finally, one of the last pieces is that we really need to know that as warriors we have help. And this requires the warrior to seek out help in training, help in training, training himself mentally, training himself emotionally, physically, relationally, and actually opening himself to finding a mentor that can guide him past his own current status, past his own current limitations, and allow him to start to embody more of his potential than he thinks is ultimately capable. And the warriors that we find today are less warriors in terms of a physical sense, that they're not necessarily fighting a battle out in the world, they're not necessarily going to war. While we definitely do have those warriors, there are warriors who actually are able to be warriors of the heart, of the mind, of this sort of altruistic goals of culture. And that looking past the duality of just hero, villain is incredibly important. And beyond the narrative of the eternal struggle between good and evil. It allows us to actually see a bigger aim of what the warrior archetype can do in order to feel like it has a sense of purpose. And the warrior's truth is now simply one among many. And it does not preclude commitment to ideals, people, causes or beliefs. And this is from individual named Robert Pearson, who wrote an incredible book. And this is basically saying that the warriors embrace their understanding with their whole hearts.

Even in a relativistic world. So even in a time where you know that you're not going to be able to fix everything, you know that. The real challenge for warriors today is to assert new narratives. That is what the warriors of today are really being called to do, is to assert new narrative and to imagine new versions of the warrior myth that go beyond the slaying dragons or the fighting of wars, and beyond defeating or converting enemies, towards building, towards building really bridges, bridges between the heart and the mind. And for most of us, the most important battle that the warrior is going to fight is against the tyranny of a dull mind, against the tyranny of a dull mind, and against fear driven ignorance, which we see so much of today. And that kind of battle requires a different plot, it requires a different form of a warrior, one that doesn't call for necessarily violence or conversion of people, but one that relies on our capacity to grapple with differences without imposing our notions of good and bad on people and actually bridge the gap. So the warrior becomes the bridge that bridges the gap between the good and the bad. And we can observe that there are ways in which primitive violence is increasingly being replaced with more gentle forms of conflict in modern culture and modern society. That we oftentimes fantasize about a world in the future where that doesn't exist, but really the role of the modern warrior. Just to conclude all of this, once we integrate these parts, once we stop sort of demonstratizing these primal parts of us and, and integrate what Robert Bly in Iron John called the wild man, we can start to rage against the sense that the tyranny of a dull mind. And it requires of us critical thinking. Critical thinking. And it requires for us to move past an us versus them mentality. It requires us to move past this division between good and bad and have a potential for greater understanding and understanding the differences and embracing those differences. And on this path towards a better world, warriors find even more confidence on this path. They need ever less violence and are occasionally allowed to just be. They are occasionally allowed to just be. And in this being they can see that there is a value in shaping the minds of the future and that these minds of the future will make it so that the harsh sense of violence is not required. And that.

The real war, the real war that we're facing, that we're battling oftentimes is the war within and the war of the mind and the war of division. And this is a worthy aim for the warrior. So thank you so much for listening and tune in next week for the King archetype, which will wrap up and conclude this four part series.