How to Find the Goddess Archetypes in Yourself
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Goddess archetypes always appear at some point in your journey as a woman connecting with your truest self, one beyond social expectations, exterior patterns, and self-limiting beliefs. These archetypes are a beautiful and poetic way for you to get in touch with yourself, and to understand better the feminine energy and world.
Jung, a famous psychiatrist, was the first one using the archetypes as a tool for psychological processes and analysis. These refer to the same psychological dynamic observed in a group of people, and Jung was the first one in the field to recognize it in mythology and literature.
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Even though there are multiple ways of organizing the Goddess archetypes, and we can resort to different mythologies, here we’ll use the greek goddess.
Find out this amazing world and discover something new about yourself!
Why using the Goddess Archetypes as a self-knowledge tool?
There is nowadays a world shift, women are reconnecting with their power and their essence, and it has a direct effect on every aspect of our lives. To understand it better is not only an internal journey but also way to understand the new step we are all taking as societies.
Therefore, from the individual perspective, getting in touch with the Goddess archetypes is a great way to find out more about the woman you are, your balance, your strengths, and challenges. It will help you understand the emotional patterns, your thoughts, feelings, instincts, and behaviors.
The 6 Greek Goddesses Archetypes
The archetypes refer to a psychological description of a complex type of the feminine personality that you can recognize in yourself, but also on the women around you.
The knowledge of the goddesses is also a way to know what motivates you, what you don’t like, what fills your heart. And why the answers are different for every woman.
All women have not only one goddess within, but many and in different compositions, which makes each one having a unique psychological composition. A deep connection with yourself, and to learn more about the subject, will lead the way for you to read your own inner map.
For now, get to know better the goddesses and what they represent.
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Goddess Archetypes: Artemis, Arching Goddess
Dressed in white, living in the wild, Artemis is the Goddess of the Hunt, Wilderness, and the Moon. She is associated with different animals that point her qualities, such as the deer, the doe and the hare, which represent her escaping nature; leo representing her hunting skills; the boar from the destructive aspect; the bear of protection of the wild creatures; and the horse as the free spirit running with their companions.
She is less connected to the civilized world, and her strength comes especially from her body and not from her mind of the heart.
The archetype
As an archetype, Artemis represents independence. The woman who feels complete with herself, who achieves a fullness on her own.
The woman who knows where she wants to go, how she wants to go, who trusts in herself, and in her way. She also represents the capacity to take care of herself, to suppress her needs.
To get in contact with her qualities is extremely important to take steps towards what you want in life, to trust in yourself, and on your value.
Artemis is strongly connected with the feminist movement, for caring about the well-being of the younger, the well-being of the mother, and delivery.
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Goddess Archetypes: Athena, Warrior Goddess
Athena, the Goddess of War and Wisdom, protector of Athens, is the favorite child of Zeus, born from his head. She represented the domestic tasks during peaceful periods, and the strategy in times of war.
There is an emphasis on her mental aspects, considered a symbol of creative spirituality and intellectuality, which produced the theatre, philosophy, political institutions, and arts.
On the other side, concerning her body, there is almost a denial of its existence. The goddess borns armed to fight, with several layers until her body, giving a message to the men to stay away. Despite that, all of her “friends” were heroic men.
The archetype
As an archetype, Athena represents the pattern of the logic and pragmatic women, who’s head dominates. It’s about how we use discernment and an assertive attitude. She has control of her emotions, even in challenging moments of conflict, therefore there is the capacity of not getting lost in the feelings and emotions all the time.
It’s an amazing way of recognizing the logic characteristics of women, without associating it exclusively as male characteristics learned by women.
Recognizing the characteristics of Athena in yourself, or the lack of it, even if she is not the dominant goddess, will help you understand why you deal in a certain way with confrontation, conflicts, and understanding what can you enhance.
Athena and Artemis
Athena and Artemis are two different warriors, with distinct powers and also weaknesses. Shortly, we gathered the aspects of a healthy relationship with the warrior inside you, versus a less positive attitude, connected with the wounded warrior.
The healthy warrior: she is not fighting against the world or other people, she is not competing against other women. She uses her strength to achieve her goals, respecting others, and many times, walking along with them.
The wounded warrior: she does everything by herself while complaining the whole time about not being helped as she refuses that help. She needs to prove to be better than others and uses her strength in a less focused and positive way.
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Goddess Archetypes: Aphrodite, Goddess of Love and Beauty
Aphrodite is one of the most worship goddesses of them all, since antiquity until nowadays. She represents beauty, glory, tenderness, and adventurous love stories.
In her life, and differently from other goddesses, she got to choose her husband, Hefesto, in a union between beauty and wit. She had many lovers with whom she got her sons. With Ares, the God of the War, she had an intense and long love affair, representing the two uncontrollable passions together, love and war.
From her relationship with Hermes, Afrodite had a bisexual son, Hermafrodito, as beautiful as their parents, a symbol of bisexuality, the attraction for both sexes, and androgenic.
Through History, religious, and political new perspectives, the qualities of Aphrodite were diminished and considered shameful. And during the last century, a revolution on the ways of living showed that, for less or exaggeration, we completely lost connection with her divine gifts. Therefore, it’s important to check the Aphrodite inside you and understand how to use this archetype most positively.
The archetype
A healthy archetype will manifest in a wife or lover that has at the same time the capacity to focus on her creativity, explore her pleasure and her goals.
While society tried to silence her, many women experience the sexual awakening of Aphrodite during their teenage years, or later in life, and end up creating their relationship with it. Some women run away from the desire, while others explore it.
As a way of living Aphrodite, there are two main tendencies, one about the intimate relationships, and others putting all that passion into projects. Women with a strong Aphrodite will also be driven towards arts.
Having Aphrodite has the prominent archetype is hard, since society teaches us to hide it, and therefore, it’s harder to learn how to use her energies in the most positive way for us and the others.
If you think Aphrodite might be the strongest goddess in you, read further about her, and learn how to transform it into a more positive experience. She has amazing lessons for everyone.
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Hera, Goddess of Marriage
Hera is the wife of Zeus, the Great Goddess, daughter of Rhea and Cronus. The mythology attributes to Hera the formation of Via Láctea when milk gushed from her breasts.
Despite her constant actions revenge, since Zeus was always having affairs with others, and the fact that Homero vilified her, she was strongly worshiped as the goddess of marriage. But she isn’t merely a wife, she stand in the crowd, she has power, after all, she also runs Olympus.
The archetype
Hera is one of the strongest energies, both for happiness and pain. Her manifestation only matures on adult women, even though some of her traces can be found in younger girls, even more since the “good” qualities of Hera are emphasized by society.
She represents the desire to be a wife, and those women who have Hera as the prominent archetype feel incomplete without a partner. She wants a great wedding, but also to have an important and recognized partner so that she feels succeeded and fulfilled. This trace reveals how she is also worried about external opinions.
The pain of those women who feel broken for not having a partner, must not be diminished but rather understood.
Hera has the capacity of committing, going through the most challenging moments with their partners. A woman with a strong vibe of Hera will be the strength of the house.
Her wounds are connected with her expectations about her husband, but also about the power, freedom, and fulfillment she idealizes to achieve through the wedding. It’s easy to recognize women with a strong archetype of Hera, through the radiant bride, but also on the betrayed wife.
To live a healthy Hera, it’s important to wait for the right partner, but also to give attention and strength to the other goddesses.
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Goddess Archetypes: Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest
Demeter is the mother of all, she of the Grain also represents the harvest and agriculture. Her connection with the image of the mother is so strong, all of the myths and cults associated with her, are also connected with Persephone, her daughter.
When Persephone was kidnaped by Hades to the underworld, Demeter was looking for her, and everything on earth stopped borning and rising. Once they were reunited again, nature started to flourish one more time. Therefore, she represents the cycle of Life and Death. Together with Persephone, they also represent the bond between mother and daughter and the feminine essence in that relationship, but also in old religions.
Demeter is worshiped in the Eleusinian Mysteries, a religious tradition that predated the Olympus patheon.
The archetype
Demeter is the mother, she stands for the maternal instinct through pregnancy, but also through nourishing with food, love, emotions. She represents the need for taking care of the others, many times through the role of mother, that she can assume even with other people.
She does everything for her sons and daughters, even fighting, if their happiness is at risk, as well as their health. There is generous strength in this mother.
Nevertheless, no matter how beautiful is this energy, it also has its traps. Either for a woman that wishes to be a mother and can’t or when a mother sees her kids leaving the house, there is a tendency for depression if the archetype of Demeter isn’t complemented with bits of the other goddesses. Her life becomes pointless and empty. When this happens on a smaller scale, there are often traces of its a negative influence, by a denial of approving their children’s choices and independence.
When a strong identification with Demeter exists, there are a few challenges. First of all, the incapacity of saying no, which can lead to exhaustion and the incapacity of giving energy to herself. She can also become passive-aggressive.
It’s important, among other things, for a woman with a prominent Demeter, to learn how to be the mother of herself.
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Persephone, Goddess of the Spring Growth
Persephone has a special energy that doesn’t stand out clearly when we first meet these vibes. There is a mystery, a relationship with the occult, under the first glimpse.
Due to her story, Persephone has a life both connected with the blossoming of the Spring, and the Kingdom of the Death, the underworld. She was kidnapped by Hades, and before coming back close to her mother with Hermes, she ate a few pomegranate berries, which determined that she had to divide her time between two worlds, two lives, two realities. Later, she became the Queen of the Underworld, receiving and guiding the souls of the heroes who descended.
The archetype
This archetype is more submissive and influenced than any of the others. There is a tendency for these women to look eternally young.
A stronger identification with the young Persephone is the maiden, which is natural to appear during teenage years, or before choosing a career, but sometimes is extended in life. There is a lack of knowing who she is, and what she wants, and the incapacity of truly commit to things. Sometimes, there is also proximity to the mother, which blocks the growth of the daughter.
There is also the tendency to please the man and adapt since there is no notion of the self.
You might enjoyOne of the most beautiful things of the Persephone archetype, that can be worked, is the capacity of helping people who still don’t have a good relationship with the deeper layers of their being. Persephone learns how to move between the two worlds. And some people can even experience this mature Persephone without going through her more immature stages.
Her capacities of flexibility and receptiveness must be cultivated by many women.
On the other side, the women who have a strong immature Persephone must commit with themselves and be truly independent as a passage ritual for a mature self.
The Goddess archetypes is a complex tool and must be used carefully. We hope this article was a good first overview and awakens your spirit to find more answers about your inner goddesses, or challenges, but also your potency.
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