The Explorer | 12 Jungian Archetypes Self-Portrait Series
The 12 Archetypes of personality, chosen by Carl Jung, are the foundations for characters in movies, literature, art, and the life where we live and breathe. They represent behavior patterns, cultural symbols and images of the collective unconscious. In this series, I am exploring all 12 of the archetypes through self-portraits and embodying each as I understand them within myself. I think the more time we spend with ourselves, the more we realize how multi-dimensional we are. This has been an incredible experiment for me as I have come to understand which archetypes I align with the most and which were difficult for me to “become”. Along with the portraits, I have included a playlist that represents each personality. I hope you enjoy this playful exploration!
The Explorer seeks to find themselves within the world by traveling, learning new information, and reveling in anything that is novel. They tend to be perfectionistic and restless as they are never satisfied and constantly looking for something new. I resonate with the Explorer very strongly.
I am currently living abroad and find immense pleasure in traveling. Sometimes this desire to always want to be somewhere new or be learning something new can be to my detriment, I learn an incredible amount about myself and the world but also end up alienating myself from my friends and my family. It is difficult to build community if I am always on the go, with my eyes to the road ahead and never looking back.
During this pandemic, this archetype has taken on a new form for me. Since it is no longer an option to move at the whim of my restlessness, I have taken to exploring the depths of my brain. I am working on expanding it in any way possible through reading, meditation, hypnosis. I want to understand my interior landscape and look at this time as the gift to do so. Not every journey has to involve an airplane, or a car, or taking steps forward, sometimes the journey is simply staying put and observing where my mind goes when our body cannot.
Motto:
Don’t fence me in
Core desire:
The freedom to find out who you are through exploring the world
Goal:
To experience a better, more authentic, more fulfilling life
Biggest fear:
Getting trapped, conformity, and inner emptiness
Strategy:
Journey, seeking out and experiencing new things, escape from boredom
Weakness:
Aimless wandering, becoming a misfit
Talent:
Autonomy, ambition, being true to one’s soul
The explorer is also known as: The seeker, iconoclast, wanderer, individualist, pilgrim.
