The Prodigal Inner Child Returns.

As a kid I had always wanted to write a book. I loved books like; Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, Eragon. My grades on the other hand never reflected any ability to be able to write, school was challenging for me. C’s got me my degrees, but reflecting now, the schooling system never fit my personality type.

Later I began reading more non-fiction that generated inspiration within me to create change within myself. Finding change within myself made me want to help those around me, teaching others what I was learning. My inner child poked and prodded at me, telling me “you can do that!” I always threw back a non-committal, “yea… maybe one day.”

Entering college I still carried no intellectual confidence. I feigned an intellectual persona, always sitting quietly, listening deeply, it was easier to listen when you were always afraid of saying something stupid.

This was until I learned about the morning pages the second semester of my freshmen year in english.

The Morning pages is a daily ritual in which you write non stop for a selected amount of time. You cannot let your fingers stop moving on the keyboard or your pen cannot stop moving on the page. It’s an exercise to silence the inner critic, the ego, the one that always wishes for correction and the one that keeps you quiet when all you want to do is speak up.

As a freshman I practiced these pages early in the mornings in my four person dorm room. I was the first one up at 5:30am. I clicked my mini desk light on, listened to my roommates turn away in their beds from the light, and I would write three pages in my college rule notebook before leaving for ballet at 6:30am.

After that english class ended I never wanted to stop. 90% of the time I wrote I found incredible insights about me, life, the world and the people around me. If I didn’t write it became a 0% chance to find these insights from 5:30-6:00am in the morning. If I didn’t write I’d feel like I didn’t go through my daily stretches. I just didn’t have as good a day than if I would have done it. So I just kept going. My ideas became uniquely my own. My subconscious mind was being pulled into the conscious, physical, tangible world that was my college rule notebook. I was far more intellectual than I thought I was, and I found a medium to express that to myself.

I was sweating profusely in the sauna at my local YMCA. My mind was working through the 12 Jungian archetypes and future casting. I was working out what my next steps would be, making certain it involved my vocation as an actor, or as I like to call myself, a spiritual medium.

I also know that I won’t be improving in my craft unless I’m actively practicing. Theory does not equal action, it’s the idea of the action before the action is taken. Action will tell you what theory can’t.

My mind began to visualize embarking on a project to create one character per month based off each archetype.

Then thinking; I should be putting intentional study into the archetypes and psychology of these archetypes while I do this. It’ll be the only way to craft intentional human beings.

Proceeding into; well if I’m going about doing all of this work, why not write a book about it?

A light bulb went off. It had been 6 years writing my morning pages. I thought back to the billions of words I had written in that time from a countless number of mornings (2190 mornings). Probably naively, I knew I could write a book. I knew I could write a book if I took my time and allowed myself the actions to take on the concepts of the book itself. To run the ultramarathon, instead of lifting a large amount of weight one time.

As a 25 year old, wouldn’t it be wise to instead of reading theory, take action to rewrite/write new theory thus beginning my long path toward changing and awakening the collective consciousness of the world now as opposed to later? I felt so.

So… I now embark on a year long curiosity excursion for myself and share my insights found on a path toward self improvement, acting, character development, and a hero’s journey.

Jungian Psychology, A Highly Recommended Compendium for Storytellers.

The concept of Jungian Psychology and archetypes came to me from a few friends. I was working on the show Machinal by Sophie Treadwell, and she put into the page these archetypes. The everyman, the outlaw, the lover, the innocent, the caregiver. She used basic ideologies; Man, Man 1, Man 2, Husband, Mother, Young Girl, Girl, Woman…etc. So part of my work playing the lead male was to head into archetypical work. He’s a lover, he’s an outlaw, he plays by his own rules, but is also an explorer as well. I could discover these and I could play these parts while in the show and how they show up within their relationships.

I asked for help from my friends, and one offered me a few podcasts to listen to, and there was a podcast about Goddesses in Everywoman, and Gods in Everyman by Jean Shinoda Bolen. This led me down the path of ancient greek mythology and the archetypes of these characters. This rabbit hole opened up for me to jump down Carl Jung’s 12 archetypes:

-The Innocent

-Everyman

-Hero

-Outlaw

-Explorer

-Creator

-Ruler

-Magician

-Lover

-Caregiver

-Jester

-Sage

Ever since working on Machinal I continued to wonder how I can further utilize these archetypes in future work. As I thought about this, I began noticing more and more how archetypes were showing up in the modern world. Movies, press tours, social media. Archetypes were constantly at play. Archetypes easily communicate a message as it is supported through psychological pattern recognition. The subconscious of the viewer knows what it’s viewing based off the archetype. So there’s a further curiosity in how these archetypes currently play out in mainstream media as well as upcoming forms of storytelling.

Utilizing Archetypes in a Story Driven Communicative World.

Archetypes are used consistently throughout media and were practiced since the birth of communication. Actors need an objective understanding in archetypes and how they’re played out through cinema, social media, and all storytelling.

Archetypes offer an outstanding resource of language. Being able to find patterns in character psyche will help you to locate weak points as well as strengths to identify what was just seen. For work that is in process, archetypes can help to grow a piece of work to help better communicate to an audience. It’s the generalization that has many threads to pull from. Pull from one and you’ll go down the path of intentionality, a path you intended the audience to see to begin with.

Archetypes set our camp at the bottom of the mountain. It’s only the beginning to the winding, windy, and wet climb to come. Archetypes become our guides to the adventure of the story we’re traveling down and becomes the setting to why we’re here in the first place.

This can be utilized to the artist as well when they begin their craft. Beginning with Archetypes gives you doors to enter to continue exploring further the truth of your character.

We all have desire to be someone/something different, therefore, apply that to your character. You’re character probably also reads, or watches movies, or scrolls through social media. The desire to be someone, or something else is prevalent in the human psyche. We seek novelty and evolution. Play into the journey of adaptation. The desired change into an ideal archetype, but contrast with the necessary change that will inevitably occur for your character.

The arc of the character becomes increasingly clear as the hero’s journey itself is a large cycle of:

Preparation: The problems, discomfort, desire and initial push toward the change.

Journey: The adventure, travels, more problems and discomfort, the dragon, the biggest hurdle, the success or success through failure, and learning the lesson/obtaining the gift.

Return: With lessons learned, reward in hand, there is a return, a teaching/giving back, and a change to the inner and/or the outer world.

The stories don’t end there though, footage or words may end, but we keep living on, and we ignite the new journey with a new preparation.

I think there’s plenty value for anyone to take a look at these archetypes and how they reveal themselves in life, because it’s been a part of the conversation since telling stories around a campfire.

What characters do you gravitate toward? How do these people make you feel? Do you ever feel like making changes in your life when you watch these characters traverse through their journey? To what archetype might you be wishing to alchemize yourself into?

These of course are all questions that I personally have, and want to continue discovering for myself as I continue within this journey.

The Work of August.

In my next newsletter on July 31 (11:00am EST) I will be announcing the Archetype that I will be working on throughout the month. I will be sharing as much information as I’ve gained and will be creating work that best expresses the Archetype in question.

Stay tuned in and ready to go, because we’re going to be launching and going ALL IN on the work of this book, this spiritual, physical, and mental journey, and a self inflicted acting masterclass!

Hopefully if your joining along it might become part of your journey as well toward intrinsic and positive change.

See you soon

Much love today and everyday,

Matt Piper 🐅🌱