A Woman Who Hates Boxes Talks About Archetypes
It was in an old-fashioned house, surrounded by tartan everything, at the age of seventeen and watched over closely by an elderly Scottish man, when I found out what I was.
My parents had heard of him through the grapevine of other parents like them with indecisive, angsty teenagers. He must have been certified in Myers Briggs, but I was not aware nor interested in his credentials as I excitedly filled out a very long multiple choice quiz about myself.
I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but I was all in. I would describe myself as someone who has struggled with the bigger questions in life since I was small. Here, finally, I would locate myself on a map of humanity and find clarity – in this case, about my career – in a way that my boring, consistent grades couldn’t offer.
The nice Scottish man gave a lively presentation about personality, career, and the importance of figuring these things out early. I found myself lost in his lilting accent, one of two things that stuck with me from our meeting (he truly changed my life, just not in the way he intended). Then the lengthy test, and then finally, the results.
First was the “I”, indisputably introverted, in fact, with a towering 82%, just like my latest French midterm.
I was unsurprised, considering I had three friends in high school and spent most of my time in the woodwind section. “N”, almost terrifyingly intuitive, relying on my gut in an astounding 85% of cases, for better or worse. Then, “T”, a marginal thinker at best coming in around 60%. Finally, a “J” was produced, this one right on the cusp like my father who is both Gemini and Cancer and proud of it. 52%.
Quiet, diligent, instinctive, logical, orderly. A list of university degrees and careers was produced in the fields of science, business, administration. I was glued to my findings for a week, looking for myself inside each sentence and between each line. I tried to imagine myself behind a microscope, or pointing out findings on graphs with a certainty I wasn’t sure I possessed. I could almost see it.
I followed up with the kindly Scottish man a week later and he asked how I felt about the results. I said they rang true, but he must have felt that aura of dizzying disarray that still hangs around me to this day. He was quiet, thoughtful. He made me tea. He said, “After high school, maybe you should travel. You should visit Scotland, where I’m from. I think you would like it there.” He patted his little spaniel on the head and gazed wistfully at a painting of what I later recognized in real life as the castle called Eilean Donan.
Little more than a year later, my tour bus turned the corner, and there she was in the mists, just like the painting, and I remembered that this man was the reason I was here. I had honestly forgotten. I had convinced myself that Scotland was a random choice I made based on countries where English is spoken. One of those magical moments in life that carries a gravity so strong that words cannot express.
Boxes, and how to get out of them
I’m still a bit of a lost soul, to be honest with you. I did Myers Briggs quizzes a few more times, consistently I and N, but coming out as any combination of INTJ, INTP, INFJ, and INFP. What’s a girl to do with results like that? I was even gifted the corresponding book Do What You Are, and found it insightful but ultimately unhelpful as a wayfinder. What am I? I found myself asking, a bizarre question echoed during a recent magic mushroom experience where I started laughing maniacally and said, “The concept of a Brittany is so absurd right now! What is a Brittany?” It’s a question I will continue asking to my grave. The same thing happened with the Enneagram and other typing strategies. Always a bit of a gray area, I am.
It is not lost on me that I work with archetypes now. The purpose of archetypes is one that I tussle with mentally and emotionally. Most of the time, I find that archetypes are presented as a nice fold-out cardboard box you can step right into. “There you are! Just the right size!” Obviously, I’m not the kind of person who willingly subscribes to this perspective, which leaves me at a loss. The more I talk to people and work inside of, around, and through these structures that mean so much to me, the more I realize we’re all a gray area.
It also feels true to me that we have within us an essence that is eternal.
Your essence is eternal.
So here’s where I’ve landed. You don’t have to get out of a box, because you were never in one. You can be whatever you want to be, do whatever you feel called to do, in the way that feels good for you. What if, rather than a box, an archetype is a guiding light in a dark storm, a story that feels like it was written specifically for you, or a sudden burst of empathy for another person? What if the magic of archetypes happens when you meet someone who has been thinking about, and experiencing, the same things as you? What if archetypes are bigger than us, and we are also bigger than them? It’s ok if it doesn’t always fit nicely.
Your inner Adventurer calls
The first time I did a Jungian archetype quiz, it was a silly fifteen-question thing that produced a cabin-themed colour palette. But there was something about the Adventurer archetype that resonated. I pulled out my various Myers Briggs results and looked at them in a new way.
Yes, I am orderly, sometimes, I thought. And sometimes I’m chaotic. Sometimes I’m generous and I feel things deeply, but I’m good at walking into the unknown alone with my mind as my greatest ally. Inquisitiveness, unfocused ambition, independence, discomfort, insatiable curiosity – these things, I have come to recognize, form a lens that I can’t help but see the world through, a muscle that works without me trying.
I’m not a colour palette, nor am I a list of strong Adventurer marketing strategies. I’m not even “a Brittany”. I am me, and that is an incredibly complex soup. So are you. You’re an Adventurer too, at certain times of your life. How you adventure, the tools you take on the journey, and why you go, is probably different from me. And that connection between us, which simultaneously marks us as unique from one another, feels profound, doesn’t it?
Language is freeing, but it is also confining. Words told to you can feel like a prison, but words that come from you expand your experience of self. As a complex soup, we owe it to ourselves to use tools like archetypes as an invitation to step into and explore what we feel is already there. Especially the parts that prove to be utterly wordless. To witness where we are, how far we have come, and the beauty of how we navigate this troubled and glorious world.
My goal with archetypes is to make people feel the way I did when I saw Eilean Donan in the mists, and the way I felt when, fuelled by magical fungi, I laughed so genuinely at the absurdity of my own identity, an identity that suddenly felt like a suit I simply don in order to exist in the world.
There is a very real certainty and release in admitting that you don’t know, and in enjoying not knowing. There is a feeling of coming home when you recognize that who I am may be impacted by when I am. In these moments, you surrender to something far greater than you. Something strong, something eternal and larger than an ocean. It exists inside you, this self. And it’s worth loving. It’s worth conjuring so that you can add more of your magic to this world.
Brittany Veenhuysen is a writer and co-founder of BrandPsyche. With a BA in English and a philosophical lens, she uses strategic storytelling to connect entrepreneurial folk with people they love to serve.