Warrior, Magician, Lover, King

by Rod Boothroyd

Resilience

  Every good Sovereign will inevitably face challenges of one kind or another in life. As we all know, “Shit happens.” Resilience is the key to surviving this: resilience is the ability to take the hits and keep bouncing back, as optimistic as ever.

  Truth is, no matter how well prepared you might be to lead, no matter how much authority you might have, and no matter how much you might embody the qualities of the Sovereign, “Shit happens.” What, then, can we do to develop our resilience in the face of everything the world can throw at us, whether expected or unexpected?

  My view of resilience is that it emerges from inside you when you discover you can overcome adversity successfully by using your own resources. Does this mean that to be a Sovereign you must face adversity and overcome it? Possibly.

  At the very least it means you must have enough resources to be able to respond to adversity with the conviction that everything will be alright, that you will survive, and that you will rebound from your wounds with a stronger self-esteem and more wisdom rather than a wounded heart full of resentment.

  An Elder who I knew for a few years before he died, and who I respected greatly, drove his family mad by repeating the expression “strength through adversity” every time someone faced a problem. But I see the truth in this. I see it as a process akin to making steel, where forged steel is reheated in the crucible and emerges tempered into something much stronger. I believe we too can be forged into stronger material in the crucible of adversity simply because we learn what we are capable of, how strong we are.

  Of course it’s easy to say these things, and perhaps not quite so easy to live them! And those of you with little or no experience of sovereignty or leadership may well need some kind of training and support.

  So at the end of this chapter I’ve offered some suggestions about how you might develop your sovereignty. But before we go there, let’s look at the emotional wounding in this quarter and the shadows of the Sovereign which result from that wounding.

  The Emotional Wound in the Sovereign Quarter

  The emotional wound here is the wound of being told or shown that you are not good enough.

  The average child is given thousands of opportunities to learn he’s not good enough. The most obvious is constant criticism, either overtly or covertly. Overt criticism is obvious: “What did you do that for? Why did you do that? Can’t you do it any better? If only you’d tried harder! You’re useless…” You know the kind of thing, maybe.

  Covert criticism comes in a million little pinpricks of insult, comments, poking fun, humiliations, and minor criticisms – or simply a lack of any praise – all of which diminishes rather than builds a child’s self esteem. Regardless of how the message is delivered, the child senses its meaning – “You are simply not good enough.” Or, more likely, “You are not good enough to be loved / to be accepted / to be liked / to be one of us.” What might have been he message you received in your own family?

  A caring parent who is wise enough to know how essential a strong sense of self-worth is in living a fulfilling life and achieving success will provide their son or daughter with plenty of positive support and encouragement. That’s the kind of feedback which both supports his developing self-esteem and allows him room to grow and develop as a person in his own right.

  Good feedback acknowledges and blesses a child’s developing skills and knowledge. Such positive support encourages the growth of a child’s Sovereign, but there is another essential element of support: giving a child clear boundaries. These promote an internal sense of safety and security.

  A child who is blessed for what he does and who is provided with clear boundaries can internalize these positive messages. As he does so, he learns to manage his own life in a way that will serve him and, hopefully, allow him to serve the world.

  When his parents gradually increase his responsibility, and support him as he begins to achieve more and more, he will learn how to express his power and authority in the world. As he does so, he gradually develops more and more sovereignty.

  In essence, when a child experiences success he learns he is good enough and his sovereign energy grows. Sure, he may be unable to lead in all areas but he knows he can shine in many ways. And that in itself can be good enough.

  However, when the opposite is true, and a child learns he is not good enough, perhaps not good enough to meet his parents’ expectations, or those of his teachers, friends or family, the wounding can be profound. He internalizes failure, not success. His self-image becomes one of “I can’t” rather than “I can”. One of “I won’t even try. I’ll fail. I have nothing to offer.”

  Sadly for many children, the message they internalize is “I am nothing. I am worth nothing. I count for nothing.”

  I believe most people are wounded in this way to some degree, and most of us never recover from it. Yet because the wound and all that flows from it is held in the unconscious, where all our shadows are repressed and denied, you may not even know about it unless you set out to find it.

  This is the Sovereign wound: anything which leaves you with a belief that you are not good enough to be the Sovereign in your own world. You may not feel it or know it, but it plays out, whether you are aware of it or not, in the way you present yourself in the world.

  A belief that your achievements count for little or nothing. An unfelt sense of low self-worth which you act out all the time. You don’t want to be seen; you don’t deserve to be heard. You have nothing to offer, everywhere or in some particular areas of life. The specifics vary, the principle is the same: this is the wound of low-self worth, low self-confidence, low self-esteem.

  The Sovereign wound seems to be the most widespread archetypal wound of all, for there are very few true Sovereigns in our world today. If you look around the current political, social, economic, environmental and business worlds you will be hard pressed to find many men and women who lead with power and dignity, with authority tempered by wisdom and discernment.

  Instead, we see adolescent boy-men elected to political leadership, boy-men who are manifestly unsuited to govern, put in positions of assumed authority by those who project their own sovereign energy onto these no-hopers.

  The Sovereign wound is a wound which shows itself in many ways. An obvious one is perfectionism. You see, perfectionism is simply a form of trying hard to be good enough. Unfortunately, when being good enough means being perfect, you’re doomed to failure. Even if we were able to define what perfection means, how could anyone ever achieve it? Surely, it’s impossible to be perfect? The truth is we can only ever be “good enough”. And to appreciate that you are good enough is all that’s required of a Sovereign. This means to be good enough for the task at hand. To be good enough for ruling your kingdom as it is.

  But what, you may say, is good enough? In practice, good enough means knowing you can lead with authority, feeling confident as you do so. It’s an internal sense of authority, knowing the rightness of your leadership, knowing you can lead (or if you prefer, since we are talking about the Sovereign here, “rule”) with wisdom and good judgement; knowing, in fact, that you are up to the job in every way.

  Another aspect of the Sovereign wound is a lack of resilience. We see this in someone who can’t take the inevitable hits which life throws at him, someone who comes back weaker, not stronger, from these hits.

  We all need resilience. There will always be people around us who are better or wiser than we are. There will always be people around us who simply want to take a pot shot at a Sovereign who’s showing up. We will all inevitably face criticism and we will all inevitably make mistakes.

  The mark of a strong Sovereign with a fundamentally strong sense of self-esteem and self-worth is that he will bounce back from these dips, knowing that he is indeed good enough to do the job and that he can continue to rule using all of his authority, wisdom and justice.

  Someone without resilience, who can’t take the hits and keep leading from the front, or someone w
ho doesn’t have the strength to lead from the front in the first place, is unlikely to feel good enough. And to the extent that a man does not feel good enough to be the Sovereign in his life, he will fail at what he’s doing.

  People with the most profound Sovereign wound are often children of parents who demanded more than they were ever able to provide.

  On one workshop a woman immediately recognized her Sovereign wound when the facilitator spoke about the idea of “never being good enough”. Her father, she observed, had always expected too much of her – more than she was capable of delivering.

  When she arrived home from school with a test result of 98%, instead of praising her for this achievement, his inevitable reaction would be to criticize her by saying: “If you’d worked harder you could have achieved 100%.” When the facilitator asked her what she thought might have satisfied her father, she paused for a moment and then said, “I think he’d have been satisfied if I’d become an astronaut.” She wasn’t joking. But the irony of her remark is that even then, he would not have been satisfied.

  So this is the Sovereign wound: no-one ever told you that you were good enough just the way you were.

  Sure, we all differ in our natural ability to cope with the demands that life makes of us. But given the right kind of encouragement, support and praise by our parents we all have the potential to develop a strong self-esteem and a powerful sense of self-worth. Sadly, a child’s self-esteem is a delicate thing, and so his sovereign energy needs careful nurturing to grow and develop into its fullness and maturity. That’s why all boys need a man they can look up to, a King who can offer them the consistent, clear, nurturing support of a father who understands what a Prince needs to develop naturally into a confident King.

  When sovereign energy goes into shadow it can inflate into a false act of grandiosity or deflate into a sense of worthlessness. And as with the other archetypes, someone with a strong shadow Sovereign will switch between the inflated and the deflated polarities.

  The Inflated Shadow: The Tyrant King

  The word “tyrant” speaks of dominance, the misuse of power, and the outright abuse of authority. And a tyrant King does indeed misuse his power. Instead of seeing others as his subjects, to be treated with benevolence, the tyrant King sees everyone as a threat to his authority.

  This vision of the world is a symptom of his narcissism. He believes he is the most important element of the universe and that everybody should serve him. Those who don’t are a threat to his position, to his assumed authority and supremacy.

  Underlying this viewpoint is a deep insecurity, an insecurity so profound that it causes him to lash out with physical, emotional or mental abuse at those whom he believes pose a threat to his authority and supremacy.

  Only by putting others in their place can he maintain his own illusion of authority. But at same time, the tyrant King doesn’t have any respect for others, merely seeing them as objects to exploit for his own ends. He will ruthlessly sacrifice people who might consider themselves to be under his protection, such as friends, family and employees, should he come to believe this is necessary to protect his own position. Another form of this is the man who achieves a position of power in the world of business or politics and then ruthlessly stabs in the back those who helped him reach that position.

  Consumed with arrogance, with a sense of entitlement which is quite unjustified in any way, the tyrant continues to scream and shout his demands, expecting them to be fulfilled by the sycophants around him who are incapable of asserting their own boundaries or saying “No” to him. In childhood those people were his misguided parents. In adulthood, they are the unfortunate people who try to serve him.

  Insecurity and low self-esteem bedevil the tyrant King. No matter what he achieves, it will never be enough to assuage the belief which eats away at the core of his being: the belief that he simply is not – and never will be – good enough. He may look powerful and confident, but it is all grandiosity, a falsehood, an act to cover up the deeply held feeling, the deeply held belief that he is not, and never can be, good enough.

  Such men rarely show up on self-development workshops, or emotional healing workshops, because to do so is to admit the unthinkable – that they are in need of help. But sometimes men in this state do come along, pressured to do so by their wives. They generally leave quite quickly, disparaging the process and denying they could benefit in any way.

  The Deflated Shadow:

  The Weakling King, The Abdicating King

  The passive, deflated shadow of the Sovereign archetype is the weakling King, the abdicating King. For some reason, a man may abdicate his throne. He hands over his sovereign power to others or allows others take it from him. And along with power goes his responsibility, authority and control of his life. A common form of this is the man who, even as an adult, allows his mother, father, wife, or family to make all his decisions for him.

  Maybe he never experienced power as a child, perhaps because he was raised by abusive or controlling parents. One way or another he was never given the chance to become responsible for his own well-being. And so, as an adult he may switch between the abdicating King, the passive or deflated shadow of the Sovereign, and the tyrant King, the active or inflated shadow, but in either case his insecurity always overcomes him.

  He may become paranoid that people are out to get him – which they often are, because he’s a fool and a jerk. He may become extremely controlling because he believes that’s the only way to maintain his authority.

  Moore and Gillette made the point that the tyrant and the weakling really work together. Every blustering tyrant hides a scared weakling, and every fearful weakling contains a tyrant waiting to explode.

  If you experienced wounding in this archetype as a child, there’s good news, however. No matter how severe your wounding may have been, there are ways in which you can develop your sovereign energy and generate the strength and confidence to lead in your own world. Here are some ideas about how you might achieve this.

  The Golden Shadow

  We tend to think of our shadow as a bad, dark thing, carrying the negative consequences of our emotional wounds. We saw above how the abdicating King and the tyrant King can indeed be the negative or dark shadows of the Sovereign archetype.

  Yet there’s another way to look at this: to consider the Golden qualities of the mature King, the King in his fullness, which we put into shadow. For we all put the positive aspects of ourselves which are not accepted by those around us into shadow just as adeptly as we stuff away the negative aspects of ourselves.

  Who heard such statements as these during childhood? “Don’t blow your own trumpet. Don’t get too big for your boots. Pride goes before a fall. Don’t get above yourself. They won’t like you if you stand out.” And so on… overtly or covertly, the message is clear: “Stay small.” “Don’t show your gold.” “Don’t think you are better than us.”

  And so your power, your confidence, your magnificence, your ability to lead, your integrity, your authenticity, your wisdom, your sense of justice, your capacity to strive for equality and fairness, your ability to bless others, your joy, your innate state of peace and balance, your vitality, your ability to hold the wounds of the kingdom, your ability to hold your own wounds, your acceptance of others as your equal, your celebration of humankind… all of these positive qualities, and many more, can form part of your unknown and unfelt Golden Shadow.

  Collectively your Golden Shadow is made up of the positive aspects of your Sovereign archetype which you haven’t expressed fully – or at all. Marianne Williamson wrote a powerful piece which you’ve probably heard or seen. It sums up the Golden Shadow.

  “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small do
es not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.”

  Working on your Golden Shadows and releasing what they hold into your awareness is just as important to becoming who you were always meant to be as working on your Dark Shadows and accepting them as a part of who you are. Let’s now take a look at some ways in which you can start to develop greater Sovereign energy and reclaim your natural birthright as a human being: the knowledge of who you were always meant to be before the world got in the way (and made you into someone else).

  How To Be A True Sovereign

  1 Mix With Other Sovereigns

  Men who are interested in achieving their full potential need to find a place where they can experience the power of their Sovereign archetype in a safe environment before taking it out into the world. Generally this means some kind of men’s group or a workshop where you can work on your shadow.

  The level of support and trust generated in these groups or workshops between the men who come with the desire to move into their power can be quite extraordinary. It’s a real contrast to the competitive, dog-eat-dog way of behaving that some men display in the world at large.

  There’s another aspect to the workshop setting which is very important for encouraging sovereignty: men work together in an environment of trust and safety. This allows them to learn from each other, to discuss together what it means to be in Sovereign, and to get ideas about how they might take sovereign energy back into the reality of their lives.

  And yes, theory has to be turned into reality in the world, but these groups act as a kind of reference point, home base, or solid anchor – use whichever metaphor you like – which show a man how he can be the Sovereign he wants to be in his life. For details of such workshops see the resources section of this book.