There are several ways to discover your dominant archetypes:

• Pattern recognition: What roles do you naturally play? What stories captivate you?
• Examine attractions: Which archetypes do you admire in others? These often reflect your own aspirations.
• Notice rejections: Which archetypes annoy or repel you? Often shadow material.
• Intuitive reading: A skilled advisor can perceive your archetypal makeup—often seeing what you can't.

Most people have 2-3 dominant archetypes, with others playing supporting roles.

You can't entirely choose your archetypes—they're inherited patterns—but you can:

• Develop underdeveloped archetypes: Consciously cultivate energies that are weak in your life
• Balance over-dominant ones: If one archetype is running your life, intentionally activate others
• Transform shadow to light: Shift shadow expressions to healthy expressions
• Honor life stage shifts: Different archetypes naturally emerge at different ages

The goal isn't to become someone else but to express your archetypes more fully and consciously.

Every archetype has both light and shadow expressions. Shadow work with archetypes involves:

• Recognizing when your archetypes have "gone dark" (Hero becomes Tyrant, etc.)
• Reclaiming rejected archetypes that have gone into your personal shadow
• Understanding which shadow archetypes run unconscious programs in your life
• Transforming shadow expressions back into healthy, conscious expression

Archetypal awareness makes shadow work more precise—you know exactly what you're working with.

Personality types (Myers-Briggs, Enneagram) describe:

• How you process information and make decisions
• Relatively stable patterns developed in this lifetime
• Individual differences within humanity

Archetypes describe:

• Universal, inherited patterns shared by all humans
• Deeper mythic and symbolic layers of the psyche
• Dynamic energies that shift throughout life
• Both light and shadow expressions

They're complementary frameworks. Personality types = the "how" of your psychology. Archetypes = the mythic "what."

Yes! Your dominant archetypes often point toward your calling:

• Hero: Called to overcome challenges, protect others, demonstrate courage
• Sage: Called to seek truth, share wisdom, teach and guide
• Creator: Called to bring vision into form, innovate, express beauty
• Caregiver: Called to nurture, heal, tend to others' wellbeing
• Magician: Called to transform, facilitate change, make dreams real

Understanding your archetypal makeup helps clarify not just what you should DO, but what energy you're here to EMBODY.