I just [finally] finished reading Carolyn Myss’s Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential.

In her previous works, Myss, a self-described medical intuitive, has posted that failure to understand your life’s purpose can manifest as mental or physical illness (depression, anxiety, disease). She wrote this book with the intent of helping others discover their own Sacred Contract, by which she means the theory that our souls enter into a “contract” before birth wherein we agree to have various experiences and encounter certain people in order to learn lessons. Discovering your Sacred Contract would presumably answer the age-old question: What is my life’s purpose?

In Myss’s system, “archetypes are your energy guides to your highest potential–the fulfillment of… your Sacred Contract.” She thinks of archetypes in the Jungian sense–as patterns of intelligence and energy that appear in people’s thoughts and feelings across cultures. Myss believes that each of us have approximately 12 archetypes operating in our lives, and that identifying these archetypes will enable us to make sense of the various aspects of our life’s purpose.

Four of these archetypes are the same for everyone–the Child, the Victim, the Prostitute, and the Saboteur. These are the archetypes of survival, and they represent the major challenges we’ll face in our lives.

1. The Child, which Myss calls the Guardian of Innocence, is one of the most powerful archetypical patterns and (obviously) relates to issues from our childhoods. The Child could manifest as the Orphan Child, the Wounded Child, the Innocent Child, the Playful Child, or any number of forms.
2. The Victim is the Guardian of Self-Esteem. The Victim is at play when you don’t get what you want, when you’re a bused, when you’re punished for something you didn’t do, when you’re afraid to stand up for yourself, or when you seek out others’ sympathy.
3. The Prostitue, the Guardian of Faith, actually has little to do with sex. The Prostitute emerges when yor survival is threatened. Have you ever lied to your boss and said you liked his ideas when you didn’t because being honest could threaten your job? Did you ever pretend to be nice to someone in school just to get invited to their slumber party? That was the Prostitute.
4. The Saboteur is the Guardian of Choice, and reflects your fear of taking responsibility for yourself and for what you create. The Saboteur is operating when you say that you want to lose weight but make unhealthy eating choices anyway, or when you respond to a compliment from a loved one by discounting what they’ve just said (”My hair? I just think it looks horrible! I threw it up in a rush and it’s an absolute mess.).

Your other archetypes are particular to you. Myss provides an extensive list of archetypes in an appendix, and you identify your additional eight patterns by conducting an in-depth examination of events and people in your life. (Mine were Aphrodite, the Storyteller, the Heroine, the Perfectionist, Athena, the Seeker, the Chameleon, and the Addict.) Once you’ve identified your full set of 12 archetypes, you fit them into a wheel numbered with the signs of the zodiac. The Wheel can then be used to analyze your relationships with people and your past experiences in order to reveal the details of your Sacred Contract.

This book is for you if you enjoy a long, slow, deep, and thorough read; are comfortable with and open to “new age” spirituality, including the Indian chakra system and astrology; and enjoy exercises that include extensive writing and visualization.

This book is not for you if you’re looking for a quick and straightforward answer; prefer either non-religious or strictly religious materials; and don’t enjoy time-consuming introspective exercises.

I’d give it a C- overall. The book was just not my style. It was too bulky, required too much time and imagination, and didn’t really result in any new revelations about myself or my purpose. However, I think a different person might have had a different experience with it. If you’d like to borrow it, let me know…

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