Have you ever felt torn between the need for control and the desire for freedom?
In the journey of personal growth, many of us grapple with an inner conflict – a battle between the rigid demands of the ego and the gentle whispers of the soul. This struggle, often unseen, shapes our daily choices, relationships, and overall emotional wellness.
In this deeply personal exploration, we delve into the world of psychological archetypes, inspired by the teachings of Carl Jung, to uncover how two opposing forces within us – represented as Arabelle and Angelina – can coexist and even collaborate. Whether you’re seeking mindfulness, balance, or self-discovery, this story offers insights into harmonising your inner world for a richer, more fulfilling life.
It is a great relief to give myself permission to be a human being and not a machine. Before I learned about archetypes, I surmised that there were at least two people at war within me. Recently, after much negotiation, these enemies mustered an uneasy truce. To my surprise, this is slowly maturing into a healthy alliance.
ARABELLA: THE INNER TASKMASTER
Meet the fierce taskmaster, the bully, and the critic – I call her Arabella, and I see her as the nasty little girl in the nursery rhyme – remember the one with the ‘curl in the middle of her forehead' and ‘when she was good she was very, very good, but when she was bad she was horrid!' Well, my Arabella can frequently be spotted stamping her feet indignantly. Arabella wants things her way, and always just so. She is the punctual one, the tidy one, the reliable one, the organised one, the one who likes to be in control – of herself and others too. She is hell-bent on achieving the maximum number of tasks in the minimum amount of time. She concerns herself with opinions, achievements, judgements, accuracy, and appearances. She is unnerved by untidiness, unreliability, delays, and disorder. Arabella climbs relentlessly towards a hazy ‘first prize' somewhere up a very long ladder, the end of which is out of sight.
Arabella has always lived inside me, and for much of my life, she has ruled my inner kingdom. Arabella is content to mope all day about a broken doorknob, a spelling error, a missed appointment, or a lost garment. She is angriest when things go wrong, and there is no one to blame but herself. Like the time she yanked the price tag off a new T-shirt, ripping it apart in the process! Or the time she installed a new washing machine herself without reading the manual and failed to remove the transport fittings. (In case you’re wondering, the machine hops about like a jackrabbit when you try to operate it this way and yes, permanent damage is inevitable.)
If anyone nearby bears an inkling of responsibility for error, they too receive the full momentum of her wrath. Those who live with Arabella are very, very afraid of her!
Arabella is uneasy about being still or spending time in contemplation. On closer inspection and with eyes of compassion, one might see that she is a frightened little girl who finds safety in rules. Her power is rooted in anxiety.
Having described Arabella, I must introduce you to her sparring partner, Angelina. But before that, I need to tell you about the dream that helped me to change.
THE DREAM: A REVELATION OF INNER CONFLICT
A few years ago, I dreamt that I was captured by a fearsome stranger, and we moved from home to home like a pair of gypsies. I was uncertain whether this tyrant was a man or a woman, but for the purposes of this story, I will refer to her as female.
The kidnapper forced all sorts of people to accommodate us. I was terrified of this person who seemed all-knowing and all-powerful to me, but when I think about it now, I realise that I seldom saw her. She did not harm me physically but still evoked dread in me – the kind of feeling Jack must have had when the Giant woke from his sleep and began roaring.
She was a forbidding presence, and I felt powerless to escape her hold. One day, unbeknown to my confiner, she brought me to stay in my own home! I was now living with my husband and children but unable to acknowledge our family relationship at all or take up any of my usual activities in the home. I still ‘belonged' to my captor, and she was unaware of the irony of my position.
In the dream, my family did not recognise me. I felt disenfranchised but knew that staying quiet and obedient was my safest option. This situation was sweet torture. Although I was living beside those I loved most dearly, I could show them no affection. I restrained myself from conducting more than the barest conversation with them for fear of raising the omniscient kidnapper’s suspicions. I had no authority or freedom whatsoever. I could see my children growing and changing before my eyes, but I could not embrace them, kiss them good night, or stroke their faces while they slept. I could not prepare their favourite foods, attend to their grazes or fevers, and I could not play with them, read to them, or speak of my love. My husband was a distant image, not the intimate soulmate I longed for him to be and ached to hold.
That is where the dream ended, but its images would not leave me. I was disturbed by this dormant experience of fear, suppression, and complete lack of presence in my own home and with those I loved. Finally, I sat down and wrote out all my associations to the dream to try and make helpful sense of it. That is when I recognised Angelina for the first time. These are the conclusions that rang truest for me.
INTERPRETING THE DREAM: UNCOVERING THE SELF
Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist famous for developing the archetype concept, saw dreaming as a natural event that is potentially creative and liberating. People are similar enough to experience common themes while dreaming, but some of our dream characters are best understood as expressing various aspects of ourselves.³ In his much-loved work The Road Less Travelled, M Scott Peck, psychiatrist and writer, further describes the way the unconscious can produce a drama that elucidates the cause of our problems through the use of symbols, as elegantly as an accomplished playwright.⁴ In addition, Thomas Moore, monk turned writer, identifies the ‘little people' of the soul/psyche and how they interrelate – the policeman of the soul, for example, runs after the thief of the soul.⁵
Considering all this, I concluded that in my dream the house represented my life, and the kidnapper symbolised the bully of my soul – Arabella! That perfectionist aspect of the ego, a driven force motivated to act for peripheral concerns, was making them all-important. She was drowning out the dulcet tones of my deeper self with her excessive stipulations. My husband and children represented my real desire to connect intimately with key people in my life and to taste the ‘forbidden fruit' of an emotionally rich and satisfying existence. It astonished me to realise that the captor was part of myself and that I had allowed ego to make a prisoner out of me. It was time to allow my soul more freedom and say.
For I truly longed to put away the never-ending list of things to do, places to clean, and people to see… and hold my children, listen to their discoveries, walk in the moonlight with my lover, have a drink with my friends in the twilight, write my stories, play my songs, read late into the night – live a little in Angelina’s domain. Yet she had been as effectively snuffed out by terror of Arabella, as if she were dead.
ANGELINA: THE SOULFUL ARTIST
I have learned something of Angelina’s nature now. She’s a sensual artist. She loves to lie in the dark and listen to the lingering, evocative strains of the cello. She will sometimes rise early and slip outside to smell the damp air and see the pink streaks of the clouds as the last stars disappear.
She likes to dance when no one’s looking; to lie on the bed in the middle of the afternoon and fall into a deep, guiltless slumber. She’s happy to scribble away her thoughts for hours with coloured pens. Books are her friends.
Angelina loves to smell coffee and taste chocolate and strawberries and fresh orange juice; cinnamon and lemon pancakes; creamy avocados and hot chilli pasta. She loves the season of sleeveless shirts and sunshine on her back, but also the crackling blaze of a winter fire. Angelina wants to sing old gospel songs to her baby girl every night, holding her like a mother bear and swaying until her warm, curly head drops and lolls contentedly onto her shoulder in sleep. She wishes to make up stories of dragons and dinosaurs and princes and castles for her boy children and sit with them as they experience the wonders of Superman, the fierceness of Captain Hook, and the delights of Tom and Jerry.
She relishes lying awake in the still, early hours of the morning listening to her husband’s steady breathing until she senses he has woken too, and then talk some. Angelina dreams of sitting on the beach and losing all track of time as the waves sweep in. She sniffs the perfume of a sleeping baby left in her blankets and the smell of pregnant African raindrops as they burst on hot, dry soil, and the fragrance energises her. She smiles and sighs at the sound of happy chatter and laughter – the kind that soothed her to sleep from a distance when she was a child. She finds soft, sumptuous fabrics that swish across her skin irresistible, and she surrounds herself with warm, cheering, vibrant colours – ochre and russet, gold and purple. She is captivated by quirky pictures and big, wooden boxes that smell like secrets.
THE PARTNERSHIP OF EGO AND SOUL
What is to become of the tormentor, you may ask? I must concede that Arabella has her place. Without her, Angelina could not survive. She orders Angelina’s environment, and her mettle is well suited to all those thankless but necessary tasks that bring about comfort and progress, like burping babies and servicing the car. Arabella pays the bills, supervises homework, and cooks for the family when Angelina has lost enthusiasm!
It seems that both are necessary, and both need to be heard. Then, mysteriously, they push and tug opposite each other, generating the tension needed for an expressive existence. Or as Clarissa Pinkola Estés, the Jungian psychoanalyst and keeper of stories, puts it: ‘The power shifts away from brickabrack and frick-frack to soulfulness.'⁶
Nowadays, when I love myself enough, I consult Arabella and Angelina about seemingly good ideas. I permit the wisdom of both in my response that is sometimes yes and sometimes no.
Editor’s Note: Im sure you will enjoy the article Fall and Rise.
References:
- Burgess R. A Little Book of Dreams. Kansas City: Ariel Books; 1996.
- Scott Peck M. The Road Less Travelled. Great Britain: Hutchinson; 1983.
- Moore T. Soul Mates. New York: Harper Collins; 1994.
- Pinkola Estés C. Women Who Run with the Wolves. New York: Ballantine Books; 1992.
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