The Reflective Spirit

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE REFLECTIVE ARCHETYPE

• Believes life is a story
• Takes nothing for granted
• Feels compelled to consider the story, take it apart in a constructive way, and put it back together in the same or in a different way
• Accepts nothing at face value
• Thinks through ideas, problems, and observes until nothing is left untouched
• Uses intellectual probing, prolonged thinking and sustained analysis
• Searches for causes, reasons, accounts, and the way all things work
• Offers alternatives in terms of ideas, images, schemes and ways of being and doing

  Asks questions:
  

  1. What is this about?
  2. What does this mean?
  3. Why are things put together this way and not that way?
  4. What is it trying to tell me?
  5. How do you know this?

QUESTIONS TO DETERMINE IF, WHEN, AND WHY THE REFLECTIVE SPIRIT SPEAKS TO YOU

1. Do you understand, deep inside, that life is a story?
2. Do you want to hear the story?
3. Do you ask of anything and everything, “What story is this story about?”
4. Do you want to know the meaning of the story? What’s going on?
5. Do you feel compelled to pull things apart to see what the components are and then how they fit together? Have you done this? What were the circumstances?
6. Do you look and listen for alternatives?