Rory is a Relationship Researcher from London, England. With over 30 years of focused study, Rory’s findings have brought clarity and understanding to thousands of people, in over 25 countries, all impacted by the mystery and confusion of relationships. Rory delivers his findings via Live workshops, online study groups and coaching programs, and soon to be published books.
Rory’s mission is simple, ‘to help people see more clearly, so they can navigate their lives and relationships with more grace, compassion and competence.’

LEARN MORE AT:

www.ArchetypalRelationships.com
www.RoryKilmartin.com

SHOWNOTES

For 20% Off Rory's US Timezone Workshop Go To melanieavalon.com/balanceofpower With The Code Melanieavalon 

5:30 - IF Biohackers: Intermittent Fasting + Real Foods + Life: Join Melanie's Facebook Group For A Weekly Episode GIVEAWAY, And To Discuss And Learn About All Things Biohacking! All Conversations Welcome!

5:50 - APOLLO NEURO: Use The Power Of Soundwave Therapy To Instantly Address Stress By Instigating Your Brain's "Safety" State With The Touch Of A Button! Check Out Melanie's Interview With Dr. Dave Rubin For All The Science, And Get 15% Off Apollo Neuro At  Apolloneuro.Com/Melanieavalon

6:20 - Follow Melanie On Instagram To See The Latest Moments, Products, And #AllTheThings! @MelanieAvalon

9:10 - Rory's Story 

12:30 - Online Workshop

13:20 - Balance Of Power

15:00 - models of relationships 

16:05 - The Sovereign Energy

16:35 - Magician Energy 

17:25 - Warrior Energy 

17:35 - Lover Energy 

19:15 - What Causes Breakdowns (Disruptions in Relationships) 

20:05 - What happens when archetypes become out of balance 

22:40 - How different archetypes attract each other and interact

28:00 - BEAUTYCOUNTER: Non-Toxic Beauty Products Tested For Heavy Metals, Which Support Skin Health And Look Amazing! Shop At Beautycounter.Com/MelanieAvalon For Something Magical! For Exclusive Offers And Discounts, And More On The Science Of Skincare, Get On Melanie's Private Beautycounter Email List At melanieavalon.com/cleanbeauty! Find Your Perfect Beautycounter Products With Melanie's Quiz: melanieavalon.com/beautycounterquiz
Join Melanie's Facebook Group Clean Beauty And Safe Skincare With Melanie Avalon To Discuss And Learn About All The Things Clean Beauty, Beautycounter And Safe Skincare!

30:50 - Understanding other people better

32:45 - the role of being baffled/confusion 

34:55 - Understanding Past relationships 

36:05 - The Role Of Childhood In Archetypal Leanings

39:05 - Different Types In Persona: Home Vs Work

39:55 - The Role Of Psychological Safety 

42:00 - The Dynamic Tension: How relationships are affected by the stressors of life 

43:50 - Going Off Center or Out Of Balance 

45:00 - Finding the language that changes things

46:50 - The Disowned Archetype 

52:15 - What We Become Under Pressure  And Victimhood To Protect Ourselves 

54:30 - The Practicality 

57:40 - The role of different types in the village 

1:00:00 - LUMEN: The Lumen Breath Analyzer That Tells Your Body If You're Burning Carbs Or Fat For Energy! You Can Learn More In Melanie's Episodes With The Founder (The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #43 - Daniel Tal, The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #63 - Daniel Tal (Lumen)) And Get $25 Off A Lumen Device At melanieavalon.com/lumen With The Code melanieavalon25

1:01:30 - The repeating issues in your life 

1:01:50 - Identifying Archetypes in Others

1:02:30 - Where Does the Responsibility lie in conflict? 

1:04:45 - Impossible Situations (Personality Situations)

1:05:40 - Personal Responsibility, and the Creed of the Sheep In Particular

1:06:30 - The Role of the Left and Right Brain, Thoughts, the Soul, And Wonder

1:10:45 - The Fox Gatekeepers of Freedom 

1:12:45 - Attracting Our Disowned Behavior 

1:14:15 - Romantic Relationships And Types

1:15:20 - Power Dynamics And Personal Responsibility In Relationships

1:20:00 - The Role Of Emotions 

1:23:30 - Releasing the past 

1:23:50 - Attracting People Of Equal imbalance 

1:27:35 - The Core Wound of The Archetypes  

1:30:25 - Sample Sentence Exercises

1:34:05 - Reducing Thoughts

1:38:00 - Rory's Next Workshop March 9th: For 20% Off the US Timezone Workshop Go To melanieavalon.com/balanceofpower With The Code melanieavalon 

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Hi friends, welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly thrilled about the conversation that I am about to have. It has been a long time coming. Some context for you guys. When it comes to health, to biohacking, to all of the things, one of the most important factors and all of that, and our wellness and our state of existence, even on a cellular level, you could argue, is our relationships. It's the social aspect of our lives. It comes up occasionally in different episodes that I've had, but I have not had an entire episode dedicated to the intricacies of relationships. Beyond that, I knew if I did have an episode on the topic, I wanted it to be the ultimate biohacking form of relationships.

Recently, I've had the fabulous guest, Dr. Kirk Parsley, on this podcast. He introduced me to a man named Rory Kilmartin, who has an array of workshops involving relationships. Kirk said that it basically changed his life and that I needed to do it, and then I could probably benefit from it as well. Friends, oh, my goodness. It was a 10-week course that I did. The experience, I can't even express the amount of-- I feel like my eyes were opened. The information that I learned about humans, about-- and we'll talk about this in the episode, but about the different archetypes that manifest in humans and how that affects our relationships to each other, I feel I learned a secret language that explains almost everything. Ever since I started the course, I've been telling friends and family members about it. It's life changing. That happened. I knew I had to share it with you guys. I knew I had to bring Rory on to the show to share just a bit of the knowledge with you guys. And then if people are interested, they can ultimately take the workshop just like I did. That's the long intro, long story short. Rory, thank you so much for being here.

Rory Kilmartin: It's such a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me, Melanie.

Melanie Avalon: To start things off, I actually would love to hear a little bit about your personal history and your personal story, because obviously, not everybody becomes a relationship expert like you have. What led to that? What was your personal story leading to where you are today with the work that you're doing?

Rory Kilmartin: Thank you. Love to tell you, I just want to quickly say hello to you, if you're listening to this at home, or in the car, or wherever, I just want to say hello to you and it's a pleasure to meet you, too. My fascination with relationships began, I remember it very clearly when I was 12. I just observed people being mean and cruel and vindictive to each other, and they said that they loved each other. The young 12-year-old just thought something was wrong. Just very simply, something's wrong. It began this fascination, this desire to figure out essentially how to love beautifully. How can you enter someone's life and be a force for good and create goodness, essentially, inside your relationship? Because life is challenging. There is malevolence in the world as we know. The journey of relationship is not easy. The quest for me was, how can you enter someone's life and love them beautifully? What does that take? What are the fundamental pieces of universal knowledge, if you will, that assist you in that aim? If you have that aim, I'm assuming if you're listening to this podcast that, that you have that aim, that you are a good faith person, that you are essentially kind, well-meaning, and benevolent. I'm assuming that if you're listening to this, that you wake up in the morning on any given day, you want to do right by the people that you meet and come in contact with. Whether it's a bus driver, or a waitress, your colleague at work, or I hope your partner and your children if you have any.

If you're a decent human being and that you want to live a life with some dignity and respect and you want to be kind and well-meaning to people, then there are some pieces of information that are absolutely critical. To that end, I set out from 12 to understand this whole area of life, and my burning desire to figure out this area of life is unending. In fact, it's probably getting stronger. I think of myself as a researcher rather than an expert, interestingly enough. I've been researching now for essentially 30 odd years. I feel that I've discovered some of the most important and critical fundamental pieces of the puzzle. I think of them as pieces of the puzzle, and if we're missing pieces of the puzzle, life is complex and complicated and disruptive. But the more we find these pieces of the puzzle and put them in place, the more life becomes smoother and easier and we're better able to navigate our lives.

I wrote a book back in 2003. I've been designing and leading workshops to present my findings since 2004. I've been leading and facilitating workshops on and off since 2004. This thing called COVID has inspired me to take my-- life events, but I've taken my material online. I now lead study groups and coaching programs to people all over the world to better understand this critical area of life. It's a long journey, Melanie, but it's a joyous one.

Melanie Avalon: No, I love it so much. Actually, that's something I didn't mention. The workshop, like you said, being all over the world. It's a study group, and you do have people all over the world. When I did it, there was people in the US and Australia, in England, just all over. It's really beautiful that people are all over the world, but we can come together. There is this theme in humans that seems to transcend almost everything. The workshop that I took specifically was called “The Balance of Power,” which we were talking before the call, is like an umbrella concept. For listeners, there's no way we can even remotely touch on everything in this interview. But just know that we're going to go into the sort of the basics to give you an idea, but if you really want to dive deep, the workshop is the way to go for that. The Balance of Power, what is going on with that? We have the different archetypes, what's going on there?

Rory Kilmartin: How do we even begin? Let me try and give a brief outline for everyone. I really felt that I had figured out relationships. I studied models of relationship in my late teens and early 20s, and I discovered the underlying model of relationships that is essentially what we've inherited from the last 5000 years, which is essentially based on fear, not on love. History is based in ownership, and it creates much of our experience. I discovered the model of relationships that people who have mastered relationships, operate-- In other words, people who have what we might think of as respectful and intimate and loving relationships that grow over time have a very different belief system. They have a very different relationship and context to relationships than people who typically struggle. I studied models of relationship for many years. I really felt that I had cracked the code, and essentially, I had. Then, I had this extraordinary relationship that really requires poets. That came to an end for the right reasons. I wasn't ready to get married and become a father at that particular time. Then, I had a relationship, which was the total omega to the alpha, I was swept overboard last in the night.

I realized I was missing major pieces of the puzzle. I knew that I had cracked a very significant code with these models I just shared about, but I knew that for me to be so lost and so floundering in another relationship, I knew that I was missing a major piece of the puzzle, and that's what began this inquiry. Over the course of time, particularly with a period of research I did with my mentor, Gil, in my 30s for about six years, we discovered what we think of, as we call or I call the Survival Archetypes. Whether you're familiar with archetypes or not. What we mean by the word ‘archetype’ is a universal psychic structure. Put simply, it is a structure of the psyche that is universal to everyone. They're in me, they're in Melanie, they're in-- Kirk mentioned previously. They're in you listening to this right now. There are psychic structures that are in you listening. What we discovered is that there are four major ones that you may or may not be familiar with, the sovereign, the magician, the warrior, and the lover. These labels, whether they appeal to you or not is irrelevant. They refer to underlying energies within us. Underlying aspects of the human condition. I'll clarify that for you now, if you wish.

The sovereign energy is the part of us that likes to be organized. It deals in the left brain, the known world. Deals with planning, logistics, systems, details, plans. If you've got to take your family away for a holiday, there's a couple of hundred things that need to be done and considered from boarding passes, to passport dates, to wash bags, clearing the bin. There's just a whole bunch of stuff. The sovereign energy is very good at dealing with plans and systems. The magician energy which is sort of the antithesis of the sovereign energy is in the known world, in the internal, not external. It's like poetry and architecture and music and color and poetry. It wants to be swept up into an experience. You probably know listening that you can be in your left brain organizing stuff and planning your week, but you can also be swept into a different world on a Friday night with some music and hopefully a really good cocktail. You can have an experience internally that makes life richer. There are two different realms of what's possible inside of you.

The warrior energy is also left brain, external world. It's more interested in the integrity of people. The warrior energy is the energy that gets stuff done. It's the energy that packs up the house, gets up in the middle of the night to feed the crying baby. To drive your life, and to assert yourself in your life in the world. The lover energy is the antithesis of that. It is the internal world again, in the realm of feelings and emotions. It's the part of us that wants to experience oneness. What I failed to say before is that the sovereign wants order, and the magician is interested in wonder, to be swept into this internal experience of wonder. The warrior energy wants to win, wants to drive things forward. The lover energy is the part of us that wants to experience bliss, oneness, that moment, which I hope you've all had, and hopefully are having, where you're potentially in the arms of someone you love. As you drift off to sleep, you cease to exist, and you join and experience no boundaries, no left-brain thoughts, no fears, no anxieties, and you drop into a state of bliss.

These four aspects of the human condition are available to all of us. You can see that immediately. Yes, I can be in my left brain and organized, I can also be in my left brain and want to win and drive things forward, but I can also experience wonder, and there's that part of me that wants to experience bliss, to drop out of all thoughts, and just experience my body and my emotions, and my sensitivity and intimacy, and all of those beautiful things. Very quickly, you listening at home can hear, these are fundamental aspects of the human condition. The left brain, the right brain, and the heart, and the body.

What we discovered is that we were interested in breakdowns. We were interested in why people in relationships experienced breakdowns, and what is the originating source of breakdowns? Just to be clear what I mean by breakdowns, if you're not familiar with that phrase, because I am English, after all.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, we don't use that phrase here. [laughs]

Rory Kilmartin: Having a fight, going from being connected, to being disconnected. Everything's fine, but somebody forgot to pick up a package, and then someone's irritated. Now, we're having just a little bit of-- I call it a breakdown, having a disconnect. We're now not in the flow. We're not feeling good about each other, and we're now irritated with each other, or there's frustration in the space. That's what I'm referring to. We were studying breakdowns and why people experienced breakdowns. We realized that there are four survival archetypes. What I mean by that is when we go out of balance, when we become triggered, when we become slightly low resource, irritated, or frustrated, we come out of balance and we show up a certain way.

What we observed is there are four very clear types of people. The imbalance sovereign, we call the gorilla. Chest beating, frustrating, bossy, demanding. The sovereign energy, some people lean into the sovereign energy and they are left brained, bossy, they like plans and if they don't get what they want, they become slightly bossy and tyrannical, and slightly maybe not even the right words depending on who you're thinking about. The warrior energy, we call the wolf. The imbalance warrior energy is the wolf. They become sort of slightly bullying, slightly heavy handed, demanding, and they need to win an emotional power struggle with somebody. They become wolfy. There's certain characteristics about all of these four survival archetypes. The magician, we call the fox. It's the person that you probably know that doesn't quite talk straight when they're under pressure. They don't like committing. They can't quite say, “Oh, yeah, okay, it's 6 o’clock on Friday, I'll be there.” They're kind of person, “Oh, yeah, it sounds really good. Yeah, I'll let you know.” They can't quite commit because if they commit, then the other worlds of possibility become cut off and the fox, the magician realm wants all possibilities to remain open for as long as possible. Whereas gorillas, they commit immediately. “6 o’clock, Friday, no problem. It's in the diary.” So, we have the gorilla, the wolf, the fox. Then the lover realm, when they're out of balance, they become very sheep like, very timid. They don't like people getting cross with them, and they don't like conflict. They always seem to be appeasing, implicating, and being nice. They think that that's the way the world works.

Gil and I observed these four different types of people. We observed them because I was a sheep. I like to appease implicate and be liked. I don't like conflict, not if I can avoid it. I'm much, of course, much better with conflict now. Gil’s a wolf, quite likes an argument, quite likes raised voices. It means he can trust people. What we observed was that these are two completely different worlds. When we think of a world, we also use the word ‘paradigm.’ What is a paradigm? Paradigm is an entire-- essentially, we think of as a creed. Creed is a philosophy of life. The philosophy of life is based on our beliefs. Our beliefs drive our values. The values of the wolf are completely different to the values of the sheep. Sheep and wolves often fall in love and get married. During the falling in love phase, the honeymoon phase, everything's great, and we're all familiar with the honeymoon phase. The problem is wolves and sheep handle breakdowns differently. They handle fights, irritations, and letdowns differently. Wolves are more direct, more abrupt. “No, don't do that. All right. Now, let's relax.” Sheep, “You just told me off. I can't relax. I’ve got to lie down for three hours and try and recover. I don't know what's going on.” Wolves like to deal with issues immediately, then they can relax. Sheep, they don't want to deal with the issue at all. “Maybe we can not worry about it, sweep it under the carpet, and just connect.” Connection is the value, connection is the religion. The creed and religion of the sheep is connection above everything else. The creed and religion of the wolf is dealing with issues above everything else. If we don't deal with the issues, the Vikings might come into the village, “Did you lock the gate? Did you lock the gate? Okay, then I'll relax.”

The wolf energy is the energy that want to win, want to get things done, and they protect. They're in their left brains a lot. It takes them quite a lot to drop out of their left brains and relax and surrender into intimacy and emotions very much. Wolves don't typically like sharing their emotions because it's essentially a form of weakness. Sheep, on the other hand, they can't wait to tell you all about their emotions. “Oh, it's been such a difficult day. Feeling really vulnerable and sad.” That's how sheep connect. They connect by sharing their vulnerability and sharing their emotions. Wolves are like, “What are you people doing? You lost your minds?” So, the four survival archetypes often we attract and marry are what I call dynamic tension opposite. I'm jumping around a bit, but there is a dynamic tension between the worlds of the wolf and the sheep, as I just described.

But there's also a dynamic tension between the world of the gorilla and the fox. The sovereign and the magician realms, they have contradictory value systems. That sovereign wants to tie things down, that’s a better way of saying that. Nail things down, they want to agree things, they want to make plans, and get order. They want order and precision and detail and plans. Then, the gorilla can relax.  The foxy magician realm, they can't relax when everything's buttoned down and organized and ordered and set up because the fox wants possibility. The fox wants the opportunity for wonder because wonder and the unknown world and the richness of life is more important than accuracy. Often, gorillas and foxes marry. We typically end up-- our researchers found that-- it's very observable that often people are in very happy relationships when they're younger, and then those relationships often end for no particular reason that they can remember. Then people end up marrying somebody that's much harder, much more difficult to be in relationship with. What we observe is that, more often than not, for unconscious reasons, people end up marrying their dynamic tension opposite. Sheep marry wolves more often than not, and gorillas marry foxes more often than not.

If we had more time, I could explain that, but it points to the big revelation that I'll share with you now. Which is the work I do with my clients on the study groups and coaching programs that this material lends itself to, is that upwards of around 90% of the issues people have in their relationships are a direct result of this dynamic tension playing out daily. That’s a quite a bold statement, isn't it? What does that bold statement follow on to? What it follows on to is if you can deeply understand your own value system, your own creed from what drives you and you can deeply understand the value system and the creed, the philosophy of life of the other three survival archetypes, specifically, the survival archetype of your dynamic tension opposite, which is more than likely, but not always, but more than likely, your long-term committed partner, what this information proposes is that you could reduce the misery and suffering of your relationship if you have any by up to around 90%, which is essentially in its entirety. Because the remaining 10%, you just easily navigate. It's a bold statement.

My clients experience this regularly, because what this material does is, it clears away clouds of confusion, it brings order to chaos. All I ever promise to my clients is, “I'm going to help you see more clearly.” That's it. The aim of that hopefully is then you can navigate your life and your relationships with more dignity, compassion, and competence. That's what we're aiming for, but that's the only thing that I say that I will help you see more clearly. I can ask you a question quickly, would you say that outcome is achieved if you recall, not only your own experience, but everybody else on the group that we were in together?

Melanie Avalon: First of all, I want to say how much we are on the same wavelength right now, because that was exactly what I was going to say, to what you just said. Because if I had not taken the workshop, everything you just said, it sounds very grand, and it sounds almost too good to be true. Having gone through it myself, 100%--- For myself personally, because with worries work, you finally understand, like where you said, the world’s that people are existing in and why people are relating to each other the way they are. I talked about this throughout the workshop as well. I say this really hesitantly because I don't want to feel I have rose-colored glasses or that I'm ignoring things happening in my life. In general, I tend to get along well with people. In general, I don't have a lot of relationship conflict. I do have it, and I have had it, and where I've had it and where I anticipate possibly having are things I worked on the workshop. But in general, I tend to get along with people.

All of that said, taking the workshop, it wasn't even just conflict, it opened your eyes about why people do the things they do, I can understand people better. Even in the workshop, there was one couple, for example, that in the beginning, they were-- I don't know if they're on the brink of divorce, but it was really not going well between them. By the end, that had resolved because they had understood how they relate to each other and they were able to really work through issues that they just didn't have the understanding, I think, to approach. That was just one example, but there are other people all throughout the group that had their different relationship things they were working on, and things just finally made sense. I saw in action, and I have more thoughts, but did you have thoughts about that?

Rory Kilmartin: Obviously, I'm a huge fan of this material. I'm very clear that this work is about the findings. It's not necessarily about me, and I don't really want it to be about me. The findings stand alone and they are magnificent. It's an honor that I get to share them with people. The findings do something very special. The material reduces the baffling mystery. Most people, if they're honest, in your relationships, in your life, if you've had difficult relationships, or you're in one right now, or you're having a difficult relationship with an in-law or one of your children, it doesn't matter who they are. If you're baffled by the behavior of someone that you love and care about, this material gets to the very, very heart of that. Often, I think about health and how so often we are prescribed a drug for every symptom. I'm interested in the solution to all of the symptoms, as I think anyone who's interested in health is. Not to change the subject but this material gets to the root cause of an enormous amount of the baffling mystery.

When you spoke about the couples, I've worked with many couples who start in the struggle. The reason why they turn everything around-- if it's meant to, just to be clear, I'm not an advocate of people staying together if it's not their truth, but the people who do want to stay together and they do want their relationship to improve, when they turn things around, it's because they're no longer baffled. That's part of the miracle. If you are baffled by the behavior of someone that you love, this material will answer that in a way that I've never found in 30 years any other material that does. That's the truth of it. I've been looking for 30 years for the best material on relationships, and I happen to discover this. You could argue that I'm biased, but I don't think I am. I just haven't found anything as powerful as this.

Melanie Avalon: Speaking to the baffling thing, one of the most incredible things for me personally was, once you learn the material, you are able to look back on pretty much every relationship you've had, not just romantic, like friends, it doesn't even have to be that there was conflict, but like you just said, you understand why people were doing the things they do. I know, for example, like we talked about the fox energy, now looking back, I'm like, “Oh, I can see which of my friends were foxes. And I can see how maybe they would do things--” It wasn't “a big deal,” but how they would do things with planning or just way they would act. I never really understood why can't they just make a plan, but now it makes sense. Like I said, really opens your eyes. I can give my personal experience about my archetype and a question that relates to it.

When I first was exposed to the work but hadn't done anything, basically, Kirk just told me the general overview of it. I heard about the archetypes, and I thought, okay, I'm a sheep just based on how I act in relationships. But I now am pretty sure I am a gorilla, like, that's my home self, but I tend to act like a sheep in relationships. The question there is, all of these four archetypes are in all of us, but are we typically one archetype? Can we be different archetypes in different parts of our life? What does that look like?

Rory Kilmartin: Yeah. This is a part of the fascination of this material. The findings suggest that in intimate relationships or personal or social relationships, we typically lean into one of them. That is either an accident of birth or the design of birth, let's not go down that path. I think we come out with an archetypal leaning. The study of twins shows this quite clearly. Every year, 1000s of sets of twins come together in Twinsville, not necessarily during COVID, of course. The study of twins shows that same mother, same DNA, they look the same, but one of them behaves differently nearly from the beginning than the other. One is much more precocious and outgoing and straight into the dark closet to find mum’s slipper. The other must be more timid, like, “Can I have some more peas? Oh, my God, mum's upset with me.” One twin, quite likes it when mom gets upset, the other twin’s terrified, because they're just wired differently.

What we observed then, though, is that if there is chaotic, unbalanced behavior in our childhood home by our primary caregivers, and you will know if you're listening, whether you fall into that camp as I did, that imbalanced behavior derives the survival archetype that is the opposite to it. For example, if you grew up in a home that was chaotic, and disorganized, and sometimes there wasn't food in the fridge, and sometimes people just would not organize, that drives the gorilla sovereign organizing energy because if I don't organize, I'm going to die. It's just the seven-year-old. Likewise, if you were raised in a home with a very demanding, tyrannical, helicopter-type parent who gives you no room and you have to do exactly what you're told, this promotes the foxy. You have to begin to become flexible with the truth, you have to begin to be able to manipulate and trick essentially the tyrant to give you some space to breathe. Foxy energy is triggered by the bossy, tyrant, demanding energy. If you were raised by a bully, who is unfair, and in some ways vindictive, then the sheep will show up. The appeasing, placating, peacemaking, worrying about everyone else's emotions, needing to be liked, wanting to make sure that people don't dislike you. Likewise, if you're born in a house where everyone's really timid and everyone's really nice, the wolfy energy is like, people are going to get hurt if somebody doesn't take charge and bring some warrior energy. Wolfiness shows up in the space of weakness and timidity in the family home.

Mostly, however, we lean in one direction in our personal lives. To go back to your earlier question, we can be a different archetype at work. Some people can go to work and be very wolfy. They can sell, they can be direct, they can handle conflict, they can tell people what they need to do and they don't need to be liked and then they go home and they're terrified of their partner and they spend their entire marriage or relationship trying to make sure their partner’s happy, that's observable.

But mostly, I find all the value is who you are at home, at the end of the working day, at the weekend, when you're with your family and you're with your loved ones, and you're trying to relax. You've taken off your work or business persona, Latin for mask, taken off your work mask, and you're just being you. How do you show up? How do you deal with various stresses of life? Each survival archetype has a different need for a number of things. First of all, they have a different need for psychological safety. Psychological safety is a phrase well known. Google invested a few million dollars in a research project into effective teams. They concluded that the number one factor behind successful teams was psychological safety, that people can share ideas, they can work, they can make mistakes, and they don't feel like they're going to be treated unfairly. Each of the four survival archetypes has a different need for psychological safety.

Now, that alone is a piece of information, just in case you're not paying attention, should blow your mind. That's a big one. As a result, each survival archetype has differences. Such as, they need different terms of reassurance. If you go to a gorilla, like yourself, Melanie, and something was not quite right. Someone came in says, “Don't worry, Melanie, everything's going to be okay.” Instantly irritating for a gorilla. Like, “What do you mean everything's--? How do you know? That's not based on fact. Give me a precise reason. Tell me that the package is going to be picked up at 9 AM tomorrow, and it's going to be home by 10 because I needed it before I leave at 11. That's why I asked you to pick it up today. Don't tell me everything's going to be okay. There's nothing precise about that.” The gorilla losing their minds. That's exactly what the fox says, because the fox knows deep down, everything's going to turn out okay. Each of the four survival archetypes has different stresses. Different things trigger and irritate each survival archetype. Therefore, psychological safety, what makes people feel safe and relaxed is different.

Melanie Avalon: Really quick question. In that example, because my mind is sort of being blown thinking about this. In that example, a gorilla who likes order and planning like you just mentioned, they feel safe when there's order and planning. But then a fox, the magician type, that might feel very unsafe to them if there's too much structure and order. It can have the exact opposite effect, I'm guessing.

Rory Kilmartin: Exactly. This is the dynamic tension. People get married and they often have children, and then they're trying to raise children and pay taxes and mortgages, and go to work, and life is so stressful. Modern day life with all of our gadgets is actually busier than it's ever been before. When life gets stressful, and people try and navigate the stresses of life, but their partner is behaving like a weirdo, like an alien, like, “Why are you saying that?” Then, it's baffling. There's another piece of the puzzle, which I think I missed earlier, but I'll say it now. When I mean, creed or belief system or paradigm, what I'm not saying is, it's an almost total and absolute view of the world. Most people don't have any idea that there are these four fundamental, psychic structures that we call archetypes in the human condition. Most people have no idea what their own is. They're beginning to-- if you're listening at home, you're beginning to recognize who you are, and you're probably beginning to recognize who your partner is. Most people don't know this day to day. It's not a household conversation. It's not what people talk about over dinner. The differences between their value systems is not something that is an ordinary normal conversation. Quite frankly, I very rarely use the word “should,” but it should be.

The implication of this is that smart, well-read, intelligent, introspective, well-meaning people are not only utterly baffled, but their worst of them shows up as a result of the confusion. If you're listening at home, you probably know that there's a way that you behave when you're not at your best. You've probably realized, it's when you make the biggest mess of your life and you make damage. When you're out of balance, triggered, off center, out of balance, pick a phrase, you revert to a type. You do the thing that you do. That's where you make a mess of your life. The power of this work and this material is it reduces the amount of time you spend making a mess of your life. If you could reduce the amount of time you spend out of your center and out of balance, making a mess, damaging your interpersonal relationships, potentially not getting that promotion at work. The list is endless, by the way. If you can reduce that by, ooh, 90%? Well, it's a different life. It really, really is. Essentially, that's what this material makes available, to deeply understand the survival archetypes, your own, and your partners and your children's and everyone that matters to you essentially. You begin to find a new language to relate to the people that you care about and love. You cease to be baffled by their behavior. They're like, “Oh, of course, I said the wrong thing.”

I'll give you a simple example, in terms of reassurance, or we just covered it, and I'm going to repeat myself. I want someone to say, “Everything's going to be okay.” That reassures my nervous system. I like that. It doesn't work for gorillas. It just doesn't work. So, you start finding the language that acts as the bridge between worlds, and it just changes things. It just changes things.

Melanie Avalon: I know we open this conversation talking about how it primarily affects how you're relating to others, but really, the foundation, at least in the way I perceived it, is learning in yourself how everything manifests. It's just so spot on, all of the work. Like I said, I am definitely as a person a gorilla, so I like order, I like planning, that's all really important to me. Growing up, and we talked about this throughout the course-- because you talked about how when you're triggered or out of center, how it can manifest different ways and the different archetypes. For the gorilla, they often become bossy or tyrannical. I completely growing up used to do that. My mom would always say, “Melanie, don't be bossy. Don't be bossy.” Then, I told the story to you. Like in middle school, my best friend basically came to me and she was like, “You're bossy, I can't do this.” With that messaging and the realization of how the energy I didn't know at the time-- I didn't have this framework for it, but how that energy would manifest in me, I was like, “Oh, I cannot. I have to keep this in check. I can't be bossy.” I've had a really conscious awareness of that since then, and I kind of put all my effort into not being bossy. It just makes sense why I was doing that. I can see how how things manifest.

One of the most fascinating things I learned-- I think the most powerful thing for me, personally, that I learned was you talk about how our home is one of the archetypes, but then we might disown one or some of the other archetypes. That's what I realized for me was that because I'm like a gorilla, but then I also can be really artsy, and I can be foxy. Then like I said, in relationships, I tend to act like a sheep. I think it's because it was my reaction. I realized that you can't control other people, I took on sheep-like characteristics and dealing with other people. But the wolf energy, the warrior, I realized I had identified the “negative characteristics” of the wolf, I had ascribed them to all of that. I saw people who acted like wolves as a negative thing. I saw it as maybe selfish.

For listeners, if you take the course, in the workbook and the charts, you can see all the different traits and how they manifest. I was going through the traits of the wolf, for example, and I realized that has a lot of potential positives and a lot of potential negatives. But I had taken just the concept of the wolf and seen it as a bad thing, and I had consciously disowned that part of me. I know that was a long way of coming to this question, but what do you find with people disowning different potential parts of the archetype? How does that manifest in them?

Rory Kilmartin: Yeah. This is perfect. What we've spoken about so far is the four survival archetypes, the dynamic tension, and how not understanding this, is the source, the origin of the baffling mystery and the subsequent misery, essentially, of our social lives. The pain of lost love and lost connection with people that we care about. Not just intimate relationships, but our children also. That's really the first part of the material. The second part then is, “Well, okay, Rory, thanks. But how do we overcome this? How do we integrate this material in a way that dramatically improves the quality of our lives?”

Well, part of the answer is very much, which of the four survival archetypes have we disowned the most? Because it shows consistently across the board, everyone that does this work, has disowned one of them more than the others, and you just shared perfectly that example. I also disowned the wolf energy. It's the area that I am least I'm familiar with, and it has some tremendously important traits. The wolf/warrior energy is the realm of ambition, and desire and knowing what you want and asserting yourself in the world and being able to get stuff done. The wolf energy is the antidepressant energy. If you suffer from blue days, or duvet days or struggle to break out of ruts, and you want to be more effective and productive in your life, I would assert that it's highly likely that you have poor relationship with that warrior energy, whether you know it or not. Part of the power of this work is that it liberates people from depressive states, and the inability to get things done and to start and fulfill the projects of your life, no matter how small or large. Wolves have no problem starting and finishing things, no problem at all. They wake up and they know what they want.

You ask the average sheep what you want, they don't know. You ask the average wolf, their typical answer is, “Oh, just let me grab my list, I wrote it down again this morning.” They know what they want. Integrating what we have disowned transforms us, not in some grandiose way, but in a very real and very practical way. The way that I do this, because I-- for those of you who have not met me before or unfamiliar with my work, I don't deal with woo-woo. I am sure it has its place, but I don't. I am very interested in real, grounded, practical, accessible, fundamental information that is not complex, that ordinary decent, kind, people who want to be a source for good in their own lives and the lives of others can access and implement. I'm not interested in convoluted at all.

A member of my team, Nick. I think his son is now seven, he explains all of this to his son, his son understands it. That I think as a win. I think that's a glorious win, that you can explain this to a seven-year-old and they understand it. Not just the survival archetypes integration piece, but also the game of life, which is another piece of the puzzle, which I think is critical. I like things to be easily implemented and understandable, whilst you may be listening thinking, “[unintelligible [00:42:25] this guy's talking about sheep and foxes. Sounds so childish.” No, it's not. It's just simple. It just works. I'm not coming up with some grandiose term that makes me sound like an academic because I don't want to sound like an academic. I'm a researcher. I'm interested in solving problems. Let's come back to your question again, because I am enjoying myself way too much. If you integrate the archetypal energy that you've disowned, it is almost impossible to measure and put into words, what a dramatic transformation and positive impact this has on your life.

The findings suggest or my observations suggest that 90% of problems of your life are a result of the absence of the archetypal energy you've disowned. It's not an exaggeration. People will be thinking, how can it be that? Well, the absence of a particular archetypal energy-- let's just keep using the wolf, for example, because of the absence of that energy, we then become-- typically, people become the worst versions of themselves under pressure, particularly in the sheep realm. We don't ask what we want, we disconnect, we sulk, we get depressed. Some people become passive aggressive. The victim mindset which-- to be clear, victimhood has its place, I'm not anti-victimhood. Victimhood is a necessary protection of the soul. But having said that, we would rather live a life where we don't need victimhood to protect us from the circumstances of our lives. If we integrate the wolf energy as an example, a whole bunch of experiences that we have fall away, and we become way more productive, and way more effective and much less of an appeasing placating victim, passive aggressive, sulking, feeling wronged. If you're the kind of person that sometimes feels wronged or if you still feel wronged by a past relationship, this study group directly deals with these pieces in a way that is indirect, if that makes any sense at all. There's just something extraordinary about beginning the process of integrating what you've disowned because it suddenly makes sense of the challenges of your life. That's what you were just pointing to you, Melanie, in your question.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. Speaking to that, I love what you said about how you're not trying to be grandiose with all these big terms. It's very practical and very implementable. Just using this example that we're talking about, like with me disowning the wolf, for example, I realized I had seen the assertiveness of the wolf as a negative because it was imposing on other people. In my head, I was thinking, always be nice, and always-- don't assert yourself on other people, keep everything good, but the way that manifested in my life, and you talked about maybe 90% of our issues being from what we disowned. The thing I struggle with in relating with other people, in my career and my job, and everything is, I am so concerned with not hurting other people. If something happens, where I should be assertive, like, I should stick up for myself, it's completely warranted that I speak the truth about the situation, I just wouldn't do that. I would just be like, “Okay.”

For example, recently-- I'm just going to give a practical example, so people can see how this manifests. I was having a lot of issues with my apartment. There was a flood and the administration apartment people, they weren't fixing things. You said in the course, that the opportunities will present themselves all the time. Once we realize where the parts we've disowned, or what we need to bring back into our life, opportunities will arise, all the time. Very practical opportunities, where things happen, and you think, “Oh, this is where I'm disowning a certain part.” In that example, my apartment, people were just not working with me, my tendency and my inclination is to just be like, “Okay, that's fine.” By embracing the wolf self, I can say, “No. This is not okay, you need to fix this.” I can realize that that's completely warranted and that's not making me a bad person, so I'm actually going to solve a lot of potential conflict and tension. Yeah, it's ridiculously practical.

Rory Kilmartin: One of the things that's so remarkable about it is, everyone gets something profound. Often, personal development courses or areas of research are given by the person who has created it, and they've created it through their survival archetype. Often, you might find information that's created by a sheep, the wolves can't listen.

Melanie Avalon: It'll work for sheep.

Rory Kilmartin: Works for sheep. Sheep are loving, “Oh, honey, please do this, please read this book.” They're like, “I can't read it.” They just look at the front cover, they at that time, “I can't read that.” “Well, please watch this video, please listen to this podcast.” They can't listen. Then there's material that is designed by gorillas and it's very didactic and organized. The foxes, they can't listen. But there's something about this that everyone in the room can get it, and they do, because everyone has seen, heard, and understood. At the very beginning, the gorilla’s like, “Oh, great, I feel seen, heard, and understood because my place in the village matters.” So do the foxes because I make it very clear that the village doesn't work without all four of these archetypes. You can't have a village that's just gorillas. There's no color, no fun, no joy, no dancing, no music, no art. It's just, dare I say, very Germanic. It's very steel and glass and organized. You can't have a village does just magician, foxes. No one gets anything done. Everyone's just disorderly. They're all over the place. The list goes on. The village requires all four of these archetypes to be present. Of course, the village also includes you, as an individual require all four of these archetypes to be at the very least acknowledged within you. The very least to understand, “Ah. I have these four aspects of the human condition within me.” One of them as we were just talking about, I've been disowning and I'm now making the link that the worst experiences of my life and particularly the repeating-- if you're listening to this and you recognize that there are repeating experiences or repeating issues in your relationships, or a repeating theme of your life that doesn't work, it's answered here. That's another bold statement. I'm sorry, but it's true.

The repeating issues of your life are almost entirely links to the absence of one of these archetypal energies, the one that you have discerned the most. Even just beginning the process of recognizing them begins to change you dramatically. As Melanie just said, when you understand why people behave the way they behave, they cease to be baffling. This alone changes you. When you begin to start handling the same circumstances that have always tripped you up before, maybe it's a raised voice and someone getting crossed with you, maybe it's somebody disconnecting and being weak and timid around you that drives you nuts because you're a wolf, maybe it's that kind of wishy-washy, vague, ambiguous, foxy, playful energy that drives you nuts because you're a gorilla, you begin to stop being driven nuts. You begin to just go, “Oh, okay, I get it.” They're not so keen on detail. “Now I know.” And you can start navigating your life better.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, I was just going to say I think what really speaks to how accurate this is, is the fact that once you learn the different archetypes and have an understanding, you can pretty much instantly identify, at least the people that you know well, pretty easily what they are. I took it and then I was like, “Oh, okay, I'm a gorilla. My dad's a gorilla. My mom's a sheep. My brother's a sheep. My sister’s a wolf.” It just is so explanatory of so many things. Question though, this also sort of relates to the disowned part a little bit. The biggest conflict I ever had in relationship, and you know, but I will be more vague about it, but it was with a family member who was a wolf. Especially after we saying how I really have disowned the wolf part, and that the wolf energy I find very distressing in a way. When I did have a conflict with a wolf, it was very intense. Where does the responsibility lie in these conflicts?

What I mean by that is, okay, so if we understand the types that we are, and we understand the types that other people are, and we understand how the types interact, once we have that knowledge, practically, when there is a, what you call, breakdown, where is the responsibility in solving that if I can use that word? If you have the knowledge, is that enough if the other person doesn't have the knowledge? Where's the responsibility in reaching a solution in conflict?

Rory Kilmartin: I love this question. What's interesting about responsibility is responsibility changes depending on the perspective. If you are a third-party, impartial observer, you can observe, for example, who has been the most disruptive and the most inappropriate, or who has done the triggering incident, and you can say, this person is responsible for the cascading effect of their originating incident, for example. If you are the person who got triggered by somebody else's response, you can stand there and say, “I am responsible for reacting the way I reacted.” “I'm responsible for tumbling down this slippery slope with this person as a reaction to what they did.” If you are the person that did the originating incident and you have enough self-awareness, you can say, “I'm 100% responsible for this. I messed up, I got irritated. I'm sorry. I'm responsible for that and your reaction.”

Responsibility is essentially depending on which view you're looking at any situation through. To try and answer your question slightly more specifically, I only ever worked with the person that's in front of me. I speak directly to that person and their behavior and their experience, whether they're in a partnership or not. I assert that if you're listening to this, standing in I am responsible is the only place that has any authentic power. Because, yes, some people are tremendously difficult. If you've ever had the misfortune, for example, of having a relationship with somebody who's got a severe personality disorder, any of the cluster B personality disorders or borderline, for example. These are impossible situations and the only sensible thing to do is to try and organize your life so that you can leave. Okay, that's not a black and white rule. Of course, there are versions of staying with that person is an extraordinary act of love. I get that. So, I apologize if I was black and white about it. But for most people, these are untenable, unwinnable situations.

If we ignore extremes and just look at hopefully normal, kind, loving, well-meaning people as I said at the beginning, which are the only people I choose to work with, I would assert that it will transform your life to stand in I am responsible for my reactions. I am responsible for how I show up. This is my life, this my mind, my emotions, my thoughts, my reactions. If I am baffled, I am the person being baffled. When you stand in that place and take responsibility, it emboldens you and empowers you in a way that almost nothing else can.

This is particularly important for the gentle folk, the sheep, because the sheep struggle with personal responsibility more than the others, simply because the creed and the philosophy on life of the sheep is a vow essentially of non-violation. When people do things that they perceive to be a violation, it's very difficult for sheep not to make the link in their mind, that person has done something wrong, because the creed is a vow of non-violence, essentially, the sheep does not like or want conflict, because underneath it all, the sheep don't like violation because violation damages the soul, and the lover realm, the sheep realm, they have the golden chalice. They are the gateway to the soul, essentially, the soul doesn't get to really come out in the presence of a lot of left-brain thoughts. I'm slightly changing the subject, but I feel like we're supposed to go here, so I'm going to keep going.

If you are any interested in a spiritual life, in whatever way that you perceive that to mean, my understanding of that is that our soul, at least the deepest, wisest part of us, cannot show up in the presence of thoughts. You see the thoughts or the sense of that deepest part within us. The reason why the lover likes oneness and cares about oneness and no boundaries and dissolving into the great expanse, it requires no thought. The reason why people particularly like lovemaking and sex is because hopefully there's a moment when you don't have any thoughts. The reason why people love music so much is hopefully you get swept out of your thoughts and your to-do lists and your worries and anxieties about your children and your partner and the mortgage and the rent and the bills. And just for a brief window of time, you're swept up in a light shows with lasers and smoke and sound and heat and you're suddenly just not worrying anymore. Why do people love yoga? Because for that brief window of time, they're just focusing on their breath, meditation, the list goes on.

The problem that the gentle folk have, is that they end up having lots of thoughts. They are the gateway to bliss and oneness, but because their creed is a world of peace, the peacemakers, and violation is a sin, for want of a better word, they end up having thoughts of being violated and victimhood and depression. Depression essentially is a layer of thought. If you're one of the gentle folk and you're listening to this, well, I mean, I don't know if I can say it any more clearly how vital this work is for you. Because you are the gateway to oneness and bliss and the exquisiteness that's available inside the human condition when we feel so safe, that we can be intimate and vulnerable and drop out of thoughts and experience what's possible internally. You know this because that is what is more important to you than anything else in the world but unfortunately, because you've disowned wolf and warrior energy, you run the risk of spending the rest of your life filled with thoughts separated from the golden chalice that what you know deep down is what makes life worth living.

I can say exactly the same thing for the foxes. You know that you are the gateway to wonder. Wonder and these internal experiences that are just so rich from a photographic exhibition, to seeing a painting that takes your breath away to-- I once walked into Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris at dusk and the late sun was coming through the stained-glass windows and there was a boy voice choir singing at the front. I walked in and there were candles everywhere, and I nearly dropped to my knees. I was swept away into the extraordinary experience of wonder created by the extraordinary architects. Regardless of whether you're religious or not, these cathedrals around the world are astonishing places. The foxes know that the richness of wonder, and the internal realms is what makes life worth living. The problem is if you've disowned the sovereign energy within you and the world and you resist order and resist detail and are unable to just agree some simple things with your partner who's desperately trying to run the house and organize the children, if you can't do that, you are going to encourage what you despise the most, which is bossy tyranny, because I have not mentioned it before, but the magician and the fox, they are the gatekeepers of freedom.

Freedom is the most important thing to the magician and the fox. When they disowned a sovereign entity, they incur and encourage non-freedom-based behavior towards them. The sheep encourage non-gentle behavior towards them, the behavior that they resent the most. The foxes encourage non-freedom-based tyranny, bossy behavior, because they have disowned the sovereign energy. The gorillas encourage vague, wishy-washy responses from foxy people who don't talk straight, because the gorillas have disowned flexibility and flow and being okay with things, changing plans, okay, the plans have changed, let's make a new plan. We can go with this. The wolves, of course, they struggle often with expressing their emotions and being vulnerable and putting their armor down, because weakness is wrong somehow. What wolves want is they want cooperation and teamwork, and they want to be part of a unit and a pack. They want to be together and unified. Of course, what they create, these people disconnecting, and not being part of the team and the pack and not being strong, and they promote weakness. I'm revealing more pieces of the puzzle. If you're still listening, if you're doing anything else, but listen, I would really strongly encourage you to listen right now. Your survival archetype encourages that which you want the least.

The nature of your imbalance, the place that you'd go under pressure, creates and attracts the very thing that you despise and resent. You basically create more of what you can't stand, as I just described, if you were following along. Therefore, what happens when we understand the survival archetypes and begin to integrate what we've disowned? Well, the very behavior that we can't stand dramatically reduces. Again, just in case you're not paying attention, that should have just blown your mind. For real, this is one of the great secrets of maturation. One of the great revelations of how to live a workable life. The very thing that I feel in every fiber of my being is wrong, I create and attract more of that wrong behavior in my life because when I'm imbalanced, it's by default what shows up in other people. It's going to continue to show up and torment you until you die. Unfortunately, that is the case for many people, until you understand what that energy is and you understand what the creed is, the philosophy, the value system of the energy that you've disowned, and begin to integrate it, just in very simple practical ways. Again, simple and practical, and the energy and the behavior. The language, energy and behavior that torments you and reduces the quality of your life will dramatically reduce. It's entirely provable. If you happen to join me on the next study group, you will prove it to yourself.

Melanie Avalon: Might have been the first week where we talked about what you were just saying about how we attract-- we might perceive it as things that are not good for us or things that are in conflict with us, but it ties into what you were just saying about how-- because of the nature of ourselves how it does attract this, either dynamic opposite or the thing in conflict with us. I keep using the word ‘conflict,’ which I know is a little bit different. I keep thinking, which speaks to this is I think it's easy to see when you think about what you are romantically attracted to-- because that's the one situation where you are actively seeking out other people as what you are attracted to as a person compared to looking for a good friend or looking for a business partner. With romantic relationships, you're making a conscious decision of what you find attractive. For me, interestingly, I talked about how I feel like I've disowned this wolf part of me. But if I were to describe my “type,” it pretty much is the wolf type. I just found that really fascinating because I hadn't really thought about that before.

Another question that sort of ties into all of this. You're just talking about where does the responsibility lie and how people interact, intention, and conflict. You talk about something, which is the concept of ownership. It ties into that because I think with my question of how do you address conflict, do you just accept other people, do you impose yourself on them, how do you solve that, it meanders into the concept of ownership because you talk about how our relationship model today is an ownership model, which ties into trying to affect or control other people? What's going on with the whole ownership concept?

Rory Kilmartin: Well, there's two pieces that I can hear from what you just asked. Let me start with the second one, because I think that'll be briefer. Yes, my research into models of relationship, I think I call it the old model or society's model, essentially is 2500-year-old model of Greco-Roman suppression, typically of women's sexuality, and the idea of ownership, wives in particular, back in the day is as chattel or property. I don't want to go down that path too far. That's the one definition of ownership as we understand it, the idea of entering someone's life, that they are a sovereign being, that you don't own them, and that entering someone's life is an astonishing privilege that you have an opportunity to spend time with this person and make an effect, positive impact on their life.

I appreciate people in their teens and 20s and 30s. It might not be the most natural thing, simply because of immaturity. The older we get, we hope that we are continuing to gather awareness as we grow from the challenges of our life. We hope that we're going to continue to mature and evolve until we realize that no matter what our archetypal leaning, to enter someone's life and understand that they're a sovereign being and that you don't own them, I think it's one of the critical steps in the development of the psyche. That's the first part around ownership.

The way I describe ownership in the balance of power and the study group, is that I think it's section five is called ownership. Week five, is that once you understand the archetypes and you understand the dynamic tension, you understand how power dynamics arises-- I never set out to create a typology, that was never my intention. I set out to understand why I kept giving my power away. My mentor and I then over the course of thousands of hours of deep and committed research into basically archetypes, our own and others, the way power dynamics arise inside this understanding then also to balance the power diagram, I go through that-- When you get to week five, you realize that you have the potential to own what has happened to you in your life, in particularly the most challenging relationships. I don't know anyone that hasn't either had a tremendously disruptive and challenging relationship or hasn't been through periods of particularly challenging in their long-term relationship. There are very few people that haven't been through that. For those that think they haven't, I probably suggest that they're not being fully truthful in their life. When you can own that is your life and a result, not necessarily of something that you've done consciously or malevolently, but just that it's your life, and it's consistent with your experience, you are the central character in your life. Nobody else. Some people are on the stage of your life for the entirety of your life, such as your family, typically. Some people come on to the stage of your life and never leave. Some people just cross the stage of your life. Regardless, you're the central character of your life. It comes back to responsibility. Until we can own that this is our life and we are having our experience and much of our experiences directly linked to these survival archetypes that we've been speaking about, then you can own it.

When you own it, layers of guilt, shame and anxiety and worry and victimhood can just literally dissolve. Not some kind of magic trick, but it's all explainable. Until we have a new relationship to the challenges of our life, the challenges can create our experience. Woman who wrote a book called How Emotions Are Made-- I can't quite think of-- It's not Lisa-- Is it Lisa Feldman Barrett? Lisa Feldman Barrett. The vast majority of our emotions are a direct result of our thoughts, typically, our implicit beliefs and values. People think our emotions are involuntary. You can argue that they are. But what is voluntary, if you commit to the work is organizing and upgrading your beliefs and your values throughout the course of your life in such a way that they trigger far less of the unpleasant emotions. When you understand this, you understand that if you're able to take ownership of your experience of your life, and to have a relationship context for the challenges of your life, which is much easier to do when you understand these fundamental archetypal energies within you and all people, well, it makes sense, then, logically, that vast amounts of guilt and shame and victimhood and worry and confusion can just dissolve.

It's not an overstatement to say that often people skip into, or onto calls now, we're online now because of COVID. People show up on calls on weeks, four, five, and six, beaming, just beaming and radiating. The watch shows up in our being when we have the absence of these heavy layers of thought that are invisible to us. I am going to quote one of the members of the study group that I'm on right now. He shared with me that he has been impacted for 10 years by major confusion and distress with his longtime partner. He's been looking in a number of different places for the answers as to why he experiences this distress and confusion and suffering. He basically has dissolved at all. He understands everything that's happened now through the lens of the survival archetypes and the power dynamics that arise from these archetypes. If I haven't made it clear, the business, the name that I use for all of my work at the moment is relational power dynamics. Relational power dynamics arise, they originate from the survival archetypes. If you've ever felt like you're in a dynamic that is unpleasant, that is a direct result of the survival archetypes and not understanding them. This is what leads to the long-term misery and suffering in long-term relationships, is when dynamics form and solidify and become the normal day-to-day experience. They cannot be resolved without a better understanding. Technically, they can, so let's not speak in absolutes. If you want to resolve them, probably the best way is by understanding these survival archetypes because it begins to dissolve the structure of the power dynamic. In a way, that's beneficial for everyone, obviously.

Just to finish, ownership is in two parts, but the part that matters to me the most right now is that once you understand all of this, you're able to release the layers of negative emotions from your life, and your relationships. If you're single, for example, and you're hoping to meet somebody and have a new relationship, I'd strongly advise understanding this material and the impact it has particularly on releasing the past. Again, it's not so much digging into the past. It's just understanding today what happened. You're far more likely to meet and connect with a more balanced person as a result. We, I think, naturally attract and are attracted to people that have a similar level of imbalance available in them as you have in you.

For example, let's just use a number scale from 1 to 10. If you're a sheep and under enough pressure, you can go to like a 6 or 7 out of balance, you're going to attract someone typically a wolf, who can also go to 6 or 7. That's not pleasant, by the way, level 6 and 7 is not pleasant. It doesn't work and it's not maintainable long term. If you become somebody that's like, maybe a 3 is as far as I'm able and willing to go, you're far more likely to attract and maintain the behavior of somebody that's only going to be a 3, you're therefore much more likely to maintain a long-term relationship that's respectful. What people want is their partner to behave a certain way. What people don't realize is, the degree to which you can go out of balance is the degree to which your partner will misbehave or behave in a way that you don't like. This makes sense.

Simply, if a gorilla goes level 6 or 7, then what's going to show up is a level 6 or 7 for fox. Infuriating them and driving them absolutely bonkers. If they are level 3, and I'm not going-- I can be flexible. I can be flexible now, okay? The plans have changed. They're not going to drive the imbalance behavior of their partner. Likewise, if you're a sheep and you so desperately need connection, but if you overcome that and you have a better understanding of the warrior entity, and you're beginning to be able to speak up, say, “Okay, I get it, you're frustrated. How can I help?” That wolf is not going to go to a level 6, they're going to come back to 2 or 1. Just your ability to speak up and be interested in why someone's frustrated will change the quality of your life almost like nothing else. Nothing else I know will improve the quality of your life than becoming less imbalanced in your own being, and it will dramatically improve the behavior of the people that you love. What's the miracle of it is, nobody else has to change, but you. When you become less imbalanced through this understanding--

Again, we're having a technical conversation. I just want to remind everyone that I don't live in a textbook. It's just something about knowing this. I was in the pub last night, having drinks with a friend and a couple of other friends, having an absolutely hilarious time, bantering away loving life. It's not about being in a textbook, but sometimes you have to take your car into the garage, lift up the hood, and get a bit oily, the performance of the car improved, then you get back on the open road and you carry on your life. That's what's possible. I've been fascinated by relationships for nearly 34 years now. I found nothing. Nothing more potent and powerful than this material. I haven't. It's the truth. There are some very good researchers out there, very impressive people that have some really interesting concepts. Concepts alone are not enough. I found nothing in nearly 34 years that directly improves the quality of your life and your relationships in this material. That's kind of the headline, I suppose.

Melanie Avalon: I took the course. It's nearer towards the end of the course, when the concept that I'm about to talk about came up. But when this came up, and I'm about to say it, it was the moment where I just thought-- I was already completely sold, everything was making sense, I was understanding other people's-- how they are the different archetypes, how they relate, I felt my eyes are being opened. Then we got to a chapter where we talked about the core wound of the individual archetypes and it just hit me so spot on. It's so perfectly explained for me personally and my archetype as the gorilla, what I feel, I experience as the one thing in my life and in the world that needs to be addressed and needs to be fixed. To me, it just seems obvious, because I'm experiencing it as a gorilla. Before this work, I would think everybody would be concerned with this. There's actually a different “core wound” for each of the archetypes. I was wondering if you could talk briefly about it, because I remember I had that section and then I was just blown away. It was a mind blown moment.

Rory Kilmartin: Yeah, I'm happy to talk a little bit about it without giving away too much. That's my temptation as I start telling everybody all the answers. Let me try not to give away the answers, because that actually feels the most appropriate thing. I'll speak generally about it. Each of the survival archetypes has a core wound that it drives their behavior.

Melanie Avalon: Maybe we could say just what the gorilla is, since I said it was me.

Rory Kilmartin: Okay, sure. The core wound of the gorilla is imperfection. Every time when I work with gorillas, and they get to this point, and it's exactly like you just said, it's like, “Oh, we're so busted.” [laughs] The gorillas desperately seek for things to be perfect. They want the plans to be perfect. They want the dinner parties to be perfect. They want the travel plans to be organized. They don't want breakdowns as in missing the train, forgetting your passport, not knowing what the hotel is, and your phone’s run out of battery, you're standing at the taxi-- Every imagination you can have about being organized and detailed and precise, the gorilla is desperately trying not to reveal that deep down, they know they're imperfect. The other archetypes don't have this problem, not nearly as much.

Melanie Avalon: Oh, really? Wait, with imperfection or the core wound?

Rory Kilmartin: Imperfection. Not nearly as much. Yeah, with that one, I'll give you a simple example of some of the work we do in the coaching program. Part of what we do in the coaching program is integrating the energy that we've disowned in it and we have a series of exercises that help each of the four survival archetypes process that the primary triggers. I was doing this exercise with the gorilla the other day, and she got on the phone and she sent her. The exercise essentially as you find an example where you're easily triggered and you tune into the energy that you've disowned, and then you state a statement a number of times, maybe 10, 12 times until your nervous system relaxes. I get on the phone with this girl and she's like, “So sorry--” She was on a different time zone. “I thought it was in an hour. Now I'm not ready, and I've messed up.” She said, “I find this so stressful.” I said, “It sounds like you've done all the preparation you need.” She held with laughter. Then, we began the exercise and stayed[?] with us[?] at the beginning and then said, “Okay.” We agree the sentence was, “Hey, I just want you to know, I messed up.” By the way, how does that sound to you, Melanie? Just as a simple statement? Is it comfortable or uncomfortable?

Melanie Avalon: I'm actually comfortable with saying that.

Rory Kilmartin: Well, this particular gorilla was very uncomfortable. Sweating, breathing, like, “Okay, here we go.” By the end, she's more comfortable. I had another gorilla that I did the exercise with. What she had to say her statement that she created was, “Sweetheart, I want you to know you were right and I was wrong.” She finds this very difficult to say, that she was wrong and her partner was right. She practiced this over and over and over again until her nervous system became okay with, “Hey, you were right. I was wrong,” because that's flexibility. Gorillas typically do not like coming across as imperfect, that they've messed up, made mistakes, they were wrong, they did something wrong. What's so fascinating is that all of the other three survivor archetypes have their own cohort, fox, sheep and the gorilla and the wolf. It helps explain why it drives their behavior.

Melanie Avalon: I'm just thinking more about the sentence. The reason I said to other people, me saying that to myself, I'm very uncomfortable with. Me saying I messed up or I'm wrong about something I did is very, very uncomfortable to me. Yeah, sorry, that was just a clarification.

Rory Kilmartin: Yeah. Each of these survival archetypes has their own, and it explains huge amounts about their values, their behavior, their reactivity. Part of what happens when we begin to integrate the archetypal energy that we've disowned the most is that driving unconscious hidden driving energy, that drives us in an imbalanced way, calms down. It just calms down. Another way of saying it is this, these archetypal energies are a play all the time in everyone. They are the origin at the originating source of power dynamics in your life and in your relationship. The degree to which you go out of balance is directly linked to the degree to which you've disowned one or the other archetypal energies. The degree to which you go out of balance is the degree to which your life doesn't work. It's where you make a mess of your life and your relationships. We are involuntarily influenced by these absent or dominant energies in a way that is invisible to us. What most people have absolutely no idea that they're being influenced by these energies, how they shape our lives.

Once you become aware of them, it's not like-- you might think, if we did this, then you'd have more thoughts. Well, only the same as if you took your car into the garage for a couple of days, and you got a bit oily, then you just clean up and you carry on with your drive. But your car runs smoother, there's less rattling, less bumping, the heating works, the air conditioning works and everything is just improved. The thing about this material is it produces less thoughts. You have to have a few thoughts in the process to understand everything, but on the other side, you just have less thoughts because the majority of our thoughts are triggered by being triggered.

There are transient thoughts or light thoughts such as, do I want a cup of tea? The answer is yes, and what times I go to bed and just random stuff. The heavier thoughts, the thoughts that suppress us and limit our pleasure and joy and intimacy and fulfillment in life, the heavier thoughts are directly as a result of being triggered. Whether it's thoughts of becoming self-conscious, thoughts of grandiosity, thoughts of frustration, irritation, thoughts of victimhood, thoughts of anxiety, so the gorillas suffer from anxiety because they feel like if things don't work properly, everyone's going to die. It's not a real death of course, it's metaphorical death. The wolves have anxiety because when people are weak around them and timid and incompetent, they feel like that everyone's going to die. Again, it's a metaphorical death. The Vikings will come in through the open gate because some idiot, weak person not paying attention left the gate open. The sheep think that they have heavy thoughts based around victimhood and oppression and feeling violated and feeling wronged, because they have a poor relationship to anger, their own and others.

There's so much that I'm not saying about this material that we can't cover in the time that we have together. I'm hoping that if you're listening to this, that you've heard enough to know that if you're searching for answers in any area of your life, if you're searching to reduce the baffling confusion, has anyone in your life that you really care about, but you're baffled by their behavior, and it's impacting you? If there's any aspect of this that you're aware of relates to you from victimhood, to irritation, to imperfection, any aspect of what we spoken about, it will be remiss of me not to tell you that there are answers here that will greatly benefit you. That's why we're having this call. You are into biohacking. For me, I've never really thought about how do you hack relationships? I've never really thought about that. I'm unapologetic about it, I've not found anything in 34 years that comes close to how powerful this is at just clearing away the clouds of confusion. If that isn't hacking relationships, I don't know what is. I think that's why you invited me, right?

Melanie Avalon: Exactly. I was just thinking about that concept, because the whole biohacking concept can be nebulous, and what is it. In general, the episodes on this show do revolve around physical health, or oftentimes mindset. It's usually tips and tricks and tools to optimize your environment and your lifestyle that best supports that physical health, that mindset. When it comes to relationships, that's what this is, having taken the course. Friends, listeners, from the bottom of my heart-- we've used the term ‘language,’ but the language, the knowledge, the skills that you arguably need to actually understand relationships so that they can work in the most beautiful way possible for you and for everybody that you relate with, I cannot thank you enough for your work, Rory. It's absolutely incredible.

Like I said, I have been telling everybody about it in my immediate life but now I'm just absolutely thrilled that we get to tell my audience at large about it. This is so incredible, so exciting. His audience is international, but Rory is going to be doing a US-specific workshop for my audience, you guys are mostly-- a lot of you are in the US. If you're not in the US, that's still fine. Basically, the timing of the workshop because it is an online with their meetings and their groups that you do, so the timing is going to work well for people in the US. That's going to start. I'm so excited. That's going to start--?

Rory Kilmartin: The next study group starts on March the 9th, and it's going to be my first US time zone specific. I've had lots of clients from America, but they've been dialing in in the middle of the day for European times. I'm going to do one that I think is going to be probably 8 PM EST and 5 PM West Coast time. It starts on March 9th. Could I just share with everyone what the elements are just so that people know? The study group is most effective over 10 weeks. There's a call at the beginning and a call at the end. There are 11 group calls. The group calls are an hourlong, and then I stay on for another hour of Q&A. You can put in two hours in your diary if you want. The time zones are going to change in April, but I'm going to make sure that the time stay the same in America every week for the whole process.

The three elements are, the first is watching the footage with the workbook. There are nine weeks of footage and then the last week there's no footage, we just go [unintelligible [01:29:12] part one. Part two, you'll be assigned into a smaller study group, which I call a pod. In that pod depending on how many different types of survival archetypes, but hopefully, at least one person from the other three survival archetypes than yours will be on the pod. You'll have a weekly call with that group where you share your answers to the exercises in the workbook. That's where the magic happens because you get to listen to the other archetypes in their own words on a Zoom call, look you in the eye, and explain their values to you. It's a revelation because you realize these people are like aliens. They deal with life completely differently to you.

The second part is the pod calls, and the third part is the group calls, which I just mentioned. They're on Tuesdays. They'll be on Tuesday evenings in America. They're, like I said, one/two hours, put two hours in your diary. Those are recorded and they're put up on the portal, so that if you missed the call, you'll be able to watch and listen to the call. Footage with your workbook, the pod call, and a group call, and we do that over 10 weeks. People become really close friends with the people on their pods. Everybody is supporting each other. The great thing about this material is, it's a great level of nobody gets to be more impressive than anybody else. It doesn't matter who you are. There are things that you simply don't know about the other archetype. Everybody essentially commits to supporting each other and seeing more clearly, and it's a beautiful meritocracy in that sense, everybody supports each other. The group calls are fabulous because we just bring it all together. The footage is based on the workshop I led in London back in November 2019. It's been edited for this purpose. It's just highly effective. Well, you've been through it, so you know what the process is like.

The process works, that's the point. Almost nobody drops out. Almost nobody misses a call. It's highly engaging, utterly fascinating. It triggers curiosity, and it triggers an inquiry that is just a glorious conversation. By the end, people are popping and having realizations and revelations that will improve the quality of their lives forever. That's the game I'm playing is, again, it's just to help people see more clearly.

Melanie Avalon: I just got really excited, because I hadn't thought about this before. You're saying at the beginning that the type of people you want to work with are the loving, kind people who have the best of intentions and are just--

Rory Kilmartin: Yeah, just decent people.

Melanie Avalon: The reason I got really excited was-- so I'm speaking into my audience right now and, Rory, my audience, they're just the best. I have my Facebook group, IF Biohackers, and a lot of you guys are in that. It's just the most wonderful people. It comes up all the time in our group about how-- we often say there actually is little drama, at least, and how people treat each other. I'm just really excited depending on how many people sign up for the workshop. It might be-- you guys, I feel like you already know each other in a way, so it can be really, really wonderful. I am so excited, so grateful. Rory’s actually giving you guys 20% off the course which is absolutely incredible. I cannot thank you enough for that. For all of that, you will go to melanieavalon.com/balanceofpower. That's how you can register for the course. The coupon code, MELANIEAVALON, will get you 20% off. You can pay it in three installments if you like. Rory, did you want to talk about the refund policy?

Rory Kilmartin: Yeah, sure. Let me just say a couple of quick things. Firstly, you can pay over three months, that’s exactly the same price if you want to pay in one payment. I am not very keen on that whole, it costs you more if you pay over three months. No, the price is the price. You're very welcome to pay over three months. In addition, if at any point, you don't like me, you don't like the material, you don't think it's for you, you can just let us know, and we will give you a full refund. If you don't get value, I don't want to keep your money. That's one of the pieces of integrity that I feel that I have, because I feel so honored to have discovered this material. If you are interested and you want to sign up, then sign up, come and find out if this is for you. If it's not, it won't cost you a penny. That's just how I operate. That's how I've operated since the beginning. Everything is done with the highest levels of respect that we can muster in myself and as a group. My aim is to do the work with the people who are ready and willing to do the work. If that is you, if you've realized listening to this podcast that there are answers that are missing for you, pieces of the puzzle that are missing, and you have a sense that they may exist in this material, then please come and join us on March 9th and find out if this is for you. I'm almost certain that it is.

Melanie Avalon: I cannot recommend it enough. I did want to say, we haven't ironed up the specific details about this, but I'm assuming for those-- if you're listening to this episode and March 9th has already passed, I will make that link go to most likely a landing page that will give information about, like your future workshops. I want people to know that you're always going to be having-- I don't know the future but you intend to have these workshops.

Rory Kilmartin: I'm going to have US Pacific study groups ongoingly, probably every three months, because the demand is growing quite rapidly because the word is getting out that there is real valuable life-changing information here. I'm not going to say the [unintelligible [01:35:00]. No, this is the real information.

Melanie Avalon: I agree.

Rory Kilmartin: The truth is there are a lot of people who are, let's just be positive and say doing their best. I'm saying quite simply that I've been researching this, essentially for 34 years, and I've not found anything more powerful than this. I present it to the best of my abilities, and it works. I couldn't do this if it didn't work. Do you know what I mean? I don't know how people are, some people are themselves in the mirror. This is by far the most powerful and impactful material on relationships I've ever discovered, and my clients feel the same way.

Melanie Avalon: I do. I feel the same way.

Rory Kilmartin: If you don't like it, I'll give you all your money back. Literally, just send me an email saying, “Sorry, this isn't for me.”

Melanie Avalon: You guys have me, you have Melanie. I'm just thinking about how-- because I often talk about things that I love, and I think people find comfort in knowing that I have their back for everything that I stand behind. So, yes.

Rory Kilmartin: It's wonderful that you've been through this study, it's wonderful that we're having this conversation, because I can feel the excitement. Just imagine having a call with a bunch of your tribe who've been through this and being like, we're going to have a post study group call, “Let's talk about it.” [laughs]

Melanie Avalon: For listeners, who sign up and go through the group, we’ll have to organize it in the Facebook group or something, but I want to talk to you guys and hear your experience. Oh, I'm so excited. Okay.

Rory Kilmartin: Yeah. Share your breakthroughs.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah. You can feel free, even talk about what you learn in our group as well. It's just amazing.

Rory Kilmartin: One of the highlights of my life is-- I just got a message this morning from one of the participants of the study group. It's the best feeling in the world when people just voluntarily share, “This has changed everything. Everything's improving, everything. My marriage, my relationship with my children, my relationship with my boss.” It sets me off for a good day. It makes it all worthwhile, because there's a huge amount of work at the end of the day to do all of this, but when good people have those breakthroughs, it just makes it all worthwhile.

Melanie Avalon: 100%. Again, listeners, the link is melanieavalon.com/balanceofpower, the coupon code, MELANIEAVALON, gets you 20% off. That brings me to the last question that I ask every single guest on this show. It's just because I've realized, or I continue to realize more and more each and every day, how important our mindset is surrounding everything. What is something that you're grateful for?

Rory Kilmartin: Well, it should be no surprise to you that I feel incredibly grateful that I have discovered this material and incredibly blessed that I get to dedicate my life to sharing it with people and the difference that it makes in people's lives, particularly the lives of their children that-- for those of you that don't know me, that's probably my number one driving motivation. What else am I grateful for? Let's add something else.

Melanie Avalon: I like what you said.

Rory Kilmartin: Yeah, maybe that's it. I'm obviously incredibly grateful for the people that I care about and who care about me. I think what I just said is-- that's what I'm grateful for, this material exists, and that I get to share it. It's like, “Wow.” I say this sometimes, I feel like the kid on Christmas morning every day that comes downstairs and finds unopened gifts under the Christmas tree because the material is just is endlessly fascinating. It's just so rich. Thank you for asking me that question.

Melanie Avalon: I'm so grateful for the work you're doing. I'm so grateful I was introduced to it, that I did the course. Now that I can share it with everybody. I just cannot thank you enough for what you're doing. I'm so excited for the future of everything. Hopefully, we can bring you back on again in the future for a Part Two Episode.

Rory Kilmartin: I'd be honored. Yeah, maybe we can have a Part Two at the end of the March 9th study group sometime later in the year.

Melanie Avalon: Yeah, that'd be amazing.

Rory Kilmartin: That'd be wonderful. Melanie Avalon, you're doing wonderful work. Thank you for your contribution to your listeners and the world, too.

Melanie Avalon: Thank you, Rory Kilmartin. I'm so happy. Well, I will talk to you in the very near future and have a wonderful rest of your day. It's the beginning of the day for you. It's the evening for me.

Rory Kilmartin: Yeah.

Melanie Avalon: All right. Well, I will talk to you later.

Rory Kilmartin: Thank you, Melanie. Thank you, everyone. Much love. Bye-bye.

Melanie Avalon: Bye.