Love is not enough: how to empower the next generation

Parents, bosses and other leaders, this test is for you. Are you ready for the Luminary’s journey?

Jun 05, 2024

You can listen to this piece on TikTok (Part I, Part II), Instagram (Part I, Part II) and YouTube (Part I, Part II).

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So, you’ve heard of the Hero's journey. You may even have answered your own call to adventure and slayed the metaphorical dragon. But do you know what comes next?

Complete with its own life-changing lie vs truth, this is the Luminary's story arc. The Luminary is my gender-neutral name (because it applies to all of us, not just people who associate as women) for the more traditional Queen or Mother archetype, which is the third in a series of six archetypal journeys that map onto human life (we’ve already covered the Tenderfoot and the Warrior).

Here are these archetypes, renamed and in the order they would take place over the course of the archetypal life story. The Tenderfoot and Warrior represent the traditionally feminine and masculine journeys taken in the first part of life, the Luminary and Sovereign cover the midlife period, and the Seer and Mage take care of old age.

That said, real life doesn't play out as linearly as this mythic version, which means that we can find ourselves on versions of each of these journeys multiple times and at any stage in life.

Introducing archetypal character arcs

The archetypal journeys are journeys of transformation – and as such they see the character transform from one archetype to the next. The Luminary's journey that we're exploring today, therefore, is not about becoming the Luminary but about arcing of Luminary and into the archetype at the apex of personal power: the Sovereign.

Along the way, there will, of course, be some friction in the form of two archetypal antagonists (or baddies), and the threat of two dark and destructive shadow archetypes that could rise up and take hold.

And finally, every journey involves the transition from a lie to a truth. We start out believing something unhelpful, negative or disempowering about how the world works and at the end of the journey we relinquish that lie for an empowering, contrasting truth.

The Luminary's journey

The Luminary's journey is a battle that takes place in the symbolic setting of the Kingdom. And, seeing as the Luminary picks up where the Warrior left off – that is, integrated, comfortably, into the community as a mature adult – this will be someone who has already followed their own call to adventure and contributed in some meaningful way. They may be a parent, a manager or simply someone whose friends look to for advice or direction. But in one way or another, the Luminary will hold a position of authority over others.

So, while the challenges of the first act were all about the relationship with Self and developing as an individual, this second act is instead about the relationship we have with others – a graduation from a focus on personal responsibility to one of social and relational responsibility.

Think: George in It's a Wonderful Life…

Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings…

Harry Potter in The Order of the Phoenix…

or Buffy heading up the Scooby Gang in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The Luminary's journey
Journey: a Battle
Symbolic setting: the Kingdom

A transition from the Domestic World to the Monarchic World
Theme: social and relational power/responsibility – opting for wise, empowering leadership; assuming a belief in others' ability to fend for themselves and to take their own journeys

Now, unlike the Tenderfoot and Warrior, who were both motivated to take their respective journeys out of a sense of deep need and lack in their lives, the Luminary doesn't really want to level up. They've done the work to claim their identity. They've had life's big adventure (or so it seems to them, at least). And as a result, they feel accomplished, purposeful, and they take joy and pride from being the connected and compassionate leader or parent that they are.

But the longer the Luminary stays in this mode, the clearer it will become that those they love need more if they are to rise to the various challenges of their own empowering journeys.

That is to say that while the Warrior unlocked connection on their journey, learning that love creates meaning, the Luminary must (reluctantly) realise that love – on its own – is not enough. There must also be order and the much-harder-to-assert boundaries of strong and empowering leadership.

And therein lies the Luminary's main challenge: it's easy to lose yourself in a world you created for yourself, where you feel bolstered by the love of adoring dependents or students or staff. But this cannot last. The Luminary must now mature away from their own need and desire for loving connection and into the more detached role of Leader if they're going to pass this test.

Most of us will recognise this as the challenge any parent faces to let their children grow up – to stop trying to coddle or control, and to choose trust instead.

But, it's the same for any leader – really, any adult. We have to learn to stop micromanaging and spoon feeding the younger generation, and instead allow them to make their own mistakes, take their own paths, be their own people. How inconvenient and annoying! But if we don't do this, we will raise a horde of Naïfs and Cowards who cannot protect themselves let alone those they will eventually lead.

And this brings us to the first of the luminary's archetypal antagonists: the Invader.

The Luminary's antagonists

1. The Invader

With no inner yearning to get them moving, the Luminary absolutely needs an enemy to spur them into action and this enemy must threaten the life they have created for themselves, as well as the safety of those around them. This is to say that, when the Invader threatens, it is not ego that motivates the Luminary to answer their call to action but a selfless need to protect those they love.

Similarly, the Luminary's call is not a call to go alone into battle and defeat the enemy single-handedly as they did on their Warrior's arc. The Luminary will likely want to just sort the problem out on their own as they're used to but instead they will have to learn to let others fight alongside them. Because the Luminary's is a call to true leadership.

2. The Empty Throne

The second, and probably most important, of the Luminary's antagonists is the Empty Throne. Even though the Luminary may be highly reluctant to step up as leader, they simply must because there is a vacancy at the top, and no one else to fill it.

So, in the end, they can either cling to their beloved role of the doting, connected parent/boss/leader and endanger those in their charge, or they can lay to rest the softer version of their current self, rise up to fill the Empty Throne and lead the battle against the Invader.

The rewards of the Luminary's journey

Should they heed the call, the symbolic death of the Luminary’s former self – painful as it may be – is the only thing that can spur the character's rebirth as the more powerful, more socially responsible Sovereign.

“Yet love in its fullest form is a series of deaths and rebirths. We let go of one phase, one aspect of love, and enter another. Passion dies and is brought back. Pain is chased away and surfaces another time. To love means to embrace and at the same time to withstand many endings, and many many beginnings - all in the same relationship.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves

This may feel like a loss of love to the Luminary as it happens but it is, in fact, an evolution of love. As Clarissa Pinkola Estes says in this awesome quote "love in its fullest form is a series of deaths and rebirths – all in the same relationship".

At the end of the day, to endure these mini-deaths is to allow love. To resist them is to crush it – in other words, to be the antagonist to the person you love.

The rewards of the Luminary's journey
Rewards/virtues: growing power, order, authority, improved and evolved relationships, and a renewed sense of meaning in life

In sum, the Luminary's journey is filled with sacrifice and grief, but that ultimately leads to greater connection, a better life for all involved and a renewed sense of meaning for the Luminary, too.

But as with all these journeys in both story and in real life, there is no guarantee the character – or you or I – will take the opportunity to complete this arc whenever it's presented. And if we don’t, we run the risk of awakening not the Sovereign within, but one of the Luminary's Shadow archetypes – the Figurehead, or the Vampire.

The Luminary's Lie vs. Truth

The Luminary's Lie to Truth is one of Control vs Leadership.

The Luminary's lie: Only my loving control can protect those I love
The Luminary's truth: Only wise leadership and trust in those I love can protect them and allow them to grow

Going with your very first, gut answer, on a scale of 0 - 10 (0 being completely false and 10 being entirely true), how would you score that second statement – the Luminary's empowering truth?

In other words, have you taken this journey somewhere in your life? Have you realised your potential to lead with empowering trust and order, as opposed to control or coddling? If not, are there situations in your life now – as a parent, boss or other leader – where you may need to make this transition? And if so, what would this look like for you?

If you're getting a resounding no to these questions, then – first of all – please don't worry. Of course it's absolutely okay to take these journeys in your own time or even not take them – after all, not everyone (in fact very few of us) will live something close to the archetypal human life.

But if you're on this journey, and not up for the transition to Sovereign, then you do need to keep an eye out for the Luminary's shadow archetypes, which we'll cover next.

The Luminary's shadow archetypes

1. The Figurehead – a passive refusal to fight for what one loves

So, the Figurehead. I found the Luminary's shadow archetypes the hardest to translate to their gender-neutral versions. In Weiland's more traditionally named sequence, this archetype is called the Snow Queen. In myth and fairy tales, she is often a beautiful, childless (in other words "broken") woman who lives alone in some kind of ice palace. She only finds redemption when her heart is thawed by the love of either some children, or a questing Hero who makes her the object of his healing affections.

And it's in tropes like these that we can see just how steeped in patriarchal views much of our surviving mythological content really is. Traditionally, our culture simply wouldn't put a male character in that kind of situation. And yet people who identify as male are absolutely capable of falling into the clutches of the Luminary's passive shadow archetype.

So, goodbye Snow Queen and hello Figurehead – a stoney, statue-like effigy of leadership who has frozen into a state of impotent passivity. Governed by fear, the Figurehead deep down still sees themselves as the Naïf – a powerless, dependent person who must submit to authority rather than assume it.

The Figurehead still believes that someone should be looking out for them and so, no, they will not, cannot, look after anyone else, let alone empower them.

For representations of the Figurehead, think Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice…

Jon Snow in Game of Thrones (he eventually overcomes these tendencies)...

and Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire.

The Figurehead may have got here as a result of simply following the passive path from the outset, starting with the Naïf's refusal or inability to accept the call to individuation, followed by the Coward's refusal to take responsibility. Of course the Figurehead, at this point, would not have accumulated the resources needed to truly lead.

In order to do that, they would have to go back and start from the beginning, by taking the Tenderfoot's journey. Which, in reality, is totally viable and not at all uncommon, by the way.

But the figurehead could also be the result of a Luminary's fall from grace – a (perhaps intentional) refusal to step up to the plate, either because they don't feel they're capable of this next step or because they can't bear to sacrifice the loving dependence of those in their care.

2. The Vampire/Vampyric Parent – an aggressive refusal to do what's best for what one loves

The second shadow archetype that looms menacingly for anyone on this journey is the aggressive Vampire, or possibly Vampyric Parent. This is a character who rejects the altruistic light of the Luminary role and chooses, instead, to hide away in the darkness, feeding off those around them, and in particular, those dependent on them, in order to get their needs met. The Vampire is just not strong enough to sacrifice for those they love.

Again, this archetype could simply be an older version of the Tempest and the Bully who came before. Or, it could be that this character did complete those two arcs successfully, but at this stage is just not prepared to make the sacrifices required to take their growth to the next level. Either way, they haven’t been able to meet their own needs in healthy ways, and have therefore resorted to the manipulative use of those around them in order to get their needs met.

This, in turn, stifles the growth of those in their charge, as well as their own, and sets up an unconscious codependent bind that goes a bit like this:

Because I sacrificed for you, you must now sacrifice for me. And so, a toxic cycle commences. Someone, at some point, will have to break this pattern and the only way to do so is to accept the Luminary's call to true leadership, along with the selfless sacrifice involved.

Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all directive for how to do this but if you feel like you may need to make this transition somewhere in your life, doing so will definitely involve trust. Trust in others to make their own mistakes, and walk their own paths even if those paths are not what you would choose for them. And trust in yourself to meet your own needs in a healthy way, to use your voice and your mindful awareness of your own thoughts and feelings, so that you can set boundaries for yourself and others that will create the order that is the true hallmark of the Luminary's transformation.

Thank you for reading!

We’re Hazel (ex boxer, therapist and author) and Ellie (ex psychology science writer). We left our jobs to build an interactive narrative app for self-awareness and emotion regulation (Betwixt), which you can try on Android here and on iOS here.