The Problem – A Lack of True Kings in Our World

It’s a sad fact that so much of our human potential goes untapped in the world. For example, I suspect most people reading this website would agree they have not yet reached their full potential – in other words, that they can still become more capable, competent, powerful, present, kind (or whatever) than they currently are.

But please note that as far as the archetype of the King is concerned, this is really about being more, about becoming “the fullness of who we actually were meant to be, before the world got in the way.”

Unfortunately, what gets in the way of us becoming the fullest version of ourselves are experiences that start from birth (probably even from pre-birth). No matter how well-intentioned our parents, family, friends and teachers  might be, there are many influences of one kind or another which can (and do) have a negative impact on our development. 

And the effect of this is that almost all of us live a life with various incomplete expressions of our innate qualities and abilities. This deprives both us and the world of the wonderous nature of our full talents and abilities.

(Another regrettable thing for both us and the world we live in is that many of the things that people do come to embody and express in the world are inherently negative: qualites that do not serve us but which we inherit, unwantedly, from our family ancestors, friends, teachers and the world around us.)

Of course, I may be idealistic in saying that we could all become much more than we already are. There’s some unspoken belief in our world that personal development “work” is either futile ,or too difficult, or too expensive, or simply impossible.

And yet at the same time, I believe that within nearly all of us there is an urge for self-development, a kind of motivation to find at least something that improves the quality of our lives and relationships. See what my colleague Pat Divilly has to say about this:

And while this may or may not be true, I think the obstacle to self-development for most people is not so much that they don’t have that impulse to grow as a person;  it’s more about finding the time, or the place, or the money, or the means of expressing it.

So how can we move beyond the limitations of our upbringing, our past, and perhaps our current situation in the world?

I recognise that for many people, time and money are obstacles that are apparently insurmountable. And it’s certainly true that personal development work of high quality can be expensive. But what if you were to calculate the amount of money that you spend on distractions, which are basically soothing mechanisms to help yourself feel better, and instead were to apply  that money to a fund for self-development?

Well, you might find that actually the money, and consequently the  benefits, were far greater than you could ever have imagined. I don’t want to sound idealistic about this, but I know people who have stretched themselves (myself included) and invested their money in their own development and found the increases in their capacity, enjoyment and happiness to be out of all proportion to their expectations before they began the personal work.

Unfortunately, I also know people who’ve dedicated a lot of money and time to personal work and who haven’t made much progress in their development at all. I think this  is often because of a lack of commitment, which in turn is a symptom of a lack of clarity about what peole want from their personal development work. 

How to get what you want from personal work

You need to have a clear objective; you need to know why you’re engaging with personal development work. For example, is it about improving the quality of your relationship? Is it about improving the way you earn money? Is it about giving back to the world? Is it simply about expressing all of the possibilities and potentials that lie within you that are not being tapped into at the moment?

These are all important questions, and once you’ve worked out the answer to those and found the motivation to take the step into the worl dof self-development, you are faced with the question of, well, what kind of therapy, process or workshop am I going to engage with?

And there are many options. For some people, a series of scheduled personal development sessions over a longer period of time are helpful. This could be, for example, a “six month journey in shadow work”, or a similar long term coaching arrangment as offered from time to time by my colleagues. Or  it could be a series of one-to-one personal sessions with a shadow work facilitator or some other form of counsellor or coach. You can find a good example of how personal coaching work changes people on my colleague Sam Adams’ coaching website.

If you feel that the archetypal model is of interest to you, then a great place to start is to read my books on the male archetypes, that is to say, the male archetypes in our modern world. I’ve written two books.

One is Warrior Magician Lover King: A Guide to the Male Archetypes, Updated for the 21st Century, and the other is Finding the King Within. It’s the success of Finding the King Within that’s motivated me to offer again the workshop whose name reflects exactly the title of the book, Finding the King Within.

I first offered this workshop several years ago with two colleagues, Ed Rooke and Diarmaid Fitzpatrick, who’ve now moved on to develop their own way of working.  And I’m glad to say that I have now developed a new team of highly experienced people in the world of personal development to support me in presenting this workshop. 

This team and I are presenting a new updated version of the Finding the King Within Workshop, which is going to run from March the 18th to March the 21st, 2027 at Little Earth Retreat Centre in Somerset.

If you’re interested in finding out the possibilities and potentials that you could bring to yourself, to your life, to the people around you, to your family and to your work, then this is probably one of the best opportunities that you’re going to have to do just that. For more information, click on this link or contact me by email. (rpboothroyd@gmail.com)