Seeing the Path Behind Me

How Archetypes Illuminate Career Transition

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was already deep in a career transition when I first began thinking about leaving branding and design. On the surface, I was still doing what I had always done—helping organizations tell their stories, craft their identities, and shape the way they were seen. I had spent more than two decades in that world, and in many ways, it had been good to me. It was creative, challenging, and sometimes even deeply satisfying.

But over time, a quiet truth began to surface: the work no longer felt whole. I could still craft beautiful things, but I felt increasingly disconnected from the deeper human purpose behind them. I knew I wanted to find a more meaningful way to be of service—to walk with people in moments of struggle, transformation, and renewal.

For several years, the idea of working in natural medicine had been in the back of my mind. I didn’t know what form it would take—only that I wanted to help people heal in a way that felt more direct, more human. Then I began noticing how many people I loved—friends, family, colleagues—were turning to Chinese Medicine in times of physical or emotional need. They spoke about it with reverence, not just as a treatment but as a kind of sanctuary. The tenderness of their stories stayed with me: relief from chronic pain, a long-awaited sense of balance, a quieting of grief that had lingered for years. These were not brand stories; they were human stories. And I began to wonder what it would be like to support others during that that kind of change.

This was my journey, but it wasn’t one I walked alone. My fiancée at the time—now my wife—was with me through every step of the uncertainty. She listened when my doubts grew loud. She believed in the path before I could fully see it. And her steady presence made it possible for me to take a leap that, on my own, I might not have had the courage to make.

The Seeker Emerges

When I look back, the first archetype that rose up in me was the Seeker. I didn’t recognize it at the time—I just thought I was restless, confused, maybe even discontent. But the Seeker doesn’t emerge because things are bad. The Seeker emerges when the known world, no matter how well-constructed, no longer feels like home.

I began to follow a thread—doing my own due diligence. Sometimes it felt irrational. But it also felt alive.

What I understand now is that the Seeker is not aimless. The Seeker is faithful to something deeper than the ego’s plans. The Seeker is led by the Self—what Jung called the organizing center of the psyche, which wants not achievement but wholeness.

From Image to Essence

For over two decades, I worked in a world of image. I don’t say that cynically—branding, when done with integrity, can be a beautiful kind of storytelling. It can surface meaning. But over time, I began to feel the limitations of living in service to perception. I longed for something more embodied, more honest. I wanted to work with what was unseen but deeply real—qi, emotion, the subtle body, the long arcs of healing.

This was the Healer archetype beginning to stir in me. Not as a job title, but as a psychic figure waking up. I began to see how the Healer had been with me all along—in my intuition about people, in my ability to sense the emotional undercurrents of a brand, in my desire to create work that helped others feel more integrated.

The transition wasn’t clean. It rarely is. I grieved the part of me that had worked so hard to build a career. I feared starting over. I wrestled with doubt. But looking back, I see how the Creator—another archetype that had long shaped me—wasn’t being discarded. It was being invited into a deeper expression. I wasn’t leaving creativity behind; I was redirecting it inward.

The View From Here

Having just completed my certification in Jungian Coaching, I see my own story as a case study in archetypal change. The tools I now use with clients—active listening, archetype mapping, reflective dialogue—are the same tools I wish I’d had more access to in the midst of that transition.

It’s not that they would’ve made the change easier. But they would’ve given it a shape.

I now understand that I wasn’t “starting a new career”—I was stepping into a new relationship with my Self. That sounds abstract, but it isn’t. It’s actually quite physical. The body knows before the mind. My interest in Chinese Medicine didn’t begin as an intellectual decision; it began as a full-body yes to a new way of seeing and being.

And now, as I begin to practice both coaching and the healing arts, I see how they belong together. In both, I’m holding space for what wants to emerge in someone. In both, I’m listening—to patterns, to symbols, to symptoms, to the unconscious. In both, I’m helping someone come back into relationship with the deeper currents of their life.

The Gift of the Archetypes

The archetypes give me language for what I was experiencing—and more than that, they give me trust. When I see that I wasn’t just confused, but held by the Seeker, I can allow the uncertainty. When I recognize the Healer not as an aspiration but as a part of me awakening, I can honor it. When I reframe the Creator as a companion rather than a casualty of the change, I feel less fragmented.

I’m now working with clients who are navigating transitions of their own—career shifts, identity upheavals, soul-level questions about what comes next. I don’t tell them what to do. But I do help them listen. We follow dreams. We explore resistance. We name the figures that are showing up within them and around them.

And we begin to trust the process—not as a straight line, but a winding path.

Because becoming who we are is not a goal. It’s a remembering. A return. A reweaving of the parts of us that were waiting, all along, to be seen.

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” — Laozi

If you find yourself standing at the edge of something new—restless, uncertain, but called—know that you are not alone. Transitions are initiations, and every step you take is part of a larger unfolding. If you’d like to explore your own journey through the lens of archetypes and inner guidance, I welcome you to connect with me for a conversation. Sometimes all it takes to begin is a witness who can help you see the path that’s already forming beneath your feet.

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Welcome to the Practice

I named my coaching practice Cultivate because that’s what growth really is—slow, seasonal, relational. It’s not a race. It’s a rhythm.

This space is an extension of that idea. A journal. A dialogue. A place to breathe.

Thank you for being here.

More soon.
-- Robert Baggett, M. Dip. Ac., CLC
cultivatews.com