J is for Jade Guardian

is for Jade Guardian

We are skipping over to ~J~ today because it is one of our most beloved letters, symbolizing the beautiful nurturing essence of our Jade Guardian Kuan Yin Goddess energy.

This week's concept is Jade Guardian. 

You deserve love. You deserve to be loved in the way you wish to receive love. With each step down this path your understanding of what it means to be loved, receive love, love yourself, and love others both expands and deepens. 

The Jade Guardian archetype is associated with Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Compassion. Opening up this aspect of your heart is a deeply vulnerable act. One of the most courageous things you may ever do is love yourself and accept yourself. As safety arises, there is no other path but love. You do not have to do anything except begin to receive, begin to soften your heart.  When safety is present, we can begin to experience this opening. It is natural, acting in accordance with nature.  

As safety arises, there is no other path but love.

Self-love is seen in many forms. Self-compassion, self-care, and self-love are all part of the spectrum of the nurturing Jade Guardian.  Some of us may have long been virtuosos at the Jade Guardian archetype as far back as we can remember. Could this be you? Do you have a wide variety of self-care practices that you can list off and easily access? Are you naturally talented at restoring yourself to a deep state of nourishment? Do you give yourself treats? Bubble baths? A special yoga class or really excellent cup of coffee sometimes? These are all examples of you nourishing yourself. Even as we give our gift to ourselves, we end up offering our love as gift to the world. What a joy it is to be with one who loves themselves! Whom is radiant with joy of their own being-ness. It is so nourishing to be around someone like this.

Further, people with strong Jade Guardians present tend to nourish and build community all around them. They cannot help it. Think of Snow White moving through the world, singing her song with birds chirping, flowers sprouting at her feet and townspeople being so happy for her song. If you or someone you know has an innate gift for the Jade Guardian archetype, you may notice their expertise in event planning, story-telling, cooking beautiful dinners or expertly working the BBQ with dogs barking and children running all around. Others with strong Jade Guardian might tend to a beautiful garden or prefer to keep plants around to nurture. They might love singing for the sake of sharing song with themselves and others, or dancing for the sake of sharing such a joyful expression of self-love and play. Jade Guardians are playful! They nurture the community and children. This is true on the intra-personal level as well. They also nurture our inner community and inner children.

While some of us might gravitate more-so to the Red Guardian archetype and others to the Jade Guardian archetype, they both exist in each of us. Developing both the Red Guardian and Jade Guardian within us will allow us to access our deepest gifts to give the world. Though we may feel built to prefer one more than the other, there is nothing within us that prevents us from developing a sufficient balance in both, each aspect supporting the other to its fullest expression.   

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Quick Origin Story: The concepts of Jade Guardian and Red Guardian both arose from creative implementation of therapy techniques pioneered by Eric Carrol over several decades of clinical practice. He created labels for these therapy approaches in order to bring them into his system of Compassionate Dialogue, which he created for his daughter, Kotomi, to help bring guidance, as a father loves to do! 

While the names of these archetypes have changed many times throughout their existence, there was a period where they were named Red Warrior and White Warrior, which included inspiration from the terms Red Chief and White chief, found in traditional indigenous cultures of Northern America, and perhaps while loosely related, these were the closest inspirations of existing archetypal naming conventions that he could find. Over time these terms evolved further and Miku and River added the terms Red Guardian and Jade Guardian, as inspired by the chakra system. This in turn helped bring in and clarify the inner dimension.

As with all things in Compassionate Dialogue, we hope these terms continue to evolve and improve with each practitioner's feedback and re-introduction to the practice.

See HERE for the original story of the Red Chief and the White Chief.