Understanding Human Energy and Relationships with Carrie Davidson

What if the way you show up in the world—your "personality"—is actually causing harm to the people around you without you even realizing it? In this illuminating episode of "It Begins Here," host Jillian Johnson sits down with Carrie Davidson, author of The Five Archetypes (Simon & Schuster), to explore the ancient wisdom of Chinese five-element theory and how it applies to modern relationships, leadership, and personal growth.

Carrie explains why discomfort has been pathologized in our culture, why we think we should never feel uncomfortable, and how this distortion is creating chaos in our collective consciousness. She introduces the five elements—Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, and Wood—as a practical framework for understanding how energy moves in a healthy system, where we get stuck, and how to keep the flow going even in the face of challenges.

Jillian and Carrie get real about being "high fire" personalities, the damage that unfiltered fire energy can cause (even when intended as joy or light), and the responsibility each of us has not to "inject our stuff into the collective soup." Whether you're leading a team, navigating a difficult relationship, or just trying to stay centered in a chaotic world, this episode offers tools, compassion, and a whole new way of seeing yourself and others. Your journey to energetic integrity begins here.

 Where love creates movement, and movement creates change. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Everything I think, say, or do goes into the collective consciousness pool that we all exist in and helps us feel things and tolerate our day. And if I put in too much fire, imagine the amount of pain I'm creating in the world. Imagine that all we had was sun, everything would die pretty darn fast.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Yes, it's so true.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

And I am completely guilty in the past of saying, well, I'm a Scorpio, and if you don't like what I say, then too bad. And I'm of Sag rising, so I'm just gonna show up and you know connect. And it's true. I mean, as a leader, you have to connect with your team and show up with your team and meet them where they are. And I think that that's what this really has helped significantly. And I'm still learning, of course, like everyone else.

SPEAKER_04 1:18

So I welcome you to It Begins Here, a podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:24

Carrie Davidson is the author of the five architects. And the creator of a repeatable framework for a fighting relationship. Moment for moment.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

So I was telling you my challenging day as a caveat, as an intro, and we alluded to all these beautiful other conversations that we should have gotten we should have recorded. But um it is an intense space. This world is intense. I literally, as I was telling you earlier, I went out for my beautiful walk along the ocean, and I noticed people speeding by and flying by and not appreciating the visual that is so healing, right? And not taking the time. And my poor self trying to cross on a crosswalk, literally almost got run over. Two people ignored me until the third person couldn't because I was in their face flipping them off and yelling at them to slow down. So I think it's really important that we come together, and I'm sure there'll be more podcasts in the future around this of how do you stay centered and present in a world of chaos and have things that happen to you like a client departing in your business, like an employee departing in your business. And I mean, I know because I've been doing this and thankfully also working with you on 5A. How would you tell people how to handle these situations and not get absorbed in the chaos?

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Well, it's interesting as you're describing seeing nature, like the beautiful, just normal how things work on this planet, you know, and then the other extreme of humanity racing through nature, racing past, not stopping, not slowing down, not just being present and aware. And so the chaos you're talking about is like imagine we're being stretched into the extremes where nature is it's still the same. The sun still comes up, summer still comes, the waves still ebb and flow with the tides, the fishies are doing what they're doing, the flowers pop up, and at the same time, we're like there's chaos. And you're right, it's like getting more and it's like stretching us so thin, it's like where the holes are showing up in us. Yes, yeah, Swiss cheese, yes, yes, yeah. So, you know, if I think about how how can we function in a place of Swiss cheese? I mean, first of all, accept acceptance that, all right, we've got Swiss cheese. Like I can make a salad with that, I can make a sandwich with that.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

It's cheese. It's so true though, right? And I think too that I've come to a place in practice, whether it's meditation and grounding and doing those walks and realizing I'm getting to a point of like, I'm so uncomfortable, I'm so uncomfortable, this feels so uncomfortable, and just being like, I'm just gonna sit at sit in it and acknowledge it, right? Feel it. Because I know you and I have talked about this. I can literally see how unstable humans are when I interact with them because they're not grounded, because they're not taking time for self-love and self-care and all the things, and they just look depleted and worn out. And it's scary. It really is scary. And we are in an apocalyptic uh apocalypse of mummies and zombies because everyone's walking around on their phone not admiring things, and they're driving and almost running over pedestrians. So I'm glad you said it. It's like it's literally stepping in and acknowledging and feeling, right? We can't why can't we hide from not feeling the feel and just trying to grab, like, I'll just get myself a coffee and feel better, or I'll just grab an alcoholic beverage or a cigarette or a joint, like all the things to cover it up. Like, why is that dangerous, Carrie?

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Well, I mean, you're pointing to something really profound that's kind of been a problem for a long time, is that humans think they should never have to feel uncomfortable. You know, we've designed a system that pathologizes, I don't feel comfortable.

unknown 7:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

So it's a pathology. It's a, it's then it's, you know, I can come to you and say, I don't feel comfortable. And then it's your problem to fix my comfort. We have so distorted discomfort. Discomfort from ancient times, from from millennia, has been seen as an opportunity to self-inspect, to say, oh, what about my mental immune system? Have I not built yet? What have I not worked on? Did I not get good sleep last night? Did I did did I not eat my Cheerios for breakfast? Did I blah blah blah? What the hell ever? Um, that's on me. If I am uncomfortable, what about my internal and external environment? Can I strengthen so that I have you know more resilience in the face of the discomfort? And I don't have a big reaction to it because when I have a reaction to it, I make this assumption that everyone else needs to change so I can feel comfortable. And that's a world that turns into chaos. That's kind of where we're at. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 8:29

Amen. So talk to us about how you are teaching others to integrate, because I know it works. I'm usually utilizing it, our team at Simply J is utilizing it. Tell tell the listeners how how five archetypes can what you teach in practice can be incorporated to handle these challenges.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

So the five elements of Chinese medicine, which is what the five archetypes method is based on, gives us um a very clear foundational picture of how energy moves in a healthy system, how how life's experiences get digested instead of stuck, where we make a big, you know, a big stink about something forever or for more than a few minutes. Um when things get stuck in our digestive tract or in our mind, we don't, we, we, the energy gets stuck and we we insert that into the soup of collective consciousness for everyone else to have to deal with. So there is a natural way energy moves in a system. And you can take um a questionnaire that we have for free on our website to see how energy moves in your system and where you're at risk of getting stuck in that foundational flow, and then what to do about it so that what you're doing is always aligned with foundational flow. So you're not getting stuck in any of these thoughts, making meaning of things, um, or feeling like you shouldn't have to feel uncomfortable in a in your own particular way, um, or taking things personally, whatever it is. So I teach people to recognize what does their constitution mean about how they're going to relate to their limited perception of reality so that they can go through life on the lookout for it, knowing it's gonna happen probably a thousand times a day, and and then give themselves, you know, give themselves a break. Because it's just it's just my constitution. It's what I came here to overcome. It's not, it's not my personality or my identity that other people just have to take it or leave it. It's how I'm at risk for making making the collective consciousness feel like crap. And what's my responsibility to not inject into that soup. Um, and instead just be aware of like I'm I'm at risk for thinking um I'm primary fire. So I'm at risk for getting stuck in the fire element instead of using it to to show myself, like, you know, my fire can potentially get anxious or panicky about things that feel uncomfortable. But that's not that doesn't mean that my thoughts are true in those moments. It means my fire needs to move on to earth, which means what does my panic or anxiety tell me that I need to do for myself on a regular basis so that I don't get stuck in panic and anxiety? That's all my feelings are for. They are need identifiers for myself to do for myself, not for other people to do for me. And then I continue to move. But because it's my primary, it's what I always have to pay attention to. And so that's how we teach people to notice like, what is your primary telling you? You always need to be on top of so that you don't get stuck in one element and you keep the flow going, even in the face of discomfort.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

Yeah, it's beautiful. I know I'm I'm a high fire too. So when Carrie and I are are hanging out together, we're like, we almost look manicky because we're having so much fun and everything's exciting, but that can look really uncomfortable for others, right? And it's and we were just talking about this earlier, where I always was like showed up as my self, my fiery self. And then I'd have others, mostly metal people, now that I realize, and they just look at me like you're just too much, you're just too hot, you're just like you're just and then I would interpret it as like you're a jerk and I don't like you. And then now like look at all the turmoil that that creates, right? Um and I sense it also in my wood of gotta plow through, gotta plow through, gotta keep going, gotta keep going, where it's like maybe add a little water to see how things are flowing, right? And not to be so reactionary. Um it is very, it's a stabilizer, it's a life changer. And where you're starting to focus even more, which we appreciated at Simply J to help us navigate all the beautiful personalities in that organization. You're now spinning it out to relationships specifically, because I think, oh my God, I think a lot of looking back, I could have used a lot more water in my relationship pre-divorce. Um and and that's being vulnerable and accepting right and realizing, oops, I did do a thing. And I'm sure my team could even attest to like your fire's getting a little out of control, Jillian, or your wood's getting a little out of control, right? It's like an inside joke now. Um, but we can now identify the things so we don't if I may, we lost a client recently that we dedicated so much energy, more so than any other, because it was a new niche. We were really excited, they were very, they needed a lot of help, a lot of cleaning, a lot of reorganizing, a lot of process implementation. We ate a lot of that time. And then next thing you know, they just shut us down. They terminated us for no valid reason. And that just shook us. Like it was like WTF. And I think me and the manager actually, like on a call, like gave each other like the birds out to the universe, like screw you, client, like how dare you? But in actuality, taking a step back and looking, we already knew the client wasn't a right fit, number one. They weren't a right fit because they were a bunch of men in high wood and they would just plow through and just great, great, great, and not take the time to make sure the foundations are set and all the things, right? And they were very confrontational. I think I even remember yelling back at them in a grocery store. Like all the things, right? And I just I don't regret any of that, by the way, because I'm standing my ground and using that throat chakra that we talk about. But it will allow you to then gain a perspective of how can I handle this better? How can I not react? How can I learn from it? And how can I kind of like holy cow, they're a hot mess. It's a blessing.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

That makes sense too. Do you have anything to yeah? I mean, so so at its core, five archetypes is a relationships method. It's a really like there's the belief. Well, let's go back. It's based in Chinese, you know, Chinese five elements theory, um, based on qi, the movement of qi energy moving in a system. What is qi? Qi literally is relationship, which means that nothing happens in a vacuum. Even so, all of those like personality systems out there, identity, like the things that separate us, cause us in this philosophy to become sick. So to think that something happens in a vacuum um creates illness and imbalance and inertia in a system that needs to move. So um, so to your point, yeah, every time someone calls me, whether it's a it's a corporate group, it's a family, it's a couple, it's an individual, um, and I say, well, what's you know, what's going on? It may be sales need to be stronger, or we need to create a new website, or we don't, we're having we're behind schedule on building a new product, or whatever, or I can't get up in the morning, I have no motivation. A hundred percent of the time when I dig deeper, there's a relationship problem. And so people do, I mean, how many decades of work do we do on ourselves? We many people invest in their self, you know, expansion. But the second they come into a room with another human, all that shit goes out the window, and we're two kindergarteners trying to figure out what the hell's going on. And so I think that relationships really, really need uh people need help in that area. And to your point about I uh yeah, we know what our fire does, but our fire does nothing outside of relationship to other things. So we, you know, I've I frequently will hear people say to me when they first learn about this stuff, are you saying I can't be who I am? I'm like, oh girl, no, I'm just saying who you think you are is you causing harm and pain to 80% of humanity just about all the time. And and labeling that your personality or who you are or your gift to the world. Um we need to have more of an empathetic perspective of reality. Like, yeah, I have an urge to be silly. Um, and with you, we can do that and not hurt each other and not burn each other down. And I'm aware of that. So I'm I I can go there. I'm also quite aware that fire, only 5% of humanity has highest fire. And so think about the element itself. If you overuse fire in a scenario where not everyone else is prepared to understand that element, you're gonna burn stuff down pretty fast. And everyone's gonna feel like, whoa. But from our perspective, I'm just light, I'm just joyful, I'm just cheering you up. But when we when we are so selfish to think that everyone needs who I am because it's virtuous, we create a dynamic where where we're creating exponential pain in other people who are white knuckling it to figure out how can they make it through the minutes, the seconds that they have to be in our presence until they can step back and not be fire hosed with fire. And we think I'm just cheering you up, and I have I have evidence because you smiled when I smiled at you. Well, no, fire, fire is charming and it needs to, and is well practiced at making other people change their facial expression, and then we take that as evidence that I cheered you up and I did a good thing, and so relationships, nothing exists outside of relationships, so it's my position, you know, the philosophy, the my work, um what my teachers share is that we are here for the sake of everyone and everything else, and so everything I think, say, or do goes into the collective consciousness pool that we all exist in and helps us feel things and tolerate our day. And if I put in too much fire, imagine the amount of pain I'm creating in the world. Imagine that all we had was sun, everything would die pretty darn fast.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

Yes, it's so true.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

And I am completely guilty in the past of saying, well, I'm a Scorpio, and if you don't like what I say, then too bad. And I'm of Sag rising, so I'm just gonna show up and you know connect. And it's true. I mean, as a leader, you have to connect with your team and show up with your team and meet them where they are, and I think that that that's what this really has helped significantly. And I'm still learning, of course, like everyone else, um, to not be so reactive. Or when there's discomfort in the room, not to show up and be like, we everything's gonna be fine. And then they're like, oh my god, what's happening? Right? This is a little too much, and it's been it's been um very, very, it's been life-changing. So thank you, Carrie. I appreciate it. I appreciate it very much. And I hope everyone on this uh that who's listening in, I hope the world is listening in because this is so, so, so important. Uh, thank you again, Carrie, for joining us. We appreciate it so much. I'm ecstatic. I know, I know. Love and light, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_04 22:08

Oh my gosh, thank you, Jillian. It begins here. Thanks for listening. Love and light to all you beautiful humans.