Love Your Goblin: How to Get Back in the Driver’s Seat of Your Relationships

Who is in the driver’s seat of your love life and relationships? Your higher self or your fears?

In my over 22 years working as an intuitive counselor, I can safely say that at least 90% of my conversations have involved love. Relationships are, after all, an intrinsic part of our human experience. They are one of the most important aspects of our lives and help us evolve on our path. Yet, for many of us, love is also incredibly frustrating. It’s something that we all want, yet for many of us it remains confusingly elusive. We’re either looking for love or trying to find a way to sustain and feed the love that we already have.

But, it doesn’t have to be this way! Love doesn’t have to be something you long for but never seem to quite master. You really can completely transform your love life. I not only speak from my professional experience teaching my clients how to radically shift their relationships, but I’m a living example. After years of seemingly hopeless relationship struggles, I’ve been able to create the authentic relationship I’d always wanted. You really truly can do it!

So, what’s the secret to experiencing real love? You have to look at WHO is in the driver’s seat. Is it your Goblin or your higher self?

I’ve often talked about the Goblin, the character I created to embody the wounded ego we all have. The Goblin is a metaphor to represent what we have disowned in ourselves. He is made of shadow and holds our fears, our low self-worth, and all the things we don’t want to admit we are as a result of the misinformation we received about ourselves.

The Goblin will wreck havoc on your relationships if you let him, but he’s not a horrible villain. He’s actually trying to protect you by repeating false ideas about your self and others to keep you in what he believes is the truth. He is the sacred little girl or boy who is just trying to get by and doesn’t know any better.

The Goblin creeps up on all of us at times. For example, if we get annoyed when someone is controlling, we may be disowning a part of ourselves that is controlling. Or, when we can’t stand neediness in our partner, it might be that we’re ashamed of being needy. When we’re unconscious of this part of ourselves, we end up handing over the wheel to the Goblin to drive our life. Since he can’t have a relationship with anyone but another Goblin, we end up repeating the old patterns and drawing in the same types of partners.

When it comes to our relationships, the Goblin can take on many different motivator archetypes and be hard to recognize. To help you name your inner saboteur and enable you to recognize him in others, I’ve coined 12 Goblin archetypes. You will find that you strongly relate to one of these as your main Goblin and then two to three more as smaller tricksters.

The 12 Goblin Archetypes

1. The Judge: Critical of others, puts others down to make himself feel better, and looks for flaws in everything. Experiences cynical symptoms of low self worth sometimes masked as arrogance.
2. The Controller: Needs to be the leader at all times, unable to hear other’s ideas, and must have security. Acts out of underlying fear.
3. The Pleaser: Co-dependent and lacks a clear identity. Will do whatever the other person wants but resents it later.
4. The Rescuer: Distortion of healer. Needs someone to be less than so he can fix or help. Yet, ultimately, it’s him who really feels less than.
5. The Victim: Needs to be known as violated in order to not move forward. Based on fear, needs attention, and has repressed rage.
6. The Invader: Will hurt you before you get to hurt them, fear of abandonment, and no boundaries. He is disrespectful and has repressed rage/fear.
7. The Prostitute: Willing to give up integrity for the possibility of love, no self worth, and sees sex as a currency to get what they want (i.e. love or security).
8. The Manipulator: Never moves in a straight line, never says what they really mean, and doesn’t know how to ask for their needs for fear they wont get them. Covertly coercive or sneaky and can lie.
9. The Debater: Uses language to diminish another, always needs to argue, and can be self-centered. Talks at you but cannot hear.
10. The Gypsy: Cannot commit, always looking to leave and go somewhere else. Fears exposure thru potential intimacy.
11. The Drama Queen: Everything is a TO DO. Focus is stress, stress, and more stress. Use drama to get people to pay attention to them and the dust cloud their hiding behind. All about distraction.
12. The Addict: Continues to do the same thing over and over but expects a different result. Flourishes in longing and yearning and chooses partners to set the stage for longing and yearning. Experiences low self esteem, repressed rage, and can be manipulative. In constant state of denial.

Which Goblin resonated most with you? Remember, there’s no shame in owning it, for we ALL have Goblins that are trying to protect us and operating under old wounds. But, in order to change our relationships, we can’t follow our Goblin’s negative babble!

When you own your Goblin and give it unconditional love, you hand the wheel over to your higher self and reconnect with your soul. You can then attract and create a relationship that reflects that authentic part of you.

Exercise:

In my book, The Map: Finding the Magic and Meaning in the Story of Your Life, I share several powerful exercises to help you tame your Goblin. The exercise to follow will help you uncover the wisdom that lies hidden within your subconscious about this disowned part of you.

First, close your eyes and imagine the little mischievous Goblin that is a part of you and is keeping you from experiencing more love. He is responsible for all the negative self-talk and beliefs about yourself that cause you to feel low self-worth.

What’s your Goblin’s name? (He might be the name of the archetype or your intuition might give you something different.)

When was he born?

What does he have to say to you about love and relationships?

Is what he says true or is it a belief designed solely to keep him busy and feeling important?

Can you give the Goblin what he wants to express love and compassion to him?

And, finally, I encourage you to do my special Goblin meditation to put your trickster to sleep.