Archetypes Unravelled: The Caregiver

Welcome, luminous writers. We’re continuing our 12-week guided writing journey through archetypes—exploring recurring narrative patterns and figures, then reshaping them into stories and poems infused with your lived experience and imagination.

Today’s focus: The Caregiver—the one who carries the weight of others’ happiness like stones in their pockets.

Total Session Time: 30 minutes

Guidelines to Get Started

The first guideline is to gather your writing tools and remember: your creative energy leads. So, if you find yourself in a deep flow, follow it. Pause the recording, skip prompts, or veer off-track—this series is your act of care for yourself and your words.

The second is that caregiving practices vary across cultures. As you write, consider how your cultural background influences your understanding of care, obligation, and community responsibility.

Exploring caregiving may stir tender or difficult feelings. Be gentle with yourself. Have water nearby, stretch or pause as needed. Write only what feels right today—there’s no “should.”

Introducing the Caregiver

The Caregiver is up at midnight, paying bills no one notices, swallowing their own needs, always saying “I'm fine” while clearly drowning. (Maybe you recognize this person. Maybe you are this person?)

So many of the writers I work with answer the call to be “needed” in their daily lives. A lot. Caregiving can look like holding space, offering comfort, or extending beyond your limits to protect what matters most.

Here's the thing: many of us resent this part of ourselves, especially as writers. We see caregiving as what prevents us from writing, what keeps us from our “real” work. For a long time, caregiver stories were dismissed as merely “domestic,” and honestly, it's a whole vibe we don't always like about our own lives.

But what if embracing this archetype is exactly what's called for in your writing today? What if stepping into the caregiver's story lets you go deeper, challenge the narratives you tell yourself about what matters, what counts as worthy subject matter?

In your writing, you can explore the beauty and burden of putting others first, of saying yes when it costs you, of finding yourself in the act of caring. You could let your writing be a space where you explore the shadow side of caregiving—the parts maybe we’d rather keep hidden. The Caregiver who enables because setting boundaries feels cruel. The one who gives until they're empty, then secretly fantasizes about running away to a cabin where no one needs juice boxes.

So, if you are ready to write some tenderness and truth, let's begin.