What exactly is “The Trickster”?

Some of my biggest influencers talk about The Trickster in their YouTube videos and Podcasts. I’ve written about it before. And if you follow Lee Harris and the Z’s, The Trickster appears this month for many of us.

The Trickster is an archetype, and an archetype is like a universal pattern or character that shows up over and over in stories, dreams, myths, and even our personalities. Think of it as a personality type that people across all cultures recognize.

For example:

• A Hero is an archetype—someone who faces challenges and grows stronger.
• A Wise Old Man or Woman is another—someone who gives advice or guidance.
• A Rebel is also an archetype—someone who breaks the rules to bring change.

These patterns live in our collective imagination, and they help us understand ourselves and others. Carl Jung, the famous psychologist, believed archetypes are part of the unconscious mind, shared by everyone.

The Trickster is a clever, mischievous archetype that disrupts norms and uses manipulation to achieve desired outcomes.

The Trickster is an archetype that is activated right now in our current global collective consciousness. But you don’t have to understand what any of that means to identify this energy in your own life, and deal with it effectively.

What happens if we don’t deal with The Trickster when it appears?

I remember in 2004 when I traveled to India with a friend and there were two other people traveling with us. As it was for three of us, our first time to India, the chaos there in New Deli upon arrival was overwhelming. Once arrived, we took a cab from the airport to the bed and breakfast, and we’d already seen our first dead body on the drive.

Once we got out into the chaos of the city, where horns are honking all the time because there is no organized traffic system, the overwhelm became worse. Everyone crowds the road with various vehicles like rickshaws and motor scooters. Cows block traffic. We didn’t know to have boundaries here because we’d never been anyplace like this.

As we traveled to our first destination, our rickshaw came to a stop in the middle of traffic, probably a cow was in the road, or people had to make their way around a corpse. A one-armed boy came over to the rickshaw, leaning in, his face in a daze, mouth agape, sort of like a zombie. He leaned into the gentleman on that side of the rickshaw and put his one hand into the traveler’s pocket.

Once I saw that my fellow traveler, was stunned, like a deer in the headlights, I immediately grabbed the boy’s hand and pushed it away.

It was too late, my fellow traveler looked in his pocket and the “one-armed bandit”, as we later named him, had made off with some good money. I remember being agitated at both of them. Obviously, stealing is wrong and the one armed bandit got most of my internal ire. But I was also admittedly annoyed that the person I was traveling with was so passive and allowed it to happen. He just sat there stunned and let a one-armed boy pick pocket him.

For me, I always have to work to temper back the anger I feel when people don’t intervene in preventing abuse. If you let someone abuse you, steel right from your pocket while you do nothing, it surly emboldens them to keep doing this to others. This was over twenty years ago, but I really felt that I, as a very small woman, should not have had to be the one to try to ward off a thief – a skinny, malnourished one-armed boy at that.

What happens when we don’t deal with The Trickster? It grows and becomes stronger, while our denial does the same. We can be left feeling like we don’t know how or why we got fooled, as if we never saw it coming.

How do we know when the trickster has appeared?

Spotting The Trickster can be tricky, to say the least. Especially if you’re not used to this phenomenon. Typically, once a person has dealt with their first significant “bait and switch” with in business or a relationship, they start to be on the lookout a bit more for trickster energy.

It’s easy, and comforting, to try to see the best in people, and so it’s possible to miss The Trickster repeatedly throughout life, until we really focus in on how to practice a thing called discernment.

Discernment is the most valuable practice in adult life when we are looking at relationships.

Everything about being human involves relationships. Other than navigating our own survival, relationships are the most challenging aspect of being human. We need one another to thrive and survive. And unfortunately, not everyone is developed enough to be honest. A survival skill for those who operate at a lower frequency can be theft, manipulation, cheating or fascism.

Perhaps we need to call up The Grandmother archetype (The Elder) to help us understand how to practice discernment.

When a charismatic, mischievous youngster approaches the wise elder, trying to capture her attention, her pity and her charity – she looks on him with a smirk. He’s done this before, and in most cases he gets a free room for the night, a home cooked meal and a little something for the road when he leaves in the morning.

This Grandmother gives him a fresh baked cookie and sends him on his way. He walks away perplexed. She didn’t offer him a room, not even for pay. She didn’t try to sell him a meal. She didn’t seem to care at all. She simply said, “Here, have a cookie.” She handed him a sugar cookie on a napkin, her look was like a push, she shut the door and that was that.

The wise old woman has many grandchildren. She has seen her own boys as almost every archetype a man can test out on his way to adulthood. She has watched her daughters deal with tricksters, and now granddaughters – she has seen the young men trying all their games for decades.

She has no time for The Trickster, she finds him amusing at best and slightly annoying at worst, and mostly feels no way at all about it.

Discernment is calm judgement – sizing someone up. As if they said to you, “How old do you think I am?” You would use discernment to make a guess. In the case of The Trickster, there are a couple of things to look for:

1. Does something feel “off” immediately?
2. Does it feel like they are trying to get you to like/support them?
3. Do they have something to gain at your expense?

A “yes” to any of these three questions should have you taking a step back and seeing the situation from the outside. Perhaps you call up The Elder archetype within you and you start to calmly assess the person in front of you as if you’re giving them a scan. This creates an energetic boundary that will empower you and soon enough The Trickster will be deactivated.

How to have boundaries around the trickster.

One of the things I notice most in all of my interactions with my fellow Americans is that people are so hard on themselves. Really, we are so very critical of ourselves and I find that so many people harbor so much guilt. People feel guilty about having regular human emotions, like anger.

If we are going to deal with The Tricksters in our life, we have to shift our perspective from being a kid who is always trying to prove themself to the world, to a fully empowered adult who knows how to shut down fowl play with tact and dignity. Have fun with fun people, yes, but feel no sense of guilt for having to be straightforward with boundaries in business, family and friendship.

It can take some getting used to when we first start practicing strong boundary setting. This is particularly challenging for The People Pleaser. It’s also especially difficult when The Trickster is a child or parent. This is where guilt with setting boundaries can play an outsized role. So let’s work on removing the tendency to feel guilt when setting boundaries.

We have to completely let go of guilt in every and any area of our life. Erase guilt.

Why?

Because guilt is not beneficial to anyone. And guilt is not the same as remorse. Feeling sorry about harming someone intentionally, or unintentionally, is remorse. Remorse is a positive emotion because it prevents us from doing it again (hopefully) and can lead to us being accountable for our actions which can be quite healing for all.

Guilt is like harboring this nervous feeling in our belly, putting us again in this position of hiding something, like a kid who feels like all the world is watching them and they’re about to get “in trouble”. So again, we have to see ourselves as being the grown up, being the one who is in power, in control and who has learned from experience that boundaries are necessary, and guilt is not.

Next, we have to own our power in being capable of setting boundaries with love plus common sense. Insist on truth.

We do not have to insist that The Trickster see the truth or admit the truth. We must insist within ourselves on accepting truth, using discernment to make empowered decisions. We use common sense and wisdom gained through our experiences to make empowered decisions.

When we feel in control and empowered, we can go forward with making the wise decisions. Boundary setting may feel uncomfortable. It may feel unnatural. However, we gain maturity and wisdom as we grow and age. We are capable of the next level, which means entering a new chapter where we are emboldened by common sense, wisdom and compassion.

Setting a boundary can help disrupt The Trickster and help you set an intention to hold your power. If you feel The Trickster has arrived in your life, know that it doesn’t have to knock you off your balance. Once you start to set your own boundaries it will transform you into a more empowered person.

dealing with the trickster can help you grow.

The best part about boundary setting is the growth that comes along with it. When I’m working with a client who is learning about boundary setting, after they get past the natural resistance to doing something they’ve never done and feel worried about, and they take the risk to set that boundary – there’s a transformation that takes place.

Sometimes things start out feeling stressful, or we question whether our actions were the best actions in any given moment within an important circumstance. That’s common. But the more we practice things like diplomacy and boundary setting – the easier it gets. The more we get used to it, the more confident we feel.

Most people don’t like conflict or confrontation. This can make boundary setting worrisome. Yet, there’s a very calm and compassionate way to set boundaries. This happens a lot more naturally when we speak from our heart center.

Boundary setting can sound like: “Hey, I know you’re having a hard time and I’m sending you positive energy. I’m needing to take care of myself right now, so sending you love is what I can do right now. I don’t have time and energy to give at the moment, so know that I am cheering for you.”

Don’t apologize for setting the boundary. If you start out with, “I’m sorry I can’t be there right now in the way that you want me to…” it lacks the heart centered power of your truth and your true boundary. The truth is – you have to take care of you now, and there’s nothing at all to be sorry about in that.

The Trickster is an opportunity to practice good, strong boundary setting. Giving in to The Trickster is never in our highest good. The way to freedom and good health is the investment in self care and doing what is in our highest good.

Remember, you are capable and strong, you can handle The Trickster with ease!