Performing Inner Alchemy

Weekly insights to turn pain, trauma, and the human experience into opportunities for growth, purpose, and meaning

Sometimes reverent, sometimes raucous. This newsletter is beholden to my whims and ever changing interests.

Issue 20 - Read Time: 4 Minutes 24 Seconds

The Power of Internal Alchemy

I got a lot of positive reception to the newsletter last week. Thank you so much for reading and your feedback! I want to continue building on this topic and write more about internal alchemy. This is a phenomenal framework for us to work with and taps into some of my favorite symbols associated with growth and healing.

This week you will get:

How and why internal alchemy works

The energy of acceptance

The gift to our community

The Process of Internal Alchemy

A quick recap on last week. Alchemy is not the literal transmutation of lead into gold. It is actually a symbolic representation of what it means to be human.

It represents our ability as conscious, spiritual, storytelling creatures to take on hardship, sit with it, integrate it, and turn it into our greatest strengths.

It is something we all do and have always done. It is why the most challenging times in our lives are often the moments we look back on with fondness, reverence, and appreciation. Because they literally made us who we are.

So, we understand that concept from a high-level perspective. But let's get a bit more granular about it.

Why is this such an important process to understand? And how do I make it a part of my practice.

Let's first start with our natural resistance toward hardship. Even though we know that hard things make us better, we are eternally comfort-seeking creatures. We like predictable and safe.

But alas, we also know (hopefully) that we can't control the flow of life. So, we have to start flexing a different type of muscle.

We have to develop the muscle that responds to hardship.

Now, typically, people have a couple of reactions to hardship.

Denial

Avoidance

Minimization

"Destruction" and Hopelessness

I put destruction in quotation marks because it is not actually destruction.

But some people internalize it this way and legitimately believe that the pain of their situation will overwhelm and destroy them - but that is not the case.

Regardless of the automatic reaction to hardship, each of these is resolved through the same process - ACCEPTANCE.

There are a million different ways to get to acceptance. Some people cultivate this ability through meditation, mindfulness, and other practices.

Some people avoid learning this skill and resist until life has broken them down to the point where they have no choice.

Personally, I advocate for the first approach lol.

Once you reach acceptance you can start to alchemize.

The Energy of Acceptance

Acceptance is an inherently compassionate act. You can not have acceptance without compassion.

And compassion is an incredibly potent motivator for change.

It is the transformative energy embodied in one of my favorite quotes by Carl Rogers,

"The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change."

And he is dead on. We recoup the energy directed toward the reaction strategies listed above through that acceptance.

And then we get to channel that energy into alchemy.

We can ask ourselves some or all of these questions:

What about this situation hurts the most?

What is it leading me to believe about myself?

What are those beliefs attached to? When else did I feel this in my life?

If I let the belief get out of the way, what is another interpretation of this experience?

What are the sensations in my body (symptoms) asking me to do?

What would I learn if this pain were a teacher and I were in their class?

What would I tell myself if I were coaching my inner child to move through this situation?

Have I been here before? What worked last time?

When I get through this, what will I know that I don't know now?

Who do I want to be? How is this getting me closer to that version of myself?

All of these questions, based on acceptance, begin to free up new pathways for pain to alchemize.

Again, it's as if you recouped all of the energy spent on fighting and instead channeled it into honest, accepting exploration.

You are now moving WITH the river instead of against it.

As you flow with the river, you become adept at navigating each twist and turn, each eddy, and each unforeseen obstacle because you have the energy, wherewithal, and knowledge to do so.

You have started the process of turning lead into gold.

Your Gift to the Community

As you go through different challenges and alchemize them there are two ways your hardship can be a gift to your community.

1) In a Soulcentric* community, we recognize that a Whole community contains the entirety of the human experience.

That means we have some people lost in the flower of their youth, others in the dark night of the soul, elders with wisdom, children with ignorance, other with pain, joy, trauma, connection, etc.

And each experience, each archetype, fits into the Whole like a puzzle piece. Completing the picture.

So even if you are in the process of alchemizing, laid low, and feeling incapable of taking on the world, you are still a piece of the Whole.

And having people around you to hold that is often the final act needed to alchemize.

But that requires you to share. That requires you to be vulnerable, and that is an act of courage.

So the invitation is to find people who you can courageously offer your gift.

2) The other way to offer the gift is to be on the other side of it.

These are the people have experience alchemizing many hardships and reap the rewards of wisdom.

And their wisdom gets to be a guiding light for those around them who are in the lab, doggedly seeking the catalyst for their alchemicalization.

And that wisdom is precious. But once again - it requires you to share. To be vulnerable. To be open.

*Soulcentric is a word used by Bill Plotkin in his book, Nature and the Human Soul

Thank You!

I love that you are interested in exploring yourself in the pursuit of growth and expansion.

And I love that you are diving deeper into the unconscious patterns that limit our capacity as a species to transcend this paradigm.

You are becoming the change you want to see in the world and that is incredibly inspiring!

Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your journey ✨✨

With Love,

Christian