“Alchemy is the art of manipulating life, and consciousnes in matter, to help it evolve, or to solve problems of inner disharmonies.” - Jean Dubuis
Trying to be happy can be a tricky business. I have been working on discovering happiness, as well as its corollary, peace of mind, for many years now, and still haven’t got it all figured out. It seems that no one thing has been enough to ensure happiness – not lovers, friends or family, education or lack thereof, a paycheck, a perfect therapist, a perfect cocktail, good nutrition, physical conditioning, a spiritual outlook on life, etc – my list could go on, but you probably get drift.
Not only is happiness a balancing act, its difficult for people to remember that happiness begins and ends in our own heads, not in the outside world. And what’s actually in our heads is kind of hard to think about. Our brains are made up of a bunch of soft, gelatinous “stuff” that lives in its own electrochemical bath. Without our thick skulls and layers of shock absorbers, we literally wouldn’t be able to keep our heads together for a day. So sometimes it is just easier to turn to a metaphor - like alchemy.
The dictionary calls alchemy an ancient process that focused on the attempt to change base metals into gold. By the 19thcentury, however, chemistry had turned alchemy into a pseudoscience by stripping it of its most valuable element – hope. Hard science discovered that the elements of the periodic table act and react consistently, whether mixed together or not. New matter is not generated from existing matter. In a way, the periodic table is the original death knell to the promise of better living through chemistry.
Alchemy is a product of our own minds, which are frankly, a piece of work. Without considerable conscious effort, the world and its elements can seem like a sort of frustrating and endless Mad Hatter’s tea party. So I have decided to embrace the concept of psychological alchemy. It gives me back the element of hope.
We humans can embrace the hope of change because we possess the gift of volition. This means we are not internally bound to the rigidity of the periodic table. By deciding to use our minds, we can alter our world. We can choose at any time to acknowledge that we possess the complex emotions, multiple intelligences and reasoning power to create new and much richer realities for ourselves.
However, there is a catch. We can only fully participate in the human drama by remembering that change originates within the confines of our own coconut sized, walnut shaped brain. This means that the outside world can’t keep us from our own painful truths, “irrational” feelings and other squishy vulnerabilities. They belong to no one but ourselves. Volition comes into play when we realize that it us up to us to find different paths, or trust ourselves enough to be influenced by others. Once we figure out what we can change, we can experience alchemy, with all of its exhilarating, devastating and fully-alive capacities.
Activate yourself. Try something new. Bring the magic, hope and promise of alchemy into your life. We are creatures unfettered by chemistry’s certainty, and the secret of alchemy lies latent in all of us, just waiting for a chance to grow.
Cheryl Deaner
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
(415) 282 2200