Emotional Alchemy is the practice of being radically honest with what you’re feeling, without spiraling, numbing, or pretending you’re fine. As well as practicing commitment to return to your emotional center as quickly as possible. The trick is to do this without bypassing the pain or difficult emotions.

At its core, Emotional Alchemy is based on one simple truth:
Emotions are temporary physiological reactions.
In the body, an emotion lasts about 90 seconds. It only lingers and becomes a heavy feeling when your mind jumps in, pulls up old memories, and tries to protect you from being hurt again.

Your mind isn’t sabotaging you; it’s doing its job. It’s reminding you of past pain so you don’t repeat it. But we’re not meant to live inside those protective reactions forever. Humans can learn, grow, and heal. We’re not bound to our past.

So the Secret to Emotional Alchemy, is believing that:
Every emotion carries a message designed to bring you back into alignment.

Let me ground this idea by using a metaphor:

Imagine getting into your car and turning it on. But the gas gauge flashes almost empty!

Naturally, you decide it’s over. It’s done for. You’ll never be able to get to where you want to go. And you might as well stay home and give up because it’s almost empty. There’s no help for you or the car.

…like, um, what? lol. That’s not the way it goes, right? Instead you’d be like - crap! I may be a little late to my destination because I need to go get gas first. Or I may need to borrow money until payday in order to get some more gas. You may be pissed off or annoyed… but only until you’ve gotten the gas. And then you’re moving on with your day.

What most people don’t realize is that: Emotions work the same way as your car’s gas gauge: they’re signals, not life sentences. A signal that you’re almost empty. A signal that you don’t have enough energy or resources to make it to your goal. So the Emotion is giving you a message… go fill it up!

But Emotions so often feel like life sentences because they felt big, scary and overwhelming when we were young. We weren’t taught how to self soothe. And we were not taught how to hear the message that they’re signaling. The thing is, Emotions can’t be soothed on purely an intellectual level. They need to be soothed on a somatic level. Think of a baby crying and being rocked gently by their mother. That’s the level that our emotions need soothing on. To feel: not alone or overwhelmed and helpless when feeling difficult things.

Emotional Alchemy is the process of noticing the signal, listening to the message, and taking the aligned action that helps the emotion resolve. When you do this, the energy of the emotion moves through your body instead of getting stuck as anxiety, anger, rumination, or depression.

For me, Emotional Alchemy looks like:

• Acknowledging when something hurts instead of pretending I’m fine.

• Letting the emotion move through my body by rocking or getting cozy in a blanket, instead of holding tension or shutting down.

• Being radically honest about the story I’m telling myself and the fear underneath it. What am I really afraid of losing or running into in this situation?

• Choosing the action that brings me back into equilibrium (short term comfort and soothing), and then the action that supports my goals for that day or for life (long-term wellbeing).

Emotional Healing is about feeling your feelings, AND not getting trapped in them.
It’s the commitment to meet yourself with truth and care. And the commitment to return to your center, over and over again.

To learn more about Shadow Work, click here.

To check out my Diary of an Alchemist Vlogs where I show what Emotional Healing looks like, click here.