Becoming Ourselves Through Alchemy

Alchemy is the process of transformation. It is putting all of who we are into a sacred container, increasing the heat - and transforming into pure gold. Let's ponder how this works in our lives - the purification, the cauldron, the heat... and what we want to become. This was originally a live talk here on Insight Timer.

Transcript

So today we're talking about becoming ourselves through alchemy.

And this is a topic that's really interesting to me.

It's one of those topics that,

You know,

It sort of comes in every so often.

If you're reading a book or you're listening to someone or you even watch a movie or something about the ancient alchemists.

And I actually believe that most scientific thought is quite confused about what alchemy really is.

Because it's taken very literally.

That it's always taken as,

Well,

It's the transmutation from lead to gold.

Right?

How do you take something from its base element to a noble solid?

Right?

The base solids,

The filthy things like lead.

And how do we make it into a noble thing of gold?

And,

You know,

And maybe they think it's about money.

Maybe they think it's about success or pride or something like that.

Right?

That that's what it's all about.

So then in the end they say,

Well,

It's not really true.

I mean,

No one ever proved it.

But of course that's not what the ancients were talking about.

Maybe they could.

But it's one of those things that if you want to do it for pride and all these things and success and,

You know,

Some kind of Nobel Prize,

It probably won't work.

Because the world is more interesting than that.

But what interests me the most about alchemy is how it fits into our daily life and what it really means to be human.

You know how sometimes you have this feeling about who you are inside?

Kind of like if you close your eyes at night and you feel into your soul.

That's maybe who you really are.

That's your greatest self.

That's your divine self.

That's your soul.

And then there's this other world we're living in.

Maybe it's your relationships and jobs and parents and children and neighbours and colleagues and all this other thing which seems to be so much messier.

And you don't feel like that true,

I don't even want to say your highest self,

But it's almost like that.

It's like your purest self or your most interesting self.

And that to me is where alchemy really helps us.

The whole understanding of the alchemical process helps us become that self.

I know a couple of you guys mentioned the book The Alchemist.

And I've lost track of where I get my ideas from,

But I think some of them definitely came from this book.

And I believe it was in his book that he talked about it.

The fact that it wasn't about turning lead into gold.

It was about evolving.

It was about evolving lead into gold.

And I imagine that for ourselves,

That it isn't about,

You know,

We're going to talk about the ingredients.

We're going to talk about the cauldron.

We're going to talk about the heat in our lives.

But it isn't about,

I'm going to get it all together and I'm going to turn the heat on and I'm going to just.

.

.

And now I will be my enlightened greatest self.

That's what it feels like,

Right?

Like we're doing an experiment.

We do it and finally I get to just live as me.

But imagine instead that it's an evolution.

We're evolving from our base elements.

Our lead type existence.

And we're slowly evolving into our golden state.

And I believe this is much closer to the truth.

Like this is much realer.

Which isn't a word.

Because that's the point of life,

Right?

The point of life is to be here and to exist and live and try new things and feel the heat and grow and expand and evolve.

That's the point.

It isn't about,

Aha,

Now I'm enlightened.

I can relax.

So I really love,

I love his idea of evolving instead.

So the first thing I want to talk about is the ingredients that we put in the experiment.

So imagine the system.

We have a cauldron,

Which is going to be airtight and perfect,

Which we'll talk about in a minute.

But then we have to know what ingredients do we put into the cauldron.

There's a really interesting book called Aphrodite's Daughter.

Aphrodite's Daughters.

And I can't say this woman's name,

But I think it's like,

Yalayla Bonham or something.

I don't,

I can't,

I can't pronounce it.

But she had this beautiful quote that has followed me ever since I read this book 20 years ago.

And she says,

Before opposites can unite,

They have to be reduced to their purest essences through a lengthy distillation process.

This purification process is absolutely mandatory for alchemy.

We can't skip it.

We can't have impurities in our system and want alchemy.

And I was thinking about it this morning and I was thinking about how,

You know,

The difference between cooking,

Like on a stove and baking?

And when you're baking,

You actually have to use the proper ingredients and the proper balance of chemicals or else the bread won't rise or whatever.

It won't work.

Whereas with soup,

You can kind of keep throwing stuff into it.

It doesn't really matter.

And if that's no good,

Well,

We'll just add a little bit of this to make it better.

And you can't do that with baking so much.

Well,

We kind of live like soup.

It's like our life is just filled with a million ingredients,

But we aren't careful about it.

Right.

We have people in our lives that are really difficult who do not add to our world.

We have ideas in our minds that circle around like toxic chemicals,

Just making things difficult and harming us,

Keeping us up at night,

Chewing about things that aren't even real.

And we've sort of been taught that,

Well,

That's okay.

That's just life.

Right.

You just,

Life is soup.

But that's not what we're talking about.

But the soup that we kind of think,

Well,

It's okay that all these things exist.

You know,

I'll just work around them.

I'll just,

I'll just,

You know,

Add a bit of different spice over here and we'll just add this other thing to kind of counteract the fact that,

You know,

We put in a rotten onion or something.

So then you imagine,

You know what the purification process of the ingredients are required for baking.

And that's different because now you're putting things in an oven and putting it in to be baked.

I often think about that when,

Like the last few classes I've mentioned,

Chung zu.

I've been reading a lot of chung zu lately.

And,

But it's not fully baked yet.

So I can't quite share it properly because it's not fully baked.

But all the pieces are going into the oven like they're all in there.

And there's only certain things going into the oven because there's something interesting that's going to come out right,

Fully baked.

If we desire alchemy,

If we actually desire to be something new,

The alchemy isn't making a soup and it's not baking bread.

It's actually transforming.

It's sort of taking this life that I've been living for 50 years and transforming into my golden self.

This is very different than soup.

It's very different than baking bread.

This is literally taking all the ingredients that I am,

Putting them into a pot.

The purified ingredients of who I am,

Putting them into a pot,

Turning up the heat and allowing magic to happen.

Allowing the magic of all that I am.

What would happen?

What would happen if you took all of who you truly were?

You didn't have any of the nonsense,

Any of the errant thoughts,

Any of the people who actually only take away from your life.

That you only have work in the community that actually fills your heart and uses your gifts.

What if you only read books that just feed your soul?

What if you only eat food that nourishes you?

What if we purified the elements and then turned up the heat?

Who would you become?

It's a fascinating question because again,

We've been so accustomed to living our life navigating everything.

When we look at the ingredients and we look at who we are,

One of the big things we look at is truth.

We've done a lot of talks here.

We've had a lot of conversations about truth.

Satya.

Satya means truth.

Not just truth,

This is what I think,

But the truth of who I am.

The truth that rolls from the seventh chakra down to the first chakra.

This is my soul.

This is why I was put here.

This is why every single person here is a beautifully unique person.

And we all hold a beautifully unique perspective on the earth and everything that goes on around us.

This is Satya.

And as much as our perspective may be different,

Our Satya is the same.

That sense of quiet stillness inside that knows what we really feel,

That knows how we really see things.

So we talk a lot about Satya.

We talk a lot about truth.

And truth is the pure element.

So one of the first steps we take in this purification process is looking at the truths in our life and the falsehoods.

What are we telling ourself?

Are we telling ourselves something that isn't true?

And realize sometimes those falsehoods come from maybe our upbringing.

Maybe they come from belief systems that our parents had.

Maybe they come from our society.

Maybe they are some definition of right and wrong,

Righteous and evil,

Whatever we have.

But are they true?

Are they really what you think?

You know,

Regardless of what the crowd thinks,

Regardless of what the family thinks,

What is your truth?

And when we carry any falsehood,

Can you imagine?

Imagine you have this sacred container,

This sacred cauldron.

And you want to become your truest self.

And you put in this truth.

Yes,

This is me.

Yes,

This is truly how I see the world.

And then there's this thing up on the edge saying,

Well,

I want to come in too because I've been here all this time and I should.

And you're looking at it going,

But that's not true to me.

That's not true to me who you are sitting up there on the ledge.

That's something I'm supposed to think.

It's something that keeps me comfortable maybe,

But it's not actually my truth.

What happens if we let it jump in?

Right?

What happens if we let it jump in and then the heat gets turned up?

All hell breaks loose.

We can't have it.

And the funny thing is,

And this is where I mean this as an evolution,

We don't have to sort this all out today.

We don't have to sit there and be perfect or else,

You know,

All craziness is going to happen.

We get to look at each truth or each perspective as it comes up in our life.

It's an amazing thing.

You know how they say that when we have a desire in the world that the universe conspires to make it happen.

Right?

So we think we're only putting these ducks in a row.

But as soon as we actually put that intention out there,

The universe and the angels and whoever,

However you understand the world says,

Ooh,

They asked,

It's going to be fun and all of a sudden all these amazing opportunities pop into your life to see everything as clear as day.

And then all of a sudden your partner says something and you go,

What?

Why is this suddenly so clear?

You know,

And suddenly you go to work and something happens and you go,

Okay,

Hold on a minute.

This is what this company believes in?

I don't even remotely believe in this.

Whoa.

But it'll all happen in perfect sequence.

It'll just happen.

We don't have to stress about it.

We don't have to create the opportunities to clear our truth versus falsehood question.

It'll all just happen once we really want it.

And then we can look at it and we can almost imagine.

I love I love taking a piece of paper and putting a lot.

If you if any of you have ever done any of my courses,

This is like I swear this is an exercise in almost every course I've ever taught.

And you put a line down the middle.

And if you imagine if you put at the top your name.

And I mean you.

Not your persona.

Not who other people think you are.

Not even the person you want other people to think you are.

But you,

The soul.

And you put that across the top.

And on the one side you put truth.

And the other side you put falsehood or not truth or whatever.

You just you just put whatever you want there.

And something happens and you go,

Yeah,

That belongs on the truth side.

And then something happens in life and you go,

Huh?

I don't even believe that.

And you write it on the falsehood side.

But you didn't know.

Like we were actually taught to be false.

We were actually taught this.

It's weird.

Like it's not called that.

But it's maybe called politeness.

Or it's called being good.

Being a good girl.

Good boy.

You know,

It's sitting in class in school.

And the teacher is talking and you're so bored you can barely stand it.

And you sort of,

You know,

Start looking out the window.

And the teacher says,

Hey,

Pay attention.

And you're like,

So we're learning to,

Okay,

I'm going to pretend I'm paying attention.

This is so deeply ingrained in us.

Deeply ingrained.

Deeply ingrained to live according to the family's rules and belief systems and religion and politics and everything.

Like this is deeply ingrained.

And of course this hits a primal button too of not wanting to get kicked out of the herd.

This is no small thing.

It's nothing to think,

Oh,

I'm such a loser.

I can't believe I've fell for this my whole life.

That's just our existence.

It's everybody.

It's all good.

But now we get to look at it and say,

You know what?

I really want to live my golden life.

I want to live the life that I was put here for,

That this soul was put here for.

And as soon as I think,

Well,

Let's say I want to do something.

Let's say I feel some call to do something.

As soon as I think,

Oh,

What would that person think?

I'm now bringing in an impurity.

Right?

Oh,

That person wouldn't like it.

Okay,

You know what?

I'll just change it a little bit so that that person's okay with it.

This is an impurity.

This isn't the original call.

And again,

We're trained to do this.

You know,

Could you just compromise a little?

Right?

There's no compromise in alchemy,

Just so you know.

But again,

This has nothing to do with anyone else.

It's really important that truth is never about what does that person think or what does that person,

And here's what I think of you.

Alchemy,

What I'm talking about,

Is the soul path.

And I can tell you,

Like in my life's experience,

The closer I am to who I really am,

And the more I share who I truly am from my deepest heart without any interference,

The more friends I have,

The more fun I have,

The more cool ideas come to me.

Like,

We have this idea we've been trained that says,

Well,

If you don't conform,

If you don't do what other people want you to do,

You're going to be alone.

You're going to lose all your friends.

No one's going to talk to you.

And it could be that people who have gotten off on you sort of doing what they said,

Or conforming to them or making them feel good about the choices they've made.

The other things to really look at is our emotions,

Our emotional responses to the world.

And again,

Our emotional responses are so helpful in clearing this distillation process.

Like,

You think of what distillation means,

Right?

You take something and you boil water,

Whatever,

And you get rid of all the impurities.

But it's a process,

And it doesn't just happen overnight.

So,

If you look at,

You know,

We've talked about David Hawkins' Levels of Consciousness.

I can't show it to you because we're on my iPad,

Which is normally what I show it to you on.

But if you go into the book,

Or if you just Google Levels of Consciousness with David Hawkins,

You'll find it.

But he has this amazing thing where he has all these emotions below.

Shame,

Guilt,

Fear,

Anger,

Pride,

Apathy,

You know,

All these kind of things.

And these emotions are present in your life all the time.

And I don't mean something happened,

I got angry and took action.

That's a healthy emotion.

If I did something and I genuinely feel really bad about it,

And I feel shame,

Or I feel guilt,

And I pray about it,

And I apologize to the person,

And then I release it,

This is very healthy.

This is being an empathic human.

If I really feel great about something I've accomplished and I have a bit of pride and I'm kind of like,

Wow,

I am so thankful for this process,

I'm so happy.

This is a very healthy pride,

Right?

But that's not often what happens.

Sometimes we live in shame and it clip-clops after us for our whole life.

Or we live in guilt and it stops us from choosing things that are really good for us because we feel like we aren't worthy.

If these emotions crop up,

Or if you find yourself acting out of pride because you don't want other people to know the truth,

You don't want other people to think that you're the opposite of whatever you're proud of,

This is a problem.

These are impurities in your soul.

We're not supposed to walk around feeling shame,

Feeling guilt,

Living in pride,

Living in anger.

And again,

These things may also come up for us.

So something happens and you find yourself just beyond yourself and you think,

What's going on here?

Why am I repeating this?

Why is this happening?

And this is an adventure.

This is a journey.

It's a clue.

It's great.

Like it's the best thing you can do is say yes and say,

Okay,

Let's look at that.

Maybe you want to talk to a counselor,

Maybe you want to talk to a friend and say,

You know,

I really seem to still be carrying shame about this.

Do you mind?

Can we talk about it?

Because I think I don't want to carry it any longer.

And maybe it's about meditation.

Maybe it's about prayer.

Maybe it's about asking for guidance.

Maybe who knows what your answer is.

But as soon as it rises,

As soon as those sort of impurities rise,

Isn't it so funny?

It sounds so judgmental.

But as soon as they rise,

We can go,

Oh,

Good to know.

Excellent.

It's not a negative thing.

It's a,

Okay,

I asked for this and I'm wanting to clear the slate.

I want to put beautiful things in my cauldron.

I want to live my golden self.

Okay,

Let's look at this.

Let's look at where this comes from.

Right?

It's beautiful.

Like this is really the process.

This is,

This is everything.

You know,

And then you can also think about these.

These are the things we don't want to add.

But then you think,

What do you want to add to the cauldron?

Who are you?

What do you love?

What do you love doing?

What do you love about being alive?

Why are you happy you're here?

What are your hopes?

What do you see?

What are the little visions in your mind that have sat in the back corner that,

Well,

I don't even know if that'll ever happen or whatever.

What are those?

You know,

Who are you really?

What did you love to do as a child?

That's often a good indicator before we became an adult.

And our focus became on money and the requirement to pay for shelter and make other people happy and make our boss like us and stuff.

So it's really,

Really,

Really interesting to think about,

One,

What are all the things you want to add to your cauldron?

And this could be also your giftings.

Maybe you love people.

Maybe you're a great listener.

Maybe you love to work with your hands.

Maybe you love to swim in the ocean.

Maybe you love to work with animals.

What is it you love to do?

You know,

People always joke about what would happen if you won a million dollars.

And it's interesting because what all that does is it takes away the money thing because money has sort of driven us for a long time,

Right?

And if that was taken away,

You can only sit by the pool eating bonbons for so long.

What would your soul like to do now that it was free of that encumbrance?

That's what we add to the cauldron,

Right,

If we could create our perfect life.

So then we look at the cauldron.

Cauldron is this beautiful container for this to happen.

What does your container look like?

Because,

Again,

This has nothing to do with other people.

There may be people in your life that it's time to say goodbye to or others to say hello to.

You know,

Who knows?

That's possible.

But the container is really inside of you,

Right?

It's really you.

It's like for me,

If I was to imagine what's my container for my personal alchemy.

And this word may not resonate with everybody,

But it's like faith.

It's like this pure space.

And it's not a religious faith.

It's not like that.

But it's like a pure space inside of me where I know who I am.

In the physical world,

It might look like boundaries to say,

Hey,

You know,

It might mean turning your phone off at a certain time of day.

And filling your heart with great books.

Or saying no to people who you don't want to go out with and you don't want to have dinner with and you don't want to talk to because they don't belong in your cauldron.

But saying yes to that person.

And this can be new,

Especially if we're people pleasers.

Right?

We really,

We want everyone to like us and we don't want to be mean and we don't want to.

So it's interesting these boundaries,

The cauldron becomes what surrounds us.

Right?

What are we putting inside of this?

Maybe it's your inner world.

Maybe you have a job and it's very,

You know,

You're not going to kind of share your whole self with the whole world.

Well,

You're allowed to have an inner cauldron.

This special little room inside of you,

Where all of the only thing that's allowed in like it's like,

You know,

A secret fort,

You know that you have to know the password to get in.

But you have this beautiful little corner of your heart,

This corner of your soul,

That only that comes in.

Maybe it's your meditation practice that as soon as you go,

And you sit on a cushion,

And you close your eyes,

And you put your hands on your lap or again with your whoever you do it.

And maybe you turn on quiet music,

Whatever you do in your meditation practice,

And you sit in this cauldron is literally your heart center.

And as you breathe,

You inhale all the beautiful prana in the world.

You inhale all that you are all of your truth.

And with every exhale you just release everything that isn't you.

And that can be your intention for your meditation.

And again,

The universe will conspire to make it happen.

Or crazy thoughts will come into your mind,

And you'll go,

Hmm,

I didn't even know that was still rolling around.

Interesting.

Take note of that.

And we will look at that later.

Right.

So it's very interesting because the cauldron must be solid.

It must be perfect.

Imagine if you put a cauldron because this cauldron is going to go on the fire.

We don't understand how important this is.

We've been living with this weird cooking analogy of just throwing everything in the soup for so long that we don't understand that this is our life.

So imagine we make this beautiful strong cauldron that will not crack under pressure.

I will not change my mind just because the heat got turned up.

No,

You're still not allowed in.

No,

No is a full sentence.

That's it.

Because that's what people know people know that you know what the cauldron is a little bit shaky.

We just keep the heat on them.

Just keep pushing,

Keep pushing,

Keep pushing.

You know it's the two year old way right.

Just keep pushing,

Keep pushing,

Keep pushing eventually mom's gonna break.

You'll get the cookie,

Because she's just so exhausted.

And sometimes life is like that sometimes partners are like that sometimes parents are like that sometimes friends colleagues bosses,

People just love to kind of just push push push exhaust exhaust and it's like our cauldron must be solid.

That no matter what,

No matter how the heat rises.

Alchemy is happening inside of here.

I don't know what's going on with you.

I don't know what's not going on in your life I'm talking to them not to you.

But my cauldron is solid,

And everything in here is sacred.

All the other is outside.

So now what's the heat.

Well,

The heat is life.

Sometimes you know I teach Kundalini Yoga.

One of the big questions people ask me when I,

Because I teach it,

They say,

Well,

Am I going to have some mental breakdown,

Because for a while I don't know if it's still on there but on Wikipedia,

If they talked about Kundalini Yoga,

They would talk about all the mental breakdown people had by practicing it.

They didn't practice it by doing Kundalini Yoga,

The kind of yoga that I teach.

They did it because they wanted this alchemical experience in a week long retreat in Bali.

That's what they had nothing against Bali,

It could be anywhere,

But that's what they wanted they wanted to go away.

So how did they purify their cauldron.

They left everyone.

They're not going to work,

They're not living with their family,

They're not eating the same food,

They're not listening to the same news,

They're not doing all that,

They're living in a retreat in the forest.

They didn't purify their cauldron.

They didn't actually do the work.

They just left.

And then what was the cauldron.

The cauldron with the facilitators,

Not them.

They didn't create a strong container.

The facilitators created a strong container.

The forest created a strong container.

So then what do they do.

They do all kinds of crazy ritual and yoga and this and that and blah blah blah blah blah.

And what happens.

It cracks.

It's not,

Life isn't about that.

Being here it's not a special ceremony that we're suddenly enlightened.

It's evolution.

And every time we realize,

And what's really interesting is they all work together.

Sometimes the fire helps us strengthen the cauldron.

Sometimes the stronger the cauldron,

We recognize the impurities inside.

Sometimes we recognize an impurity and we realize,

Hey that impurity has actually been eating away at the inside of my cauldron.

Wow.

So I get rid of that bit of impurity in my life.

And the cauldron becomes stronger.

And I can withstand more heat.

Like these all blend together.

It isn't just this,

We're not supposed to.

We're supposed to be alive.

We're supposed to be living in even this process of distillation.

It's wonderful.

It's interesting.

It's juicy.

It's fantastic.

Sometimes I get the biggest kick out of the biggest mistakes I've ever made.

And then I can sit around with my friends and go,

What was that all about?

And then when it's all done,

You kind of sit back and go,

OK,

I think I might be done with that now.

You know,

Sometimes we repeat something over and over and over again.

And your friends are saying,

What do you keep doing this for?

And you're like,

Oh,

It's different this time.

It's different this time.

And then the final one happens that's so off the charts nuts.

And you go,

OK,

Now I think I'm done.

I think I get it.

But that's a process of distillation.

It's great.

It's life.

It's perfect.

It's wonderful.

Right?

It's I always laugh because I was born in Toronto.

I loved school.

I loved learning.

I went to university,

Studied mathematics.

I studied philosophy,

Religion,

All these lovely things.

And sometimes I think I was destined to stand on a soapbox and just be some annoying preacher.

I come from a long line of preachers and teachers.

We like to talk a lot.

And then the universe said,

Hey,

How about you fall in love with a dairy farmer,

Move to the middle of nowhere,

Spend the next 20 years covered in manure with babies on your back,

Exhausted beyond measure,

Completely anemic.

Let's see what happens.

Because it was so funny,

It was all the things that I thought I was so proud of,

All the things that I thought were just so easy.

They didn't matter on the farm.

They didn't matter in the life I ended up living.

And it was almost like all the things that society told me were so important.

They weren't important anymore.

It was great.

And really hard,

Like really difficult times.

But wow,

Talk about the things that really grow you,

That really make it real.

Like for me,

Even like,

I love doing these talks.

I love gathering with you guys here.

And one of the reasons I really love saying hi to everybody is because I'm really thankful you're here.

It's no small thing to gather together.

It's really important and really valuable.

And I don't know,

There's something about going through difficult times that are just so great.

It gets so important.

So to not ever shirk away,

Like the only reason I want to talk about this alchemy is to kind of imagine a brighter future.

Sometimes we feel like the world I'm living right now,

The life I'm living right now is probably as good as it gets.

Or maybe it'll just be a slightly different shade of the same color.

What if it could be golden and it's not about money and it's not about losing weight and it's not about looking good to the neighbors?

It's 100% inside.

Everything in this process,

Everything in this evolution process of alchemy is within our choice.

Everything.

That changes everything.

It doesn't matter where we are in our life.

It doesn't matter who we're with,

How much money is in our bank account.

It doesn't matter because everything is up to us in this alchemy.

And I love that.

The other reason I want to talk about this,

One of the big challenges that we have as humans is that sometimes we lack heat.

We lack the heat that actually changes us.

Because we talk about that,

You know,

How do I get,

How do I have the spark?

How do I get that passion back for life?

How do I get that happening?

Right?

Well,

What if unconsciously,

You know that the ingredients in your life require some distillation?

What if you know that there are ingredients in your alchemy that aren't good for you?

But maybe you're not strong enough to change them.

Maybe you're not in a place yet to speak up and speak your truth.

Right?

What if you know that your cauldron is leaking?

What if you know that you're still a people pleaser?

What if you know that you still maybe have difficulty controlling emotions?

Or what if you have a sharp tongue?

Who knows?

What if there's something going on that your cauldron is not solid?

Well,

If we know that our life is filled with stuff that isn't really us,

And we know that our boundaries are not solid,

And we know that we can be manipulated,

We will avoid the heat,

The real heat of life.

Maybe we medicate.

Maybe we use drugs,

Alcohol,

Whether pharmaceutical or whatever,

Recreational.

But we do whatever we can to avoid the heat,

Because if we actually felt what we really feel,

We would explode.

And again,

It's okay if that's where we're at.

But the key is then,

Okay,

Then you know what?

I don't want to feel like this.

I don't want to feel numb.

All right,

I need to start fixing my cauldron.

Okay,

I need to start purifying my ingredients.

That's all.

It's really important.

Because then what happens is we look at.

.

.

The thing is,

It's like we still want heat,

Like we know our body,

Our being wants passion,

It wants heat.

So what do we do?

We look for false heat.

We look for false heat.

We look for heat that has nothing actually to do with our personal journey.

So we start looking at other people.

We look at our kids.

We go,

Hey,

You know what you could do differently?

And we look at our partner.

You know what you could change?

And we look at our neighbors and we look at this and we watch Hollywood movies and we look at nonsense and dramas.

And we get all caught up in the dramas of whatever,

You know.

But it's not our heat.

So it doesn't risk cracking our cauldron.

But if we focus too much on all the false heat,

All the things we think we could change and other people should change and that kind of thing.

And we don't feel our own heat and false dramas and psychodramas and all this junk.

We won't feel our own heat and then we won't fix our cauldron and we won't fix our ingredients.

And then we just keep living this heavy life.

I think it was,

It might have also been in the Alchemist,

The book,

That he talked about that lead is heavy.

But if it isn't truth,

The heavier we are,

The more like lead we are.

And that's very interesting.

Because it weighs nothing to carry truth.

Right?

Truth.

Truth doesn't weigh anything.

You can feel it inside of you.

When you say a truth,

It's like clarity.

It's so simple.

And as soon as you try to tell yourself something that isn't true,

Like it's almost like your shoulders start to slump and you start to,

You know,

Your whole posture changes.

It's very,

Very interesting.

The final thing I want to mention before I open it up and look at your comments is the inner alchemical process is something we do alone.

And that can be very scary.

We can ask for guidance,

We can talk to counselors or read books or do whatever.

But in the end,

It's 100% us.

So what I choose for my life,

I wrote,

I can have no approval from anyone else.

For me to strengthen my cauldron has nothing to do with anyone else.

And that's a little scary.

I remember one time I was going through something about eight,

Nine years ago.

I was really messed up about it.

So I called up Jim.

Some of you guys know about Jim.

He's my,

He was my very first real spiritual teacher back in 1999 when I had the breast lump.

So I talk about him in a lot of my books.

I called him up because I was desperate,

You know,

Like I was really messed up.

So I call in all the big guns,

Right?

I called him up and went out for lunch and I told him my story.

And he said,

You know the truth,

Katrina.

You know,

You're dead wrong about this.

You have to take a different course.

And that is not what I wanted him to say.

Because I knew I was supposed to follow this other way.

And I left him that day pondering it,

Realizing I have to be clear even when the person I respect most in the entire world disagrees with me.

It's a huge deal.

This journey is alone.

And if we are accustomed to needing other people to agree with us,

Alchemy isn't going to happen.

Because nobody else is in the cauldron.

They should be doing their own alchemical work.

So it's a really interesting journey because that's part of it,

Right?

Is realizing that,

Wow,

It's really just me.

And if someone says,

Well,

Why would you do that?

I go,

I don't know.

It's just my path.

And that's it.

Like,

I don't lie anymore.

I used to make things up that people would understand.

You know,

It's like,

Well,

Why would you do that,

Katrina?

And I would look at the person and I would go,

Oh,

So they really respect education.

Well,

Really,

It's an educational,

I'm not in sabbatical,

Really,

Or whatever,

Right?

I would tell them something that would make them feel good.

But I was lying.

The truth was,

I don't know.

It's just my path.

I don't know,

It creates a very lovely way to live.

So I'm going to put on my glasses.

Are spiritual practices like kindling the fire?

Only if they're hard.

The fire is something that is difficult.

So a spiritual practice could be something you add to the cauldron.

Right?

It could be an ingredient.

Like for me,

Meditation,

Maybe it's a bit of both.

That's interesting.

Good question.

Because if the meditation and the quiet could go inside as an ingredient,

But if I was to say,

All right,

I'm going to sit in Zen silence for 30 minutes or an hour or some time that's longer than I would normally do it,

That would create a fire.

If you create sadhana.

In yoga,

Sadhana means a daily spiritual practice that expands you.

So if you choose a sadhana,

Make sure it's difficult.

I don't mean physically difficult.

I don't mean so that you can stand on your hands or something.

I mean your personal sadhana.

Maybe it's being kind.

Maybe it is doing daily yoga that you don't normally do.

Maybe it's going for a walk every day.

But make sure it's difficult.

It's almost like creating the fire with a spiritual intention.

So I guess the answer is kind of true,

Yes.

Why do some people have a hard time understanding and disapproving of what you're doing?

I don't know why people love controlling others.

I know that in 2018,

I gave everything away that I own.

Got my world down to a backpack,

And I hopped on a plane and went to Ireland,

And I began traveling.

And I had no plans really.

I just knew that I was meant to follow that call.

And people had really different responses to that.

Some people were really inspired.

I mean,

I didn't do it for anyone else.

This was my own personal journey,

And it was a hard one.

But often people would say,

Wow,

I've always wanted to do that.

I can't believe you did it.

Other people were like,

Well,

I'd never do that.

That's ridiculous.

And some people were actually really angry who actually pushed back hard.

And the ones that really pushed back hard,

Besides just friends who didn't want me to leave,

But a lot of them were very attached to money and the size of their home and things like that.

And so the idea that I gave up everything,

And it wasn't like,

I mean,

My life was great.

I had a nice boyfriend,

And I had community,

And I had work,

And my work was all online,

So I could be anywhere in the world.

But I just no longer owned anything.

And if you're very attached to owning things and you have a lot of pride in how much you own or how big your car or your house or whatever is,

Then those people were really upset by what I did.

And so it's interesting why people want to control this or why they don't like it,

Because it has nothing to do with them unless it does,

Unless it reflects something that's difficult.

What tips would you have for those of us for whom this is a new perspective and we're genuinely interested in beginning this process?

Well,

One thing that maybe sounds funny,

But on Insight Timer,

I've done a lot of talks about Satya,

Honoring your truth,

Honoring your intuition,

And that's a really,

Really important place to start.

There's a lot of talks about emotional truth and listening within,

And those are the big ones.

That's what I would tell,

Especially within the Insight Timer world.

Well,

Thank you guys so much for being here.

I hope you guys have a wonderful day,

Wonderful evening,

Wonderful sleep wherever you are.

And I'll see you guys later.

Reviews

So inspiring and helpful. Thank you for speaking to my soul.

Just what I needed, at just the right time. Thank you. ✨✨✨

That was such a beautiful talk. Probably the first one this long that my mind did not drift into other thoughts!
Every word you spoke, every thought you shared - resonated, taught something and showed what needs to be done to live true to my soul. Beautifully created content which arose questions but also helped in getting the answers or the ways in which to reach the truth (Satya)!
Thankyou very very much!!! Love and light to you for coming up with more such heartfelt and necessary content.

Your words bring me such clarity and peace. And your giggle just makes me so happy!! ☺️🙏🏼💖

Just amazing.

I Love your stories and insights.
I also Love how Real you are about your experiences.
Thank you Katrina.

🙏🏽 really resonated and clarified a few points. Thank you 🙏🏽