Take a nice couple of deep breaths and adjust your posture to be comfortable if you haven't already.
Try and be present in your body,
Your muscles,
Your legs,
Your shoulders,
Even yourselves.
And come with me today on a journey to the alchemy of pain.
We tend to think naturally as humans of pain as something to be avoided,
Sometimes at all costs.
So we run,
So to speak,
Psychologically from pain or the possibility of pain.
But nonetheless,
The way life is,
Pain arrives sometimes.
It could be physical pain,
Mental or emotional.
It could be loss or grief,
Pain of a loved one or a loved pet.
Pain arise,
Unbidden,
Unwanted,
Perhaps even unappreciated.
I want you to pick a moment of pain that's happened in your life.
It could be minor pain,
Could be a major pain,
Could be,
But something significant to you,
Something you can use as a marker to say,
Yeah,
Man,
That really hurt.
Maybe you're broken bone or maybe lost somebody or maybe just got upset in a relationship,
Who knows,
You just pick the moment now.
And no doubt,
You'll feel echoes of that pain,
Recurring depending on how much healing you've been able to do,
Physically or emotionally,
Psychologically.
But now I invite you to do something a little bit different with that pain.
I invite you to dive into it.
Just imagine if it's a physical wound in your body,
It's easier to imagine if it's an emotional wound.
Dive into it.
Rather than resisting it,
Wishing it wasn't there,
Pulling back from it,
Denying it,
Our usual happens.
Dive in now.
Whatever that pain is,
Whenever it was,
However it is.
And of course,
For a moment now,
You may feel it more.
That's why we try to avoid it.
But I invite you to feel safe.
You just enter in just some of this pain a bit,
Or memory of it.
And I invite you to go deeper,
Even deeper.
So deep that the pain itself is maybe not quite recognizable.
The energy of pain,
The wound is roomy,
You would say,
Is where the light comes in.
I don't want you to see now what might be on the other side of pain.
Not having avoided it,
Accepting it,
Embracing it almost,
When we dive through.
Where do we end up?
Just take a moment.
Is it possible that we can shift our experience of pain?
Does it go mental,
Emotional?
Take an anguish,
Take a sorrow,
And let it be real because it is.
But go beyond it to a deeper truth.
If you lost a loved one,
You're still loving them in this moment.
Your anguish comes from that love.
If you hurt your body,
Pain is the signal it's healing.
If you broke a relationship,
It has a chance to heal,
Even in your heart.
You have not anywhere else.
Dive in now and look for the alchemy of pain.
Look for the transformation.
Where pain is not just simply pain,
Put it to our way.
Feel the possibilities.
Suspend your thoughts.
Because pain can have a purpose beyond the suffering of it.
The pain and wounds and grief and sorrow and angst and tragedy,
As real as they are and as hard as they are,
Can lead us somewhere else,
Somewhere beyond.
If you intend it to be so.
Perhaps you glimpse a bit of a doorway,
A bit of a shift in the energy,
A bit of a knowing that pain is just a form of energy,
However uncomfortable.
And if it's just a form of energy,
Energy is always shifting,
Transforming itself,
Evolving.
Shift with it now.
Shift with it,
Searching for the other side of pain,
For the transformation.
For the alchemy.
And on the other side of pain may be insights or letting go or deep appreciation.
See what's there for you and the pain you picked.
Go searching.
Go deep.
And if it's true that pain has a purpose,
Perhaps you'll find your purpose in this journey or at another time,
Purpose of this pain.
And if pain does have a purpose,
Then it's not pointless.
It's not random.
It's not just to be suffered.
It's to be uncovered and lived and understood and felt.
And feel that pain that you've been exploring now,
Swelling up,
Not as pain anymore,
But as light,
As opening,
As flowering,
As possibility,
New understandings and perspectives,
New appreciation.
So just as the caterpillar faces death,
The butterfly is born.
Something is always being born out of something dying or going away or shifting its own nature.
In the midst of pain,
There's light.
In the midst of death,
Opening and renewal.
You can be the alchemist.
You are the alchemist.
Dare you live that way?
When you're ready,
Give thanks.
Come back into the room and have a wonderful day.
