The Alchemical Woman

Throughout our lives, we repeatedly travel through the five stages of alchemy - sometimes all within the span of a day. The stages described in our new book are levels of awareness marked by thoughts, feelings, emotions and activities that insist on grabbing our attention, no matter how hard we try to ignore them. These stages are not a familiar track of traveling from point A to point B growing toward maturity, but a spiral that rises upward. Upward, because each time a woman revisits a specific stage, she is not the same person she was the last time she was there.

That's not to say we keep having the same problems over and over, but that the challenges we have in life can take us to an emotional and mental place that we've experienced before. Each time we enter it, however, we have a little more wisdom under our belts.

The alchemical process is not a road map leading to Utopia. It gives us tools to use as we experience the good, the bad and the ugly - tools that come in the form of ideas, images, music, activities that give us insight into who we are and who we can become. But we have to be willing to sit long enough in those experiences in order to take hold of the tools that help us move on.

Nobody. That's what makes it difficult to move out of the dark and painful places in our lives and into places of self-confidence, satisfaction, fulfillment and joy.

Whenever we encounter negative emotions, our first reaction is to place blame. We blame others or we blame ourselves. Either way, blaming is a diversion from seeing and taking responsibility for what's wrong in our lives. And blame only prolongs our stay in either the pain or the denial of what is happening.

The alchemical process helps us take ownership of our lives on all levels and to recognize the angel, diva or demon wanting our attention. It's a dynamic process that allows for feelings of being stuck, allows for leaps of faith and allows for growth and self-acceptance to appreciate that we're doing the best we can with what we know.

Once we stop resisting and settle into actually being present with our experience, we begin to funnel our energies toward positive solutions.

The 'Keystones,' listed at the end of each chapter of the book, are presented as practical ways to help move the stuck energy in our bodies and minds. Movement helps change perspective, and a new perspective can increase understanding. Greater understanding brings the wisdom that helps us face the challenges in our lives with confidence and calm.

The awareness of these alchemical stages brings huge rewards. Life's trials and traumas are accompanied by gifts. It's hard to imagine anything good coming from an unwanted divorce, a fatal illness or accident, or any other personal loss. And oftentimes the gift goes unclaimed, but that doesn't mean it wasn't there to receive.

The alchemical process helps us to move beyond our pain, not by denying it or suppressing it, but by living it fully and honestly, and coming to know who we are within it. Finding that Alchemical Woman within is a gift in itself, because we come to know that she is more than we imagined, and she deserves to have light, love and joy in her life.

Once she believes in herself and knows she's worthy of all good things, her outer life begins to reflect what has happened internally. She starts experiencing that silver lining and those golden opportunities.

The alchemical stages are not all dark and depressing. Most of the stages contain great light and enjoyment of all things sensual, spiritual and intellectual. There are danger zones in the light, however - extremes that can take us to a darker place.

This process shows us the guardrails so we can stay on the safe and fun side of the light without diminishing the full experience of our lives.

We invite brave-hearted women to become their own empowered Alchemist.

By using the myths and metaphor of alchemy - the process of turning base metal into gold - we are inviting women to look into their lives at the very basic level of experience. What we find is exactly what we need in order to become the woman we're meant to be.

The Alchemical Woman isn't for sissies - it takes courage to go to those places inside of us that we've avoided. We invite you to embark on this exciting journey of transformation. The rewards are golden.