I'm Not a Survivor. I'm an Alchemist.
On the power of transmuting the sh*t that life throws at you.
I’ve never liked the term “victim” and I like the term “survivor” little better. Calling oneself a survivor conjures visions of clinging to a raft, punctured volleyball clutched to the side. While the metaphor holds, I’ve, personally, never felt like it fit for me as someone who experienced a lot of trauma early on in life.
Because I’ve never let my trauma strand me. Not really. I’ve never seen myself as being at the mercy of the people who failed me, or beholden to their pain and the things they got wrong.
For me, I’ve always seen it as a challenge. A choice.
Growing up painfully uncomfortable in the environment I was in, I instinctually knew it had to be different. There was no choice. If I stayed their course, I would die, at my hand most probably, drowned in the wave of misery that had swallowed up most of the rest. If I took a step off the cliff…who knows? Maybe survival, or at least a death with the perception of freedom.
I chose the latter.
Thrust into the wilds of life, I was forced to survive, in a way, but not in weakness. In strength. Instead of letting things like my childhood trauma, the years I spent getting things wrong in the wake of that trauma, become the things that defined me, I chose a different course. I chose to transmute all that pain and turn it into power.
So, really, I see myself as more of an alchemist than anything else. Perhaps the road to freedom lies on this path for you too.
If you’re going to be handed a mess, you might as well benefit from the cleanup.
It’s no surprise that I grew up angry and full of spit and spite. My mother ran my father off (in her way) and then spent the next 7 or 8 years raising me in a hoarding hellhole. The carpets were soaked in cat and dog piss. The walls crawled with black mold, and every time you took a shower or flushed the toilet, the (carpeted) hallway fled with raw sewage.
Instead of cleaning it up, she taped black trash bags over the windows and swore me to secrecy. It was a secret I didn’t keep and thankfully one I got to escape. We moved out of the house when the air conditioning broke, but things didn’t get better from there, my life was still an explosion of chaos.
The relationship with my mother crumbled the older I got. My senior year of high school it became dangerously explosive. I was forced to move out by family who worried my mother would do something insane. I bounced around there and between my friends. I counted down the days until I could leave for college, claim a bed and a home for my own somewhere else.
I got my distance but things didn’t get better.
I didn’t have the social or emotional tools to navigate an adult life on my own. I had severe executive dysfunction and a lack of real-world skills like balancing a checkbook, saving, investing, and taking care of my body or my home.
I stumbled into one disaster after the other, until I was couch surfing with my friends and looking at enlisting in the military to find some stability. By the time I hit that bottom, I was devastated. But more, I was angry.
This wasn’t the life I was promised. Worse, the people who had set me up to get to the bottom were taking pleasure in seeing me fail. I couldn’t tolerate it, and I had no tools to manage the rage. I was either going to self-destruct, or I was going to do something else…something bigger.
What is the power of personal alchemy?
This was the point at which I found personal alchemy. Consumed by my rage I forced to look inward, at the things I wanted to destroy. A strange thought came to me. Why are you destroying yourself and your life for the harm someone else has inflicted on you? Why are you destroying yourself for them? Why are you giving them what they want?
The truth of it was there and the first lesson of alchemy was revealing itself to me.
Letting my trauma eat me up was of no benefit save to those who had done wrong. I was cheating myself. Robbing myself of life, of peace, and even of the revenge that I believed I wanted.
If I self-destructed, they won. And for what? What would I have to show for my morose descent into madness and shadow? Nothing. I would get nothing when I deserved to taste the petals of a beautiful life. (Like all humans.) Something in me shifted.
At first, it looked and felt a lot like spite. I was going to fix it, I was going to fix myself, to spite all the people who had discounted me as a statistic. But then that changed…
Little by little I saw my pain as a source of power. I twisted the tendrils of emotion that had controlled me heart and mind and shaped them into words. I offered those words up on the platform of the public altar and begged for mercy from what gods could hear. I found it.
I found people who found power in my story. I found a new way of believing in myself, my talents, and my dreams. I fell into the belief that I was worthy, that I wasn’t broken, and that the future I wanted was possible if I claimed it.
It was transmutation.
I turned my trauma into books. Into blogs. Into podcasts. Into video channels. Into a newsletter. A writing business. A coaching service. I bloomed as I offered it up to the world. I found more and more possibilities as I stopped hiding in shame and held myself out in vulnerability.
How to transmute your pain into personal power.
I hold in the belief that becoming an alchemist is the way forward for those who are trying to build a worthwhile life after trauma, upset, or self-denial. Whatever it is that is desired. A new relationship. A happy family. A blossoming career. Money in the bank. Those things that are missing from your life can be harnessed and created, but only when you let go of that “victim” mindset and transmute your pain into power.
But how? Here is the method that I use and the one that I teach my clients…
1. Lean into the shadows
I wasn’t able to overcome the “darkness” of my trauma and mistakes until I leaned into a full-fledged view of them. I embraced my “dark night of the soul” and met my shadow self there at the crossroads. She and I did battle, and I came out the stronger because I no longer feared seeing her for what she was.
You have to lean in. Accept those things that hurt the most. Work through them. Feel them. Let them wash over you until the waves are no longer high enough to drag you under.
Once you are brave enough to look any of your secret truths in the face, you will become strong enough to vanquish them. You can create the life, the traits, the behaviors, the beliefs, that put them to rest or reframe them for your best ultimate purpose as a person.
2. Use the spite to get started
The thing about existing after trauma is that it is difficult. There are days you don’t want to get out of bed. It’s painful. You have to accept things like being unloved, being failed by the people you trusted most, it’s a lot. The problem, though, is that grief, sadness, they are depressive emotions. They freeze you. Keep you still.
That spite you feel? That anger? It’s an active emotion. It wants you to move. Think of it on a primative level. Your ancient ancestors used their anger to protect the tribe, to secure the family, run off threats. Your anger, your spite, it serves the same purpose now. It wants to move you away from your suffering and toward the safety you need.
If all you’re sitting on are the “negative” emotions you’ve been taught to shy away from, use them.
Use that spite and that rage to create something positive for yourself. Use it to say, I will never suffer again. I’m going to create something good for myself. Then do it. Start an exercise routine. Go for a run every time you’re angry. Use it to finally start that new job search, or to start planning a budget that you can use to move out and move on.
There’s no such thing as a bad emotion. Just people who don’t have the tools to harness all their emotions for their best and highest interests (and overall balance).
3. Consider where the biggest benefit lies
Last but not least, you need to consider the best course of benefit from your trauma and how you want to use it to thrive. Not everyone is going to that as literally as I did. You don’t have to write a book or scream it into a podcast microphone. You don’t have to share any parts of yourself with the world if you don’t want to.
Transmutation, being a true alchemist of your life, is all about channeling.
How are you going to channel all these emotions you’re learning to feel? How are you going to use them so that there is some kind of a positive outcome. Personal growth itself cannot be enough. You need something tangible to show for the suffering that you have persevered beyond.
That’s why you should pursue your highest dreams. Write a fantasy novel. Learn how to paint. Take that pottery class you’ve been putting off. Go out for that casual sport league at the local community center, the one you’re too bashful to get into. Pick up an instrument. Travel the world.
Do the things your trauma, your childhood, and your pain, told you could not be done. Meet yourself on the road of life and embrace your deepest passions and your instincts. Be wholly yourself and use the transformation for your greatest benefit, whether that is financial, emotional, social, or whatever it is that matters to you.
***
Sometimes, it seems impossible. To reshape your life in the wave of trauma, in the wake of major pain is no small feat. But it’s the only way we can survive. It’s what we deserve. That’s the real secret to this personal alchemy. Knowing that we have a right to turn the base metals of our lives into something golden and worthy.
Consider this quote from Lucius Annaeus Seneca:
“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.”
You find that courage by taking one step, then another, day by day. Inch by inch. You build upon the next until you move forward…and your courage grows with that journey.
Reflect for a moment on the power you have to shape your destiny. This isn't about mere adjustments; it's about profound evolution, about becoming an architect of your own experiences, a sculptor of your soul's desires.
There is a flame within you, don’t let it flicker out. Stoke that fire into a blaze. Are you ready to delve deeper, to push boundaries and unmask your potential? Imagine where this path can lead and ask yourself if you're prepared to take that courageous step toward a life that resonates with purpose and joy.
This is more than just a conclusion to a blog post; it's an invitation to soar, to dive into the vastness of your own depths. Your life is waiting to be rewritten, reimagined, and realized in full color. Embrace your role as the personal alchemist of your own existence. Cast aside doubts; it's time to shine.
© E.B. Johnson 2024
For those who feel this calling, I extend a hand to guide you further. Apply for 1:1 coaching with me, a certified NLPMP, where we'll navigate the complexities of your unique narrative. Alternatively, join my mailing list to receive a weekly dose of wisdom that illuminates your journey. Want to support my writing? Subscribe using the button below.