The human experience can be one of immense beauty, awe, joy, and wonder. And yet life often finds us (especially these days) rubbing up against places of discomfort, fear, anxiety, and stress. How do we hold and integrate both realities within ourselves? How do we access and allow our more expansive self to find breathing room within the bounds of our daily lives?
Early on, I found that I didn’t really fit into any of the available prescribed boxes, which made me feel uncomfortable and misunderstood. This shaped the dominant theme of my journey: to understand how I can fully inhabit my own life with complete acceptance and fulfillment. My pursuit led to spending a significant amount of time trying to understand the underlying forces that shape the realities we live in. While working on the never-ending discovery of who I am – including and beyond my identities as a storyteller, creator, foodie, and former winemaker – I have developed a useful working map of energy dynamics that helps me to more fully inhabit the entirety of my being.
My goal with Alchemical Storytelling is to support others in this exploration– helping them weave a narrative of self, grounded in celebrating all of who they are, including, and not in spite of their obstacles and challenges. My intention is to empower my clients to catalyze their own personal alchemical magic. Now, more than ever, there seems to be a collective desire for individuals to get underneath the surface of personality or ego, to see what lays beneath the barriers we so expertly constructed. We turn to all sorts of tools, from physical activity and conventional psychotherapy to psychic readings and shamanic healing journeys, in an attempt to shake off our own conditioning whether it be societal, familial, cultural, or, most likely, a healthy mix of all of these. And just like these tools, Alchemical Storytelling provides a lens to recognize and cultivate our broadest sense of self.
The exploration begins with an unveiling of an individual’s specific soul blueprint – who they are before (and after) incarnating into human form. It is here that we can tap in and learn what long-held patterns from past lives and our current life may be inhibiting us from living in alignment with our deepest truth.
What makes this information actionable on a very practical level is applying it in the context of each person’s unique body energy mechanics. For this, I rely largely on Human Design, a complex modality that draws from the ancient systems of western and eastern astrology, the I Ching, the chakra system, Kabbalah, and modern quantum physics. It offers insight into how people operate and impact one another, even on the subtlest levels. I often receive additional input from my direct intuitive experience of a client’s etheric and other auric fields. It is my hope that this information encourages genuine self-acceptance, while simultaneously offering concrete strategies that sustain and deepen the alignment to one’s innate, authentic blueprint.
My multi-dimensional perspective is the foundation for the alchemy that transpires during a session. Yes, new choices and actions are necessary for our third-dimensional reality to create change, but working on the spiritual and energetic levels supports these shifts in becoming permanent. I’m a firm believer that harmonizing these various aspects of the self is vital to feeling at ease. My desire is that whatever is revealed in a session is in service to a client recognizing and valuing their entire self – gifts, shadows, obstacles, and challenges alike. “It was truly mind-blowing that you tapped into that on a deep level. It was truly who I am, not on the surface,” Erica Reid told me after the conclusion of a session I did for her.
Whether it’s new information or validating knowledge the client is already aware of, this work can help strengthen one’s inner wisdom and provide reassurance that there is nothing fundamentally “wrong” with them. Even when uncomfortable aspects arise, we look at them with compassion and without judgment.
I strive to provide tangible tools and ways to integrate the information into everyday life. This could be a simple reframe of how one makes decisions or just an affirmation that one can trust themselves. Erica noted:
“I felt a bit more confident afterward because it allowed me to know my instincts have not failed me and being aware and connected to myself in an honest manner has allowed me to know me, accept who I am, and to look at me and decide where do I want to make a shift for the better.”
A small, new awareness can shift someone’s perception completely. They can move from feeling completely unseen and unappreciated to feeling valued and recognized.
If clients wish to go deeper, some find they benefit from continuously synthesizing and experimenting with the tools in real-time. As we all know, change doesn’t happen overnight. There are also ways to apply these maps to groups, businesses, family dynamics, and relationships.
These are challenging times, and I want to make sure my work is accessible, so I charge on a sliding scale. Wherever you are on your journey, I hope to provide a portal way to deeper self-discovery and acceptance. I invite you to approach the process with curiosity, playfulness, and compassion. For more on the structure of my readings and other details, please view my website: alchemicalstorytelling.com
Photographer credit: Andrew Kluger