Paula touches her client softly, holding her in a reassuring, energetic embrace of support and love. Cultivating a deep level of safety, she gently encourages her client, Joy, to face the abuse she has avoided for 20 years. The difference is that this time Joy is not alone in that dark room with her uncle. Paula helps Joy find the words she could not summon up so long ago. Paula encourages Joy to reclaim her body as her own, her voice as her instrument of authority.
As Paula then helps to restructure Joy’s energy field, chakras torn from the trauma and leading to chronic reproductive system problems are rebuilt. Joy feels a calm, open-hearted centeredness that will leave her more open and confident in her marriage and relationship with men in general. This is one of many experiences that Paula and Joy have shared in a 3-year journey of healing and self-discovery in the Anam Cara Program.
The work is the process of Soul Alchemy. It comes in a thousand forms—a thousand stories reflecting the uniqueness of each soul. While anchored in energy healing, Soul Alchemy is a much broader process that includes the exploration of human consciousness, spiritual awakening, group process, community building and sacred ceremony as the essential ingredients of transformation.
Through Soul Alchemy, we understand the human consciousness element of the soul on a chakra by chakra basis. Through the first chakra, we explore our heritage, the stories of our ancestors, our initial nine months with our mothers as the first and most important of relationships, and our comfort in our bodies, its rhythms and needs. Rich territory. The work continues through the remaining seven chakras exploring the stages of development and core aspects of identity and capability held within each. With awareness comes choice. Many of our students find their voice and, with it, the empowerment of greater authenticity.
A strong supportive community can create an emotional container in which real change can happen. Soul Alchemy has demonstrated time and again the power of the community to carry its members through. These relationships become precious, carrying as they do a powerful sense of belonging.
Soul Alchemy takes its potency from a deepening relationship with Spirit. We are in a constant dialog with Spirit, whether we know it or not. Through spiritual practices that foster a direct experience of the divine, that dialog becomes conscious and our faith grows.
All of our experience, feelings, memories and intentions—both good and bad—process through our energy fields. A healthy field creates what we need effortlessly, magnetizing the universe to bring it into manifestation. Trauma, injuries, toxins and unhealthy physical, mental and emotional habits interfere with the functioning of the energy field, resulting in disease and disharmony in our relationships. The energy healing skills developed through Soul Alchemy dramatically enhance the process of healing by removing energetic blocks and restoring harmony and balance to our body/mind.
Sacred Ceremony is a last key in the chain of Soul Alchemy. Through potent ceremonies such as re-birthing, reclaiming virginity and the medicine wheel, powerful experiences of the divine and healing happen. Lives truly change and souls are reclaimed.
These are the ingredients of Soul Alchemy. In Paula’s own words, “This work is my life-line to my soul!”