That’s what came out of a recent breathwork. It started with a two-part question today:
A. What is your greatest challenge?
B. What are the gifts that lie inside that challenge?
The questions elicited a large response in the chatbox. One to share is
“My greatest challenge at the moment is unexpressed feelings and unspoken words from the past, the situations when I froze and was unable to express my truth and these still affect me consciously and subconsciously, too, influencing my present decisions and are stored in my body. Gifts inside it: the doorway to self-love when I am able to embrace them.”
Another:
“My greatest challenge is to integrate my rational and emotional selves. I hope I may be able to help others to conquer their minds and liberate themselves eventually”
There are many more, but the gist is always the same. We don’t think of a gift being in the challenge we face, but there always is one.
Put very simply, the mastery of any challenge becomes an example for others. We don’t need to talk about it, it just becomes a part of who we are. Each mastered challenge becomes a building block of our Inner Authority. Each time we overcome what looms large and threatening we grow in psychic stature.
Each of our Alchemy of Breath Facilitators has to go through an arduous journey in order to prepare themselves for the work we do, becoming intimate with parts of themselves most people would shy away from. As a team we learn to support each other as we navigate some really, really big challenges, look at the dirty bits we have been ashamed of, and learn to love them as much as the easy ones to cherish. We come together regularly at the Alchemist Retreats to dive deep into the core of our identity, emerging victoriously, and bringing back the treasures that await.
We insist on that, because in order to meet the darkness in the world, to support those who want to transform their own inner darkness into light, we have to embrace it ourselves first.
Shame transforms into purpose, weakness into will, shame into a shamanic capability to visit all the shadows of humanity with an open and forgiving heart.
If you were unable to join us this weekend, please try for next Sunday. So much happens in this container where we get to play, feel and breathe together.
What’s your next step to being unreasonable and shameless?
With love
Anthony
