Transmuting suffering into solace

Welcome to February, beloved. Throughout 2022, I sent you an 'attunement' on the 1st of each month. As we step into a new year, I feel called to offer a new series of alchemical attunements.

An alchemical attunement is the process of...

✨ Using our own wisdom and evolution as a tuning fork, bringing us into vibration with our highest Self.
✨ Bridging the mystical and the mundane, the spiritual and practical, spirit and soul, joy and grief.
✨ Transmuting our "base materials" into gold... turning pain into power, wounds into wisdom, and grief into grace.
 
Today's attunement is about acknowledging the difference between pain and suffering. While they often go hand in hand, let's take a moment to recognize that we cannot escape pain. Pain is part of our curriculum in as humans. Our bodies and our hearts are prone to pain, it is inescapable if we're alive and engaging with life.

Suffering, on the other hand, is usually attached to our thoughts. Suffering often comes on the heels of pain, but in our mental body. It's also worth mentioning we can suffer greatly without feeling any pain at all. You can be warm and cozy in bed, next to your most beloved person in the world with a fuzzy cat purring on your chest, and still get lost in the deep tangles of suffering.

I bring this invitation forward for us now because we're still in the embrace of winter, which feels like an opportune time to contemplate where we feel stuck in our suffering. If winter feels particularly challenging for you, you're not alone. Many people "endure" winter, steeling themselves and counting the days until springtime comes. I feel this is a sad state of affairs, and I encourage you to seek the gifts of winter with all your heart. There is gold to be found in the silence, the stillness, and the surrender.

So how about we bring this invitation inward and transmute even a little bit of our suffering into something more luminous?

Light a candle and prepare a cup of tea, coffee, cacao or your libation of choice. 

Let's ritualize.

✨ 4 Alchemical Inquiries ✨

Grab a journal and write on these questions:

1. Am I currently experiencing pain? If so, where? Locate + describe it.

2. Am I currently suffering? Does it feel related to a source of physical or emotional pain?

3. Is it possible for me to experience my pain without additional mental suffering? 

4. How might my attitude or perspective shift if I could separate my suffering from my pain?

✨ Alchemical Attunement ✨ 

Metta meditation in the morning

This is a powerful tool you might try to soften the edge of your suffering. Metta is a meditative technique to send loving kindness to yourself or others. Very helpful in times of suffering and a beautiful start to any new day. Whether you have experience with this method or not, I invite you to intentionally weave some metta meditation sessions into your month. I consider this practice to be a breath of fresh air in my own daily meditation practice, taking into a space of contemplation and intention. You can search online for guided metta meditations. I recommend the Waking Up app, Insight Timer, or Tara Brach as good places to begin. 

Are you game to weave some metta into your month, Kate?

If so, I'll love to hear how it lands for you, and if you (like me) find it helpful in putting more distance between you and your suffering.

Also, hit reply and let me know what came through from the journal prompts. 

Let's hold this complexity together. 

Thanks for your presence today. I know your attention is limited. I'm honored you'd spend some of your precious time with me.

May you feel the light increasing, both in the length of the days and in your own gravity of what it means to be you, in a human body, today.

I'm here, just a message away Kate. I always love to hear from you.

To holding it together,