TRANSFORMATION
Transformation represents the shift from internal insight to external action. In this stage you are using skills and insight gained from the previous stages to discover your personal legend and philosopher’s stone. Your personal legend is about redefining the meaning of your life with renewed purpose. The philosopher’s stone serves as a metaphor for inner process of finding your joy. The transformation stage is about embracing all parts of the healing journey as a source of wisdom, joy, and opportunity for meaning making.
Your
Personal Legend
In the book The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho, wrote, "The closer one gets to realizing his personal legend, the more that personal legend becomes his true reason for being." For the wounded healer, I interpret this as a metaphor to describe the parallel process of healing ourselves while also discovering a greater purpose in how we heal. ​
​
Discovering your own personal legend can be an answer to a most commonly asked question, "What is my purpose?"​​​
​​​
Follow your dreams, follow the good omens, and follow the pockets of opportunity, are three tips to help you to redefine your purpose.
“We can reduce emotional labor when we appreciate that work doesn’t only demand our energy, it is also a source of energy.” ​
​
–Dr. Brian Miller
Discovering Your Personal Legend
Discovering your personal legend is a deeply reflective process, that builds on the self-awareness, emotional integration, and conscious storytelling skills developed in earlier stages. These skills invite you to turn inwards towards your wounds with compassion and begin to see them as new pathways to discovering your purpose.
​
The journey to discovering your personal legend is a pivotal part of the alchemy of the wounded healer. While traumatic experiences may serve as a catalyst for transformation, your personal legend is not solely defined by what happened to you, but by the meaning you make from those experiences and how you choose to integrate them into your life and work.
Follow your dreams
As cliche as the phrase may sound, following your dreams is really about taking the initial steps towards discovering your personal legend. It’s about listening to the inner pull towards the things that feel meaningful and joyful. The disillusionment stage revealed area(s) in your life that felt draining. Following your dreams aims to help you are discover what fuels you.
Following your dreams is the commitment to yourself to stay present through adversity and move forward with courage, even when you feel uncertain about the direction. Do it scared.
follow the
good omens
Coelho also introduces the idea of following the good omens or rather following the serendipitous moments that arise in your life.
Similar to dress-rehearsing for joy, following the good omens is about practicing gratitude, being present, and most importantly allowing yourself to experience joy.
Sometimes good omens come when you are considering making a change or have already decided to change.
Sometimes good omens come right before you feel like giving up. They are small offerings of joy to help you continue on your journey.
Follow the pockets
of opportunity
Pockets of opportunity are metaphorical pockets containing your dreams, inspirations, or ideas. The goal is to allow yourself to imagine, create, and play without the barriers of figuring out the how and when, similar to radical acceptance. With patience your dreams can start to form in your waking life. However, you don't get to control how these opportunities are presented to you or when they will arrive, but you can control your reactions and actions towards the opportunity.
The Philosopher's Stone
The philosopher's stone serves as a powerful metaphor to describe the journey of the wounded healer. In early practices of alchemy, the philosopher's stone, was highly sought after by alchemists and it was said to be a potent healing elixir containing gold transmuted from base metals.
For the wounded healer, the philosophers stone is not something that exists outside of you, rather, it is an internal process of transformation. The elixir, the myth of arrival, and the gold, illustrates the courageous journey of the wounded healer in their pursuit of meaning-making, transformation, and happiness.
The Elixir
Early practices of alchemy were used in experiential pursuit of discovering the philosopher's stone. The philosopher's stone is said to be an elixir, containing gold transmuted from base metals, and it is often viewed as a panacea or “cure-all.”​
​
In alchemy for the wounded healer, the elixir is the process of turning inwards towards your suffering and using it as a catalyst for transformational healing. ​
The philosopher's stone is a metaphor to describe the wisdom and insight gained through the journey of the wounded healer.
The Myth of Arrival
The myth of arrival, the belief that happiness is only attainable after achieving a specific goal, exemplifies the modern alchemist’s pursuit of a panacea.
​
In the context of healing, the myth of arrival suggests that once we are "healed," we will finally arrive at peace. However, healing is not a fixed destination but an ongoing cyclical journey. Our healing continues to grow and evolve as we do. The myth of arrival keeps us chasing an endpoint in healing, when the real transformation lies in learning to live fully and joyfully within the journey itself.
​
The philosophers stone for the wounded healer is about intentionally allowing yourself to experience joy and happiness through all the many stages of your healing journey. ​​
The Gold
The pursuit of the gold and it's potential for blissful transformation, served as a source of motivation for alchemists to continue their journey of finding the cure-all elixir.
​
In the book The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho, wrote, "The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon."
For the wounded healer, the pursuit of the philosophers stone, or the gold, is about being steadfast in the pursuit of your goals but not at the expense of your happiness.