The Alchemy of Emotions
By Michael de Glanville & Viola Edward…..
The Apprentice
When it comes to granting wishes, perhaps the most frequent request would be “being approved by others”. If we each had a magic wand and used it, all we would need is love and acceptance in order to be the alchemists of good fortune and happiness in our lives. A good alchemist values the experience of being an apprentice very highly, in that the learning process is an instrument in constant evolution. Within this process, the relationship is the dynamic context where we reaffirm the thoughts and emotions that condition our wellbeing as a partner in our relationship.
The Alchemist
It is said that gold and lead are made of the same components but when these are combined in different proportions, 
the resulting product is different. Just like the philosopher’s stone, the Alchemy of Emotions is the wisdom that comes from discovering what an emotion consists of and the intent lesson that is behind it. “Knowing oneself is the start of wisdom, which in turn is the beginning of the end of fear”. This is a basic ancestral teaching for all alchemists in the process of accepting and expanding their emotional intelligence and the efficient use of this intelligence enables us to move freely within the energy of our Being.
Awakening the Alchemist
Many of us are aware of the potential that we have as human beings to transform our lives, for this is the genetic information that drives us in our search for happiness. Once we activate the observer that we all carry inside of us, it is merely a question of energy, time and space before the alchemist that is within us awakens. Awakening the alchemist means honouring our holistic existence, one that is made up of body, mind, emotion and spirit. It would be logical to say that the more we accept our physical characteristics, our thoughts, emotions and spirituality, the easier it will be for us to live with ourselves and others. It turns out, however, that we don’t quite accept ourselves exactly for what we are.
What are emotions?
The Five Natural Emotions are: grief, anger, envy, love and fear. “…and these last two, love and fear are the basis of all emotions. The 
first three of the five natural emotions are simply developments of love and fear.
Ultimately, all thoughts are rooted in love or fear. They are the primal duality, everything breaks down to one of these. All thoughts, ideas, concepts, understandings, decisions, choices and actions are based on one of these two. In the end, there is really only one and that is Love”. Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.
The Limiting Emotion
A limiting emotion is the result of a physical, mental, emotional and/or spiritual experience that has been neither accepted nor integrated as a whole. The real possibility of accepting, completing and integrating any emotional experience is thus a healing process in itself. By developing an “attitude of acceptance” throughout the process of understanding the nature of one’s emotions, one acquires an awareness of the Self that goes beyond the form and limitations of personality. Emotions are release valves that have the function of keeping us balanced, both internally and externally. Emotions express themselves in a dance of relationship loaded with conditioning factors and this dance comes and goes. During the first few years of our lives we will make emotional judgements that sketch out what is good and what is bad in ourselves and others.
Dealing with Emotions
In our emotional agreements and disagreements with ourselves, we tend to adopt one or more of the three following attitudes:
1) We withhold our emotions. 2) We dramatise them. 3) We accept them.
1- By withholding our emotions, it may be possible to live for some time deluding oneself that, by not accepting an 
emotion, it does not exist. Social conditioning has drummed it into us from a very early age that expressing one’s emotions is upsetting and so they need to be hidden, controlled and avoided. As we are expressive by nature, however, the act of retaining an emotion produces a harmful effect on a holistic level and an unexpressed emotion turns into a toxin. However, our holistic intelligence as it searches for a balance ends up by opening the release valves to restore equilibrium. The longer that there has been withholding the stronger will be the resultant emotional outburst as this volcano erupts. Our body language then becomes urgent and illogical and the emotions overflow into explosion, implosion or both. When finally understood, these floods of emotion can enable us to cross the bridge to accepting our emotional humanness, to feel it pulsating inside of us and to reinforce the creative and ambitious energy that lies behind all of our actions. Even though we may pretend we are not aware of these emotions, life, in its infinite mission of helping us to return to our essence, creates similar or more acute situations that propel us to look more deeply at ourselves, accept the emotion and integrate it.
2- When we dramatise our emotions, we let the emotional dimension become so exaggerated that it spills over and invades other areas of our life. We become heavy, dense, obsessive and dispersed; our 
vision of things gets out of proportion, occupied by what is not really important or urgent. The real drama in this situation is that we become unaware of our real talents and attributes. We go around being stressed out, concerned, angry or depressive to the point of being a slave to the emotion, i.e., we become addicted to drama. The excesses of anger or sadness are like a slapdash graffiti pasted over a work of art, namely ourselves. Our original beauty becomes so concealed by these brush strokes that we can no longer appreciate the true artistic genius within. Withholding or dramatising our emotions are in reality defence mechanisms and include many different shapes and forms. Our immunological system gets weakened creating some of our diseases. The emotional state diminishes our co-ordination and focus leading to mistakes and accidents. It is perhaps one of the biggest sources of imbalance in couple relationships, in parenting or in the workplace.
3- By accepting our emotions, we can go beyond withholding and dramatising to a more sublime experience and begin a process self-fulfilment. When we understand the emotional process and surrender to it. When we assume the responsibility of its 
influence in terms of time and energy, and continue on with what we are doing. The dynamics of the learning process are: acceptance; taking responsibility for our actions; and carrying on with our lives. By accepting our emotions we can go beyond withholding and dramatising to a more sublime experience and begin a process of self-fulfilment. When we understand the emotional process and surrender to it, we assume the responsibility of its influence in our lives in terms of time and energy, then we can continue our life more productively. This process is painful of course but not interminable. C.G. Jung said….”There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious”.
The dynamics of the learning process are: acceptance, taking responsibility for our actions, modifying, developing, expanding and carrying on with our lives…and next week we will be carrying on with this subject.
Viola’s ideas of Emotional Alchemy first appeared in the late 90’s, and has been much shared and reviewed by her dear poet friend Sonia Pirona.
Contact Us
If you are interested in deepening your knowledge about “The Alchemy of Emotions” you can participate in sessions with Viola and Michael.
We would love to hear from you with your comments, experiences and questions. Contact us at info@violaedward.com. Mob. 0533 867 3685. FaceBook: ViolaEdward Coaching.
You can download a free copy of Viola’s book “Breathing the Rhythm of Success” and find a collection of previous articles in this series from http://www.violaedward.com
About Viola & Michael.
Viola came to Cyprus from Venezuela in 2002 to join Michael who was born on the Island and returned from France in 1999. Viola and Michael are both trained therapists in Breathwork and they founded Kayana Ltd in 2003. Viola specialises in Relationship Coaching, Business Consulting and Colour and Image. Michael has an Engineering background and specialises in Massage and Watsu.
