Life is alchemy, and emotions are the fire that turns me to gold.
Glennon Doyle – Untamed, pg. 68
It’s hard to feel all the feelings sometimes, but the more we do it, the more we come back to ourselves. Feeling the fire of emotions reminds us of our humanity. The flames can burn hot but the pure gold on the other side makes it so worth it.
This is my second time in a year reading Untamed, written by Glennon Doyle. It has been staring at me from my nightstand recently amidst a pile of books I keep there, so I decided to pick it up again. What blows my mind, about any book really, is the changing of the lens each time I read it. Why does that lens change? Because I change, I grow, I learn, I try to open my mind a bit more.
I absolutely flew through Untamed the first time I read it. I’m finding this time around that I’m trying to let myself absorb things, and really settle into some key words and ideas. The quote I began this post with was the first one I picked for my “Quote of the Week” post for today. It is just so succinct and beautiful. I wanted to make sure I fully understood it so I looked up the word alchemy and found three definitions on dictionary.com:
- a form of chemistry and speculative philosophy practiced in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and concerned principally with discovering methods for transmuting baser metals into gold and with finding a universal solvent and an elixir of life.
- any magical power or process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value.
- any seemingly magical process of transforming or combining elements into something new (emphasis mine)
If we keep in mind that third definition of alchemy, it really blows the door wide open on the potential meaning of the quote I shared at the beginning. Read it this way: “Life is a seemingly magical process of transforming or combining elements into something new, and emotions are the fire that turns me to gold.”
Life? It’s magical. It’s always changing and we’re always learning, growing, transforming. It’s beautiful.
I also found myself returning multiple times to the words you’ll see below, so I wanted to share this quote with you as well.
We are here to fully introduce ourselves, to impose ourselves and ideas and thoughts and dreams onto the world, leaving it changed forever by who we are and what we bring forth from our depths.
Glennon Doyle – Untamed, pg. 86
What could be more magical than showing up as our true selves with all the ideas, thoughts, and dreams that originate deep inside us? And also, the magic of holding space for others to be who they truly are?
Let’s make that magical world. Let’s love and be loved as we endlessly transform.
Thanks for joining me today for the “Quote of the Week.” I hope you are inspired to embrace the magic of who you are.
~ Sonja K.
