We have a choice to take a bigger perspective on our life, no matter what valley you are going through. If you are in the dark night of the soul, I can promise you that if you choose to go through it, instead of avoiding it, you will. This is your invitation to become the alchemist of your life. You decode your heaven on earth and go through the alchemical process.
The alchemist is a master of himself so that he can master life. People thought alchemists were turning lead into gold, but they're really crystallizing their soul into form. Alchemize your golden potential. Welcome to the Golden Life. Welcome to the Golden Life. My name is David, and I am here to help you become the alchemist of your life so that you can create as much inner and outer gold as possible.
as possible. And this show is for you if you have been through a challenging experience and it's felt like lead weighing you down. Or maybe you're in the deep hole of depression and you're ready to crawl out. I want to let you know you don't have to stay in the metaphorical deep dark forest, right? It's called the dark night of the soul.
And it's something I've experienced, but I'm going to share my journey of how to work through those old experiences or the experience if you're in the dark night of the soul right now, how to start to work through that and take what situation may have felt like lead and turn that into. And I'm going to share the story of my first Breathwork journey.
And I just want to highlight the critical distinction here of Breathwork journey from Breathwork, because I've some, I've been somebody who's done Wim Hof for over a decade. Uh, but breathwork journey is when you breathe for extended periods of time, typically 40 minutes to an hour plus. And this is an altered state experience or altered state of consciousness experience.
So this is a different thing than just doing some typical box breathing or Wim Hof breathing or whatever it is. And my first breathwork journey was in 2019. I joined the Fit for Service mastermind with Aubrey Marcus. And we were at the Sedona Summit, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
Anahata was our guide, and we had these groups of 50 or so people in this space. And I just thought we were going to breathe a lot, maybe feel some things. They talked about maybe you can, you know, release DMT and go into an altered state. But I wasn't exactly sure. But, fast forward to the moment where we're laying down on the mats, the music starts playing, Anahata starts guiding us.
You know, I start to find myself, I'm breathing hard and getting into it, but don't really find myself going anywhere. I was like, what am I doing, am I doing it wrong, uh, is this it, is this, like, you know, people have talked about this, this can be a really profound experience, but I guess this is just, you know.
So, whatever. And I was laying there, having all those thoughts and going through that process, but shortly after that, somebody came by with a big ass man hand. So my guess is Kyle Kingsbury. And the moment that happened, I was sent straight back to the night I lost my father. And my father died suddenly from a plane crash while fighting fires in Idaho.
And we were coming back that night from SeaWorld in San Diego. And we lived in Central California and when we got home, my mom broke the news and I could, I was just right back on my bunk bed, you know, feeling that feeling. Is this even real? Then you go to the next stage of why? And then there's a part of you that thinks God isn't real because there's no way in hell he would do something like that to you.
And it cracked me open. And I thought that throughout life, I dealt with the grief. From my father. I'm introverted and that made me more introverted after that because I just tried to take it all on myself. But truth is, in high school, I actually numbed myself a lot, drank alcohol, and smoked pot, would party when I got into college, and I never really dealt with it.
I never really jumped into the grief. I kinda just stayed numb to it.
And that breathwork, that experience, I was so cracked open. And you could ask my brother, Chris Hager, who I was Uh, hanging out with during that weekend and he saw me after that breathwork and he was like, oh shit Uh, usually, uh, i've been a very stoic person not expressing my emotions very much and very quiet But he could see the look on my face, and I share that too because I realized a lot of my protection mechanism was to be stoic, to live more in my head and my prefrontal cortex so I didn't have to feel.
But what happened during that breathwork journey? Well, I got this visual after the fact when I went back to the place and I was just processing on my own. And it was like a walnut that got cracked open. Now this metaphor really hits home for me because I grew up on a walnut farm, but it was exactly that.
It was like this walnut got cracked open and all this grief, all the pain from that moment that I kind of pushed away. And this is to highlight that emotions are just energy in motion. And I wish I knew when I was younger, because I could have started this process even earlier and worked through it that much quicker, that emotions get stored in our tissue.
If we don't allow the natural flow of emotions to work through us, they're going to create blockages. If you listen to the very first episode, You Are Golden, then you would learn about the idea of lead and that we have this mental and emotional lead that keeps our essence, our true light from shining fully in the world.
And society doesn't help, especially for men. That encourage us to live emotionally constipated. And I know for myself, that's what I did. I just kept going through life. I said, I'll just deal with it myself. I don't need any help. But in reality, I was pushing the pain away. And that led me to realize that when you give space to feel your feelings fully, well, then you get to this next step.
And this was one of the biggest epiphanies of my life. Where after, post that experience, giving myself months to just let the feelings come up, and feel them fully, and let the tears be shed. Which, fun fact, alchemists believed were the, the, the breakdown of your crystallized beliefs and emotions. It's almost like your holy water.
After I went through this process, this insight just came up that asked, what did you learn from this? And right after that, this idea of soul gold came, right? I learned that losing my father suddenly shifted who I was, and that created an experience that led To so much more growth. To the person that I am today.
To me wanting to seek deeper answers in life. Like I shared in the first episode of what makes life worth living. Why can life be this painful?
And by going through this process of releasing the emotions, there was a lot. I know if you've lost somebody suddenly or had or experienced loss as a kid, either one, you know that feeling, that like, why? How could this happen? Like why is life this painful? Why would God do that to us? But as I actually confronted the pain, the emotional pain, and then gave it space to release and then followed it up with what did I learn from this?
That's where the idea of soul gold came about. And soul gold is to acknowledge that underneath every valley, there As well as every peak, as well as everyday moments, there's soul gold and soul gold is when you are on your deathbed and you look back on your life and it's those moments you realize are sacred.
It's the growth, the experiences, the lessons that you gain in this lifetime that is the only thing you're going to take with you. You don't get to take all the material things or however, how big your bank account is or whatever else. No, it's only the growth, only the experience, only the lessons.
And this is a concept that I later learned, years later, that is called post traumatic growth in the field of psychology. It was developed by psychologists Richard Chishishky and Lawrence Calhoun. I grew up on a ranch, so we care more about dirt than spelling and grammar, so I'm sorry I butchered your name.
But, this is really to understand. That we have a choice. We have a choice to take a bigger perspective on our life, no matter what valley you are going through. If you are in the dark night of the soul, I can promise you that if you choose to go through it, instead of avoiding it, you will find treasure and we can even embrace a deeper truth about life.
And that is the fact that pain is a choice. is a building block of reality. So you have the choice. Am I going to embrace this fact or am I going to avoid it and suffer for the rest of my life? Because that is where our suffering comes from when we don't choose to take responsibility for our perspective on life.
And life wouldn't be so magical, wouldn't be such a roller coaster, wouldn't be as rewarding if everything was just bliss, if everything was just a peak experience. And some of the greatest treasure of life is to acknowledge both the polarity of the pain, and the beauty. And in a future episode, I'll share the journey I went on of alchemizing my pain into beauty.
But to understand a big picture view, underneath whatever you're going through, this is your sacred treasure. Because your story is the only story for the infinity of infinity. There will never be a So, you are irreplaceable in the story of the universe, and you can choose to be the hero of your story by acknowledging that even in the valleys, even in the hardest moments of your life, there is gold.
Or you might even gain a superpower or a purpose or some other form of treasure. And you had to go through something like cancer where you're face to face with your mortality. And then you get the gift of truly living, right? How many people go through a state of life where they don't acknowledge the little things?
How amazing it is to be able to drink a glass of water, especially if you got something like out of a sauna or Tesla scale. Or eat a bowl of fruit. Or feel the sun on your face. Or share a meal with a loved one. There's so many things we can take for granted. But if you choose to be the creator of your own story, you can start to reframe your perspective on pain.
On your deepest pains and wounds. And when you do so, you are going to shift your whole life. Because all of a sudden you become the creator of your story. All of a sudden you have the power to not let the past hold you back. And I could speak for myself that if I didn't go through that process, I would probably still be this very stoic person who couldn't express his emotions very well.
And because of that, I wouldn't have created as many relationships and maybe would've still avoided pain and not been the father that I could be or the husband to my wife. And then this creates a negative cycle where you disengage from more and more and more and more. And I can even look back and go through the moments, which I'll share more in the next episode of being in the Dark Knight of the Soul in a dark mental place of questioning of even if life is worth living.
But because I decided to be the hero of my own story, I was able to walk the hero's journey and get the gold from defeating the inner dragons. Which you'll learn about in the next episode. So I want you to think about your own story. What parts of your own story have you been rejecting or resisting? You know, those old experiences that were maybe really challenging and you didn't have the tools to deal with.
Well, I want you to know you have the opportunity to be the alchemist, to live empowered, to take your deepest, darkest pain and turn that shit into gold. Because trust me, once you do that one time, you feel powerful and you have this new found sense of confidence and peace in the journey of life. And that is the turning point in every journey.
Heroes story. So if you want to be somebody who's resilient, who's courageous, who's an inspiration for others, then I hope you are inspired to at least take the first step, right? The, the process of even taking the first step to get help if you need help, but to give yourself space to release those repressed emotions and then ask yourself, what did I learn from this?
which is allowing you to collect the gold, or the growth, and then you can start to see how that served you. How underneath that pain it may have given you a new super power. Where because you had that painful experience, you thought you couldn't do this thing, but you developed really good skills of how to get through that situation that carried you throughout your life and you put that into practice or created a new purpose, right?
Losing my father sent me on a whole new life trajectory. That really sent me on that chemical journey, uh, which you learn about in one of the other episodes to follow my own personal legend. But that was a critical point. So if you're in the deep, dark night of the soul, let this be the turning point. Let this be the fork in the road where you turn this moment into gold, even if it's not a right away.
Or if you have that lead in the past, just know you have the power to do so, to live powerfully and turn that into soul gold. And we will share more of how to do this in future episodes, but for now, know you are the alchemist of your life. You have the power to transform your life. For the better, and you have the power to take anything in life and transform that into gold.
So thank you for listening to my story, and I just want to acknowledge you. If you are in that spot, or you have lost a loved one, or maybe this stirred up some feelings, to just put this in practice right away. Just give yourself some space to feel those feelings. I wish somebody gave me this advice a long time ago.
Because I could have saved so much life. As you'll learn in the next episode of being stuck in my head with a negative mindset, not accomplishing the things I want or having the relationships. or whatever else because I was so stuck in my mind. So give yourself some space to feel fully and you can always reach out in the comments below and know there's a community of people who are ready to help you get through your dark night of the soul or work through whatever it is.
So, thank you. If this episode inspired you, please show some support by hitting that like or subscribe or even share this episode with a friend that you think is in a similar position. I'm so grateful to share my journey with you and I look forward to continue this journey to help you live empowered as the alchemist that you are.
