Project 52, Year 2: Transmuting Trauma, Increasing Incarnation
Or: the dark art and curious science of turning shit into sugar.
The most traumatic experience I’ve had was a spiritual crisis — the result of questioning the faith that my parents raised me in. When this happened a decade ago, it felt like the very foundations of my reality had been shaken and broken. I did not know which side was up or down — I was lost.
What saved me was the unconditional love that I had experienced throughout my life from my mother, father and grandmother. I just knew that there was Truth in that love. And so, I let love be my guide.
The Body Keeps the Score
“Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.”
— Chinese Proverb
Even when the trauma is not physical — when it is mental, emotional or spiritual — the body keeps the score. Trauma is stored in the body and it shows up in the form of physical tension or stress in various parts of the body. Releasing this trauma requires loosening up the tensions that have built up.
This is true for macro Post Traumatic Stress (macro-PTS) resulting from sexual assault, sustained emotional abuse, physical torture or other major traumatic factors. But it is also true for the micro-PTS that we suffer from as we go about our daily lives — a snide or hurtful comment made by a friend, a nasty look given to us by a stranger or even the constant barrage of negativity in the news.
Both macro and micro-PTS make us lose our sense of safety and grounding. We start to walk around with the feeling of a looming threat hanging over our heads. It feels like everything could come undone any second.
The path towards healing — the road to becoming whole again — is only possible through love. To restore our sense of safety and to ground ourselves in reality, we need to be able to experience and express love.
Love can show up in many ways — a smile, a gentle touch, a hug, an act of kindness, a word of appreciation or gratitude, or the feeling of being listened to without judgement.
If we are lucky, we experience and receive love from our family and community. If we are luckier, we love ourselves and are capable of expressing love. Either way, only in this space of love does curiosity blossom. And only through curiosity can learning and growth happen. And so, love is the foundation on which life is built.
Spiritual Beings Having a Human Experience
"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.
“God so loved the world, that he sent his only Son…” Christians believe that Jesus Christ was born as Love incarnate and that we must aim to be Christ-like. Hindus, Buddhists and Jains also believe that divinity incarnates in various avatars at different points in time — and that you and I are the divine, caught up in the wheel of time, repeatedly reincarnating into this world.
To incarnate means to embody in the flesh a deity, spirit, or quality. The word itself is derived from Latin for ‘made flesh’. So incarnation is when something intangible and ethereal is made tangible and real. The implication here is that you and I are not tangible and real — but that we are spiritual beings having a material, tangible and real experience. Our task then is to become more tangible and real — to increase the depth of our incarnation.
The qualities that we choose to embody or the spirits that we choose to incarnate — they matter. And so, I have chosen to incarnate as a wellspring of love, light and life!
The path to increasing incarnation and embodiment involves transmuting trauma — both macro and micro-PTS. To transmute is to change in form, nature, or substance. The word is associated with the mythical practice of alchemy — which involves transmuting lead into gold. But the alchemy that I need to get good at here is the transmutation of our traumatic experiences into expressions of the qualities and spirits that I wish to embody.
What does this look like in practice? It looks like turning shit into sugar.
Spiritual Alchemy: Turning Shit Into Sugar
Spiritual alchemy involves living as if life is happening for you and not to you. It looks like pronoia — a state of mind that is the opposite of paranoia. A paranoid person feels that the world is conspiring against them, but a person experiencing pronoia feels that the universe is conspiring in their favour!
To practise this spiritual alchemy requires the creation of transmutation reactions — think of them as the spiritual equivalent of chemical reactions. In a chemical reaction, you have two or more substances — under certain conditions and with the possible presence of catalysts — being changed into different substance(s).
In the same way, a spiritual reaction involves taking situations, emotions or feelings that don’t serve you and transmuting them into situations, emotions or feelings that do. Once you’re clear about the qualities that you want to embody or the spirits that you want to incarnate, it’s simply the matter of how you are going to transmute everything you encounter in life into more of those qualities and spirits.
In my own life, the challenge has always been that I am too cerebral — living like a disembodied head on a stick. I often get caught up in abstractions and lose touch with reality. The way out of mind is through my body — I need to supersaturate my body and brain with endorphins, dopamine, nitric oxide, oxytocin, and serotonin — all the good stuff — to make it a worthy home for me to inhabit! This is possible through deliberate practice and through the cultivation of certain habits — and the execution of specific spiritual reactions.
My Intention for Project 52, Year 2
For 52 weeks — from 4th May 2020 to 2nd May 2021 — I tracked 10+ habits and scored myself each week based on my performance. I called this endeavour Project 52. This week, from 3rd May 2021, I have started my second Project 52.
The intention of my first Project 52 was to set the foundation for a life of celebration by automating the habits that bring about physical, mental and spiritual well-being. With my second one, my intention is to master the dark art and curious science of transmuting trauma and increasing incarnation.
The habits that I have cultivated with my first Project 52 have already set the foundation for my incarnation. Now, it’s time to build the structure on top of that foundation. The habits that I will be cultivating for the next 52 weeks can be broadly classified into 5 categories:
Body: the habits here include stretching, grip and core strength training, pullups, weight training, yoga, running/walking, pushups and chinups. The qualities I am aiming to cultivate are — strength, flexibility and balance.
Food: the habits here include consuming a probiotic every day, cooking once a week, tracking my food and beverage intake, hitting my protein intake targets and (perhaps) tracking my calorie intake. The qualities I am aiming to cultivate are — good gut & clear head, mindfulness and sovereignty.
Breath: the habits here include Wim Hof breathwork, Resonant Coherent breathing, and jal neti or nasal irrigation. The qualities I am aiming to cultivate are — clear breath & clear mind, anchoring and groundedness.
Spirit: the habits here include dancing for at least 5 minutes daily, embodiment, dream journaling, transmutation, waking up at 6:30 AM, gratitude journaling, regular journaling and reading. The qualities I am aiming to cultivate are — celebration, thumos, grace, consistency, lucidity and joy.
World: the habits here include hugging someone or telling them I love them, writing and publishing this newsletter once a week, posting and engaging on Twitter, making videos, hosting a family meeting every Sunday, saying my prayers/incantation, onboarding Habit Builders for Project 52 and (perhaps) a podcast. The qualities I am aiming to cultivate are — connection, love, devotion, service and growth.
I will be tracking all the habits mentioned above. But as you can see in the tracker below, I will not be scoring myself on all of them. Several habits were part of my first Project 52 and I have already automated them — I do them regularly anyway. And some habits will be initiated down the line in a few weeks/months — it doesn’t help to try to start everything at once and overwhelm myself.
I am not yet able to explain why I have chosen these habits in particular. I have a sense that these are the habits I want to cultivate and that they will help me achieve mastery in transmuting trauma and increasing incarnation. But as to how they will actually help — I believe I will find this out along the way. Subscribe to this newsletter so you don’t miss future updates — I will be posting every week!
Transmutation in Practice
I want to elaborate on transmutation because it’s the central habit this year. I am going to explain what this habit looks like in practice with some examples of spiritual alchemy, specifically, laying out some spiritual reactions.
But before that, just try this right now —
Release your shoulders from your ears and unclench your jaw.
Remove your tongue from the roof of your mouth.
Soften your gaze to the edge of your vision, letting your eyes drift to ten and two o’clock.
Breathe slowly through your nose and hum along with your exhale.
Do this for 5 minutes and you will notice that your pulse is 10 to 30% slower. You have gone from tension into relaxation. Similarly, I want to go from tension into relaxation when I feel:
Lonely — isolated, cold and lost
Frustrated — irritated and impatient
Inadequate — like I am not enough
Depressed — low and down and out
Horny — the craving to masturbate
To go from tension into relaxation, I can:
Transmute loneliness into connection by telling/showing someone that I love them, giving them a hug, engaging in conversation or just listening.
Transmute frustration into appreciation by noticing and acknowledging one thing that I truly appreciate about the person I am frustrated with.
Transmute inadequacy into action by simply taking one step in the direction of dealing with the thing that is causing me to feel inadequate.
Transmute depression into joy and celebration by dancing my ass off.
Transmute horniness into fuel for physical growth by doing pushups, pullups, crunches or some other type of physical activity.
It’s not about doing this all the time and every time. Rather, it’s about getting better at transmuting these situations, emotions and feelings over time, mastering the dark art and curious science of spiritual alchemy, and becoming more of who I really am.
Make Sex Sacred Again
Of the 5 transmutations mentioned above, feeling horny is different. For starters, it is not a fundamentally shitty thing. Along with the desire for sustenance and safety, being horny is a legitimate biological drive. But the drive for food can become gluttony on one hand and anorexia on the other. And the drive for safety can become paranoia or recklessness when taken to the extremes.
Similarly, the sexual drive can become hedonism or repression. Both these extremes are to be avoided and the best way to do this is to learn how to transmute sexual energy — to treat sex as sacred.
Transmuting sexual energy can be done within the act of sex itself, through sacred sexual practices. But sexual energy can also be transmuted in other ways into creative pursuits, entrepreneurial endeavours, or contribution and service.
In the coming weeks and months, I pray that I find plenty of opportunities to be engaged in meaningful contribution and service. And I pray that I become a wellspring of love, light and life in this world!