Work of Becoming More Fully Human
“Transformation begins when the old is given a new relation to the living.” — Dr Bronce Rice
Written by Dr Bronce Rice
Dear Subscribers,
In my work, I have come to understand transformation not as a single event, but as an ongoing process of integration — a way the psyche and spirit participate in life’s unfolding. Alchemy offers a language for this process, helping us see how pain, emotion, and connection can become the very materials through which we evolve. When met with awareness, what once felt heavy or divided can take on a new relation to the living, allowing something more whole to emerge.
An Introduction to The Mystery of Transformation
To be human is to live with contradiction. From my perspective, it is to live with, in one form or another, the mind in conflict. For instance, when we long for change, the kind we know deep down is necessary for a better quality of existence, we often find ourselves resisting it. It is a strange truth about being human: even the necessary change required for us to live a healthier, less stressful existence often causes the very stress we are trying to avoid.
This is where repetition often enters our lives. In a relationship, for example, we might long to speak what the heart needs to heal but instead remain silent, frozen, and numb. Perhaps this is because silence once kept us safe, so we return to it as if on cue. When this old pattern reappears, it is as if the past pulls the present into its orbit. These recurring moments are not just habits; they are echoes of earlier survival strategies replaying until we pause and reflect, becoming more aware and giving ourselves the chance to respond differently.
Transformation often occurs in the everyday parts of our lives. It asks us to begin letting go of older ways of protecting ourselves, particularly when they no longer serve us. When we take that risk, we step toward an unfamiliar future and toward possibilities we may not have seen before.
Here we come to the paradox at the heart of being human. The tension between what we repeat and what helps us change places us in a precarious position. We are pulled between the comfort of the familiar and the risk of the unknown, and neither side feels entirely safe. That is why we need a way of thinking that can frame the complexity of our struggles while also highlighting the possibility of working with them differently. From my way of thinking, alchemy is one such frame, because it gives us a way to understand transformation itself and what it means to become more fully human.
Alchemy, the ancient practice of seeking transformation, was first imagined as turning base metals into gold. Beneath that pursuit was a deeper belief that what is heavy, fragmented, or ordinary could, given the right conditions, be changed into something of greater value.
We can hear this today not only as an old idea but as a way of speaking to our own lives. What feels heavy or painful, what seems scattered, or even the most ordinary parts of living can, under the right conditions, become sources of healing. Transformation begins to take shape when our emotions are not just felt, but worked with.
For example, love often asks us to open our hearts even when we feel exposed or afraid of losing something important. In those moments, it does not just connect us more deeply with others. It also deepens our connection with ourselves.
Anger too has its place. When it is met with honesty and with grounded stability, it can help us face our wounds more directly and respond in new ways rather than repeating old patterns or passing our hurt along to others.
Grief has a way of moving in suddenly. A song, a scent, or a passing memory can bring it rushing back, reminding us of what we have lost and how deeply we have loved. If we can stay with grief and listen to its undercurrents, it can help us soften over time. It can teach us what matters most to us, help us sit with the sorrow of others, and, even in its heaviness, point us toward meaning and direction in life.
In this way, our emotions may weigh heavily on us, but they can also become the raw material for transformation. Worked with and reshaped, they can help us heal, deepen our connection with ourselves, and grow stronger emotionally. They can also open us to greater empathy, making it possible to listen to the pain of others in ways we might not have before. Often it is our emotions themselves that alert us when something no longer fits, pointing us toward the places where growth and repair are likely most needed.
When we are suffering, it is easy to believe the pain we are experiencing will never end. But in time, pain often shifts, hinting that new ways of living and feeling are possible, and may, under certain conditions, gently guide us toward what is good for us. When this happens, we may find ourselves drawn toward what helps us feel more whole, and in that very wholeness, life itself can feel more alive. Transformation then asks something simple yet profound, to meet life as it is, while also imagining what it might become beyond what we can see right now. This is the paradox at the heart of transformation: that we can face life as it is and still move toward what is good for us — a movement that helps us integrate more of who we are and, in doing so, become more fully human.
Therapy as Alchemy
Therapy is one of the places where the paradoxes in our lives can be explored, where the patterns that shape us can be unpacked, and the feelings and thoughts we struggle with can be given space to be understood and worked with. I know this not only as a therapist, but as a patient myself. In my own therapy with my therapist, Mel, I’ve come to see how the same patterns I help others recognize can shape my own life, and how the process of working through them, slowly and honestly, can be both healing and life-changing.
In therapy, most people come to see me because they are in pain and uncertain about what might help alleviate their suffering. They may find themselves repeating parts of their lives that bring them more stress, without knowing how to open up and look more closely at the patterns that drive their repetitions. This is something we all do in different ways. Our patterns of living tend to show up with our loved ones, colleagues, and friends until we begin to worry whether we will ever change, or if we do, whether it will already be too late.
In this space, if we find the courage to speak about our pain and explore what it is tied to in our lives, we may at times begin to feel aspects of hope and to understand our problems differently. We may even sense that what once felt unknowable or unfathomable can, in fact, be faced and understood in light of our historical struggles.
This is where therapy itself, even the room in which it takes place, can be experienced like a crucible: a sacred space where we can begin to both feel our pain and put it into words. Over time, this gives us the possibility of learning new ways of responding to our pain. In doing so, we stand a chance of relating to ourselves differently than we once did, and we can also move closer to what is actually healthier for us.
Take a male patient of mine who came to see me because he complained of feeling dead inside. As a child he learned that his anger, and the anger of those around him, was not safe to be around. In his home, he often witnessed his parents verbally abuse one another, and he came to believe that strong feelings would only drive people further apart. He pushed his emotions aside and suppressed them until, after years of practice, he could hardly feel anything at all.
When he faced loss, he withdrew, shutting down the very emotions that needed expression. It protected him emotionally, yes, but it also left him alone, cut off from me and from others, and, most importantly, from himself. The same silence that protected him also caused him to suffer, reinforcing the very loneliness he feared would be too much to bear.
As we continued to explore how this coping mechanism shaped his life, something happened in our sessions. He became angry at me and at himself for not “allowing” himself to feel, even in therapy, a place where feelings should be welcome. This raised the direct question: who is it that keeps him from feeling and from putting his anger into words?
Exploring this question let us face his intensity together and gain a better understanding of what was happening inside him. Once he began to find words for his intense feelings, though painful, it opened something within him that felt new: a sense that his emotions no longer had to remain so tightly locked away inside of him, that he could finally share them in the presence of another.
He began to notice that outside of our sessions, his sadness showed up in ways he hadn’t experienced before, and though he didn’t fully understand it, he could begin to explore with me why his sadness got expressed in the fashion it did. Over time, he came to see how his sadness was bound up with his anger. Both traced back to the losses of his childhood, the closeness he wanted but never got, the love that seemed chaotic, and the sense that if he expressed what he wanted, it would only make things harder.
His story shows us that change is not only about revisiting our past, but also about risking something new in the present — in the here and now. To mix the old with the new is itself a type of alchemy that allows for the possibility of change to take place. The patterns and memories that we’ve experienced don’t get wiped away, but when they are brought into contact with something new in our lives that we haven’t yet explored, it can allow for new rhythms to develop, new ways of relating to ourselves and others to come into existence.
For example, we still might feel sad about previous losses in our lives, but we can also explore what helps us experience joy in our current lives. A long-standing habit that may not be good for us can be explored and lessened a bit, contributing to new ways of being — perhaps more tearful, but also more open and alive. Transformation, in this sense, is not only about repetition; it also entails finding the courage to let the familiar meet the unfamiliar, so that “a form of life” not yet imagined can take shape, one that, when it involves healing, moves us toward what is truly good for us.
The Philosopher’s Stone
If alchemy once imagined a hidden stone that could turn lead into gold, the living counterpart for us would be found in human connection, shaped by what we choose to connect to in life. For what the alchemists sought through the transformation of matter, spirit, and sometimes the self, we might now understand as the transformation of the human heart, the way connection helps us deepen our emotional experiences.
Alchemy, after all, was never only about metallurgy. It was also a philosophy of inner change, an early language for transformation long before psychology gave us one. Centuries later, Jung recognized this, seeing in alchemy a symbolic map of the psyche’s attempt to integrate what is broken or divided within us.
And when the connections we nurture in life allow us to re-establish a living connection to ourselves, a movement toward integration and transformation in relation to what is good for us, healing can take place. In those moments, we stand a better chance of feeling more whole and less divided, and that, I believe, is the gold the alchemists were pointing toward, the kind that still matters in modern day life.
We often long for transformation, some sense of healing or renewal, especially when life becomes difficult. When we suffer, particularly for an extended period, it often has a way of revealing what truly matters to us in life, drawing our attention to the parts of ourselves most in need of care. In those moments, how we understand to what is happening and how we respond to our pain becomes crucial, as some responses lessen suffering while others intensify it.
Our responses are frequently shaped by what we tell ourselves and where we place our attention. For instance, if the story we repeat is that we should not be feeling our anger, or if we focus only on what is causing us pain, we risk our suffering deepening. But if we can acknowledge our pain as real without letting it overturn us completely, it may become something we can bear and even look at more easily. Being able to do this often opens more emotional space within us, helping us see our situations more clearly.
When we can stay with our pain without being overtaken by it, something may begin to shift within us. We might not notice it right away, but change can start to take shape. That capacity to stay present, to remain in relation to what hurts rather than turning away, can create the conditions in which transformation becomes possible. This is where the philosophy of alchemy still has something to teach us.
The old texts tell us that three elements are needed if real change stands a chance of happening: a vessel to hold what is being transformed, heat to sustain the process, and a catalyst to set the process of change in motion. In our own lives, these same forces can take shape through what we choose to participate in and willingly connect with. It is often through our connections, through care, interest, love, and compassion, that we find the strength to stay with what challenges us, the energy to keep working through it, and the spark that lets something new begin to emerge.
Change rarely happens in isolation. For instance, it can take root in relationships grounded in honesty and authentic engagement, especially when we allow them the time and space to deepen. It’s frequently within these kinds of relationships, where care and concern take center stage, that we’re afforded the space to develop new ways of dealing with our pain. When this happens, we stand a chance of seeing how an important relationship can itself become part of the process of healing and change.
In this way, a relationship with a therapist, close friend, or loved one, and at times, even with ourselves, can serve as the vessel through which change can take shape. When we’re suffering, when something feels painful or too much to face alone, being met with trust, recognition, and care can help us feel less alone in our struggles. These relationships may not take the pain away completely, but over time they can help us bear them more easily and even help us to understand more clearly what we’re up against in life.
This is the kind of meeting philosopher Martin Buber described as a genuine encounter: the shift from I–It to I–Thou, from relating to others as objects to meeting them as fully alive, sentient beings. In such moments, we often feel deeply connected to another person in a way that helps us experience ourselves as more fully human. We may still remain vulnerable and in pain, but often the presence of another caring human being can help us feel we don’t have to carry our burdens all by ourselves. The same can at times hold true beyond our human relationships. We may find connection in nature, with other animals and sentient beings, or with life itself in its many forms. Turning toward such experiences can shift our attention from immediate struggle to the larger mysteries that surround us. Encounters like these may not erase the pain we live with, but they can help us stay in contact with a sense of meaning larger than what we know.
If connection is the gold, then the compass is what helps us return to ourselves, to one another, and to what matters most to us when life feels uncertain.
Toward Wholeness
To live in the spirit of alchemy is to engage in the slow work of learning and change in discovering how to better live with that which makes life difficult while also turning our attention toward what helps us feel more whole. This, in many ways, is the work of healing: discovering how to stay connected to what sustains us, letting that goodness take root, and learning to center our daily lives around it. When we suffer, our attention is drawn toward what feels difficult within or around us, but turning that pain into something that deepens our sense of aliveness requires practice, dedication, patience, and care.
When we are able to move toward wholeness, we often begin to live differently with our struggles while also turning toward what helps us feel more alive, recognizing that both hold something essential to teach us. Human alchemy may begin in suffering, yet it often matures through connection, friendship, love, purpose, creativity, and meaning. And of course, not all transformation begins in pain. Some of it unfolds in moments of joy, curiosity, and love, in learning how to cultivate and take part in what is good for us, both when it appears and when it must be made.
As we stay connected to what sustains us, a kind of balance can begin to emerge between our inner life and the world around us. That balance often helps us notice what we’re feeling and doing, allowing us the possibility to better understand why we choose to live the lives that we do. It also helps us move through life more consciously, with less fragmentation, staying in contact with ourselves and functioning more effectively through its ups and downs.
Perhaps the transformation the alchemists sought but were not able to attain, at its core, was a connection to what helps us feel more alive and whole. Across time, people have called what we are trying to connect with by many names — the Great Spirit, God, wisdom, intuition, or inner knowing that helps us orient toward what is good and life-giving. However we name it, staying connected to it depends on learning to listen inwardly, a kind of inner compass shaped and guided through experience, helping us notice when something strengthens our sense of aliveness and when it pulls us away from it. I often see this compass take form in therapy when someone begins to trust the work they’re doing with their emotions — for instance, when being more honest with themselves and their partner brings a feeling of connection and relief rather than fear.
When followed, the compass points us toward what is good for us, and as we learn to trust its direction and work with what we discover along the way, both the compass and our capacity to respond grow clearer. In time, it can also helps us feel more connected not only to ourselves but to those around us, opening the possibility for relationships that are more real and sustaining. Learning to read and follow this compass becomes essential when we wish to live in closer alignment with the spirit and in relation to what is life-giving and good for us, allowing the deeper work of becoming more fully human to unfold. This is, in many ways, the work of The Wellbeing Equation: learning what helps us live in balance, stay connected to what is good for us, and move toward a life that feels more whole.
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