My first piece began with a writer whose way of thinking I recognized. Listening to him describe how he began writing helped me see what was keeping my own work on my desk.

But the effect went beyond that one story. He is one of several people who have sparked that feeling in me. There is something magnetic about people who are so completely themselves, seemingly without fear or shame. Their energy just makes you want to move. To begin, to create, to act on what matters to you.

Some people feel like alchemists in that way. Something about how they live turns a possibility in someone else into movement.

That is part of what I mean by becoming an alchemist. But it also connects with the attraction I described in the previous piece: the belief that how we are being has a relationship with what comes into our lives. We can be moved by what reaches us, and become someone who moves others.

From being moved to wanting to act
Psychologists Todd Thrash and Andrew Elliot distinguish between being inspired by something and being inspired to do something. Their research describes inspiration as involving both an awareness of possibilities and the motivation to express or bring them into being.

That distinction captures something important about my experience. The writer helped me recognize something I wanted to do with my own work. His example helped me see that I wasn’t acting on what I had been given. As I explored in my first piece, keeping my work to myself meant limiting what it could offer others.

Sara Algoe and Jonathan Haidt also studied what seeing goodness or excellence in others can stir in us. They found that elevation, the feeling of being moved by moral goodness, was associated with wanting to help others. Admiration for skill or excellence was associated with motivation to improve oneself.

We can recognize this in our own lives. Someone's courage can make us question what we have been avoiding. Their dedication can remind us of something we have neglected. Something we see in them becomes a question about how we ourselves want to live.

For me, these encounters are also part of how we can recognize our path. We cannot necessarily arrange who or what will reach us, or when, but we can make sure to be present and pay attention when something does.

What comes toward us
My own understanding of this reaches into faith. As I described when talking about money, living from trust, joy, and generosity seems to connect me with opportunities beyond what I could consciously arrange. I experience life responding to how I am being.

I believe there is an attraction in that. This is a spiritual conviction, and it comes from how I have experienced my life. The research on inspiration additionally helps us understand something about how people move one another. 

I begin my days by handing them over to God, simply by resting in the feeling of gratitude for guidance and support. Coming from an atheist upbringing, I never thought I would be saying this. But there is no denying that THIS IS IT. There is room in that for something I have not thought of, for an encounter I could not have planned, or for a direction I would not have known to ask for. I still have to respond to what presents itself. Trust is being in the game, open to what comes.

I guess I’m talking about the same thing that is often called the law of attraction. For me, it concerns how I live, including when I do not know what will come of it. Joy, generosity, and trust matter in themselves. They are ways of being I want to live from, and I have repeatedly experienced possibilities arising while living that way.

What we awaken in others
By alchemy, I mean that magnetic, motivating energy some people have when they are so completely themselves, authentically living, successfully manifesting their lives through purpose, seemingly without fear or shame. It rubs off in the biggest of ways. Something about them sparks us to move, to create, to act on what we have been given. In that way, they become part of our journey, just as we can become part of someone else’s. I experience them relatively rarely, but when I do, they awaken something impossible not to act on. These are the people I had in mind when I wrote about transformative relationships. Even at a distance, someone can become a significant part of our life without ever knowing what they have sparked in us. And what comes of what was sparked in us may, in turn, awaken something in others. This connects with Outgrowing ourselves: we participate in others’ manifestations, regardless of whether we know it.

Let inspiration bring you closer to yourself
In the strengths piece, I asked what the meaning of our existence would be if we actively tried to become somebody else. We need to make that distinction here as well.

What exactly moves you about someone? Their profession or achievement? Their curiosity? The freedom with which they express what matters to them? Recognizing that can help you understand what you want to give more room in your own life. We should never aim to reproduce someone else’s life. We need to let what inspires us feed into our own path.

That is part of the alchemy: what someone sparks in us takes a form they could never have given it themselves. We bring our own understanding, strengths, and purpose to it. Their influence becomes part of something we express through our own lives, which may then spark something in someone else.

Alchemy in the Well
Writing this, I realize for the first time that what I am describing as alchemy is at the foundation of my purpose. The base of my Well is:

Showing others how beautiful they are and thereby setting off chain reactions.

For me, helping each other thrive is at the heart of what life is about. I see this as life creating through us: what comes alive in one person can help something come alive in another.

This belongs to the common good side of the Well, where others can drink. What we develop in ourselves becomes available through what we create, how we relate to people, and what we encourage them to recognize in themselves.

Becoming an alchemist, in this sense, asks us to take our own lives seriously. To develop what we have been given, act on what matters, and let others encounter it. We do not need to make inspiring people another achievement to chase. We can put our attention on living in a way we believe in and making our contribution available.

That is also how contributing and receiving come together for me. I receive inspiration, guidance, and opportunities. What I do with them becomes part of what I can offer.

When I began writing about alchemy, the image of the Mandelbrot set came to mind. I wasn’t entirely sure why. But after finishing this session, I think I understand the connection. 

The Mandelbrot set is one example of a fractal. Fractal patterns recur at different scales, and, strangely, or maybe not strangely, but just beautifully, we find them throughout nature and the universe, as well as in our own bodies.

Looking more closely into that image reveals smaller forms resembling the whole. You can infinitely zoom in only to discover more of itself: an inexhaustible capacity to create, the whole represented within its parts.

We are part of that creation too. Life creates through us, and what we bring into being can become the beginning of something in another person. They give it their own expression, which becomes part of someone else’s life in turn. We can keep looking more closely, following what one person has awakened in another, without knowing where we would ever find an end.

Let someone know what their work or way of living helped you recognize in yourself. Be specific about what reached you. It’s time I followed through on this myself.

Algoe & Haidt (2009)
Thrash & Elliot (2004)
Mandelbrot (1982)