What happened to the Author
It was during intense suffering that amazing and eternal joy came to me, and by practicing The Alchemy of Love and Joy™, you don’t need to suffer again.
My father suffered severe depression, and shot himself. There was intense suffering, his, our families’, and mine. It was my promise to him that this “would not be for nothing.”
That was six or seven years ago. What I found last April was far beyond what I could have imagined.
It was like I backed myself into a corner. I loved someone more than my “self,” (truly, I loved love more than my “self”), and I refused to blame anyone or anything outside of myself for the pain and suffering I was feeling. Feeling deep anguish, cruelly judged, abandoned, misled, unloved, immense loss, and without human dignity, I also came to the end. I did not want to suffer any more. It was no longer an option.
So I went inside, deep inside. And I experienced a radical switch from intense suffering to amazing joy that was so dramatic I burst-out laughing. At first I did not believe it, yet there it was; then I did not think it would stay, yet here it is. Not only did I find the relief from suffering that I sought, but I found how to give myself whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it. My thoughts gave me pleasure, and I became joyful, peaceful, and self-fulfilling. Life became shiny and new again, and I fell in love with simply being alive. My senses came alive like I have never known. At times just breathing gives me pleasure…
And being self-fulfilling, I became able to give the unconditional love that I wanted to give, simply because there are no more conditions.
It seems I just can’t suffer any more. Even the idea becomes more and more amusing. If discomfort even begins to arise, I simply do the practice. This happened during the spring of 2009, the practice came to me in words May 25th (you can read the story about how in the book, to be launched in the fall of 2011), and I am still integrating all the amazing changes. You can be privy to many of them through “Joyful Musings” on this blog.
After The Alchemy of Love and Joy™ came to me and I began to consciously seek joy more and more continuously, some of the most amazing experiences and feelings began to arise. My wish is that you experience the joy and bliss—beyond your past experience—that awaits you.
You can end suffering and begin to awaken joy beyond belief right now. Download three free chapters in an e-book. You will also learn more about my experience, new understandings, and insights.
It can be challenging to find words for what we have not known before, and to find people to share with. You are invited to share your experiences with The Alchemy of Love and Joy™ with me personally and directly by posting on most pages on this site. I will read all and answer as many as I can.
Please let me know if we can use your comments on the website and in other materials or books to help end suffering and awaken joy everywhere.
Peace, eternal love, and joy,
Cindy Teevens
Comments 8
Hello Cindy
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and what has worked for you. I am glad you have been able to turn your life around and want to help others. I hear what you are saying and at the same time I wonder if it is possible to get to the joy and bypass all the emotions of grief when a dear one passes away. In your way of thinking, are you saying that a grieving mother of a child who has just been murdered (for example) acknowledge her ‘painful’ feelings, initially, or just go straight for the ‘feel good’ feelings/states by quickly asking herself “what do I want?”, and “how does having that feel?”, etc, etc…?
Using your method, how would a friend help such a person in grief? I would think the parent would say “I want my daughter/son back”/”I want to kill the murderer”/etc… and… “I’d feel joy of course”… then what could a friend say to the parent then? (I would think the parent would think the friend had no compassion and they are virtually asking ‘the obvious’, or, may wonder what the point is?)
I understand the concept and yet I wonder about the practicality in certain circumstances?
Do you think, since you did your grieving before you awoke, it may be that others may need to grieve first too? Or, are you saying that a person would be completely transformed without any acknowledgement or grieving beforehand?
Do you think it is possible for a person to dissassociate from the pain, in this method, only to find they would need to deal with it later when another painful event comes into their lives that triggers the initial pain, a denial of sorts?
I hope you don’t mind me asking?
Author
Hello Matt,
Thank-you for reading, considering, and questioning. You have much compassion, the wish that others do not suffer.
If we are speaking about someone else, and grieving is already the case, I would not suggest trying to suppress or bypass it (of course, this is not what Alchemy is), nor encouraging them to feel better with Alchemy. Grieving is a potent power–the result of our very existential, deeply rooted beliefs and attachments being uprooted (like “He should not have died.”) It is an opportunity for someone with these attachments to view many truths, like the cause of suffering, and to revisit other suffering beliefs like birth and death. Who are we to deprive them of it?
I appreciate your compassion for your friend, and do not recommend trying to help someone who is in the middle of grieving by telling them about Alchemy. Allow them to burn through, naturally, and that will be the most cleanly, completely, and quickly. (If someone clings to an event years later, and is still living and suffering it, and they desire and seek release and ask for help, then that is different and providing this resource may be helpful.)
The best way to end someone else’s suffering is to end your own. In this case, your desire for them to not suffer. As you suffer over their suffering, you are not present and available to them, and this does not support their movement through it. (And they will move through it.) The best thing a friend can do for a grieving parent is to be present. No words are even necessary.
Alchemy is only for you–not for what you think is good for others. If we are speaking about yourself, and you in truth want to feel better in the middle of grieving, to use that opportunity to detach and discover your freedom, then it’s worthwhile to explore with curiosity, and to apply Alchemy.
Feeling good is not “awakening”. However using Alchemy in the face of “adversity” can help free you from believing you need anything outside of you, and then perhaps to begin to know, though direct experience, that there is nothing outside you.
Grieving is not necessary to wake-up, but it can be used to help “ripen” for the possibility. What I suggest individuals do is to use suffering for the only thing it is good for–to point you inward (not outward, looking for an outer “cause”), to seek the eternally present, infinite love of Being that exists through all experiences. Even beneath grieving, and simultaneously with it, there is love.
You must want this beyond wanting the outside to be or not be a certain way, and beyond wanting the suffering that can strengthen the sense of a separate self.
It’s like being in an airplane that has depressurized; you do not give the children oxygen masks first, you give it to yourself, so that you may be available to them. Use Alchemy for yourself only. Your friend, benefiting from your presence, may notice your compassion, stillness, and available love, and may become curious later if there is need.
Namaste,
Cindy
Hello Joyce,
Much love and compassion to you, I am very glad to have met. Take heart! There is a way out, which I have discovered. I no longer “manage”, there is no more unconscious suffering here. Life is light and joyous, even ecstatic at times, and I feel closer to Dad with love than ever before. I warmly welcome your comments on the book.
Cindy
Hi Cindy,
Thank you for following me on Twitter. I found you because of that and am very grateful. I look forward to reading more of your postings and your book. My father also committed suicide when I was 13 and I became a seeker because of it, like you. I read something once about the effects of someone’s suicide on the survivors Its effects are insidious for sure and although I’ve countered many of them, there isn’t any escaping. But, there is managing and I look forward to reading what you have to say.
All the best,
Joyce
Hello Adrian,
My heart is full of appreciation, thank-you for sharing such inspired wisdom!
Some people call me a teacher… a concept I do not adopt or ascribe to. And I have been told that everyone/thing is a teacher, and I certainly feel that way in my learnings.
Your writings, your generous gifts offered me, take my concepts and express them directly and succinctly with yet more clarity.
They bring to mind a saying something like, “That the student should surpass the teacher is the mark of a good teacher”.
May you stand on my shoulders and soar… so I can do the same with you.
Namaste,
Cindy
Hi Cindy,
I am posting a few of my musings here. They are dedicated to you, who inspired them by giving me impetus to look again for the joy within.
Yours,
Adrian
One thing that you say, essentially, is that being obsessed with pain is the least effective method of living in joy.
Let us be who we are. To be perfect is to see our imperfections clearly.
I am too tired of coming up with new visions of truth. I want to cut through imagery and reasoning and go to the root of my being.
Selfishness, blamed by society, hides the gift of selflessness. Being truly aware of what is good for us brings forth compassion for others.
During a long spell of depression, a lady told herself that maybe it is by virtue of being, not because of her deeds or merit, that she is worthy.
“Unresolved emotional issues” is one of the modern ideas about ourselves. But why clinging to these ideas indefinitely?
Religions have conceptualized spiritual truth in certain ways. Even if we reject religion, we come to see at times its spiritual content.
One does not need to expect only sweetness. We are dualistic creatures. But bitter and sweet both dissolve and become peace, when we see.
I look through the sadness to see the joy that abides within.
We are soothed by others only if we soothe ourselves. Our minds are nourished and soothed by the core of our being. We live by being.
Putting someone on a pedestal makes me sad. Realizing other people’s greatness without seeing greatness in ourselves is painful.
Hi Fred,
Thanks for dropping by 🙂
Yes, I understand (and can relate to) anticipating me being from a foreign place. If people don’t start out there, it seems they move there. At this point Ottawa seems and feels to be the place for me to be.
The gatherings vary in size from 30 to three. Generally the larger ones are bigger, occasional efforts. That experience is different, less intimate, less “powerful” and more of an introduction, more of me talking, which has its place, however the power of the transformative experience lies in doing the actually doing the practice yourself. Initially, it is good to go through it with
someone else until you get a real good hang-of-it. Then the ah-ha’s can arise, along with major shifts.
Comfort and safety are very important, and no-one has to speak who does not want to. What I have seen a lot of though is people
who were not comfortable in groups sensing a pull and even wanting more participation than others. Whatever is, is. And is fine as it is.
I also offer one-on-one sessions, and long distance sessions through skype, which you might feel even more comfortable with, especially
at first. (Though in-person sessions tend to me more productive).
If you have not already done so, you may want to download the first five chapters of my book, free. Every page has the form on it to get it.
I very much look forward to meeting you,
Cindy
Cindy,
I stumbled on your website a few days ago and read a couple of articles. I will be back to read more and study what you say.
What a pleasant surprise I experienced when I realized you don’t live too far away. I expected yours to be another website based out of California or some other hard to access place. I live in Brockville and even though I’m not what you would call a joiner (I never have been. I don’t usually feel comfortable in groups) I am putting myself on your mailing list in the hope that maybe I will make the trek to Ottawa and participate. I feel that there are some great kernels of truth waiting for me to sift them out of your articles.
Yours,
Fred