From the darkest lead comes the greatest gold
Don Hamm | Certified Teacher, Healer, and Life Activation Practitioner
Author of The Alchemy of Desire | Founder of XLR8yOurLife
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My life has taken place in four stages.
In the first, I was abused in every way possible. In the second, I became the monster those experiences shaped me to be. I have been hurt in ways I would not wish on anyone, and I have hurt people in ways I am still making amends for. Through those stages I found myself at rock bottom, learning firsthand what it is like to try everything you can to transform, heal, and have a better life, and still feel broken. It took two near-death experiences, and then learning how to be at peace with even just being alive, to show me what was missing.
In the third stage, I did everything I could to become the kind of person I wanted to be. I spent more than twenty years and over $300,000 on therapy, medications, transformational retreats, and classes teaching spiritual practices that were supposed to change my life, and I still found myself feeling stuck, empty, and alone. Shame, pain, and fear stole my joy and my sleep, eroded my peace and my health, and led me to push away everyone who mattered to me, until it was hard to be close to anyone at all, even myself.
What finally freed me was not more information. It was learning how to apply everything I had learned to my life in a meaningful way. It was being reminded I was already forgiven by the Divine, being taught how to seek forgiveness and make amends to those I had harmed, and being shown how to heal and transform myself into the kind of person I truly longed to be. I found a process that worked, began walking that path, and one day looked in the mirror and realized I had become someone who, while not perfect (in fact far from it), was someone I was truly grateful to be.
That marked the beginning of the fourth stage, the one I find myself in today: becoming the change in the world I want to see. I realized that if someone like me could change, perhaps I could help others like me change as well. To be that change, I have studied philosophy, psychology, Hermetics, Kabbalah, and the ancient wisdom traditions. I hold a degree in biblical counseling and am a certified teacher, healer, Life Activation Practitioner, and life coach, and a student of life.
Through the study and practice of spiritual alchemy, I have been able to transform every pain in my life into fuel for my purpose. Everything I learned on my own road from Victim to Victor to Vehicle, I now share with you.
What I teach: The Great Work
Alchemy is the ancient process of turning lead into gold. The ancient alchemists understood that this process was not just about metals. It was about the purification of the self. They called it The Great Work, the journey from Victim to Victor to Vehicle that helps each of us become the truest, purest, and most radiant version of ourselves. That is what I teach.
I teach that the source of almost all suffering comes from forgetting who and what we truly are. You are divine, and so is everyone and everything all around you. Most of us have forgotten this, so we try to build our lives from the ground up, hoping to reach heaven after we die, not realizing heaven has been waiting for us right here, right now, all along. I teach you how to build your life from your divinity down, to raise your humanity up.
I teach that you do not become gold by becoming someone or something new. You become gold by releasing everything that was never truly you: the shame, the guilt, the fear, the anger, the resentment, the temptation to live from our humanness instead of our divinity. Then you commit to live a life in alignment with who and what you truly are. It begins with forgiveness, because nothing else can be built on top of what we are still carrying. It moves through the seven stages of alchemy, in an order that works because it has worked for people of different ages, from different places, and from different walks of life for generations.
I teach that all meaningful transformation must heal, change, and improve the three relationships that shape our lives: with ourselves, with others, and with the Divine. That the perfect relationship is not something you find, it is something you create. That boundaries can be held with love. That how we do one thing tends to be how we do everything.
The truths I teach are not fads or new findings. They have withstood the test of time. Drawn from more than twenty years of study in philosophy, psychology, Hermetics, Kabbalah, and the ancient wisdom traditions, they work for all people in all times because they connect to the core of who and what we truly are, why we are truly here, and what we all came here to do. I do not offer spiritual bypassing or quick fixes. Through the study and practice of spiritual alchemy I was able to transform every pain in my life into fuel for my purpose, and everything I learned on my own road from Victim to Victor to Vehicle, I now share with you.
How I work
Application, not just information
Being told to forgive, to let go, to love yourself, or to change is not the same as being shown how. Knowledge unapplied becomes toxic to our psyche, as the shame of knowing what to do and not doing it eats away at us from the inside. Everything I teach comes with a process, a practice, or a tool you can use to begin applying it to your actual life right away.
All healing is self healing
I can share every teaching, tool, and practice I know. Whether you use them, and how, is up to you. The Great Work begins and ends with you. You must do the work and walk the path; no one else can do it for you. The aim of every course and coaching session is progress, not perfection. Go at your own pace, do your practices, apply the tools, and know: what you heal within yourself, you can one day help others heal as well.
We are in this together
The Great Work is a journey that reunites you with your own divinity while also reuniting you with others on the same path. In every program I aim to create a community of people who will challenge, encourage, and support each other along the way, giving you the opportunity to help someone just as someone once helped you.
Rafael Martinez | Artist, Tantra Teacher, Life and Relationship Coach
Creator of Boundaries and Consequences
Born in Pereira, Colombia, Rafael has lived as an artist in New York, San Francisco, and London since arriving in the United States as a child. He studied scientific illustration at Bronx Science High School and Art Education at City College in Harlem, as well as fresco restoration at the Lorenzo de' Medici school in Florence.
Living as a global nomad, he offers his services as a life coach for artists and a relationship coach for individuals and couples. His training in personal development began with his certification as a life coach in 2005 and becoming a Tantra teacher in 2007.
Rafael is also adept at working with artists, helping them connect more potently with their creativity and learn practices for healthier emotional stability and expression.
If you are ready to remember who and what you truly are,
to stop aiming for a better life and start living your best life,
you do not have to walk that path alone.
We are here.
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