The Call of the Soul: Beginning the Journey of Alchemy
“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
—Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist, p. 22
We each carry within us a longing and purpose, one that doesn’t always announce itself in obvious ways. Sometimes, it arrives quietly, maybe in the form of angst, uneasiness about life, or a dream we can’t forget. That yearning is not negative. It’s a call. I believe it’s a soul-level whisper that says, “There’s more for you than this.”
Welcome to my special five-part journey on Soul Conversations with Don Ajené, called The Alchemy of the Soul: Lessons from The Alchemist. I was inspired to do this by my recent rereading of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist (25th Anniversary Edition), but this series is not a book review—it’s a spiritual reflection. A mirror. An invitation.
In this first episode, and now, through this blog, I invite you to pause with me and explore the sacred intersections of story, soul, and Spiritual Emotional Intelligence (SEQ). We’ll begin with Santiago’s first steps and see how they reflect our own. But more than that, we’ll ask the deeper question:
Are you listening to your soul’s invitation to become?
The Soul’s Prayer for Courage
Every journey, let’s call it a sacred journey, begins with a pause. A moment of breath before the first step. And so, we start with a prayer:
Divine Spirit,
Awaken the part of us that remembers why we came.
Breathe clarity into the fog of routine.
Call forth the sacred restlessness that stirs us to rise,
To move toward what feels impossible
Not because we are certain,
But because we are called.
Let us hear. Let us trust. Let us begin.
Amen. Asé. So shall it be.
Santiago’s Leap and Ours
In The Alchemist, Santiago, a young shepherd, follows a recurring dream. One that points toward hidden treasure. What he doesn’t yet know is that this dream isn’t just about treasure. It’s about transformation.
Rather than just letting it go, ignoring it, he listens and acts (He listens and acts. He doesn’t discuss it with friends, he doesn’t sit with it, he acts). He sells his sheep and walks away from the only life he’s ever known. Along the way, he meets Melchizedek, the mysterious king who names what many of us have forgotten:
“Your Personal Legend is what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their Personal Legend is.”
This is the moment of departure, sacred departure: The soul’s “yes!” Not because the path is clear and certain, but because the inner voice refuses to be silenced.
This is how transformation begins.
Not with clarity, but with surrender.
Not with certainty, but with willingness.
How many of us have felt this? A discomfort with the status quo. A quiet voice saying, “You were meant for more.”
Santiago listens. He acts.
What would it look like if we did the same?
The Personal Legend – Your Soul’s Assignment
In Coelho’s language, the Personal Legend is your purpose, your soul’s purpose. It’s not your resume. It’s not your to-do list. It’s the reason you came into this world.
In my tradition, I call it your destiny agreement—the covenant made between your soul and your Ori (your divine inner consciousness) before you were born.
Carl Jung might call it individuation: the deep psychological and spiritual process of becoming your most authentic self. It is not self-improvement. It is self-remembrance.
And it usually begins with a whisper.
That feeling of being out of sync.
A moment when the life you’ve built no longer matches the truth of who you’re becoming.
A longing that won’t go away.
This is not weakness. This is data. Sacred data.
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.” (p. 125)”
Please hear this! Following your Personal Legend will ask something of you.
It may ask you to leave what’s safe.
To shed what’s familiar.
To let go of roles, identities, and stories that no longer serve your transformation.
This is the soul’s rite of passage.
And while the ego might resist, the soul knows:
Becoming requires release.
Awareness as Sacred Listening – The SEQ Lens
Within the Spiritual Emotional Intelligence (SEQ) framework, the first step on the path of transformation is Awareness.
But this isn’t just noticing your thoughts. It’s intentional sacred listening. The kind that honors emotional truth as spiritual truth. The kind that listens for the language of Spirit within your deep feelings, discomfort, tears, and dreams.
“Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World. ”
When we are present to our inner feelings, we recognize that restlessness is not a problem, it’s a cue, a signpost.
This is where SEQ differs from more clinical forms of emotional intelligence. It doesn’t just help you regulate emotions. It teaches you to reverence them. To understand that what moves you deeply is often what moves you toward your calling.
As Anaïs Nin once said:
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
The Beginning
Let me ask you now, Soul Community:
Where in your life are you being called to begin again?
Not to start from scratch, but to return to your essence.
To walk not a new path, but the one you quietly abandoned when life got loud.
The call is not in the thunder.
It’s in the whisper beneath the noise.
And when you begin to follow it, however hesitantly, you’ll find what Coelho promises:
“Every search begins with beginner’s luck. And every search ends with the victor’s being severely tested..”
And yet, the risk… is worth it.
“When each day is the same as the next… people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.”
Look around.
The sacred is still here.
You don’t have to rush.
You don’t have to know the whole journey.
But you can take the first step!
Click here to listen to this episode on my podcast, Conversations with Don Ajené.