In the early 80s, as part of my scientific studies, I studied thermodynamics. At the time it was abstract: mathematical formulas, a blend of physics and chemistry, and mostly “closed systems.” I didn’t imagine then that those same laws would later serve as metaphors and guidelines for the human journey, the way we live, the way we get stuck, and the way we transform.
Thermodynamics, stripped to its essence, is the study of energy and change. How energy moves, how it transforms, and how every system, whether a machine, a forest, or a human life, obeys certain immutable laws.
In today’s world, energy has become a buzzword, something that means everything and sometimes nothing. It gets passed around like the headline of the New York Times, carried as if it were a gift from Harry Potter, shrouded in magic and double meaning. Powerful and confusing.
So I thought it was time to recall the laws of thermodynamics, or literally from Greek, “the way heat (or energy) moves.”
Entropy: The Gravity of Disorder
The Second Law of Thermodynamics, and perhaps the most challenging for us humans, is entropy. Left on its own, any closed system drifts toward disorder, stagnation, breakdown. Energy disperses, clarity fades, loops repeat.
Sounds familiar? Human beings in isolation often behave like closed systems. Arguments circle back, habits replay, doubts rehearse their greatest hits. Meanwhile energy drains, enthusiasm thins, vitality fades. It’s not just repetition, it’s repetition with a slow leak. Think Groundhog Day, only with a little less light each time and certainly no comic relief.
This is why people often feel they’ve “tried everything” and still end up back in the same place. Entropy is very reliable that way: always at work. That is the nudge that keep us awake (or not).
Conservation: Nothing Is Wasted
The First Law of Thermodynamics offers a gentler balance. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It only changes form.
In human terms, the energy of struggle is not lost. Sleepless nights, heartbreaks, dead ends don’t vanish into nothing. They hang around like leftovers in the fridge, waiting to be transformed into something more nourishing.
I’ve often heard people say, “I wasted years.” The law says otherwise. There is no wasted energy. It waits to be transformed. Everything can be reused for growth, clarity, or alignment. Physics calls it conservation. I call it grace.
Catalyst: The Spark That Changes Everything
Now let’s look at what makes changes possible.
In chemistry, it is the catalyst. A catalyst does not add anything new. It does not force the reaction. It lowers the activation energy, the barrier that keeps change from happening. With a catalyst, transformation that felt impossible can suddenly unfold with ease.
In life, all the ingredients may be present, talent, effort, desire, experience, yet the reaction refuses to start. Loops repeat. Entropy wins. What’s missing is the spark, the external presence that enables what’s already there to reorganize.
This is how I understand my own work. Not as a coach with a plan, but as a catalyst. I don’t impose formulas or follow protocols. I provide the spark, the reminder, the transmission that allows the elements in a person to fall into a new pattern.. Sometimes all it takes is one sentence, one moment of presence, one spark.
Alchemy: The Story Beneath the Science
Thermodynamics explains how energy moves, but not why transformation matters. That’s where alchemy comes in.
The alchemists studied the same laws of matter but spoke in symbols and myths. Turning lead into gold was never metallurgy. It was the metaphor for turning suffering into wisdom, chaos into order, human frailty into radiance. Or as I like to think of it: compost for the soul.
If thermodynamics gives the laws, alchemy gives the story behind it. Energy follows immutable principles, and transformation is always also a matter of meaning.
Entropy can become the seedbed of evolution. A breakdown can be the beginning of a breakthrough. And a catalyst can be more than a substance, it can be the mysterious spark of life, the unseen transmission that moves between beings.
Transmission: Opening the Closed System
Yet no human being is truly a closed system, even when we try very hard to isolate. We only feel closed when we forget our connection. The moment we open, to presence, to another person, to the field of life itself, energy flows again.
Transmission is the invisible catalyst. You can’t measure it with instruments, but you can feel it: in the steadiness of someone’s presence, in the resonance of a word, in the silent recognition between two beings. It is what opens the isolated me into the inclusive we. It is like Wi-Fi, only with a stronger signal and no passwords.
This is why transformation rarely happens alone. Books, practices, intentions, they matter. But real change often arrives in relationship, through resonance, through the unseen spark of transmission.
From Coach to Catalyst
For years I used the word “coach” (and still do out of habit). It was the closest available label for someone who works alongside others in their growth. But the truth is, I am not a coach. I don’t train, heal, or guide. Because that is not needed. I am the spark only.
Hence catalyst is the word that feels truer. It carries the humility of knowing that everything a person needs is already present within them. Sometimes all that’s missing is the spark.
When I look back at my studies of thermodynamics, I smile. Those laws once felt mechanical, far from human life. Now I see them everywhere: in the cycles of burnout and renewal, in collapse and reorganization, in the rise and fall of every story.
Entropy reminds that disorder is natural. Conservation assures that nothing is wasted. Catalysts show that transformation is always closer than imagined.
And alchemy whispers that transformation is not only physical. It is spiritual, mysterious, alive, embedded in every story.
Energy is never lost. It only changes form.
So do we.
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PS: “Change Your Story, Change The World” is a storytelling endeavor that looks deeply into the psyche that creates the stories we live by—with the intention to help us shape better stories, both personally and collectively.
Because the stories we tell are the reality we live.