A L C H E M I C A L C O A C H I N G
w/ Jeff Bausemer, founder of The Alchemy Institute and East Meets West Fest
Hey y’all
I’m a holistic and intuitive therapist and coach that helps ignite your intuition, realize your purpose and perfect your health
I am a life coach, a health and wellness coach and trained and certified holistic health professional, a business coach and a branding and design firm all rolled into one
I’m firmly rooted in the modern world and understand the demands of the market, and I also practice astrology and draw many tools from shamanic traditions, along with a number of other esoteric and divinatory techniques, and primarily rely on the help of traditional medicines and Ayurvedic lifestyle practices to help my clients find and live out their purpose
I’m the founder and producer of East Meets West, and my services are highly sought after, one-of-a-kind and deeply transformational
No one does what I do
No one will get you as far as I can
I specialize in identifying and healing psychological blocks and traumas, and work with the mind and the body equally to alleviate symptoms and root causes
I don’t listen to you, I listen through you
I remove your masks, I excavate your genius, I refine your aesthetic
I bring joy
If you didn’t know, now you do
Please contact me at jeff.bausemer@gmail.com to learn more about my program, or just keep scrolling.
I help my clients:
Transform themselves and their world
Find a sense of purpose and a path to bring that into the world
Overcome resistance and procrastination
Correct their digestive ability (which leads to weight loss or gain, depending), deal with depression, anxiety, lethargy, neurotic behavior and thinking, and manage or resolve any number of other health related issues
Make more money
Engage their world with passion
Create abundance and impact through an unrelenting commitment to themselves and their purpose
Make massive and regular improvement through gentle discipline (get that morning routine all systems go baby!)
Create intimacy, meaning and freedom in their personal, professional and sexual relationships
How do I do it?
Discover your purpose
Fix mindset issues that get in the way of your living out that purpose
Deal with any health issues that prevent you from taking action
Look at issues and intricacies around money, business and interpersonal relationships, as well as the structure of your professional/financial/social situation to see what would best support you and how to get there.
Who Should Work With Me?
Someone that recognizes I offer the best of all possible worlds as a life coach, a business coach, a health and wellness coach and a branding specialist.
Anyone who is a fundamentally really awesome person trying to make a positive change in their life and especially women, people of color and LGBTQIA+ people.
Entrepreneurs or business owners who feel stuck or unmotivated, depressed and anxious, and who need mental and physical health support. I know exactly how to help you.
People who value traditional medicine, or who are at least open to using it, who have been through the ringer with western physicians or who have experienced major drug side-effects and are looking to get back into balance.
People who are ready to fully commit to making a big shift in their life, mind, business, health and wealth.
Comedians, Health and Wellness Consultants + other coaches, Event Producers, Yoga Teachers, come to me, I know you too well.
1-on-1 Program Structure
Each program is customized to each person depending on your particular health/business/life situation, but generally as a 3 month to a year long program (usually 3 month, 6 month or year long programs) depending on where you are at and what you want. If you already have a full-fledged business, we may not need to work together for quite as long, but you may also simply value my ongoing insight, so it will be up to you how long we work together, and some health problems require more time than others, so it all depends. We'll have one 90 minute session approximately every 3 to 5 weeks with the initial session being a 3 hour consultation so we can get to know each other more in depth and so I can do an intensive review of your astrological chart, which you will include in your application and which I will spend 3 hours evaluating and assessing after we have our first conversation. In between each session I will suggest exercises, herbs, essences, gems, and a whole bunch of other weird shit for you to do which you better do or like wtf don't waste my goddamn time babe! I'm not always equipped to deal with more serious health conditions like cancer, in which case I may refer you to specialists who I will work alongside, or who I may suggest you work with before coming to me. It all depends, and we will assess as we go.
SOME BACKGROUND aka MY SHPIEL:
I am so embarrassed (ugh, truly) to be associated with 98% of people who would call themselves coaches or spiritual therapists.
And if you don't read everything I write and understand what I'm saying philosophically, you might not understand where I'm coming from, but also you could read every word and still not understand it, so I guess whatever?
I pride myself on having received one of the most rigorous liberal educations you can have, and I consider myself to be technically equally as scientifically inclined as I am spiritually inclined. I love yoga but I also love dodgeball. I go to sound baths but I also love Electronic Music. I meditate but I lose my cool all the time.
I'm all about double blind placebo controlled trials, I'm all about surgery and emergency medicine, I think western medicine can be amazing, but I also think there are alternative interventions that are equally as helpful, and in many cases are the only real solutions to many a problem. I created East Meets West and then the Alchemy Institute because I wanted to make something that would make "eastern" ideas, concepts and practices accessible to a western audience and I think I'm uniquely equipped to do this through comedy, artistry, faggotry, a little bit of science and a lot of magic.
I truly did NOT choose this path.
I would have been super normal (lol um sure) had I not accidentally found myself given LSD at a music festival when I was 19 that permanently changed my literal and metaphorical way of seeing the world forever.
I was not open to there being meaning or purpose or free will, I was raised primarily as an atheist/agnostic and I was a fairly devout scientific materialist before all this went down. I was also still in the closet. I watched Donnie Darko and was like "This is me. I am Jake Gyllenhaal. Maybe if I adopt the philosophical implications of this movie as my own I will be just as hot and broody as him (or maybe somehow he will fuck me?)!" but the experience I had on LSD was undeniably mystical and was either coincidentally meaningful (in a way that statistics would be burdened to calculate - side note, you should not worship at the altar of statistical analysis because the god of human logic, which is obviously infinitely fallible, is a false idol duh) or truly meaningful, and you always have to assume that you could be wrong, but I have never operated my life from the assumption that I was, and have found myself driving in the right direction ever since.
I don't brood anymore, I smile a lot, I'm very openly gay (too gay maybe!), I love my life most of the time, and I don't use drugs anymore btw (really I don't, I'm not just saying that because this is a public forum), but they were instrumental in getting someone as close-minded as me to consider practicing consciousness expanding practices, and in getting me to witness what many monks spend their whole lives searching for, often never reaching!
Def not saying I'm enlightened y'all, BUT I have experienced a temporary state of such transcendental and honestly just indescribable bliss that I literally have no choice but to believe with 99.9% certitude that enlightenment is real, and that, at the very least, progress is possible, and that practicing meditation and helping other people are tickets to living in that state of being on a more regular basis.
I call what I do “coaching” because that's the best way to describe it, but really whatever I'm doing is a lot more than that, and i'm fundamentally focused on helping people transform everything in their life, helping them connect to their intuition, figure out their purpose, manage their priorities, gain significant financial resources, reignite their creativity and fall in love, all this through my experience as a trained holistic health practitioner with a wide variety of different tools and techniques to fix your broken ass bullshit. No excuses y'all, big mama J is in the HOUSE.
If you want to hear the harsh truth in a palatable form from a comedian about how to get your shit together, you've come to the right place.
What's that you say?
You want your coach to have actually run a business other than coaching?
Check.
You want your coach to be a big fat homo?
Check.
You want your coach to have overcome significant health and personal challenges in their life?
Check.
You want your coach to be a fuckin' trained astrologer?
CHECK.
You want him to do both western and vedic astrology?
Oh yes, that's right, check.
You want him to be a trained Ayurvedic Lifestyle Practitioner, Herbalist, Yoga Teacher, Massage Therapist and Meditation Teacher?
Check, Check, Check, Check and Check.
All the checks baby.
Check mate, honestly.
I have the ability to totally transform lives in a way that any other kind of coach can't. I have the tools, the intuition and the experience that I don't know that anyone else really has (which is sad and crazy but true and I'm privileged to be able to say it).
I can see beyond the faces that people put on to try to pretend that they're ok.
I'm not just going to tell you to go meditate.
Like jesus fucking christ, meditation is fine and totally a cornerstone of my life, but it's effects are cumulative, it's not that helpful in the beginning and there are literally a hundred other things for us to consider before meditation can even be that fruitful.
And once we CAN get you to meditate, we'll work on having actual transcendental experiences, not just bare bones "10% happier" but still obviously depressed at your core with no fundamental sense of meaning kinds of experiences.
I also know more practitioners of alternative medicine from a greater variety of traditions than maybe anyone because I have spent my professional career convening them together, so even if I don't have the answer, I will probably know the person who does.
Look, if you are a scientific materialist to your core, if you think that the big bang is a compelling creation story that isn't actually fundamentally religious (spoiler alert babe, it is VERY religious, with electrons playing the role of Mary and Neutrons playing the role of Jesus! I have literally calculated the speed of light as a history of math and science major in college so don't TEST me!), or if you aren't open minded at all, we probably aren't a good match, but if the opposite is true even a little bit, I'm probably your guy. I love skeptics, I love people that are put off by new age lifestyles and beliefs because I, too, find the current climate of spiritual wisdom to be really gross and superficial and unbalanced and not relatable. Like does Deepak Chopra even think about having sex, and if he does, would it be the kind of sex I want? I'm guessing not. I was a devout skeptic and scientific materialist until I had enough experiences that led me to consider other options, and it is with this discerning mind that I engage my clients in questions that they, too, should consider in searching for meaning and purpose.
There's just something so fishy about most contemporary spiritual teachers/life coaches and scientists alike. Not only do I feel like they never look like they take care of their bodies (sometimes looks deceive, of course, but for the most part I think this is true), but also they are never that fun loving either, and most are - real talk - straight guys who either definitely or probably have accusations of sexual predation against them.
And in the case of life coaches, if they do take care of their bodies or come across as "fun", they don't seem to be that thoughtful or educated and don't have any actual trainings under their belt or tools to help people besides telling them to look in a mirror and love themselves, which is just such a desperate bandaid situation for your self esteem that I can't EVEN (honestly this does help occasionally, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be embarrassed that this was all it took for you if it did. If it did you are probably a Pisces, though, my fave sign actually).
I just don't feel like I sense authenticity from these people, and I definitely don't feel like they are in touch with reality.
I literally spend most of my time doing improv comedy or crafting witty sentences or writing comedic performances - I live for manufacturing joy and for the comedy of calling out the ridiculous in our base reality.
To me, there's something off about people who casually talk about tantric sex or chakras or astrology without being able to laugh at themselves, but the same for me applies to people who try to pawn off theories of everything to mass audiences who are just, at their core, uncomfortable with the fact that you'll never "know" anything with 100% certainty because that's the nature of the mind (sorry to break it to you if you didn't know but that's just the way the cookie crumbles my sweet sweet bbz - what your mind knows is only subjectively true and even if everyone else agrees with you that just means it's been collectively agreed upon, not that it's objectively true! PREACH BITCH!).
So look, here's the deal.
I know how to listen to my intuition and I can help you listen to your own by giving you time-tested traditional herbs and supplements to enhance awareness along with other practices and materials and technologies that will actually facilitate experiences that help you find and/or actualize your purpose.
Ultimately you need to be able to lead yourself, to listen to what you need from within and then be able to execute on that intuition.
Through working with plants and certain exercises, meditation, astrological timing techniques and a wide array of different tools, I can help you tap into this ability so you have help at every step of the way and not just when we're together.
And I'm doing this because, well, I want to, and also because I don't feel like I have a choice.
I have struggled desperately and it would be lame of me not to share what I know with others.
On top of all the societal conditioning and guilt I felt around my sexuality and gender, my desire to be an artist and my pursuit of spiritual wisdom, I also suffered from lifelong depression, debilitating breathing issues, totally fucked up digestion, untreatable skin conditions, growing up as a super faggy gay boy who loved dolls and the color pink in a military family with a father who suffered from severe PTSD.
Luckily I've been blessed with friends and a sense of humor that has allowed me to make light of all of that, because it truly felt forever like I'd been dealt a shit hand.
But if all that hadn't happened I don't think I'd be so tuned into the suffering of the world, and I wouldn't be so well equipped to help, so I truly couldn't be more grateful now.
I have successfully filled up my own cup, so let's pour you some drank, too, you buncha nasties!
My whole life since I was 18 has been dedicated to studying and understanding philosophical and spiritual wisdom from eastern and western classical literature.
I went to Tufts University and then transferred to the Great Books Program at St. John's College in Santa Fe, NM, considered the most rigorous school in the country according to Forbes magazine, and in the fall of 2019 I will be entering into a PhD program in depth psychology.
I've spent the past 8 years studying holistic medicine (with over 1,000 hours of registered training time and at least 4,000 hours of independent study), and I've spent the past 4 years building a philanthropic events and entertainment company, operating every limb of the business from production to marketing to sponsorship.
Before this I also worked for 2 years for a company that maintains and manages successful online and brick and mortar retail operations, online webinars and workshops and a popular web magazine and blog.
In operating events, I have been privileged to gain a network of world famous speakers, authors, investors and business people who, ultimately, I can ask for favors from when the time is right for the people I'm working with to make bigger moves in the world.
And omg, trust me when I say, there are so many shark tank type investors out there, you have to be SO careful who you get to invest in your company! You are stuck with that bitch so they better be a good person!
Luckily I know good people!
And I also can tell you who you should avoid! For this reason I also need to limit the amount of people I work with, both so as to preserve my own energy and ability to work with people more in depth, and also so that the strength of the network I create can remain strong.
What I'm about to say is sad, but I've NEVER been to a talk by an author, a public speaker, a spiritual leader, anyone really, that has given people actual tools they can use.
You go to an addiction talk and people just say "you've gotta hit rock bottom" or "it's got to do with your not being connected to source, you need a spiritual practice!" or some such bullshit, which isn't not true, but also if that person has no understanding of how to use natural medicine to regulate that person's physiological and psychological response mechanisms, they honestly might as well not even be speaking WORDS!
You could tell an angry person with liver issues to meditate on compassion all day, but until you deal with their liver, you are just putting a bandaid on them.
Even the more popular forms of integrative medicine don't observe the connection between the organs and the emotional body, which is just...truly a crime.
The problem with integrative doctors is numerous but their are 3 main problems are 1. they generally only use natural medicines that have clinical trials, a drop in the bucket compared to what’s actually out there that totally work, 2. they don’t take into account the traditional model of herbs where the heating/cooling and drying/moistening nature of the herbs gets taken into account, which can lead to serious imbalances in the body if not looked after really closely and most importantly 3. their mind goes directly to medicines you can take, and maybe food, but they have nothing to address psychological issues directly.
I work with plants that have specific psychological applications.
This is what really sets me apart.
I can deal with super specific issues like procrastination, being obsessively clean, sexual guilt, addiction to pornography, fear of public speaking, worrying about loved ones, the anxiety that comes with moving somewhere new, specific types of depression (depression that comes and goes, depression that comes from experiencing a major set back, depression that is pervasive but not crippling, etc), ADHD, not feeling purpose, and any number of other issues, each of which is related to 1, maybe 2 or 3, specific plant remedies, which I have observed have borderline miraculous effects on hundreds of people.
These remedies are mainstream in Europe but are rarely utilized in the US because of a general prejudice against herbal medicine and also, in my opinion, a lack of good branding on the part of the companies that sell these remedies.
Which brings me to my last and maybe my most important point, which is that I will NOT let you step out into the world with anything less than top tier branding.
I am an artist and I pride myself in my work and I'm not going to introduce you to other people and work with you unless your branding is on point.
Branding is art and art changes the world.
period.
Branding and PR agencies get a bad rap because most of them are, at least in the world of wellness, sadly, run by mean and privileged white girls who were popular in high school (If I have one true mission in life, it's to take down the Regina Georges and straight male equivalents of this earth, not even kidding y'all).
But not all of them are!
You have to find your match.
For some people this is going to require a lot of homework, especially if you want to create your graphics yourself, but it is a non-negotiable in today's world.
If you want to gain a following through instagram and if you want other brands to take you seriously and partner with you, it's a baseline requirement.
If you want me to do your branding from start to finish it's something we can also consider, but in general I will refer you to people who I think do good work.
Maybe I was born with it, maybe it's Maybelline, I don't know, I mean it's not Maybelline, I don't even know her really and I haven't worn that much makeup in my life either, but whatever the case may be, I need people who want change and who are ready to make it. I ideally want people that at least have a vague business idea already, but the main thing that is important to me is that you are a kind person with good intentions. I’m just as well-equipped to work with people who are just looking to be a part of a team and who want to improve their physical, emotional and spiritual stability in order to be able to show up fully as themselves to that work every day. The tools that I have will be valuable to literally anyone because so few people have the tools that I have that I can be almost certain you'll maybe never even have considered that you have the problems that we will come to unearth. You are a freaky ass can of worms babe, and I'm here to find you some freaky soil so you can fertilize some freaky crops and make a freaky garden of abundance in this cruel, freaky world!
<333
Ya grl J
Some Additional Individual Services I Offer
SOUND MEDITATION
Private Sound Healing Session (1.5 Hours):
$250-$300 (sliding scale)
Using sound is my personal favorite way to meditate, and can completely transform people's lives in a 1-on-1 session. Sound therapy is an ideal tool for stress reduction and facilitator of breaking up emotional blockages as well as booster of creativity, clarity and health. This proven modality amplifies mindful awareness and facilitates one's own ability to identify limiting and undesirable belief systems. It awakens emotional awareness and allows the participant to release unresolved trauma in many instances. Participants engage in an hour long consultation on personal and interpersonal issues, and are instructed as to how to approach and engage with the ensuing session. Then they lie down while being, effectively, bathed in the sound of a variety of different instruments, including gongs, crystal bowls, and many others. Must be in NYC.
ASTROLOGY
Private Western and Vedic Astrology Natal Birth Chart Session (2 Hours):
$250-$300 (sliding scale)
The birth chart is a snapshot of the sky and the planets as they were when you were born and indicates the governing forces that were at play your exact time of birth. The birth chart reveals the patterns that tend to show up in your life, and it shows how those patterns will tend to unfold throughout your life. A natal reading provides an accurate "portrait" of your personality patterns, strategies, and purpose in life. This reading mostly consists of character analysis but also includes some predictive analysis and intuitive assessment.
CREDENTIALS
Jeff Bausemer is the founder and producer of The Alchemy Institute and East Meets West. He founded the Institute because of a number of chronic physical health problems he had for more than 7 years that didn't respond to western medicine, which forced him to turn his scientifically minded eye towards various traditional medicinal systems for treatment. Jeff has a strong background in the liberal arts, science, philosophy and healing arts. He is an alumni of The Boston Latin School, Tufts University, and the Great Books Program at St. John's College (Santa Fe), where he graduated with a double major in Philosophy and The History of Math and Science and a double major in the Classics and English Literature.
Jeff has been a student of Yoga for 15 years, has lived in the Sivananda Yoga Ashram in San Francisco, and has done a 150-hour IYI training with a School of Yoga in Mexico in 2012.
He completed a 250-hour western massage therapy program at The School of Healing Arts in San Diego in 2012.
He completed a 330-hour training in Herbal Medicine at The Arborvitae School of Herbalism with Richard Mandelbaum and Claudia Keele in New York City in 2015.
In addition, he completed a 200-hour training in Ayurveda with Hillary Garivaltis and Kristen Rae Stevens, as well as a 100-hour training in Integrative Sound Therapy under the supervision of Alexandre Tannous, both trainings taking place at The New York Open Center in 2016.
He completed a year long program in Western Hellenistic Astrology in 2017 with Adam Elenbaas and began studying Tropical Vedic Astrology independently with Ernst Willhelm and Michael Reed.
He completed an Ashtanga Vinyasa Training in 2018 with the Spirit Sadhana School of Yoga in Barcelona and also began an independent training in Yoga, Qi Gong and Sexual Alchemy.
In 2019 he began exploring the world of biohacking, listening to 2+ hours of podcasts on the topic almost every day, in addition to beginning studies in Jungian psychological astrology and finishing improv comedy studies at UCB and beginning musical improv studies, and also began training in and receiving coaching from many professional coaches including Jason Goldberg, Simone Sloan and Michael Mcdonald, and read most books on the topic from Steve Chandler, Jason Goldberg, Rich Litvin and many, many others.
In 2020 he began to explore and understand the financial system, cryptocurrency, credit technology, financial astrology and astrological magic while deepening his existing practices.
In 2021 he trained in Imaginal Psychology at Meridian University , began studying and training in Internal Family Systems, and began training in Improv at the Magnet Theater in NYC, both normal and musical.
In 2022 he completed a training in Focalizing, another form of Imaginal Psychology and Trauma-informed therapy and continued his astrological and improv comedy practice and studies.
In 2023 he began the Holistic Wellness Pathway at Hill College, a comprehensive training in nutrition, herbalism and wellness coaching, in addition to the MISPA Jungian Psychological Astrology training program taught by John Green as well as the Family Constellations Training Program taught by Nick Werber. He also completed official training in musical improv at the Magnet Theater, began studies at the Brooklyn Comedy Collective, and performs regularly with many improv comedy teams throughout New York City.