Alchemizing Pain
How to create beauty in the ashes
Sometimes things are just really, really hard and there’s nothing you can do about the circumstances. You can’t make it better or fix it.
Maybe it’s a terrible diagnosis or really bad news that you never wanted to receive, like someone you love died.
Maybe it’s the current job market or economic uncertainties in the U.S.
Maybe it’s another negative pregnancy test this month.
Whatever it is, what do you do in these moments? When the circumstances are really, really hard and you can’t fix them?
Science as a case study
In case you’re wondering, science as a field is not OK. The massive budget cuts happening, de-stabilization of most governmental grant agencies, and cutting of entire programs of research is leaving a giant impact on the field across every area of science. I don’t know of a single scientist who is not being negatively impacted by the current scientific climate in America right now.
In my own work, I’m no stranger to the, “What can you even say or do in the middle of hard situations?” question. When someone is told their cancer is terminal or loses someone to cancer, the most common question is, “What now?”
The answer often lies in what you can do next.
Alchemy for pain
The ability to alchemize pain through creating something is the basis for Suleika Jaouad’s most recent book, The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life. (In case you are unfamiliar with her work, you can follow her outstanding Substack called The Isolation Journals where she chronicles her journey of having a third round of leukemia through her beautiful and honest writing.)
Through her writing, Suleika argues or rather gently shows that a creative response can occur in any moment of life, no matter how painful, and may be the very thing that helps you get through the pain. She journaled and wrote through her first round of treatment for leukemia and when the symptoms of her second round of treatment left her unable to see well, she used watercolor as a medium to create.
This form of alchemy through creation can occur in the form of journaling (as she highlights), watercolor, gardening, cooking, or any number of things. The main point is to alchemize (i.e., “transform the nature or properties of something by a seemingly magical process”) one’s pain by creating something, anything.
The key to creating beauty from ashes is to know that it is the act of creating itself, not the creation (which is the outcome), that creates beauty. It’s through alchemy, for instance, that you can transform lead into gold. You can make something dull, harsh, or terrible into something a little brighter or better.
This is not to say the resulting thing is better than what was lost, only that it’s better than the pain of what was lost.
An example: The practice of singing to cope with pain
Suleika’s husband, the famous musician Jon Batiste, shares this sentiment in creating his own art. You can see more of their journey in the amazing Netflix documentary, American Symphony. In it, you see how he uses the pain in his life (namely walking through his wife’s cancer journey) to create really meaningful and soulful music. He talks about the art of creation as being almost necessary to coping with and processing his pain.
You can see this reflected in his song, “Sing.” Here is an excerpt of the lyrics:
When I'm cold and tired
And so uninspired
Don't you know, I'll sing, yeah
Let it out and sing
When I'm down, and I feel like giving up
Even the easy things feel rough
Don't you know, I'll sing, yeah
Don't you know, I'll sing
When I feel down and out
Up under a heavy cloud
When I don't wanna talk
I lay my burdens off
And I sing, oh
(- “Sing” by Jon Batiste, which you can listen to below)
There are many examples historically of this alchemy of pain into song. For instance, singing played a prominent role in the lives of black slaves in the U.S. as a form of expression, communication, and even resistance to horrifically unfair and inhumane conditions.
Singing, it turns out, can be an incredible source of resilience and creativity - the very alchemy of pain into something more collectively stronger.
The point here, of course, is not to compare our own struggles to these. Rather it’s to demonstrate the if even in the hardest moments of human history, pain can be alchemized, how much more can we now?
Whatever your struggle is this week, I hope you sing or journal or dance or create in some way. Sometimes it’s the only thing we can do, but it might be more powerful than we realize.
Happy alchemizing this week.