What are you alchemizing?

On transforming our pain into art

Whether you keep up with pop news or not, it’s pretty widely known that Shakira recently went through one of the roughest moments of her life in the last couple of years. She learned that her partner, the father of her two kids, was unfaithful to her, and her life as she knew it started to fall apart.

These are the kinds of blows that are capable of taking any person from any kind of walk of life down, regardless of how successful or wealthy you are. Whatever happened behind closed doors, what the public got to see, in the form of music, was what Shakira made from those punches that life threw at her. In the last year, she’s released hit after hit and has been the recipient of many accolades for her achievements in music. Now, she’s released an album with the collected fruits of the processing she’s done. She transmuted her pain into music, and though Shakira has had a very long and successful career, this may just be her best, most vulnerable work.

It brings to mind what Beyoncé did a few years ago with Lemonade. What Adele also pulled off a decade ago with 21. The way these three powerful women took their rock bottom moments and from the ashes built themselves an altar.

Cine Insomnia via Pexels

It wasn’t long ago that I was speaking to a friend of mine about anger. We discussed how it’s one of the hardest feelings to process. At least for me. I mentioned how it was something I was still working on in therapy and outside of it. I tend to hold on to my anger like a shield. I live under the pretense that by reminding myself of why I’m angry at someone it ensures that that person can never hurt me again.

But anger is heavy. It’s like carrying a barrel of lead paint with you wherever you go. And by all means, I’ve been wanting to put this barrel down. But I’m not sure that I know how. It occurred to me while talking to my friend that one of the ways in which we can process an emotion when we don’t quite know how to, is by transmuting it into something else.

Emotions are energy, after all. If I get angry at someone for taking advantage of me, then this anger is a new energy that enters my body. And if I don’t find a way to let it go, it’ll stay there. It’ll make a home in me while I continue carrying it with discomfort. And if I don’t do anything about it, then it’ll consume me. And I’m so much more than my anger.

In therapy, they teach you a lot of ways to cope with and process your anger. Usually, they recommend exercise. Something to get the body moving. Sometimes they’ll tell you to journal if that’s something that you’re into. I once made a list (a long list) of everything a person had done to take advantage of me, and for many weeks after, I felt much lighter. I almost wasn’t angry at this person again. Until, of course, they crossed a boundary again, and I went right back to being angry.

I think about Shakira’s song “Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53” and the anger she channels through it. It’s a reproachful song where she holds nothing back. In her recent interview with Zane Lowe, he asks her if there was ever a moment when she second-guessed releasing that song, and Shakira answers, “The song was always going to come out.” She goes on to explain that no one has a right to tell her how she should lick her own wounds, or by what means she should try to find healing. She has every right to talk and write about the things she’s been through.

And she’s right. For too long we’ve been told how to deal with our emotions. We’ve been told to hide them. To not act out. To suck it up. Women and men alike have been conditioned never to allow themselves to show how they’re feeling. Even when going through hardship. Shakira, Beyonce, and Adele, among many other artists, have understood this on principle. They have understood that feeling gets them to another level, a higher plane. Feeling has not only helped them become successful but it’s helped them transmute complicated emotions into something else. They processed that energy and made something outside of themselves that they then shared with the world, and through what they shared, other people are finding healing too.

I’m fascinated by this idea of taking that which is difficult to process and turning it into something else. Artists are alchemists. the most poignant art seems to always come from something we humans have at one point found intangible and almost inexpressible.

My story deals heavily with chauvinism and sexism. I was brought up in a home where the male figure had the only say. Where women were supposed to be only of service and sit pretty and quiet. Where physical violence was enacted when things were not exactly the way he required. The rage I’ve carried for many years is pouring out in my story. I am, by all means, using my tale to throw it back in the face of male oppressors and scream, “Look at what you did!” I’m also trying to show women their power. Far more than their power, I want, through my main character, for women to see that there is so much beauty and healing in our complexities. That we’ve not been wrong in feeling intensely. That our capacity for unbridled emotion is our power, not our weakness.

In every story I write, I know that there will be an emotion, an energy that has haunted the walls of my imagination for years. Something that I’ve wanted to understand better. Something I needed to take from the abstract corners of my mind and bring into the physical so that I could look at it better in the light.

I don’t know if my anger will be healed when I finish my story. But I’m going to keep doing the work. I know that I will at least have some sort of validation. I know that I will have taken something out of me that needed to be seen, even if just by me.

In the meantime, what are you alchemizing? What is the story behind the art that you’re making? What hurt, what pain, what complexity are you taking out of yourself and transmuting into something that can help heal you and maybe others? If you’re comfortable, share in the comments. As always, this is a safe space.

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Rec of the week

Whether you’re into Shakira or not, her interview with Zane Lowe, as are all his interviews, is an inspiring one. I’ve been a fan of Shakira since I was very young, and her career trajectory and accomplishments are a beacon of light for this Latina who was once a child who couldn’t believe that there was room in the world for someone like her.

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Currently reading

I’ve finally made it through One Hundred Years of Solitude, and I’m not gonna lie, it was a hard read for me. I honestly think it’s not the kind of book one can just sit down to read. There’s so much symbolism in every single line that it’s almost like one needs to sit down and read maybe a page a day. The prose needs to be dissected like a poem—slowly, with intention. I see myself attempting that again sometime in the future.

I’ve now started Gallant by V.E. Schwab. I’ve only ever read The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by her but was so enamored with her style and that whole novel that I decided to give another novel of hers a try. My thoughts so far are that my preferred prose style falls so in line with Schwab’s that I’m sure I could read Sharknado if it was a book written by her. She has a way of drawing the reader in with a voice that’s so comforting and reassuring, yet wistful. It’s such a pleasure to ingest her words, her care and dedication to picking just the right ones obvious on the page.

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Hi there, I’m Maria! I’m a freelance fiction editor assisting women writers in amplifying their voices through their writing. You can find me on Instagram @theintuitivedesk. Or visit my site
www. theintuitivedesk.com to find out more.