The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life

by Suleika Jaouad

Write down any images, details, or words that come to mind. Don’t worry about complete sentences. Don’t worry about describing the place as much as describing what it felt like.

I tell my students that everything in their writing should bring with it some greater meaning:

This is your prompt:

Write about an important first—where someone taught you how to use or do something.

Surfing is a sport that requires a lot of patience—to learn to read the movements of the ocean, to spot a set of waves coming in, to know where to be to catch the one you want.

This is your prompt: Imagine you’re out past the break, waiting for the perfect wave. All you can see is water and sky and a distant shore. All you can hear is wind, the waves, the seagulls calling overhead. Now call to mind your best memories—times with family or friends, places you’ve visited, small moments that mean something to you but maybe you don’t often think about—and write them down.

I feared opening myself up again to new love.

the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

Over the next hundred days, I faced one fear after another. I forced myself to be out in the world, to learn to care for myself, to trace the shape of my limitations and to accommodate them.

grew comfortable being alone.

I feared the things I wanted most.

Fear has an evolutionary purpose, as we know; our anxious minds say, “Protect yourself.”

what I wanted most: to be independent, to feel physically strong, to begin writing again, to dream big dreams, to fall in love, to live boldly and daringly.

It was like building a muscle: often uncomfortable, sometimes painful, always exhausting.

if I confronted the fear, it lost its power.

As the fear evaporated, other feelings materialized in its place—feelings like wonder and curiosity.

Elizabeth Gilbert once said to me, “You don’t have to be particularly brave. You just have to be a tiny, tiny bit more interested in som...

giving fear free rein makes it hard to live a life.

sometimes fear makes it hard to see the ways in which you are okay, or to see when things are safe and good.

that ultimately is what I found on the other side of my fear: the knowledge that I can handle it, whatever “it” is.

There’s strength and a sense of possibility in that belief.

renowned Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön, and what she had to say about “the wisdom of no escape,”

“an alternatingly painful and delightful ‘no exit’ situation.”

I’ve toured the world speaking about breaking barriers through storytelling. One way I do this is with an exercise called “If you really knew me.”

This is your prompt: Complete the sentence: “If you really knew me…”

Ask yourself: What would your life be like if people knew these things about you?

Some of the hard things I had been worrying about might just turn out all right.

We are afraid to fail at the things we care about.

This is your prompt: Write about your most looming fear of failure—where it shows up and when.

call to mind the people, experiences, and things in your life that you care about. How does your fear of failure overlap with what matters to you most?

“Gameplay loop” is jargon for the set of repeating activities that make up a video game,

I learned to place my palm over my heart, to feel the floor against my feet, to experience myself safely existing.

creative work comes in four seasons.

Rest, I have learned, is an important part of the creative process.

The sky, breeze, trees, even the brilliant but ephemeral beauty of flowers were a given—something everyday.

As Georgia O’Keeffe wrote, “Still—in a way—nobody sees a flower—really—it is so small—we haven’t time—and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.”

Simone Weil said that “attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”

depression is an overfixation on the past and anxiety is an overfixation on the future.

I try to be present with whatever is around me and ...

Create a bridge through time.

our decisions today will create ripple effects for generations into the future. Write—whether