The Alchemy of Storytelling: Turning Your Mess Into Gold

This week, I found myself frantically scribbling notes during a powerful women’s mastermind call. My fingers barely kept pace with the ideas springing forth from my brain. (Side note: Don’t you love that feeling? In my case, it’s a big reason why I write.) 

We were discussing alchemy. 

Based on the medieval pursuit of turning lead into gold, alchemy from a depth psychological perspective speaks to the transformation of our messy, imperfect lives into stories that can light the way for others.

Our group leader urged us to consider that the first step in any alchemical process is slowing down. “You can’t rush the process of transformation,” she said. 

In the modern world, we’re often so eager to get our stories out that we race through the writing journey. As a result, we miss out on healing. 

I’ve seen this time again, especially in the past few years since the release of ChatGPT and the near-instantaneous spread of large language models (LLMs). AI enables us to produce content much more quickly, at a shocking rate… 

But where is the healing in that? Where is the plumbing of our psychological depths? The sitting with our ugliness and shame? We are best served by taking our time to do this so that we can transform the messiness into nuggets of wisdom, which in our culture we call “pure gold.”

During our call, I had a vision of holding my golden nugget—my own story, my own lessons and struggles, triumphs and tribulations—and placing it into a cauldron. Under the cauldron, a fire roared, casting blue and purple shadows on the walls. I watched the nugget melt, its sharp edges dissolving into liquid gold. Then I was ready to share it, scooping it from the cauldron like soup and offering it to anyone who asked. 

This struck me as a powerful metaphor for all of us authors to hold as we write.

You are an Alchemist. Your story wants to be born through you—not in spite of your messiness, but because of it.

Your work as a writer, filmmaker, artist is to take the hard nugget of truth that you’ve extracted from your trauma, your challenges and success, and melt it into liquid wisdom, which can be shared. In this way, you inspire others to transform. 

Aloha,

MeiMei

TIP OF THE WEEK:

The Four Phases of Writing Alchemy

In alchemy, there are four phases of transformation. We can apply these phases to our storytelling journey, as well. 

1. Purification: This is where you burn away what is false: all the ways you've been telling your story to make yourself look good, to hide your shame, to avoid the messy truth. The fire strips you bare.

2. Dissolution: Here, your identity dissolves. The version of you who was content to play small, who hid behind other people, who worried your way through life melts away.

3. Illumination: A spark of light rearranges everything. As you write, new insights emerge. You see your story not as a series of failures or false starts, but as the perfect preparation for who you're becoming.

4. Embodiment: Finally, your new consciousness crystallizes into matter. Your story becomes a book, a business, a movement. You become the leader your story has prepared you to be.