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Back to Podcast EpisodesS11e1 (non-grad) Suleika Jaouad - An Alchemical Life
Season 11 Episode 1
Welcome to Season 11 of The Hoffman Podcast. We begin our new season with Suleika Jaouad, an extraordinary writer, artist, and author – and deeply soulful human. Suleika is not a graduate of the Hoffman Process, but many in her circle have attended, and her work deeply reflects its spirit.
Suleika speaks and writes about creative alchemy. Her recent bestselling memoir is The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life.
An alchemical life is one where we learn to take the more challenging lead weights (events and experiences) of our lives and work with them. We alchemize them into something new, as the alchemists of old called them, the gold.
Suleika has been doing exactly this since she was diagnosed with leukemia at 22. She spent the next year of her life shuttling between her childhood bedroom and chemo rooms instead of embarking on a traditional adult life. As she worked with what she was facing and brought it closer to her, her relationship with it and with herself transformed, alchemized.
As Suleika shares in this conversation with Drew, “that’s maybe our collective, forever work, what we do when things fall apart. For me, reconceiving of survival as a creative act of taking those moments where things fall apart and re-fastening them into something has been my way of finding my way.”
We hope you enjoy this soulful, inspiring conversation with Suleika and Drew. It’s a beautiful beginning to our new season.
More about Suleika Jaouad:
Suleika Jaouad is a writer, artist, and author of the New York Times bestselling memoirs The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life and Between Two Kingdoms, which has been translated into over twenty languages. She writes the #1 Literature newsletter on Substack, the Isolation Journals, home to a creative community of over 230,000 readers from around the world.
A three-time cancer survivor, she launched her career from her hospital bed at age 22 with
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