Suleika Jaouad On How to Live an Inspired Life (July 2025)

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Suleika Jaouad On How to Live an Inspired Life"

Making Space with Hoda Kotb (April 29, 2026)

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Overview

In this heartfelt and deeply inspiring episode of Making Space, Hoda Kotb sits down with best-selling author, journalist, and cancer survivor Suleika Jaouad to discuss her new book, The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life. The conversation centers on the power of journaling as a tool for resilience, processing hardship, and cultivating creativity and curiosity—even in life’s most difficult moments. They explore ways to live more deliberately, embrace uncertainty, and “make space” for both joy and pain. Suleika shares practical journaling prompts, personal stories, and the philosophy that’s guided her through illness and healing.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Living in the Messy Middle

• Navigating Uncertainty: Suleika opens by talking about her health challenges, describing living with leukemia as a constant exercise in holding “the beautiful aspects of life with the harder ones in the same palm.”

  “Our lives are not a binary. We’re not either happy or sad or healthy or…most of us exist somewhere in the messy middle, and life is flux and we are in flux.” (Suleika Jaouad, 03:41)

• Shifting Perspectives: Rather than “living every day as if it’s your last,” Suleika now prefers to live each day like it’s her first, cultivating childlike curiosity rather than pressured gratitude.

  “I've shifted to a gentler mindset as I navigate this, of living every day as if it's my first...when I do that, I find that I am able to shift out of the fear of uncertainty into a sense of wonder about the mysteries of how our lives unfold.” (Suleika Jaouad, 06:30)

The Transformative Power of Journaling

• Origins of Journaling Practice: Suleika recounts how journaling became a crucial refuge during her childhood and later a lifeline throughout her illness:

  “The journal, for me, was a refuge. It was a kind of hiding place and a finding place where I could sort of write my way back to myself…” (Suleika Jaouad, 08:47)

• Journaling as Alchemy: Drawing inspiration from the concept of alchemy, Suleika uses journaling to transform moments of pain into something meaningful:

  “I began to think about how I might alchemize this life interruption into something interesting and useful and maybe even beautiful.” (Suleika Jaouad, 09:55)

• Guided Journaling: She found that prompts, even short passages from other writers, helped her move beyond repetitive “thought loops.” This guided approach is the foundation of her new book.

Practical Advice for Journalers

• Everyone Is Creative: Suleika emphasizes that journaling is for everyone, not just for “creative” or “writerly” types.

  “We’re all deeply creative as little kids. We have such an organic relationship to our imagination…Everything we do is creative.” (Suleika Jaouad, 17:14)

• Prompts to Rekindle Self-Discovery:

  • “The To-Feel List”: Before writing a to-do list, write a “to-feel” list to set intentions for how you want to feel during the day and specific ways to reach that state.

    “How we feel should be the priority rather than our output.” (Suleika Jaouad, 21:04)

  • “A Day in the Life of My Dream”: Write about a perfect, ordinary day five years in the future, in the present tense—crediting this exercise with helping her articulate her desires for her life and marriage.

    “What this prompt has done for me is...it’s forced me to articulate what I want, which is actually really scary.” (Suleika Jaouad, 21:34)

• Journaling with Others: Suleika and her husband Jon Batiste wrote journal letters to each other as a way to deepen their relationship while apart.

  “Things showed up in these journal entry letters that, like, I didn’t even know I was feeling.” (Suleika Jaouad, 26:11)

Notable Prompts from The Book of Alchemy

• Contributing prompts range from Gloria Steinem’s wisdom at 91 years old to a 6-year-old cancer survivor’s meditation game (“Inside Seeing”).
• Memorable prompts include:
  • Write a goodbye you wish you’d said or need to say. (Latonya Yvette)
  • Without judgment...write about the ways you escape your pain. What might be possible if you allowed yourself to be present with those feelings and thoughts? (Laura McKowen)
  • If you really knew me... (Complete the sentence and reflect.)

The Practice and Community of Journaling

• Journaling Clubs: Suleika encourages people who feel daunted to try journaling with friends in a club or group—reading a prompt together, writing for 10 minutes, and then discussing what arose (no pressure to share the writing itself).

  “When you’re in conversation with yourself, you get to be in conversation with the world.” (Suleika Jaouad, 31:05)

Cultivating Slowness and Care

• Unhurried Living: Both Hoda and Suleika discuss their struggles with modern busyness and the importance of creating “unstructured time” for self-nurturing.

  “I schedule unstructured time for myself. And I have to schedule it, otherwise it’s never going to happen...” (Suleika Jaouad, 36:10)

• During periods of illness and forced pause, Suleika discovered new creative outlets like painting, embracing unplanned passions.

Facing Fear and Choosing Wonder

• Suleika openly admits to experiencing nightly anxieties and fears, but relies on journaling and self-inquiry to carry fear productively.

  “It’s not that I don’t have fear. I’ve just had to cultivate practices and tools to help me carry that productively...Survival for me has always felt like a kind of creative act.” (Suleika Jaouad, 39:32)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On embracing life as flux:

  “Most of us exist somewhere in the messy middle and life is flux and we are in flux.” (Suleika Jaouad, 03:41)

• On changing the common wisdom:

  “I’ve come to actually believe that [‘live each day as if it’s your last’] is bad advice...I’ve shifted to a gentler mindset...of living every day as if it’s my first.” (Suleika Jaouad, 06:15-07:20)

• On the power of prompts:

  “That’s what grounds me...doing it before your to-do list, because how we feel should be the priority rather than our output.” (Suleika Jaouad, 20:05)

• On letting go of fear of vulnerability:

  “I was so afraid...new love opens up the possibility of more loss...But once I could get past my fears...it was not just with my husband John, but it was a way of being with him.” (Suleika Jaouad, 23:10-24:36)

• On self-care:

  “Giving myself the permission to not do anything and not be anything is how I recharge.” (Suleika Jaouad, 38:13)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:43] Suleika on living with uncertainty and balancing joy and hardship
• [04:51] Suleika shares her leukemia journey and a shift in life philosophy
• [08:35] Journaling as a lifeline and tool for alchemy during illness
• [11:52] Making journaling accessible: using prompts, humor, and details
• [17:14] Advice for newcomers to journaling: creativity is inherent in everyone
• [19:04] Favorite prompts: “To-Feel List” and “A Day in the Life of My Dream”
• [25:16] Suleika and Jon Batiste's practice of journaling letters to each other
• [27:08] Including contributors of all ages and backgrounds in the book
• [31:05] The power of journaling clubs and community connections
• [34:38] Cultivating unhurriedness and intentional pause amidst busyness
• [36:10] The importance of scheduling unstructured time and new creative pursuits
• [39:32] Harnessing creativity to cope with fear and live with intention
• [41:57] Hoda’s signature “Making Space” question: Dream day plans

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Closing Thought

Suleika Jaouad and Hoda Kotb gently remind listeners that resilience and inspiration draw not just from big gestures but from small, daily acts of creativity, presence, and honesty with oneself. Through journaling, they illustrate how to make space for the full spectrum of human experience—and how, even in the hardest moments, we can find beauty, wonder, and connection.

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Further Resources

• Suleika Jaouad, "The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life" – Available wherever books are sold.
• Journaling and prompt ideas can be found throughout the episode and in the book.

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This summary captures the rich, sincere tone of the conversation and Suleika’s wisdom on living an inspired, resilient life. Perfect for anyone seeking hope, healing, or creative practice.

Transcript

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[Podcast Host (Hoda Kotb)]

Write about a goodbye you wished you'd

[Hoda Kotb]

said or need to say.

[Podcast Host (Hoda Kotb)]

That's one of the many striking journal prompts from best selling author Suleka Jawad's latest project, the Book of A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life. The book is a beautiful guide to the art of journaling, something Suleika knows well. From the time she was young, Suleika has practiced journaling as a way to mark all the moments that define her life, from the joyful highs to the heartbreaking lows. Journaling, she says, has buoyed her through uncertainty and illness. But journaling doesn't always come easily, and as an avid journaler myself, even I sit down and stare at a blank page. So Suleika gathered wisdom from writers, artists and thinkers who and combine them into essays and writing prompts. I cannot get enough of this book and I cannot stop thinking about this conversation. I hope it has the same impact on you. I'm Hoda Kotb. Welcome to my podcast Making Space.

[Hoda Kotb]

I am so happy to be sitting with you today. Number one, I have loved you for such a long time. I remember. I don't know if you remember because you've done so many interviews, but we sat together so long ago and just talked about your life. So let's start with that. Today, on this random rainy day in New York, how are you feeling? Like, where are you in your life?

[Suleika Jawad]

Okay, I adore You. I'm so happy to be here. Of course I remember that day. It was peak pandemic. Yes. And you know, I am, I am. How am I doing? It's, you know, the most commonly asked question and the hardest one to answer honestly. So I'm doing really well today, health wise, less well. But that has been this sort of ongoing work that I've been doing, which is trying to figure out how to hold the beautiful aspects of life with the harder ones in the same palm without things needing to be either good or bad.

[Hoda Kotb]

Is it about like where you fix your gaze or is it much more than that?

[Suleika Jawad]

You know, I think for me the balancing comes in welcoming all of it and not trying to shy away from the hard things or to compartmentalize, but to kind of note it, sometimes literally note it down and trust that there's room for all of it, that our lives are not a binary. We're not either happy or sad or healthy or. Well, most of us exist somewhere in the messy middle and life is flux and we are in flux. And I guess there's a sense of comfort that comes with knowing that everything is always changing. If you're having a hard moment or a hard day, you know it's going to change. If you're having a good day, you get to be extra present and grateful for it because, you know, not every day may be as good as this one.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yeah. For those who don't know, you said health wise, not so great. I'm not sure if everybody knows your story, but will you explain what you mean by that?

[Suleika Jawad]

Yeah. So I learned almost exactly a year ago that the leukemia I've had off and on now, you know, since the age of 22 is back for a third time. And that's the kind of news that can make you want to get into bed and hide under the covers and not re emerge. It's the kind of thing that can keep you frozen in fear because you know, when you're living with a life threatening illness, the future becomes a scary place because you don't know if you're going to get to exist in it. And, and so, you know, very early on I kept saying to my oncologist, like, how do I navigate all of this uncertainty? How do I keep living my life without, you know, being consumed by fear of the many what ifs that I can't possibly answer. And the thing he'd always say to me was, you have to live every day as if it's your last. And I know that that advice comes from A good place. But whenever I heard it, whenever I tried to live it, I felt this intense sense of panic, because it is exhausting and stressful to try to make every moment as meaningful as possible, to try to enjoy every family dinner, to try to be grateful every single moment of every single day. And I got to a point where I was like, I don't want to do that anymore. It's actually. It's tiring, and it's not sustainable. And I've come to actually believe that it's bad advice, because if we were all to do that, you know, we'd be emptying our savings accounts and declaring bankruptcy, and, you know, the whole world would be chaos. And so I've shifted to a gentler mindset as I navigate this, of living every day as if it's my first and trying to wake up and to cultivate this sense of curiosity and creativity and wonder that a little kid might. Because as little kids, we do that so naturally. And when I do that, I find that I am able to shift out of the fear of uncertainty into a sense of wonder about the mysteries of how our lives unfold.

[Hoda Kotb]

By the way, what a beautiful shift in that statement, because I've never heard live each day like it's your first. Everyone talks about live each day like it's your last. Every song. I mean, I love country music, too. And every country song is like, this is the last time your kid's gonna do. And you're like, oh, my God, this is crushing me. Live every day like it's your first. That's very, very profound and beautiful. I want to talk about how you're doing this, because I think that's so important. And you have a book out that is, first of all, extremely beautiful to hold. It's called the Book of Alchemy, A creative practice for an inspired life. And you talk about journaling, and I thought, okay, when I first heard about the book, and then when I read the statement that you said journaling saved my life, I thought to myself, wow, let me see how that lands. First of all, explain how journaling saved your life.

[Suleika Jawad]

Yeah. So I've been keeping a journal from the time I was a little kid. I was a kid who did not fit in.

[Hoda Kotb]

I.

[Suleika Jawad]

Who really struggled to find that sense of belonging. And the journal, for me, was a refuge. It was a kind of hiding place and a finding place where I could sort of write my way back to myself when I didn't always know how to find that sense of belonging and safety outside of the journal. But when I got sick at 22, the Journal really became a lifeline for me. I was stuck in this hospital room for weeks and months on end and struggling to figure out what to do with myself, how to process the fear and the anger and the sense of grief that comes with having the ceiling cave in on your life and whatever plans it is that you had. And, you know, it's called the book of Alchemy, because alchemy is one of my very favorite words in the English language. And I've always been fascinated by the kind of traditional notion of alchemy, of, you know, transmuting something like lead, something considered base or worthless, into something precious like gold. But in that hospital room and in the privacy of a daily journal, I began to think about how I might alchemize this life interruption into something interesting and useful and maybe even beautiful. And so what that looks like for me was keeping a daily journal in the form of a hundred day project. And why hundred days?

[Hoda Kotb]

You just needed.

[Suleika Jawad]

It was something I did with my friends and family, and we needed that sense of accountability and that. Because, you know, journaling seems like a pretty straightforward thing. And I know you're a prolific journaler, but I think sometimes, especially when you're going through a lot, it can be scary to keep a journal. It's almost like too hot to touch. And so sometimes you need a sort of daily challenge or a goal in mind to get yourself going. Because how many of us have, you know, bought a brand new journal, filled out the first few pages, left the rest blank, then bought another journal because that journal is ruined and you have to start all over again. But I needed something to kind of keep me going.

[Hoda Kotb]

How did you. Because, okay, I'm imagining you in that moment. You've got your journal, it's just you and the beeping and all the sounds of a hospital room. How did you just not write about all of the. Because I would imagine what was going on daily was. Was horrible for you. And then it was more than documenting what was going on. What were you writing?

[Suleika Jawad]

So I think I. I struggled, perhaps like a lot of people do when they're keeping a journal, was feeling like I was just either chronicling my day, yes, and then, and then, and then and then. And there's a kind of like episodic quality to it, or I was writing only about the hard things, which can be cathartic and necessary in its own way. But I started to notice a couple of things that when I was feeling stuck in my life, I would get stuck in the same kind of thought loops and in the same kind of journal entries. And I really felt like I needed to push myself beyond myself. And so what I started doing before opening the journal was reading a short passage of something. And it was often a journal of a favorite writer, like a Susan Sontag or a Joan Didion. And when I did that, it prompted me in a way, even if I didn't relate to what I'd read. It had this kind of kaleidoscopic effect of like slightly twisting the chamber and the light fell differently. And so that started me on this path of kind of philosophy, of journaling that's the foundation of this book, of a slightly more guided approach to journaling. Because one of the things I love most about the journal is that it is stream of consciousness. There's no right or wrong way to do it. There are no rules. You come as you are. You don't have to be a good writer. It's not even grammatical writing. It can lists, it can be sentence fragments, it can be doodles. But I wanted to find little prompts that could spark some new train of thought that could sort of shift my thinking in an unexpected direction. And so I started doing that in the hospital. I started using it as a kind of reporter's notebook. I'd write about, you know, the gossip that the nurses were sharing with me. I wrote about this guy, Ned, down the hallway from me, who was trying to mount a hunger strike amongst the patients because the meal trays kept arriving when the food's still frozen, like these little details. And suddenly what I noticed is I wasn't just writing about the anger or the grief for every difficult moment. There were funny moments and interesting moments unfolding alongside. And I started to feel that sense of alchemy, that sense of something shifting, of possibility.

[Podcast Host (Hoda Kotb)]

More with Suleika Jawad in just a moment.

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[Hoda Kotb]

I think first of all, this is so incredibly beautiful. I mean to be able to go down that road and not go down the slippery slope of despair. I think some people think I don't journal because I'm not creative, I'm not a writer. I don't do that. And you can kind of see that. It's like if you blank page in front of you, what are you going to put there? But do you think is this like a learned behavior? Or if you're Mary Smith who's listening, thinking, I've never done that. I don't even know what I would do. What's the advice there?

[Suleika Jawad]

Okay, I think we're all deeply creative as little kids. We have such an organic relationship to our imagination. We play make believe and at some point someone or something along the way tells us that we're not creative or that it's not a good use of our time. But when you think about it, everything we do is creative. Having a fight with your husband requires creativity and it's resolution. Cooking a meal is creative. So that's the first thing I'd say. The second thing I'd say is I understand why the idea of a journalist or even the blank page would be intimidating. And that's why I think having a container of 30 days or 100 days and having some prompts to guide you can be really helpful whether you're a seasoned journaler or you've never tried it before. But the other thing that I love about journaling is it's this rare space where you get to show up exactly as you are. You're doing it just for yourself, it's not for an audience. You get to be your most unedited self. You get to take a breath, sit down and for five minutes write your way back to yourself and you never have to read it again. And it's about the act of doing it more so than the outcome.

[Hoda Kotb]

You keep talking about prompts, which I think are the whole thing, because I think if someone gave anyone me a nudge and said, here's something to go on, what prompts helped you when you were trying to get back to yourself?

[Suleika Jawad]

So there are a hundred essays and prompts in the book and they're really a curation of my favorite prompts that I write to again and again. And the people who inspire me most. And some of them are creative in the conventional sense and some of them live their lives creatively. I think Our oldest prompt contributor is Gloria Steinem at 91 years old. And our youngest prompt contributor was six years old at the time. He's two time brain cancer survivor named Lou Sullivan. And so the prompts that I write to all the time, you know, some of them are very simple. One prompt is called the to feel list and it is exactly what it sounds like. Before you write your to do list, you write a to feel list to feel with some ideas for how to get yourself there.

[Hoda Kotb]

That's so smart.

[Suleika Jawad]

So smart and so simple. And it's something I do every single day.

[Hoda Kotb]

I'll give you an example.

[Suleika Jawad]

So, okay, so on my to feel list, I said I want to feel grounded. And I had a kind of chaotic morning where moving dogs were barking, doorbells were ringing, and I was tempted to not go to the park, which is what I do every morning with my dogs. But that's what grounds me. So I ended up taking a cab to the park, skipping the walk because I didn't have time. But I prioritized going to the park, even if it was just for 10 minutes and even though it was a little bit rainy and I didn't get on my phone and I just tried to be there with my dogs and to throw the tennis ball and to get back on with my day. So that was one thing on my list.

[Hoda Kotb]

That's what a great prompt, the to feel list. Like I want to feel calmer or more at peace and what kinds of things would I do throughout my day

[Suleika Jawad]

to get there and doing it before your to do list, because I think the order is important, because how we feel should be the priority rather than our output.

[Hoda Kotb]

That's so good. Are there any other prompts that. For you?

[Suleika Jawad]

There is one prompt I have been doing religiously called A Day in the Life of My Dream. And it makes me.

[Hoda Kotb]

Wait. Wait, that. Oh, my gosh, that's beautiful. A Day in the Life of my Dream.

[Suleika Jawad]

Okay. And I credit my marriage to it. I credit so many of the most important decisions I've made. And I'm not someone who's prone to hyperbole, so I say this with all the sincerity that I have. So the prompt is this. You write about a perfect every day. So just a regular perfect day five years out in the future. But you write it in the present tense, and it starts from the moment you wake up until you go to sleep. Who are you waking up next to, if anyone? Where are you? What are you doing? How are you filling your day? Who are you filling it with? And what does that perfect day look like? And so I'm not someone who believes in manifesting, but I think what this prompt has done for me is that it's forced me to articulate what I want, which is actually really scary. Not just to say out loud, but to write down, because it's scary sometimes to actually articulate what you want. And, you know, it's changed over time, of course, but it's really helped me identify what I want so that when I see something that is in alignment with that, I don't hesitate.

[Hoda Kotb]

You said you credit your marriage.

[Suleika Jawad]

I credit my. I do.

[Hoda Kotb]

For real?

[Suleika Jawad]

For real.

[Hoda Kotb]

Because you could imagine,

[Suleika Jawad]

because I was someone who was so afraid, I think, of marriage in part because I took it so seriously. You know, I think sometimes when you've grieved someone you love, it can make you guarded against new love, because new love opens up the possibility of more loss. And so I think I was protecting my heart. And that made it difficult for me to fully open up to the idea of what I think the best kind of relationships require of us, which is an unguarded heart. And so I kept trying to write these days in the life of my dreams in which I was somehow protecting my heart but still having the kind of relationship that I wanted. And I. I was like, you know, I'd finished the entry, and I'd be like, this is a lie. Like, I don't actually. I'm not actually buying this. It's not actually what I want. So then the next day, I try again and again and Again. And ultimately, you know, once I could get past my fears and whatever kind of lies I was telling myself to the actual truth of what my perfect everyday would look like. It was not just with my husband John, but it was a way of being with him.

[Hoda Kotb]

Oh, that's bigger than just knowing you have the right person. It's how you were with him.

[Suleika Jawad]

Exactly.

[Hoda Kotb]

How did Jon Batiste, by the way, who is like, you know, you two together, my favorite couple. Sorry. Forever and ever. And you two on the road with this book was like a sight to behold. I saw clips and it moved me to my core. I just wished it never, like, I wanted it to keep going, just even for the small portions of it I saw. But when you articulated that to him, because you guys have known each other since band camp, how did he receive that? Or was he just patiently waiting for you to see what he already knew?

[Suleika Jawad]

I think it's funny, I credit journaling in more ways than just that one prompt to our relationship because he came up with the idea early on, during a period of time where we were both on the road, that instead of writing our usual journal entries because he's also a prolific journaler, we would write them as letters to each other. And the way that we did it is, you know, I'd write my letter in my journal to John, snap a photo of it, and then text it to him.

[Hoda Kotb]

Okay, it's too much. This is all too much.

[Suleika Jawad]

Sorry.

[Hoda Kotb]

This is all too much to bear. That's so beautiful.

[Podcast Host (Hoda Kotb)]

So that's how you did your journals?

[Suleika Jawad]

Oh, that's how we did our journals. And it was so interesting because it's like when you're on the phone with someone, especially if you're both traveling or busy, it's hard to get to the deeper stuff. It's like, how are you? How was your day?

[Hoda Kotb]

Logistics stuff. Yeah.

[Suleika Jawad]

And sometimes even in conversation outside of that, it's hard to get to the deeper stuff. And so things showed up in these journal entry letters that, like, I didn't even know I was feeling. And like, that's the cool thing about journaling. It's like you may start with an idea of what you think you want to say, but if you're really like following the thread of your intuition, it always leads to somewhere unexpected.

[Hoda Kotb]

This book called again the Book of Alchemy. A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life. You have chosen such incredible people to contribute stories and prompts and things, your husband among them. But I feel like I dog eared the whole thing. You know how you're like, why am I dog earing the whole book? I might as well just not bother. But all of these prompts are so incredibly beautiful. Like I don't even know where to start. How did you choose, by the way? The people who are in this book,

[Suleika Jawad]

they really are the people who inspire me. Most people I've learned from, but not necessarily people I know personally, but people who I think embody the spirit of creative alchemy, the idea that you can transform something through an act of imagination.

[Hoda Kotb]

You talked about the young boy with cancer, the 6 year old. How did you come to be aware of him and what did he teach you?

[Suleika Jawad]

So I came to know him through his mother, who's also a cancer survivor. And he had this game that he and his mom would play in the hospital and he calls it Inside seeing, which was he'd tell his mom to close her eyes, and he would close his eyes and then he would narrate everything that he was seeing. So sometimes he'd see tickly lights, that is like the little pinpricks of lights. Sometimes he'd see a monster, but it was like kind of cute and funny. And so that was his game that he did. And I think in a way his form of meditation. And so his prompt is to play his game of inside seeing, which is to close your eyes and to focus on the images that come up and then to write them down. So simple and so inspiring.

[Hoda Kotb]

So let's see. Okay. Latonya Yvette, who is also beautiful. This is her prompt. Write a goodbye you wish you'd said or need to say. I don't think there's a single person listening who doesn't have a goodbye that they have yet to say or need to say or even if it's never really too late to say that. Yeah, that prompt is so moving and beautiful.

[Suleika Jawad]

I love that prompt so much. Because sometimes you want the perfect goodbye or the perfect sense of resolution with someone and it's not possible for whatever reason, but that doesn't mean you can't still achieve it.

[Hoda Kotb]

I just, I'm so fascinated by you and by this book. Okay, I like this one. This is from Laura McCowan. Tell me about her.

[Suleika Jawad]

Laura McCowan is a brilliant writer. She's written so vulnerably about her sobriety journey and she writes about a big heartbreak in her life. And the way I organize it's divided into 10 chapters and 100 prompts so that if you want, you can make it your own hundred day project that you could do alone. Or With Friends. But the titles of the chapters are thematic. So there's On Love, On Fear, On Ego, On Purpose. And the way that I arrived at those chapter titles was by rereading the hundreds of journals I've had since childhood and noticing that the same themes kept coming up again and again and again at every phase of life from childhood to now. And so Laura is in the On Love chapter.

[Hoda Kotb]

I like her prompt. She says without judgment, because we all do this. Write about the ways you escape your pain. What do you think may be on the other side of these escapes? What are you trying not to feel or know? What might be possible if you allowed yourself to be present with those feelings and thoughts? I like this one. If you really knew me. Complete this sentence. If you really knew me. You can write one or many of these statements, then sit with them and ask yourself, what would your life be like if people knew these things about you? How would your circle of friends change? What. What about your job? I mean, these are all so like, wows.

[Podcast Host (Hoda Kotb)]

But what I love about how you created this book, like you said, if

[Hoda Kotb]

you don't know what to write in a journal and you have no idea, if you even just crack this book open, on any page, you'll find a prompt that will lead you down a road. But you have to be. You've gotta be brave, right?

[Suleika Jawad]

You've gotta be brave. And I'll say too, if it feels daunting to do this by yourself, do it with a friend. I've been doing instead of like a book club with my friends and a few of my co workers, Journaling club, where we read one essay and prompt out loud, write to the prompt for 10 minutes and then we just. You don't have to share what you wrote because journaling is private and it's not. You don't want the pressure to make it pretty writing or anything like that. But then we talk about what came up. And I've had some of the best, deepest conversations with these people whom I've known for many years. And we've learned things about each other that we never knew as a result of it. And that to me is really the power of being brave enough to be in conversation with yourself. Because when you're in conversation with yourself, you get to be in conversation with the world.

[Podcast Host (Hoda Kotb)]

More with Suleika Jawad after the break.

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[Hoda Kotb]

I'm already thinking about going home and trying these prompts because I too have felt stuck. When I write my journal in the beginning, I kind of write a little prayer. I usually write, dear God, thank you for this precious day. And I remind myself of this. A day that will only come one time exactly like this. It's a little bit about what you were saying, like live each day. But I like live each day as if it were your first. But I try to remind myself. And in that I write, allow me to see all the love and lessons. I feel like so much of it I'm sprinting through. And when I left the Today show, the word unhurried kept coming because I kept thinking, I'm in a hurry, I'm in a hurry. But where am I in such a hurry to go? Where am I sprinting off to?

[Suleika Jawad]

Totally.

[Hoda Kotb]

So another interview, another meet about. But what is it about? It's like trying to remind myself to slow down. Like to go in slow motion.

[Suleika Jawad]

I think like so many of us feel that way. I feel that way. It's, you know, we live in a world that is obsessed with productivity and we're all just like tumbling headfirst into our days. And I don't know, it's like I get to the end of the day and my to do list is somehow longer than it was when I started, started. And then you get up and do it all over again. And I think it's really hard to find some of my favorite TS Eliot lines. But the still point in the spinning world, and no one's gonna do it for us. You have to find the practices, the things that allow you to be unhurried. I love that word, the practices.

[Hoda Kotb]

You're right. God, this all makes me feel so good. Everything you're saying. I mean, you really are, you have. I mean, this stuff should all be yelled from the mountaintops, which I'm sure it's been already, but I'm gonna help amplify. Cause it's so good, so important. How do you. You talk about journaling as a way of you're caring for yourself. You're obviously doing that. But in what other ways do you. Do you take care of yourself? I feel like you put so much into the world. It just seems that way from watching you. I don't know if I'm right, but you know, your tank, you want to keep it full. So what do you do to make sure that you keep it full?

[Suleika Jawad]

I. This sounds so kind of silly. I schedule unstructured time for myself. And I have to schedule it, otherwise it's never going to happen. And I do this because in the moments when I've had a forced interruption in my life, those have always also been the moments, no matter how brutally difficult or heartbreaking they may be, where I felt the most clarity about what's important to me. Because when. When you're stripped down to your most laid bare self, you know, there's no time or energy for anything that feels extra or certainly anything that is taking energy from you. And I think in those moments of forced interruption when I haven't had a plan, and I love a plan. I love my one year plans and my five. Like, I'm such a planner. So it's very hard for me not to have a plan when I've made room for something, anything to emerge. I'm always so endlessly surprised by what comes out of that. And so, you know, three years ago I had a second bone marrow transplant and I couldn't journal. I temporarily lost my vision and I started to paint. And I'm not a painter, I'm not a trained painter. I was just doing it to keep myself entertained. It was like a kind of visual journal. And I have fallen deeply, madly in love with painting in my mid-30s. And that's now all I want to do. It's not part of the plan, but I'm so happy that it happened and it doesn't always have to be something like painting. But having scheduled time, where I have zero expectations of myself is how I recharge. And that can look like painting. It can look like lying on the couch with a book. It can look like taking a nap. It can look like cuddling with our newest rescue, a tiny, toothless senior dog named Lentil, who we are very obsessed with. But, yeah, giving myself the permission to not do anything and not be anything is how I recharge.

[Hoda Kotb]

I so admire just how you live your life. I feel like there are many people, myself included, who don't have an illness, who aren't living in such a way. Like, I know you're holding all things equally, but sometimes, like, you know, I'll obsess about the dumbest thing. I'll wake up in the middle of the night. I can't go back to sleep over something so ridiculous like, is my kid okay? Like, what do I. Did I do that wrong? Oh, God, am I ruined them already? You know, they're only eight. Like, what have I done? You know? And then I'm thinking to myself, like, there's a. You have a calm. I'm sitting with you, and I'm telling you right now, I have chill sitting next to you. I'm not sure what that is, but I think it's like you have something that's different.

[Suleika Jawad]

I think, okay, let me go on record and say I, too, wake up in the middle of the night consumed with fear, fear, worries, anxieties. Why did I say that? Should I have said that? You know, whatever the news, I think that it's not that I don't have fear. I've just had to cultivate practices and tools to help me carry that productively. And so when I say, for example, keeping a journal saved my life, it's not that I somehow am more evolved or inherently calmer. It's that I've had to do it. Because the alternative, which is to, you know, be in despair or to be in fear, is not how I want to spend my time here. I think survival for me has always felt like a kind of creative act. It requires imagination. It requires improvisation. It requires collaboration. And so that's what I try to do without making it too simplistic. And I think about this all the time. It's like, I do not have a good prognosis. I could, you know, sit with that and let it hijack my days and let it stop me from doing the things that I want to do. Or I can take that fact and reality and use it as a springboard to do more of the things that make me feel most alive, to spend time with the people who make me feel most alive. And when I think about it that way, and when I'm able to identify what the small steps are that I can take to cultivating that sense of wonder that we were talking about and creativity and curiosity, then I feel like I'm actually, well, regardless of what's happening in my body and in my bone marrow.

[Hoda Kotb]

That's everything. That's everything. We call this podcast Making Space. So you've answered this in different ways. But if you did have one day, Zuleyka, that was just for you. From the moment your eyes opened until they closed at the end of the day. How would you fill that time? With no obligations, you had nothing on the calendar. It was a clean slate.

[Suleika Jawad]

How would I fill that time? Probably it would be a day that involves hanging out with my husband, hanging out with our three dogs, journaling and reading a book because butt is more delicious than getting lost in the story.

[Hoda Kotb]

Simple.

[Suleika Jawad]

Having a phone call or a meal with a friend. All the things that I love with all the people I love most.

[Hoda Kotb]

Yeah, I love you.

[Suleika Jawad]

It definitely does not involve zoom calls or conference calls or all the things on my to do list.

[Hoda Kotb]

Exactly. I'm starting my to feel list right after this is over. Suleika, thank you so much. Again. Pick up the book. It's called the Book of Alchemy. Creative Practice for an Inspired Life.

[Suleika Jawad]

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[Podcast Host (Hoda Kotb)]

Hey guys, thank you so much for listening and for coming on this journey with me. If you like what you heard, and I hope that you do, please give Making Space a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts and make sure

[Hoda Kotb]

you tell your friends.

[Podcast Host (Hoda Kotb)]

Follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening right now. Making Space with Hoda Kotb is produced by Alison Berger along with Kate Saunders. Our associate audio engineer is Juliana Masterilli. Our audio engineers are Katie Lau and Mark Yoshi Zumi. Original music by John Estes. Bryson Barnes is our head of audio production. Missy Dunlop Parsons is our executive producer. Libby Least is the executive vice president of Today Day and Lifestyle.

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