The Art of Alchemy and Turning Pain Into Power
- Jun 18
- 6 min read
Written by Kenza Tounakti, Online Fitness Coach
Kenza Tounakti is an online fitness coach, Exercise Science graduate, and content creator dedicated to helping women build strong bodies and stronger minds. Through science-based fitness education and mindset coaching, she empowers women to create lasting transformation from the inside out.
Adversity has a way of making you feel like you have lost control over your life. Whether it is heartbreak, failure, trauma, rejection, loss, illness, or a season where everything feels like it is falling apart, the emotional experience is often the same, you feel powerless. You feel disconnected from yourself. You feel like life is happening to you instead of being created by you. I know that feeling well.
A few years ago, after one of the hardest experiences of my life, I found myself struggling with my mental health, my relationship with food, my confidence, and my sense of direction. I felt disconnected from my body, my intuition, and my own boundaries. For a while, I did not feel in control of myself or my future. That experience became a wake-up call, not because what happened was good, but because it forced me to ask a question that changed my life, "How do I take my power back?
That is what I call alchemy. Historically, alchemy referred to the process of turning lead into gold. In personal growth, alchemy is the process of turning pain, adversity, and hardship into wisdom, strength, and purpose. Here is how to start doing that in your own life.
1. Name what actually happened
Before you can move forward, you have to be honest about what you are moving forward from. Many people try to minimize their pain. They tell themselves it was not that bad, that they should be over it, or that other people have it worse. But healing does not happen through denial. You cannot transform what you refuse to acknowledge. Naming what happened does not mean staying stuck in the story. It means telling the truth so you can finally deal with reality.
For me, the truth was that I felt powerless. I felt disconnected from my body. I was using food as a way to cope. I was binge eating, restricting, and trying to control my body because internally, I did not feel in control at all. The first step was not fixing everything. It was being honest.
Ask yourself, "What actually happened, and how did it affect the way I see myself?"
2. Shift from “why me?” to “what now?”
When something painful happens, it is natural to ask why. Why did this happen? Why me? Why now? Those questions are human, but they can also keep you trapped in a loop. At some point, you have to ask a question that gives your power back.
What now? This question does not dismiss your pain. It redirects your energy. For me, “what now?” looked like deciding to start my fitness journey during COVID with nothing but a pair of dumbbells in my parents’ basement. It was not glamorous. It was not perfect. It was probably the worst time to start, which makes it funny looking back. Life said, “Absolutely not,” and I said, “Watch me.” That one question moved me from rumination to action.
Ask yourself, "What is the next right step I can take from here?"
3. Find one thing you can control
When life feels chaotic, do not try to fix your entire life overnight. That is how people overwhelm themselves and quit by Tuesday. Find one thing you can control. For me, that was working out. I could not control the past. I could not control the pandemic. I could not control what had already happened. But I could control whether I moved my body that day. That became my anchor.
Your anchor might be training, walking, journaling, therapy, sleep, nutrition, cleaning your room, setting one boundary, or having one honest conversation. The goal is not perfection. The goal is agency.
Ask yourself, "What is one small action I can control today that helps me feel like I belong to myself again?"
4. Build evidence through action
Confidence does not come from thinking about becoming confident. Annoying, I know. We would all love to journal our way into a new identity while drinking matcha and looking mysterious, but at some point, you have to act. Confidence is built through evidence. Every workout I completed became evidence. Every promise I kept became evidence. Every time I showed up when I did not feel like it, I proved to myself that I was capable of change.
This is where most people get it wrong. They wait until they feel ready, motivated, or confident. But confidence usually comes after action, not before it. You do not need to believe in yourself fully to start. You need to give yourself reasons to believe in yourself.
Ask yourself, "What promise can I keep today that gives me evidence I am becoming someone I can trust?"
5. Let pain teach you without letting it define you
Pain is not automatically meaningful. You have to extract the lesson. That does not mean pretending everything happens for a reason. It does not mean romanticizing what hurt you. It means refusing to let the experience go to waste.
Pain can reveal where your boundaries were weak. It can show you where you were abandoning yourself. It can expose unhealthy patterns, relationships, beliefs, or coping mechanisms that were keeping you disconnected from your power.
For me, pain taught me that I needed stronger boundaries, deeper self-respect, and a better relationship with my body. Fitness became one of the first ways I practiced that.
Ask yourself, "What is this experience showing me that I can no longer ignore?"
6. Create structure when your emotions feel unstable
When you are going through adversity, your emotions will not always be reliable. Some days you will feel strong. Other days, you will feel like a raccoon in a trench coat pretending to function. That is why structure matters.
Structure gives you something to lean on when motivation disappears. This can be a workout plan, a morning routine, a meal plan, therapy appointments, weekly check-ins, or a simple daily list of non-negotiables.
When I started training consistently, it gave my life structure at a time when everything felt uncertain. The workouts were not just workouts. They were appointments with the version of me I was trying to become.
Ask yourself, "What structure can I create so I do not have to rely on motivation?"
7. Turn the lesson into purpose
The final stage of alchemy is not just healing for yourself. It is allowing what you have learned to impact how you show up in the world. What started as my personal fitness journey eventually became my career. I began sharing what I was learning online. I started helping other women build confidence, discipline, self-trust, and strength. Over time, that turned into my coaching business.
The thing that once made me feel powerless became the reason I now help other women reclaim their power. That is alchemy. You take the lesson, the growth, the resilience, and the wisdom to build something meaningful.
Ask yourself, "How can what I have been through make me more compassionate, more disciplined, more honest, more powerful, or more useful to others?"
The real lesson
Turning pain into power is not about pretending your hardship was a blessing. It is not about rushing your healing, forcing positivity, or acting like everything is fine when it is not.
It is about choosing not to abandon yourself. It is about finding one thing you can control. It is about building evidence that you are capable of change. It is about creating structure when your emotions feel chaotic. It is about taking the lesson and letting it shape you instead of harden you.
We do not always choose what happens to us. But we do have a say in what we create from it.
That is the art of alchemy, taking life’s heaviest moments and turning them into something meaningful. Taking pain and turning it into power.
Ready to rebuild?
What began as my own journey to take my power back eventually became my purpose. Today, through my Strong Mind, Strong Body coaching program, I help women build sustainable fitness habits, create structure, develop confidence, rebuild self-trust, and become the strongest version of themselves physically and mentally.
This is not just about workouts and nutrition. It is about becoming the woman who follows through, keeps promises to herself, and stops waiting for the perfect moment to change her life.
If you are ready to stop feeling stuck and start rebuilding, apply for coaching today.
Follow me on Instagram for more info!
Kenza Tounakti, Online Fitness Coach
Kenza Tounakti is an online fitness coach, Exercise Science graduate, and founder of Strong Mind, Strong Body Coaching. After experiencing firsthand how fitness can transform not only the body but also confidence, mindset, and quality of life, she made it her mission to help women create lasting change through sustainable habits rather than extremes. Through science-based fitness, nutrition, and personal development, she empowers women to build strong bodies, resilient minds, and lives they genuinely love. Her work focuses on body recomposition, behavior change, and helping people realize they are capable of far more than they think.
