Take Your Broken Heart And Turn It Into Art

” Take your broken heart and turn it into art. ” This was the phrase with which Meryl Streep culminated her wonderful and resounding speech when she collected her well-deserved Golden Globe in 2017. It was just over a minute where words became art and where each fragment was like a revulsive pill that filled us of admiration.

We do not want to talk here about the true purpose of that speech or its addressee. It did not take long for Donald Trump to pick up the witness of the message to publish a response. A replica that, as might be expected due to the character’s trajectory, did not live up to the moral and affective quality of our veteran actress.

For our part, we want to delve into the final touch of his speech; in that phrase that, as an epilogue, perfectly captures a principle of self-improvement and absolute personal growth:  “Take your broken heart and turn it into art.” This phrase was  actually advice Carrie Fisher gave Meryl Streep a long time ago.

Not everyone knew that behind the image of Princess Leia was actually a brave woman, a true warrior who had faced addictions, bipolar disorder and a continuous struggle to gain a foothold as a screenwriter in Hollywood. Carrie Fisher became aware of something that had also been taught to her by her mother, the exceptional actress and also recently deceased Debbie Reynolds.

Art, whatever its form and channel of expression, is a wonderful way to release emotions, to heal broken hearts. And not only that. Art also dignifies us as people by allowing us to give the best of ourselves to share it with others.

We suggest you reflect on it.

Art as catharsis, art as expression and beauty

The objective of Meryl Streep’s speech was to delve into the crisis of values ​​in which a country lives in which, on the part of a certain establishment, is forgetting a very specific aspect. Art is not just entertainment. Art is culture, it is the magic of diversity, of freedom and a means to build a legacy of inspiration and common learning.

Art is also therapy. We all have more than one movie and one book in mind that came to us at the precise moment, at the moment most needed. However, many of us are not only passive recipients of the art world, some of us also make use of it as a means of expression, as a catharsis and as a magnificent instrument to give voice to our emotions, to expand our freedom and in turn, reach to others.

Active art, the artistic exercise that is practiced with the hands or the body, is healing. An example, illustrative as well as endearing, we could see in the movie ” Where love resides” (1995). In this choral film where the lives of several women are explained to us, one of them had a very specific custom. Every time she felt a disappointment, that she was betrayed or when sadness hugged her heart, she broke a glass, a cup or a plate.

Later, he would carefully pick up every broken bit of those glass or pottery and glue them to a wall. Over the years he realized that he had created quite a work worthy of admiration. In that multicolored, chaotic and diverse wall, the broken pieces of his heart were actually hidden, turned into art.

Art as empathy

Let’s go back to Meryl Streep’s speech. In his words he reminded us once again how the world of art and empathy are related in a wonderful way. In fact, if there is a dimension that pumps strongly in the heart of every person linked to the artistic world, be it interpretation, music, poetry, painting or writing, it is undoubtedly empathy.

For this reason, Meryl Streep did not hesitate to declare “that her heart had been broken” when she saw how the president of the United States made fun of the New York Times journalist, Serge Kovaleski, who suffered from motor deficiencies due to a congenital disease.

Actually, behind that, there is something that does not go unnoticed. . We cannot ignore that in the business context the words “empathy” and “Emotional Intelligence” are now labeled under the term “innovation “. That is to say, they are dimensions unknown and until not long ago they were useless and completely unproductive.

To conclude, in view of the fact that we are destined to live some strange, complex and very contradictory times, we cannot forget these wonderful and comforting channels that the art world offers us. They are a means of expression as well as connection with our emotions and those of others.

Art makes us human and, in turn, creates extraordinary people. Like Meryl Streep herself.

We leave you with his speech.