Diversity and the Freedom of Being Fully Seen

My life has been lived between the tension of wanting to be myself, while trying to fit in with others. Perhaps you also negotiate this delicate balance. As biological mammals, a degree of conforming to family and culture is crucial for survival. Ideally, one is raised to have both — authenticity and belonging. The two need not compete with each other. However, many of us have had to suppress vital parts of ourselves, in order to belong and survive. Unfortunately, our dominant culture values appearances, and belittles sensitive deviations from the norm. Diversity, however, rests upon the freedom to fully be oneself. Challenging experiences may open or close us toward this liberation.

30 years ago I became frighteningly sick. Emotionally raw and stripped down, my lifeforce mysteriously slipped away. I felt close to death and lacked the basic energy needed to function. It was a formidable task to simply make it through a day. Every doctor held a differing opinion on what was wrong, and none of them helped. Slowly, I managed to save myself. I made a clear decision to live, and align with my deepest values. My survival depended upon being true to myself. Although this experience was the worst that I’d had, it rooted me to my subconscious and an authentic life. My heart opened and my compassion expanded for those who suffer.

Covid-19 offered a similar crack in the continuum. For some, it was an unprecedented opening into an interior life. The first image, with its light and space, emerged on March 29, 2020, several weeks after I lost all my work due to Covid-19. It revealed the secret joy my subconscious felt, at finally having time to devote to healing. When I made it, I was in a state of fear due to lockdown turning my life, all of our lives, inside out and upside down. So its joyful, celebratory expression was not a match for my external reality. It seemed superficial, perhaps even sacrilegious, to celebrate such dire circumstances. However in hindsight, its festive expansion feels undeniably appropriate.

The subconscious (through dreams, body ailments, and art) sows seeds. For decades, tangled roots of healing have been growing invisibly within me. Finally, as I publicly expose my work, an intrepid plant vines out into the world and opens like a prayer. Although I feel relieved to be visible, I am unprepared however, for the degree of judgment that my art and writing encounter. Memories of all the past times that I have been shamed into invisibility, clamor to the surface. But now rejection offers a quiet healing opportunity. I lean into grief with compassion. I persevere with being seen.

When meditating, my consciousness expands into spacious freedom. From this perspective, life feels okay just as it is, even with all of its unsavory contradiction. Nothing needs fixing. This meditative freedom allows all things to belong and simply be. I want this spacious ease to integrate with my emotional turmoil — not bypass or repress it. Wholeness is experienced in the reconciliation of polarity. I recognize that turmoil and ease are actually two facets of the same thing. Both may be simultaneously held and integrated. The balancing of these kinds of co-existing opposites is a path of integrity and invaluable work.

As I grapple with living and writing about these issues, a new drawing emerges. The image reveals internalized growth reaching out, while light and color penetrate into the layered shadows of grief and rejection. To my amazement, the new drawing fits like a lost half to the other. Together, they reveal a meditative sky, with a prayer vine opening over a brightly tangled inner landscape. The unexpected healing of this unified imagery, fills my heart with hope. Through the courage of vulnerability, an unconditional freedom to be ourselves and embody diversity, penetrates into the physical reality of our lives. We live our lives whole.

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