And then Life was Beautiful—Healing is Freedom: The Jewel is in the Lotus

In bell hooks’ incredible book, All About Love, she cites the work of Paul Tillich and his assertion that the first responsibility of love is to listen: “We cannot learn to communicate deeply until we learn to listen, to each other, but also to ourselves and to God. Devotional silence is a powerful tool for the healing of a heart or the healing of a nation. . . . From there we move up to the next rung on the ladder of healing: our capacity to so communicate our authentic truth as to heal and be healed by its power.”

I have spent a great deal of time over the past several months going inward to listen to my heart and its pain. I am finally beginning to transition to the next rung on the ladder of my healing journey: communication of my authentic truth. I am experiencing its power to heal and hence set me free.

This week, I had probably one of the most amazing weeks I have had since the pandemic and my personal calamity struck. From a spiritual freedom standpoint, this might be the best week I have ever had. Given everything that I’ve been dealing with, the serenity mixed with jubilant energy in my spirit has been inexplicably wonderful. I feel happy. I feel excited. I feel hopeful. I feel optimistic. I feel at peace. I feel brilliant. I’ve been productive. I have endured the absolute worst, soul-crushing year of my life, but I am now experiencing what Marianne Williamson defines as a miracle. “A miracle is a shift in perception from fear to love—from a belief in what is not real, to faith in that which is. That shift in perception changes everything.”

Truthfully, if you had told me I would feel this way a month or two ago, I wouldn’t have believed you. At that point, I was still struggling with so much pain because there were so many hidden factors crippling my healing process. At that time, I had a conversation with one of my dear sister-friends about how I felt like I didn’t even have the capacity to be happy anymore. It just felt like there were too many things weighing me down for me to even conceive that I could feel happy again. I felt broken in a way that could not be fixed. I saw no path to complete recovery.

And yet today, here I am, a living and breathing miracle. I am practically bursting with good energy, focus, and creativity. I actually wrote down ideas for five books yesterday! I spent nine hours straight today fleshing out the concept for one of them. This is a sharp 180 considering that productivity has been an uphill battle during my struggle with grief and depression. Plus, since I first aspired to write a book in 2014, I’ve been kicking the proverbial can down the road. Part of my challenge with composing a sufficient book proposal and subsequently obtaining a book deal was the fact that I didn’t think I was a good enough writer. I had started working with a literary agent in late 2017, but she basically “broke up” with me in 2018 after several rounds of unsuccessful attempts to revise my proposal.

Ultimately, she said that part of the issue was I’m compelling and engaging as a speaker, but I wasn’t translating that to my writing. My authentic voice was missing. Also, because I’m a PhD-level scientist, she felt there was nothing in my writing that conveyed expertise. So, there was a disconnect between who I am in real life and who I was coming across as on the page (or so they said). It was very deflating when my agent ultimately gave up on me. My dream was deferred. Admittedly, I’ve harbored mild bitterness because I felt like they were holding me to a different standard than the white girl self-help gurus. But, maybe that’s not entirely a bad thing, because I am capable of more, producing work that better reflects my level of intellectual rigor. I think this delay-but-not-denial outcome was actually in my best interest because the books I would have written four years ago would have been night and day different from what I will write now. I done been through some thangs…Life shonuff ain’t been no crystal stair! These growing pains are making me a better, more empathetic human being, which will strengthen my work as a writer (and future NYT best selling author—Amen and Ashe!).

In a bit of cruel synchronicity, all of the heaviness and pain of the past year+ is what has prompted me to even want to explore writing again. Around the New Year, I started recording voice memos so I could release through my words all the things that were weighing me down. I needed to speak my way to freedom. The first one I recorded was inspired by a guided meditation I’d done on forgiveness. I was so touched by the exercise and the power I felt in speaking aloud the things I was freeing myself from. It was so empowering. From that verbal expression, I felt like I needed to make it a written word, a binding agreement. Once I discovered a method to make this process more efficient (thank God for voice transcription tools!), I had no idea how revitalizing this exercise would be. My intention has been singular yet profound: to speak and write my authentic truth in such a way that it bore the power to heal myself and others.

According to Rumi, the wound is the place where the light enters you. As much as I would have preferred to not have to endure immense grief and trauma, I’m grateful for the opportunity I now have to transmute the darkness of the wounds into light. One of my newfound favorite mantras is Om Mani Padme Hum, a beloved Buddhist mantra commonly translated as, “The jewel is in the lotus.” I learned of this mantra through a guided meditation that referenced it in a parable about a father teaching his son the importance of perspective and gratitude. In the story, there were a series of events that on the surface level could be perceived as bad or good. An unfortunate situation would inadvertently give rise to a positive outcome, which would then result in another adverse circumstance. Yet, the father’s response in each scenario was the same, “Who can say what is bad or good. In all things give thanks.”

This is such an incredible approach to life, to commit to gratitude amid the continuous alternation between good and bad…fortune and misfortune…blessings and burdens. In gospel singer Marvin Sapp’s song I Thank You For It All, he sings, “I thank You for my tears, the pain helped me overcome my fears.” He has such an incredible story and testimony. Those moving lyrics are drawn from his authentic truth and they came at an immensely high cost. None of us would ever willingly choose the challenges that we encounter in the journey of our souls. But, “the jewel is in the lotus” and our altruistic task as we grapple with the painful elements of the human experience is to become enlightened and a conduit of compassion and love.

Then, and only then, will life become beautiful.