beauty, suffering, and mental health
You were meant to create beauty, but the pursuit of beauty will break you. It will break you open to feel more than you ever have. This sensitivity will allow you to appreciate beauty like never before. Your capacity for beauty will multiply in intensity, in breadth, and reach. None of that, however, is for you to worry about. The knowledge of the potential of this process won't make the process a reality. Rather you must participate and acutely feel the pain to be transformed. In the transformation and in the heartbreak - greater than you've ever known - you will be transformed. It's the transformation that you've always wanted and that the world so desperately needs but the journey that is never happily or anticipatorily chosen. There's nothing wrong with you, this is part of the journey.
Lead with grace. Be kind. It's always the way.
Today, for me, this looks like overtly greeting people with kindness while walking my dog. Even more clearly stated, this looks like intentionally making eye contact, smiling even though they can't see my mouth, waving (even if across the street from me), and looking to say hello, if appropriate (no awkward sneak attack hellos). Internally, it looks like sending positive intentions to that person, a.k.a blessing them, with each interaction seeking to build a more loving and caring community, to take the opportunity to let that person be seen even in that fleeting moment. I can tell you the return of this practice, that I had on my neighborhood walks, early in the pandemic, bore fruit in my spirit immediately. Without intention and effort, I found myself seeing the beauty around me and reconnecting to my flora fix practice. I was noticing the flowing cactus, considering the beautiful long-stemmed unusual cross between succulent and bush that I had never seen before, the camera was out and I was lingering in their presence.
I feel much better, in the moment, after a health a mental health appointment today - my first time seeing a psychologist. I felt seen. I felt cared for. And I was given the promise of ongoing care, if even for a short time. Prior to my appointment, I didn't know if I needed it, but I was willing to follow my primary care provider's recommendation. I was open. Now, immediately after the appointment, on a pre-planned processing walk, which also served to give my dog exercise, I feel renewed and grateful. As I wrap up my walk, with a view overlooking LA dodgers stadium and parking lot which is currently the largest COVID-19 testing site in the nation, I feel hope - yes, even in the darkness I feel hope. I choose hope because I am reminded that things can change and we can care for one another. Today I felt the weight of my broken heart for how humanity has treated each other during these pandemic times and chosen personal interest over community good. I had hoped for so much more as this pandemic began. I thought this would jettison us into not just better hand hygiene and less disease transmission, but greater concern and action for the well-being of others, that is, greater love - the love that God invites us into. But self-actualization and community thriving does not come about solely by jettisoning act. The jettison from prior ways of existing is related to the necessary disorder that comes from change and the breakdown of prior ways of living. The jettison doesn't make us learn; it gives us the opportunity to learn.
My withholding kindness to others because of their actions that I deem unloving and hurtful does not advance the transformation, but rather serves to regress me into patterns that do not bring life, for me or others around me. I am so thankful for the care of another healthcare provider today, who took the time and energy to see me and get to know me. Her brief reflections on my vulnerable sharing helped me make it past some blocks that had arisen in my ability to access the healthy habits I described above.
My cultural upbringing - American, Evangelical Christian, academic - taught me self-reliance and autonomy, but I learned today again, and in a deeper way, that we are better together. I am not broken for needing help of other people and neither are you. I am not alone. You are not alone. We need each other. We can do this. We can do hard things.
Thanks for reading.
Love, Elle
