From Where Do You Draw Your Strength?

Phenomenon of the Image

Drawing of two hands holding the pieces of a heart broke open with light shining through and forth. Ink and art crayon on mixed media art journaling paper. Created on June 2, 2020, in San Diego, California.

I Work on Something, Something Works in Me

Three days after a protest turned into a riot in my back yard, one day after the federal government deployed military troops on peaceful protesters, and hours after my mother-in-law passed away, I met (virtually) with two colleagues for our weekly Person-Centered Expressive Arts session.

Thank goodness for that session already being scheduled, because I definitely had a lot of feels to process. So many feels that my heart could no longer contain them. I joined our gathering with tears streaming down my face and my heart broke open.

Something Comes Into Being

With tremendous tenderness, our facilitator invited us to ponder this question for our 90 minutes together:

From where do you draw your strength?

My strength? Am I strong right now? I wondered this to myself as I sat in meditation.

I don’t feel strong, I thought, as I invited my body to gently and gingerly move about the space.

And yet, maybe I actually was strong. I kept having these flashes of an image in my mind, of a heart broke open, spilling forth light.

I Come to Know Something

There is strength in brokenness like there is strength in a wounded healer. Is that strength in how we put our pieces back together, like a broken bowl made stronger and more beautiful through the golden repair of Kintsugi? No. This strength I am sensing comes from not being put back together, not being tidied up, but in the state of being broke open and being present for what is released.

Something Becomes Seen

I sit down to express myself through drawing, and I see the pieces of my heart broke open emerge. Not a pretty, perfect, red heart, but a heart with blues and purples, a true heart. The hands that hold the pieces do not hold tightly or try to put the pieces back together. Rather, they hold the pieces with gentleness and compassion, just enough structure and support for them to be safe. The light that spills forth, explodes forth…where did so much light come from? How did it all fit inside of that heart? Because that light is now free, the heart broke open is at peace…even in its brokenness.

I See Myself