There is often in people to whom “the worst” has happened an almost transcendent freedom, for they have faced “the worst” and survived it. ~ Carol Pearson
Like me, you’ve probably seen numerous people going about daily life from the seat of a wheel chair, or the back of a 4-legged walker. I always felt badly for them. I imagined what it must be like to be them…but I just imagined.
Until, almost two years ago, I fell and broke my leg. In my 50s, I had to learn how to maneuver my less than athletic, not-so-young body about on crutches. And as if that wasn’t challenge enough, I had to do it in a house that has more stairs than…well, than you can shake a crutch at. To get from bedroom to bathroom required stairs. To get from bedroom to living room, dining room and kitchen meant more stairs. To go into my studio or the family room…yep, more stairs. To go out and get in the car, more stairs.
As I struggled up and down those steps, sometimes on crutches, sometimes on my butt, I kept thinking, “What must it be like for someone who has to deal with this month after month without an end in sight?”
One day, after I recovered, I drove to see a friend. As I turned down her street, an older person with a walker retrieved her mail from the mail box and turned to cross the street in front of me. As I watched her walk up her drive, pace by slow pace with her walker, I knew the effort that required. And, I didn’t feel badly for her…I admired her, for her strength and her ability to keep moving forward in spite of what Life threw at her.
And suddenly I realized—adversity breaks open the heart to compassion, a compassion born of empathy not sympathy.
Sympathy has to do with feeling the same feeling. Empathy is the ability to fully identify with another, to enter their state of mind. Been there, done that.
As we’ve watched those affected by the hurricane struggle first to survive and then to pick up the pieces of their lives and move forward, it is easy to stay at the level of sympathy. But, if we’ve lost loved ones, experienced serious illness, suffered through major trauma of one kind or another, then we have the opportunity to let our hearts break open to compassion. To fully identify with the state of mind that many are going through.
What does that have to do with creativity?
Well, the first is that if we let our hearts be broken open to compassion, to an identification with the survival stories occurring daily from the effects of the storm, then we can use all our creative resources to discover ways to assist and support.
Secondly, we can refer to our own survival stories to look for ways to be fully present for the suffering and the struggle of others. Sometimes the best gift we can give is to bear witness to the survival story, and often times more than once.
Thirdly, we can bring this awareness of the survival story to our creative work. For example, as writers, remembering that everyone has a survival story will help you create 3-dimensional characters, even your villains.
Finally, remembering your own survival story will help you be a little more compassionate to yourself—when you fail to get the client, or make the sale, or meet a deadline, or sell the book.
Being human means being challenged to survive—mentally, emotionally, spiritually or physically.
Sooner or later, each of us experiences our own survival story. What’s yours?