People often want you to be ONE thing that is easy for them to understand. I have often envied people who identify as one thing and get their satisfaction and fulfilment from one source.
But what if you are more than one thing? What if you are and do and love a combination of things? What if you are a Paradox? John Paul Lederach invites us to become curious about paradox. In his book The Moral Imagination he says, “Paradoxical curiosity seeks something beyond what is visible, something that holds apparently contradictory and even violently opposed social energies together”
This is certainly true of conflict transformation. But it is also true of self-realization and self-acceptance. Sometimes the decision is not to pare down or choose between different aspects of ourselves or even competing views or feelings. Sometimes the task is to embrace the whole and become the collage you were meant to be.
At one point in my theatre career I was struggling with finding a creative home. I went to a coach with this problem. I told her, “I don’t know whether I should remain part of the “downtown” Avant Garde experimental theatre that raised me as an artist or if I should move into a more mainstream theatrical arena.” I asked the coach if I should choose one community to become known clearly as a particular type of artist. “Also” I wondered aloud, “I don’t know if I should identify myself as an actor or a playwright because people seem to have trouble seeing me as both”. I had recently been speaking to an actor who was appearing in one of my plays in New York. He had gone to an audition and was speaking to the director who happened to be a colleague of mine who I hadn’t seen in several years. He told the director he was doing my play and the director said. “no she’s not a playwright, she’s an actor” and then proceeded to argue with the actor saying: “one cannot be two things.” I asked the coach if I had to brand myself with one thing or the other to avoid professional confusion. She had a thick New York accent.
“ You know what your problem is?” she asked me. Before I could answer her question, she answered it herself. “You are trying to be a planet!” I cocked my head inquisitively. She went on. “You are floating around in the night sky trying to find a solar system where you belong. News flash. You don’t belong anywhere. You are not a planet.” Huh? She grinned. “You are a sun. Go find a spot of sky and do your own thing. Shine. The planets will come sooner or later. They will orbit around. Just be a sun.”
I found that very interesting. I began to use the symbol of the sun as a reminder that I could be my own artist, my own person.
My career unfolded in various ways. I became a therapist, a scholar, an activist, while all the time maintaining my theatre practice at the center of everything.
I ended up back in that coach’s office. I implored her to define me. “I am caught between four things.” I confessed to her. “I want to be a healer, an educator, an activist and a theatre maker. Is that possible” she looked at me for a minute. “Healer. Educator. Activist. Theatre Artist.” She said slowly. “Yes” I nodded shyly. “That spells HEAT.” She said. And she had no more to say on the subject.
The H.E.A.T. Collective became the name of my company with the sun as the logo.
I see every challenge/experience always in four ways with four questions: How do I Heal this (myself and others), How do I Educate (myself and others) about this so I/we can learn?, How do I take Action around this (for myself and others), How do I create something from this (using my Theatre skills as jumping off place).
So understanding and celebrating the collage of me becomes useful in accepting the ways I interact with the world and helps me be more effective.
You do not have to fit into an already established diagram. You do not have to be a planet.
You can be an all original you. Even if the version of you that is most authentic is hyphenated. Even if you are more than one thing, more than one kind of person, if you want more than one career, or more than one costume.
You can be a collage of all the things you believe in and adore.
Meditation: What is the Venn diagram of the true you?