You have heard, no doubt, of the spirit or the soul. Religions claim that each person has one. In life I was not a pious person. I did not see an indication that God was merciful; if there was such a God, and who wants to pray to an unkind God? If you are familiar with the story of my life, you know that from the time I was a sickly child with polio, only one mercy was shown to me. And that one favor was greater than every pain that I suffered. One could say that this one gift was equal to or greater than my many tragedies. But as in everything, it depends on how you look at it.
If I were to list my misfortunes, they would stack up like this: As a young girl, I contracted polio, which left me with a weak and withered leg so that I limped and could not run as the other children did. Then, as a teenager, I was the victim of a trolley accident. I was crossing the street when a trolley collided with a horse and carriage, and somehow, a metal rail from the trolley impaled me. It pierced my uterus, making me unable to bear children, and it nearly cost me my life. Worse, it caused irreparable damage to my spine so that I endured chronic pain and surgeries that were unsuccessful. I wore body braces, which kept my spine erect, but at that time doctors did not know how to repair me. Due to the chronic pain, which became my closest friend, I chain-smoked. I became an alcoholic and was addicted to pain medication.
If my medical troubles were not enough, there was no greater misfortune than my undying love for my ex-husband, Diego. Family and friends could not see the him that I saw; they saw only the shell, which was an obese, average-looking fellow with sad eyes under a tuft of curly black hair. He was a muralist, and for some reason he glimpsed my potential as an artist. He encouraged me to develop my skills in drawing and painting. Having a famous painter see something in me worth praising was all the fuel I needed. Had he not taken me under his wing and introduced me to his group of friends and colleagues, I would have been alone in my misery. But art gave me a method to express my innermost longings. Every person needs an outlet to communicate their inner world because when so much angst is contained within the body, without a healthy outlet of expression, it can turn into an illness. It manifests as cancer, arthritis, or some other chronic disease. I am not blaming all disease on repressed feelings, but I am saying that denial sometimes expresses itself as illness.
Diego was both the worst and the best thing that happened to me. I felt loved unconditionally and seen by him. I also felt rejected and forgotten. How is it possible for the same person to inspire deep feelings, both positive and negative? As a result of our on-again, off-again relationship, we married and divorced twice. Subsequently, we concurred that maintaining a friendship was the most appropriate course of action, yet I never ceased to love him. That unreciprocated love ultimately manifested in substance abuse and even self-reproach. I blamed myself for driving him away, for he was by nature a little bird, while I was a cuckoo bird (that is a joke). I was a force of nature; I had to be to survive polio, the accident, surgeries, miscarriages, and heartbreak. One becomes strong by way of diversity.
Now that I have recounted my life as Frida, I want to tell you who I am today. The ironic thing is, though I am no longer in a body and now am only what you would call a spirit, I am still an irreligious person. Although I have changed my position on God. There is an afterlife; I am proof of that. And there is a spirit world. But I do not ascribe to any way of worship. I do not keep a traditional routine of worship, for my very existence, my being, is that Thing. How can I be a part of that Thing and not be worshipful? My being is contained in it, and I am made of it. A soul is like a cloud. Clouds are separate but part of the sky, like ocean waves are part of the ocean. In the hereafter, worship is not something you do or where you go, like a temple. It is localized. In every breath I exalt my Maker. For the soul is part of the creation, which is immaterial. It can exist in many different dimensions and planets. It is composed of light and energy; you are a lightwave but so slow in vibration as to appear in solid form. I am vibrating at a higher speed so you cannot perceive me, just as when the blades of a fan whirl so fast that you cannot see the blades anymore. We are both in motion, but at different speeds. What is important to know about the soul is that you are in it, but for now, you are also the body. When you die, you will leave the heavy, useless body behind like an old, ugly shell, and you will be born again. You will be weightless and made of light. You do not realize the burden of a body until you are free of it. You carry a boulder-like ball and chain during earthly life, and when relieved of it, Oh, what a relief!
You will have at least two new faculties after death. And don't be sad when you hear of your death; it's the best part of life. Slogging through the mortal cesspool is what saddens you, for death is a truly celebratory occasion. Your two new powers will be teleportation and telepathy. Imagine thinking it and immediately being wherever you want to go. Or having a wordless conversation. You will eliminate the inconveniences of a material body. Given these advantages, there is nowhere you cannot explore, and nobody will not talk to you! You will remember your life on earth and shudder or marvel at the trials you endured. Your loved ones on earth will lament and grieve your passing, while for you it is a wondrous miracle of freedom, especially for a person like me who suffered.
It is said that God never gives you so much adversity that you cannot handle it. I do not know who said that, but they could not be more wrong. The truth is, some people have so much piled on them that they break under the weight of it. Those people needed to be broken. You may think, "That is not a very kind thing to say." But it is true. Earthly life is for getting rid of the ego, for humbling oneself, and for learning to make better choices. If someone has a strong sense of will, what is called the ego, it must be confronted, or else they will never submit. It is like breaking a wild horse. It will go on running forever, never being of use to anyone unless it is broken. And what is being broken? It is a willingness to submit to a higher authority. But you say, "Maybe the horse wants its freedom." What if it wants to go its own way? Then it is having a very good tim running here and there while some poor cowboy walks. There is an order in the universe. Depending upon your position within that divine order, you may need to be broken. I am not saying it is easy to be broken. That horse will fight the handler—kick, buck, and bite. But eventually, no matter how vigorously it resists, it will realize it too has a job to do. Its resistance will be transformed into acceptance, and it will become an asset instead of a liability. By the end of my life, I was broken. It is not an easy or a pretty process. It will seem unfair, even brutal. But I was a strong-willed horse. It took a lot of pressure, but by the end I was praying and had made my peace with God. I was not angry anymore; I was accepting. I accepted that Diego could not handle a wild horse like me. It did not make me bad, nor was he; we were mismatched, but I did not want to accept that fact. And I saw that so much of my suffering I myself had caused! Had I gracefully let go of him, I could have enjoyed more peace.
If you are still in the process of being broken, it will not be pleasant. It will seem unwarranted and unjust. It will seem that God must hate you, for He has no sympathy. Truthfully, those who are loved are chastised. Otherwise, God is a bad parent to let you get away with the sins that have bound you. Good parents give you a slap on the head when you are acting the fool. Isn't this true? When life is rebuilding you, when it hurts very bad, it is intelligent to ask yourself, "Have I done anything to contribute to this problem?" Then you can learn from it. You see, your soul will migrate from one body to the next in its effort to evolve. The system of soul development is just as the Eastern religions tell it. You have many chances to grow. But now you are weathering this harsh life, suffering many troubling circumstances, so it is impossible to feel hopeful or happy about the path you are on. And God understands this. And who is God, anyway? That is the ultimate puzzle, and you will not solve it until after you pass from this life, when you will be reminded that God is all, in everyone and everything, and God is love. This is who God is and what God is, and most importantly, who and what you are.
You may not feel loving. You will experience negative emotions that all humans endure. You will be happy for a day, and the next day that jubilation evaporates like it never happened. This is the way of emotions; they are passing fancies. If you wait it out, things always seem to improve. This is because, like the weather that changes from night into day, there is always a sunrise. Life is cyclical, as are emotions. The older you get, the greater your patience and tolerance become. This is because you have seen that life's miseries come and go. You gain perspective and long-suffering. When you are hard-pressed on every side, the lemon juice flows out, and you will act in less than loving ways. It does not mean you are not part of God, which is love. It means that in the moment you are under pressure. But ultimately, your soul will find its way back to love. That is a true and very lovely statement. In this life you will be the grouchiest, the meanest, and the toughest. But in the next life you will choose to be sweet, kind, and tender. You think in terms of one life to live but the cycle is much bigger than that. So, when you are having a bad day, year, or life, it is not the end of the story. It is only a chapter. If you could title your life, what would you title it? I would have titled mine: The Two Fridas, which is the name of one of my paintings. It illustrated that there were two of me. One was a conventional Mexican female, while her twin was the inner me who was in pain. There are two sides to everybody, remember that.
If you, like me, are an unfortunate soul, there is still a purpose for you and your story. It may seem impossible that any good ending can come of your disappointments, but try not to despair. There is plenty of time to turn things around. The problem is, it looks like you are running out of time and must solve all of your problems, while in truth you have an inexhaustable catch of lives. Do not be fooled by a sense of false urgency. Realize that most of your problems are with other people and cannot be resolved successfully as you would like. You cannot control how others respond. The pressure you feel to resolve "unfinished busines" is social or familal pressure resulting from guilt, regret, or resentments. You must accept that many relationships will not be repaired as you would like. So much is outside of your control. And yet, the most time and effort is spent trying to win. If you knew how much is out of your control you would worry so much less. You are laboring under a set of "rules" that are not even factual.
My parting thought is this: misfortune may not be the worst of your troubles, for at least it tells you that you are being corrected, transformed into an ever-stronger soul. The worst that can happen is to get everything your way all of the time. Then you would have an easy life full of wealth and health, but would not improve. You would learn nothing and waste your time. You would wish at the end that you had developed and grown and wonder what it was all about. That would be the worst case. I hope this has given you food for thought. Life is not good unless you are developing and growing. If you plant a seed and it never grows, was it successful? Because it did not attain its potential, it is a waste. Don't be that kind of plant.
With Love,
Frida
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