Have you ever been paralyzed by the loss of a loved one?

In November last year, a very close friend of mine passed away. It was a sudden and unexpected departure that left me paralyzed and shocked. My friend was the kind of friend that I knew I could always share some of my deepest thoughts and feelings. I knew they would remain there stored in her heart infinitely.

It was a friendship where we both felt seen and heard in each other’s presence. It was a friendship where I was always encouraged to continuously keep experimenting and creating my art.

Several months ago, I experienced some of the most intense anxiety attacks that I had in years. I was in shock and didn’t know why all of these intense and deeply uncomfortable feelings were emerging...

And it came to me then…It was fear!

Fear that emerged from a fragmented past and shattered memories. The fear of losing my friends, fear of losing my family and the fear of losing people that I love due to death or war or large physical distances.

I started realizing that my soul was calling me to release this pain, to release the fear, to untangle my trauma and allow myself to grieve the loss of loved ones in order to heal. These feelings I was too uncomfortable to face all these years in their total depth, and discomfort were finally surfacing.

I then recalled a conversation that I had with a dear friend of mine, in a local bar in Mumbai, who told me (which I will rephrase here) about the importance of sharing personal stories and communicating my own narratives. My friend was reminding me that this was exactly what I teach to my wonderful students on the power of sharing personal narratives and how to translate those narratives while using creative language.

I realized how important what my friend was saying to me. I couldn’t agree more.

This marked the beginning of a creative process that has been evolving ever since with sharing personal narratives and fragments of life that I’ve been going through and that many other people experience too.

I started the organization World Community Connect (my soul sister Sonia has been my big inspiration to start this journey) to serve communities around the world with the idea of sharing stories, stories that we lived or stories that we are currently living. The stories that matter to us, but never having the chance to share them.

The whole period of experiencing loss, anxiety, loneliness, and grieving opened the gate for healing, creating, and putting the pieces and fragments of these experiences into paintings and other visual narratives.

I will keep sharing this piece by piece while revealing the ways this creative work has been profoundly changing my entire life.