A Conversation with Lucy
Lucy from London has been practising Iyengar yoga for about 15 years and finds her personal refuge on the mat above all else. Like me, this is her first time to India and we are relishing the yoga in this quaint town of Rajpur.
During our first conversation, I'd learned very quickly that Lucy has done some amazing work in her life that only a few fine souls have experienced or have the strength and courage to. It inspired me to ask her for an opportunity for another conversation so that I may share a bit of her story here.
Lucy found herself one day over a decade ago in front of a Congolese woman refugee at the hospital she worked at in the early days of her career as a nurse in London. She became friends with this woman in the weeks that Lucy cared for her, who had apparently been tortured in her homeland for helping a couple of men get out from the hospital in which she was a staff at herself. At the dismissal of the Congolese woman on a cold winter day of January from the hospital in London to some refugee agency without much regard, Lucy collected some of her own clothing for the woman who had only a light african shawl to keep her warm. My very watered down retelling of her story is how Lucy got started working with terrorized victims of gross human rights violations, the escapees. It inspired her to research, understand and work in the world of torture and other human rights violations, including human trafficking and violence against women. She spent some time working in war-torn northern Uganda at one point.
One of Lucy's most touching recollection of encounters with her patient was of a woman who had been trafficked into the sex industry. This woman, who had grown up in an abusive family setting, after many years of therapy, began to find hope for her own future, whilst also expressing a profound form of compassion, or sorrow, for many of those who had abused her throughout her life. Not that these abuses can be justified or forgiven, but in a process of personal and spiritual growth, this woman explained her sorrow that people had themselves been harmed so badly as to perpetrate the extreme abuse that she had endured. It is in debt and gratitude to many, many people like these two women that Lucy says she has grown and from whom she has learned from so much in life, the meaning of it and one's dis/position on this earth, no matter how brief. In her own words, Lucy maintains that one's true humanity cannot be destroyed and she has been repeatedly given the gift of hope from her clients as they re-engage in life, in relationships with people and consequently with their own humanity. Namaste x
No comments:
Post a Comment