I thought of sharing a touching story about the first poem I wrote with the hope of inspiring, enlightening and reaching more people. I joined HitRecord (an open online community for creative collaboration) last December 2019 because I wanted to try something new, fun and easy.
Being new to the site, I browsed swiftly and saw a simple illustration of a shaded person and five other unshaded people with the caption :
Who holds the greater power?
The challenge was to write a tiny story about it.
My thoughts were like “Oh okay, I can do that” and zoomed into writing about light, shadow and hero relating to Carl Jung’s theory. I just simply wrote few words about it with the thought that the five unshaded people were inviting the shaded one to come with them into the light.
Then few days later, the Community Director thought it’s an optimistic piece and it would be really cool to hear it be read aloud by voice actors. I’m like, so this is how the platform works and told myself “Oh, I can do that”. I just followed simple steps that were provided so I was able to launch it as a script for a voice acting challenge.
Numerous contributions came in, awesome voice recordings, so many versions delivered like comic super heroes or like someone giving you an advice or like someone reading you a fairy tale story. I really had a wonderful time listening to each and every one of them, hearing the words come alive and hearing people saying how beautiful of a poem it was. I never really thought of myself as a writer or poet but surely being seen and ackowledged like that made me feel like I am one.
https://hitrecord.org/challenges/4081355
But what touched me the most was a different type of recording from a very sweet young lady sharing her vulnerability side. She was grateful to have seen and read it.
In her words before reading the poem:
“Something funny about this is that I was laying in bed, thinking of how much I don’t want to be here anymore… like a lot of 20 year- olds, I got on twitter and saw this little challenge. Didn’t think much of it until I read it and uhmmm…I really needed to hear it”.
A silver lining.
Read the poem below.
Each one of us has light and shadow.
The light is what we love about ourselves… while the shadow somehow remains unloved and unwanted.
Since the shadow is also a part of who we are, what we are made of and what challenges us – we must embrace it.
To love every part of us, be grateful of the lessons, we then bring the shadow into the light.
We then become heroes!
Who has greater power, you asked?
It’s the hero who brings light to others!
– Jaz
My heart melted hearing her cracking voice but still I’m very proud of her recording. A clear understanding that in that moment, what she was going through at that time, all she needed was to take that little challenge, take her mind off from something not serving her and to be brave enough to simply just try.
The challenges we face everyday, big or small are there for a reason. Behind those challenges are lessons of healing, growth and new found knowledge about ourselves and possibly about others.
This taught me a great lesson as well about how powerful words really are – affirmations of gratitude, faith, love and self- compassion and what we share online definitely can have an impact on people. I am grateful to be a part of a community that thrives on adding value to the world. Thank you ThriveGlobal for this opportunity.
Be inspired, get creative and share this optimistic piece.
If you want to know and explore more of your artistic side, feel free to join HitRecord as well and I’ll be there to welcome you.