Lucy Verde Roze

“I had to laugh at myself ironically when Ilan asked if anything bad had ever happened to me, if I’d like to share my story on his beautiful Windows to the Soul portrait series.

Sharing my story is a huge privilege, so of course my answer was “yes, thank you so much.”

The question of bad things happening is a matter of perspective.

There are dozens of points of trauma throughout my life, hence my reaction to laugh, with so many aspects I could choose to focus on.

I could look at my childhood – my mother’s suicide and surrounding events, our exodus from Zimbabwe’s dictatorship, then culture shock and struggles of integration into a Western society.

I could talk about being raped, losing myself to drugs and alcohol, or PTSD from front-line activism. Just the conditioning of this world and feeling so alien led me to depression, bulimia and suicidal thoughts.

But the most challenging is that my life has been riddled with narcissists doing their best to get their claws into me.

For two years, one young lady did all she could to twist and steal absolutely everything from me.

She tried to keep me separated from unconditional love with my partner, to take for herself the ways I look, my ideas, my activism, the words I use, even my mannerisms. She tried to completely suppress my life’s purpose, Paradise Rizing Studios, and our incredible movement of artists.

It felt like she was trying to kill me but if I had died, she would have lost one of her favourite toys to play with.

The funny thing is, her attempts have led to massive soul evolution for myself, time and space for love with my love to heal, deepen, strengthen and mature, and a phenomenal global artist movement growing up to bring us together.

So how could I hate her? How could I hold anger towards her when my future has been created out of this darkness?

My heart has been blasted so wide open I am deeply grateful to her for her incessant attempts to break my soul.

It has actually manifested my ultimate dream reality and surrounded us in the most profound unconditional love imaginable.

I truly wish her nothing but peace.”