INTERVIEW WITH YOLANDA NAVA, Author of Through the Dark
By Thelma T. Reyna
REYNA: You are an international award-winning author, an Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalist, a community advocate and change-maker, a world-renowned motivational speaker, etc. You were at the top of your career in August 2009 when you were diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and became totally blind. At that time, what did you think was going on and why?
NAVA: I didn’t have a clue. I had been experiencing a series of sinus and ear infections and saw a rheumatologist who found no indication of disease in my blood work. When I lost sight in the right eye, I could still read with the other. I have always been a poster child for health and figured the loss of sight in one eye would return as mysteriously as it disappeared. But three and a half weeks later, I quickly lost sight in my left eye, over a three-day period. After this, I went back to the neurologist’s office and saw a different doctor and underwent two days of testing in the hospital. Again, nothing showed up.
Thankfully, a lifelong friend came to see me at home in New Mexico. She immediately saw how critically ill I was, and we traveled together back to her home in Los Angeles. She took me to St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica and saved my life! The doctors didn’t give up until they arrived at a diagnosis and began treatment. Looking back, I understood I had been given early clues to my condition but did not pay attention. I was too committed to the challenges of my work at the time. One of the reasons I wrote this book was to help others avoid their own ‘blind’ spots, and to help people move through their own traumatic, cataclysmic, life-changing crises.
REYNA: Both your doctor’s and your own assessment of how you reacted as you lay near death in the hospital are similar: you didn’t panic, lose hope, or manifest any emotional trauma. You were, in fact, eerily calm. Describe how you reacted and why.
NAVA: I have always had a strong belief in God. Throughout my life, I have faced difficult emotional and physical challenges and drawn upon my “spiritual tools,” as they have come to be called. I discovered in my 30’s that my life is a spiritual journey. When my friend took me to the hospital, I was close to death, as I was later told. Yet, in the hospital when after one week, there still were no medical answers, I confidently told the doctor, “I see light at the end of the tunnel. I am whole, well, sighted.” That surprised the doctor. I did not know the seriousness of my body’s condition. Yet, my spirit was strong.
My experience has taught me that my belief system, my level of spiritual understanding, the way I pray, affirms that which I want to manifest. Wellness is really a state of mind, like everything is. Is the glass half full or half empty? I believe the glass is refillable. As I was writing Through the Dark, I realized that everything that challenges us is there to teach us something. Rather than fighting and resisting the circumstances, I asked myself, “Why blindness? To what am I blind?” And then I delved deeper into my spiritual practice to find the answers.
REYNA: Throughout the book you describe scenes in nature, which you love, or artwork, in terms of “seeing” these things. You acknowledge your “inner eye.” Tell us about this in relation to your physical loss of sight.
NAVA: I am grateful to have had not only physical sight, but vision throughout my life. We think we see with physical eyes; however, we see with the mind! We are taught to see things in a certain way due to our experiences, societal beliefs, cultural beliefs, and biases. I have seen much as a woman and journalist…the good, the bad, the ugly. That observant point of view has served me well. And I know that what is seen depends upon the point of view of the observer. During my last weeks with sight, I was absorbing it all with tremendous gratitude. I guess on one level– but certainly not consciously– I knew it would soon be gone.
We are much more than flesh, blood and bones. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. We have more potential and possibility no matter who we are or the circumstances we are experiencing. Our thoughts today shape our reality tomorrow. We cannot be hateful, angry, lacking in forgiveness, bitter or a bully and expect to be happy.
REYNA: You mention at one point how willingly you accepted help from others as your life changed, and how surprising it is when people needing help don’t ask, or don’t accept it. Does our society, or we as individualists, need to revisit vulnerability, helping, and accepting help?
NAVA: Yes. Kindness and compassion are to be expanded and appreciated. They are not signs of weakness, rather qualities of character and inner strength. We as a nation have become too narcissistic and materialistic. The strong man is idolized. Even Latinos uphold the ‘up-by-the-bootstraps’ philosophy, thinking, ‘I got mine, now you get yours’ that is so popular here in the U.S. Where is the empathy and compassion? Where is the ability to walk in another’s moccasins?
My mamá was extremely stoic. The independent training program for the blind that I attended taught students to reject help. However, for me as a successful woman, my growth was not to reject help, but to be able to accept it. There is a beautiful story by poet Gary Soto in my book of Latino virtues, It’s All in the Frijoles. Soto is offered a dollar for a bus ride home by a Mexican woman seeing his need. He rejects the money, which he said in retrospect was wrong, as it did not allow the woman to complete her gracious gesture. It is all about giving and receiving. That is what compassion and love are about.
REYNA: “Visualization,” the ability to practically “see” something that isn’t physically present, has been described as helpful in many aspects of life. Has visualization been a big factor in your life, before and after your loss of sight? How?
NAVA: Yes, I have used elements of visualization both before and after the blindness. However, visualization is only part of the process of bringing into reality that which we want to manifest. There are several steps to manifest that which is desired. Beyond visualization is spiritually affirmative prayer or spiritual mind treatment, in which one learns how to heal a condition or manifest what is desired through a system of practice that can be learned. Simply put, thoughts are things, and what we think is what we get. We get what we pay attention to, which is why it is so important to think good thoughts and focus on what is truly desired, rather than identifying with the negativity of circumstances. Everything is possible. This is what Quantum physics is teaching us, and it all validates ancient and contemporary spirituality.
REYNA: Your parents’ Mexican cultural roots included rituals and beliefs that affected your healing journey spanning generations. Tell us what these traditions were and how they influenced you.
NAVA: Both my parents were born in Chihuahua, Mexico and came to this country separately during the 1920s, when a mass exodus of people migrated al norte following the Mexican Revolution. My parents met at the LA Central Library, where my father wooed her by reciting poetry. My father taught me joie de vivre, and cultivated in me a deep intellectual curiosity, and pride in my Mexican roots. “You come from good stock, Yo.” He introduced me to Don Quixote and The Revolt of the Masses by Jose Ortega y Gasset when I was 16 years old. He wrote for La Opinion and published a magazine called “Los Mexicanos Somos Así” and was involved in California politics. My parents divorced when I was 8 years old, but my father remained in the periphery of my life for many years.
While mamá only had an eighth-grade education when she came to this country, she pursued her diploma and citizenship when I was in high school. At 35 she had already begun her own spiritual quest. She saw her role of parent as one of inculcating me with a deep faith in God, as well as the virtues I wrote about years later in my book It’s All In the Frijoles. My spiritual foundation came from her. Her role models were Mary Baker Eddy, her spiritual mentor; and Eva Peron, whom she admired as a woman who sought justice for the poor people of Argentina. Their photographs hung on her bedroom wall. My mamá modeled spirituality, las virtudes, feminism, and activism for me.
Growing up, I played the organ in Sunday School, (in a church founded by a woman ), that allowed me to take in spiritual food, in the lyrics that were so healing. Recalling those words and music were what nourished me back to health when I was in the hospital in 2009. The daily spiritual messages spoken each morning over the loudspeaker, my visit to the hospital chapel as well as my own self-nurturing prayers and songs I sung to myself, all contributed to my healing process. Drawing from all these spiritual tools saved my life, along with damn good medicine! The belief in something greater than ourselves has been part of our history in Spain, Europe and the Americas for centuries. To deny either our indigenous or Spanish/European heritage is to deny our full personhood.
REYNA: Any other experiences, in school or elsewhere, that imbued your life with greater understanding of your cultural traditions?
NAVA: When I was 20 years old, my mother took me to meet my cousins in Mexico City. As soon as we arrived at my great aunt’s home and dropped our suitcases in the guest room, my older cousin took us to the Museo de Anthropología, the pyramids at Tenochtitlan, Bellas Artes, the Franz Mayer Library, and other cultural sites. It was a life-changing experience! I came back wondering why I had not been taught about my rich cultural heritage and traditions in school? And why were Mexican-Americans considered inferior/less than other Americans? The negative stereotypes about Mexicans here in the U.S. have always existed but are worse now since 2015.
During this time period, I was a graduate student at UCLA studying U.S. History with a prominent Latino scholar. I read The Labyrinth of Solitude, and North from Mexico, and many other books that have inspired me throughout my professional life. At home, I became fascinated by Día de los Muertos and began to create an ofrenda, even though it was not part of our family traditions. In gathering together the items and preparing the favorite foods for my parents, I felt a magical presence in my living room. The cantaloupe-colored walls literally glowed from the feeling of love in that room.
Once, while staying with a friend in Mexico, I was taken to a curandera. I later experienced a powerful connection with La Virgen de Guadalupe, whom I consider a symbol of empowerment, compassion, and love. When sitting in a pew at the Church of the Virgen in the historic section of town, I felt light pouring into my body as I meditated in the pew. I have become deeply aware of the spiritual mysteries inherent within our culture.
REYNA: Toward the end of your book you ask, “To what am I blind?” You write, “It took the blindness to wake me up and to enable me to see more clearly.” Please explain.
NAVA: Early on in my blindness, I began asking questions of myself. I received the clear answer: “You need to develop a daily spiritual practice.” I think about the Scriptural passage, “Keep on asking, and it will be given you; keep on seeking, and you will find; keep on knocking, and it will be open to you.” The answer is often provided to me. This is not automatic…we can train ourselves to ask for and to receive wisdom and guidance. I have been in ongoing conversation with God much of my life. And in the moments of silence in my meditation practice, I receive answers. I have learned it is important not to go into “poor me, why me?” but rather to ask: What am I to learn from this experience?”
As you read my book, Through the Darkness, you can see the transitions I was experiencing after my loss of sight. I became even more led by intuition. Which is of course our higher self. I have long been using a dialogue process I learned from Ira Progoff, Ph.D., founder of Dialogue House in New York. He was a wonderful and wise teacher, rather like a Jewish Buddha sitting in his chair. One night I sat on the floor at his feet, and asked, “What am I supposed to do with my life?” I was looking for easy answers, but I did not receive a pat answer. “Your life will take you where it will take you; kicking or screaming, it will take you there,” Dr. Progoff replied. That thought has helped me to understand and accept all that has happened.
My blindness and the near-death experience while in the hospital were truly transformative. When we lose a major sense, and when we experience any kind of pain or loss, there is a form of death. Some are renewed and resurrected into a new life; others never move out of the grief, blame, or self-pity. We can be continually born anew; or, to look at it differently, we can learn to die to the old and grow into a new way of being. It is a choice. Asking the questions of our higher Self is important. For my life, as I discovered all those decades ago, is a spiritual journey.
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Interview copyright 2022 by Dr. Thelma Reyna.