The Magic of Be Not Afraid of Love
We are enticed, perhaps enchanted, and ready for all that we will be feeling alongside Mimi Zhu.
Reanar James
“In my numbness, I saw the desert within me and what I needed for the long road ahead. My numbness created a home for my difficult emotions to blossom into love and self-forgiveness. My numbness was preparing me for the downpour of rain.
As I stared into the abundant abyss, my body remembered, and my spirit prepared for release. It just needed to make some space before the rain began to pour. My pain was expanding, and it was filling me up. I felt myself expanding too. I was remembering myself.
I began to sob and choke and cry. I was ready for my feeling.”
Before reading Be Not Afraid of Love (2022), I had been an avid follower of Mimi Zhu’s Instagram account for a while – I believe that Mimi is an intrepid writer because of how they intertwine mundane experiences with their thoughts and poetry. Moreover, their infographic art posts are rivetingly informed by their experiences and the essence of who they are. It transformed my ideas of what it meant to be a writer. Zhu’s work is the first contemporary self-help book I’ve read in a while that actually seems to be talking to me. This is something for us, by us. I’d argue that this book is magical in its potential to transform the reader completely; the comforting and all-encompassing tone of this book could persuade anybody, marginalised or otherwise, to be not afraid of love.
Looking at the above excerpt from the first chapter of the book Be Not Afraid of Love, we are immediately pulled into this realm that is, at this point, turbulent and shaky, yet silent. On the outside, this world presents itself as numbness. This quote comes from the chapter of the book called “Numbness”. Mimi Zhu presents their situation to us, along with their initial emotions regarding its complicated nature that implodes on itself and becomes the eventual “desert” we begin with. This seemingly empty and dry place immediately feels inhabitable upon reading, perhaps encouraging a strong urge to call out to them through the page. Having personal experiences with the pain that truthfully resides in numbness, I’d instinctually yearn to save anybody from that desert if I could. This “abundant abyss” that we are presented with seems to be widened by the punchy alliteration of ‘ab-’ while also operatively oxymoronic: “abundant” suggests fullness, an exhaustive multitude of things contained or bursting at the seams, whereas an “abyss” is typically empty, a deeply vacant space. This metaphor exacerbates the entire dance occurring in this excerpt; this vacillation between the many-somethings and the complete-nothings taking place reinforces the struggle to interpret what is really going on within and what numbness truly is.
The “home” the numbness creates is the first tool necessary for repair and inundation, as Mimi Zhu makes clear, and where the rest of the book takes place. Mimi Zhu brings us into this home amid the barren land and whispers until their voice begins to crescendo on its own, bringing in that “downpour of rain”. This “downpour” parallels the “cry” they finally let out – this “sob and choke and cry” are reminiscent of a first drop of rain, the halt before the second, then the few, until the sky explodes into droplets. When we “choke”, it is often a result of a blockage in the airway, something holding the breath back. The weight of this figurative blank obstruction is that same numbness, that “abundant abyss”, enabling a physical restriction in the body, but eventually, the tears tear the blockage out.
This colourful imagery, as well as the journey of breath and life being brought back into the world, potently rekindle and manifest a passage for the reader to be led through to explore the abundance of this abysmal desert we begin with in Be Not Afraid of Love. We are enticed, perhaps enchanted, and “ready” for all that we will be “feeling” alongside Mimi Zhu.
Mimi Zhu’s writing bares the bones of the dominant ideology, how the typical conscience works in relation to one another, and what precipitates as a result. They directly address the collective and their concerns from the heart, then up. Their tone of writing coaxes a sense of genuine safety that is arguably hard to find in a therapist's office through how they use authentic personal anecdotes, poetic imagery and specific research surrounding the topic – or the particular emotion – discussed in each chapter. The breadth given to ordinary emotions is awestriking in the sense that we are not usually guided to feel things in depth in such a manner when we go on these transitory journeys with ourselves or others. The deepest lessons lie in lingering in that desert and seeing what is out there. It is remarkable how the reader immerses and commits themselves to that desert to experience that deluge and learn how to be not afraid of love.
WORKS CITED
Zhu, Mimi. Be Not Afraid of Love: Lessons on Fear, Intimacy and Connection. Hardie Grant Books, 2022.
