Category: Identity

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”

Kahlil Gibran

Let’s talk about art and suffering. The archetype of the tortured artist has probably existed for as long as art itself. The idea that a person’s pain accelerates their artistic potential, or makes their art more significant, is one that seems to persist in creative communities. In some contexts, this could be taken to mean that broken hearts are the ones with more to say, with deeper truths to communicate or a sharper perspective on the depths of life. In more toxic places, though, this could mean pain being seen as a qualifier, a gatekeeper that has to be crossed in order to become a true artist. The suffering artist mentality leads to a comparison between hardships and close scrutiny of the quality and quantity of people’s pain. Does the amount of hardships you face determine how real an artist you are, or the importance of what you have to say? 

I grew up in a household where there was a lot of trauma and therefore, I experienced my fair share of pain and struggle. We ALL experience pain, but I believe the amount we are given is the right amount to help us towards our ultimate happiness. I have been given many gifts of struggle and pain. I’ve experienced family trauma, deaths in my family, heart breaks and heart aches. I’ve experienced abuse, both mental and physical and I, like many others was the target of sexual misconduct in many forms. I was a caregiver to both my parents at times during their cancer journeys, I had a fiancé who tried to commit suicide, I had a friend who tragically actually did commit suicide. And I was diagnosed with chronic illness in my forties after years of struggling in pain and confusion from the lack of diagnosis. I’ve lost many loving and innocent animal companions along the way. And at one point, I found out I couldn’t have children because of a medical condition I have. So, as you can see, it’s been quite a journey. But it is a journey I wouldn’t trade for anything.

Along my own journey, I have also met others who have also survived things I can’t even imagine, endured hardships that when listening to their stories, bring tears to my eyes. I have been honored to hear their stories and be inspired by their courage and strength amidst their hardships. This is the human condition. Life is this beautiful experience that gives us character and helps us make choices towards our own happiness and the journey is a life long one and often filled with struggle. But that is not a bad thing ultimately.

We all go through experiences that tear us up, that break us, that hold us back or put us on the ground. All of us face pain, both seen and unseen, that is specific to us. Nobody is ever qualified to judge or measure another person’s suffering. The struggles we go through can widen our perspective, bring us empathy for others and deepen our knowledge about ourselves, but it would be a mistake to assume that pain is any sort of final, immovable state for us. 

Let’s look at that quote again. “The most massive characters are seared with scars.”

Gibran doesn’t say the most massive characters are seared with wounds. The body produces scars from healing, from patching up that which has been damaged with brand new tissue. Over time it puts itself back together again, a bit different than before, but together nonetheless. A new normal. 

It’s not that pain doesn’t have meaning to us. Of course it does. But there is also meaning in the time we spend and the actions we take in the pain that ultimately lead to healing. There is beauty and strength in the act of taking that suffering and moving past it or moving in spite of it, building something out of it and over it. There is a gift in everything. The scar is the gift of healing, the reminder of trials we’ve overcome and lessons we’ve learned. Healing is a type of growth after all.

Nobody who lives any sort of life can expect to escape completely uninjured. There will be aches that each of us faces; pain in our lives is as inevitable as the sunrise. Each of us will be scarred in some way or another- we can let those scars define us and be all we are, or we can let them exist as reminders that serve a greater purpose. As we move through life older, wiser, and more worn we can also hope to grow more thoughtful, compassionate, and self aware. A scar can be an opportunity to connect with others who have been through the same fights as you, a reminder to support someone whose wounds are a little fresher, or a call to reach out and meet those whose greatest hurts are still ahead of them. 

Pain is a part of life, but so is healing. The universe holds room for both because both are important. There is value in pain for what it teaches us, but there is value also in rebuilding. If we value the archetype of the tortured artist can we not also lift up artists striving for healing, strength and recovery who fill their work with the effort and bravery of the process?

What would it mean to be able to hold our hurts a little looser, see their value as a part in our life but use it to build something beyond it? What would it mean to see our scars not as reminders of past failures, betrayals or low points but as proof of what we’ve overcome?

When I was young, I had a condition that made it difficult for me to speak in a normal register. I would often speak in either a high pitched tone or a low, frog-like voice, and it took time for me to learn how to adjust the way that I spoke so that others could understand. Having to work to be understood granted me a lot of the empathy and compassion I carry with me today; struggling to find my own voice afforded me a deep connection to others with the same struggle. I think this is why I have such a strong bond with animals— our relationships with animals show that there are forms of understanding that are deeper than speech.

I grew up on a wildlife preserve and I still remember the nights I spent on my roof underneath the stars in the company of my family’s two cats. I found them to be such a comfortable presence; we had a gentle understanding that didn’t need words. My connection with them taught me that communication can exist in terms far broader than we sometimes think. This is a lesson I carried with me as I began dancing, and studied movement as communication in college: that our interactions are about so much more than tone and syntax, that sensing and awareness are both fundamental to true understanding. That I could form connections with others that had nothing to do with spoken words.

My journey as a young dancer was one of self-discovery. Much like I had learned to calibrate my vocal tone over time, I started to explore channels of expression in movement and sense. I learned to gain a deeper sense for everything around me and make choices about how I wanted to interact with the world. At the same time I had to learn balance and strength, to hold onto my new voice even when I faced opposition. Being a woman in the entertainment business taught me that I had to believe in myself and nurture my own voice, honor my values and convictions even when it was challenging. That my voice has been tested again and again only makes it so much stronger and more precious to me, and encourages me to continue to exercise it.

Once we start building a voice for ourselves, there’s a dance to learning how to use it. We start to reflect on what we want to say and how we want to say it. We learn that unique frequency that belongs only to us and start to see the beauty and importance in that, and just as importantly, we learn to shape and refine it. It’s taken time to learn that not everything needs to be said, that I can choose to hold some thoughts in not from fear or low esteem but because some thoughts are just for me.

Over the past years I’ve been blessed with a platform, an outlet that amplifies my voice and connects me to people who will listen to it. With this increased visibility comes an increase in responsibility. I now have more of a voice than that little girl in Honolulu ever dreamed possible, but that also means that how I use that voice has become so much more crucial, and that the words I choose require immense care.

I’ve been fortunate to find so many connections with people all over the country, all over the world, who recognize a part of themselves in the stories I tell and want to share a bit of themselves with me. This is the heart of the Carrie Ann Conversations. I share my experiences, even the more challenging ones, with the world, hoping that it helps someone out there feel less alone and access a truth beyond what they’re able to see right now. It’s a way to use my voice and be honest about what I’ve been through, both the good and the bad, in the hopes that it will make it easier for others to do the same.

I think it’s also important to acknowledge that finding our voices is a constant process. We experience new things every day, all of us are constantly growing and shifting, and as we transform, our truth transforms along with us. That’s why there’s such value in continuing the conversation, across months and years and decades, helping us gain a broader perspective on the truths that guide us.

Be both gentle and bold with your voice, and use them accordingly. And listen to your heart, for she will never fail you.

As another season of Dancing With The Stars (“DWTS”) begins, and as I prepare to set foot in the ballroom and take my seat at the judges’ panel, I take a moment to center myself and to check in with where I am mentally, and emotionally.  

I truly feel that it is an honor to be a judge on this show, to be given a voice and a tremendous platform to speak from. Such an opportunity is not something I take for granted.  Being a judge on DWTS has given me a voice and an opportunity to speak about so many things: to share my thoughts on dance, movement, and performance; to impart to competitors and audiences all that I know about dance and performing (drawing from over 30 years of my own career); and to offer my own, personal beliefs on topics I find essential to living our best lives, including ‘motivation’, ‘connection’, ‘passion’, ‘failures’, and ‘love’, to name just a few.   While I recognize DWTS is a dance competition, with dancing and competing at its heart, DWTS is also a slice of life.  The moments of competitors training, the moments of the performances, the moments of our commentary, these are also precious moments of life, not to be wasted.  After all, each and every moment of life matters. 

Just starting my career as a young dancer 1989

1987: Me and Mari Yoshimura Host of Your No Hit Studio DX on Fuji TV

In my late 20’s, I had finished touring the world with Madonna as a professional dancer, and I soon began working in reality television, choreographing and staging reality shows as the genre found its way into television. With all that I was doing at that time and everything I had accomplished on tour, I felt like I was ready to do something outside the world of show business.  I felt an impulse and a desire to return to school and finish my college education –Getting my college degree was cut short first by my career as a recording artist in Japan, and later again once I became a Fly Girl on “In Living Color: The Television Series”.

I had gone to school at Sophia International University in Tokyo for a few years, but I was juggling professional duties as a recording artist at the same time as attending school, and found the pressure to be too great so, and I choose to leave my education to focus on my career full-time.  Years later, I attended UC Irvine working toward a degree as a choreography major while also driving to Los Angeles every day to take professional dance classes. 

The Original Fly Girls of In Living Color With Shawn Wayans.

On Tour with Madonna 1993, The Girlie Show

Once again, something had to give, so I choose to let go of school, and move to Los Angeles to pursue my career as a dancer.  After years of working in television and advancing my career, I found that I really wanted to finish my college education and get my degree.  I applied to UCLA and was accepted into their World Arts and Cultures Program.  This program is a fascinating field of study focusing on dance and cultural studies, and revealing how dance, art, and cultural expression works in real life.  While the syllabus explains it differently, and I believe the major has changed throughout the years, for me the program allowed me to study and explore how dance and movement worked in real life and in cultures throughout the world.  How people use it to tell their stories, keep their cultural histories vibrant … how people and cultures use it to deal with grief, and to find connection… all by way of dance and movement, and how movement heals and connects us with each other and connects us to ourselves.  I also studied ethnographic filmmaking within this program, and I completely immersed myself into cultural studies with movement and art as the lens through which I viewed the world I was studying.  Who knew that one day I would become a judge on DWTS. 🙂

So why bring all of this up, the stops and starts with my college studies?  I bring this up not to share my educational background, but rather because I experienced a monumental moment when I returned to school. On the first day of school – I was so excited to finally be a Bruin –  I sat in large lecture hall surrounded by much younger college students. The professor walked up to the podium and began shouting. “ You better F#$%$ing know what are you are going to say!”. The room went silent.  We were all shocked.  I had never had a professor use profanity before.  I was shocked. I remember almost wanting to laugh because I was so uncomfortable.  You know how sometimes when something shocks you, you have an inappropriate reaction?  Well, I wanted to laugh, and giggle, out of sheer confusion. But he didn’t stop.  He kept on yelling at us.  And as his face became more and more red with passion and growing intensity, nearly as red as a tomato, and his body language became more and more intense, we all realized we needed to listen.  

This professor shouted at us for the entire lecture.  We all had walked into that first day of class bright eyed, full of excitement, joyful and feeling good… probably feeling a little entitled, even.  But instead of filling us up with congratulations for being there, this professor was making sure to give us not what we wanted, and not what  we thought we should get from a college class, but he was giving us what we needed to wake us up. When I left that lecture, I was changed.  I realized that this college journey was no joke and I had to figure some things out. And I do believe now, that that day helped shape me into the on-camera person that I am.  And I will forever be grateful for the professor’s passion and his courage to wake us all up. 

What my professor said to a room full of mostly freshmen college students, went something like this (paraphrasing, as this moment was almost two decades ago): You all better know how lucky you are. How fortunate you are to be where you are right now, sitting in this class, getting a college education here at this institution. And because of that, you better figure out what the %&#! you want to say in this world because you will have a voice; you will be one of the ones we will see on the news, who will have a voice. You will be running a company or a small business, or you will be a manager of a project. You will be someone who will have a platform and will be listened to. People will listen to you and so you better figure out what it is you are going to say when that moment comes because there are many people who won’t have that opportunity. There are so many people in the world of whom, they will ever ask their opinion (even if they have a good one). But you, your voice will be heard… so you better figure out what it is you are going to do with that voice and what you are going to stand for.

I will never forget the impact this professor had on me.  He basically slapped me silly with his words of caution. But that idea of “silly” soon transformed into a “knowing” that has shaped the way I look at every opportunity that I am offered to speak or to share my opinion in a public way.  So, as I head into my 27th season sitting in the judge’s chair behind that desk at DWTS, doing something which I thoroughly love, being given the opportunity to share my knowledge and my philosophies, I think back to the moment with my UCLA professor yelling at us to wake us up.  And I smile.  

However, this time I am smiling not out of awkwardness, but out of joy and a special sort of glee knowing that he has become a part of the way I have affected people for the past 27 seasons on Dancing With The Stars … and on the various other shows I have been on, where I have been fortunate to have been given the opportunity to share my voice.  The opportunity of a platform where I am heard.  And the opportunity to affect change on some scale, large or small, however my words may find their way into the world as encouragement and support. 

Thank you Professor.   

Thank you for helping me to find, to claim, and to define my own voice in this world. I hope I have made you proud.