Briefly, tell us who you are and your current season.
My name is Nikole Lim, and I’m the executive director of Freely in Hope – equipping survivors to lead in ending the cycle of sexual violence. I’m a writer, speaker, and educator on restorative storytelling and survivor-leadership models.
What does wholeness currently look like for you? Are their self-care or spiritual practices that you use to pursue wholeness?
Wholeness looks like the art of kintsuge – broken pieces of pottery that are mended together with pure gold. This image reminds me to accept the way things are within myself, while also moving toward the woman I am becoming, for she can be both broken and whole at the same time. Contemplative prayer in silence, stillness, and solitude allows me to pursue wholeness by practicing consenting to the presence of God, as the gold bonding agent, allowing God to do in me what I am unable to do in myself.
How did you get back to or maintain wholeness during a tough season?
Finding peace within silence, listening to the inner voice within – knowing that experiences of pain are not just deepening my ability to feel but also expanding my capacity for joy. In the same way, despair expands our ability to find hope, and brokenness expands our recognition of beauty. Where there is suffering, there is also an invitation to love.
What advice would you give women who desire to fight for wholeness but are overwhelmed by the demands from personal and professional responsibilities, or the expectations of others?
Overcoming our false identity and the lies that control us – as Henri Nouwen describes – ”I am what I do, I am what I have, I am what others say about me.” Countering these lies perpetuated by our ego allows us to move closer to who we truly are – beloved of God. Reject the inherent, but false belief that you are not enough. I believe that women hold all power within.
Nikole Lim is a speaker, educator, and consultant on leveraging dignity through the restorative art of storytelling. Nikole shifts paradigms on how stories are told by platforming voices of the oppressed—sharing stories of beauty arising out of seemingly broken situations. Her heart beats for young women whose voices are silenced by oppression and desires to see every person realize the transformative power of their own story. As our Founder and International Director, Nikole has been deeply transformed by the powerful, tenacious, and awe-inspiring examples of survivors. Their audacious dreams have informed her philosophy for a survivor-led approach to community transformation.
Nikole graduated with a degree in Film Production from Loyola Marymount University and is currently pursuing a masters in Global Leadership from Fuller Theological Seminary. She is a native of the Bay Area and can often be found buying African fabric on the streets of Nairobi. Her vision is to equip survivors and advocates to lead in ending the cycle of sexual violence—believing that they will be the ones to bring us all into liberation. In it, her hope is that the world may be transformed by them—just as she has.
