Friday Kahlo faced a host of traumas in her life. She had polio as a child. When she was 18 Frida was engaged in pre-med studies and expecting to be a medical doctor. That year, on her way home in a commuter bus, the bus was hit by a trolley car going full speed. Frida was impaled by a metal rod through her abdomen; had a shattered pelvis; serious fractures to her clavicle, shoulder, and ankle; and worst of all, terrible, life-long injuries to her spine. She spent many long months in a body cast in great pain. To combat the pain, boredom, and loneliness she began to draw. Mostly she drew self-portraits in a mirror, which over time grew in quality. Her life-long career as an artist was launched. Her notoriety was greatly enhanced by her marriage to Diego Rivera, Mexico’s most famous painter and muralist. They had a turbulent relationship marked by domestic violence and cheating. Eventually they divorced and later remarried. Nothing held Friday back. She evolved into a famous artist in her own right both as an oil painter and through spectacularly colorful decorations of her own dresses, corsets, braces, and silk shirts. After the assassination of Leon Trotsky by Stalin’s men, Friday was brutally interrogated by and traumatized by the Mexican police. No matter what happened to her Frida kept going, kept creating, and kept captivating the public. Her example proves just how determined, resilient, and resourceful people can be. Friday was someone who embraced life and allowed it to touch her and teach her. She responded to what life brought her in highly creative, inventive, and surprising ways. A great example of this occurred when she met the horticulturist Luther Burbank in Santa Rosa, CA. By then Burbank had created many new types of fruits, vegetables, plants, flowers, grains, and grasses through crossbreeding. Frida was so amazed by Burbank’s successes with crossbreeding that she did a portrait of him growing out of a tree with the roots shown. Afterward there came an explosion of surrealistic paintings fusing people, especially herself, with the botanical world. As a therapist I am often asked by clients “how can I find my passion, purpose or meaning in life?” I think Friday shows the way and it is based on being open, receptive, and responsive to what life brings.