Najwa Zebian

Maybe you are too understanding. Stay that way. Empathy is a super power.

(For books that take an in-depth look at trauma, read Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Peter A. Levine and Ann Frederick, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk, What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing by Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD, and Oprah Winfrey, and The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture by Gabor Maté, MD.)

You were my home
for so long.
Now I realize that humans
cannot
be homes.
If homes can leave,
then they are not
homes.

This is what I’ve decided for myself. But I need some time to align my mind with my body. So, right now, I’m in between making the decision and executing the decision.

I really don’t want to have Crohn’s. But I have it. And that’s a fact I literally cannot change. If it were up to me, I would erase it from my body, but I don’t have that kind of power. What I have power over is figuring out what the best way to nourish my body is given the situation it’s in and do my best to give it what it needs.

Isolation becomes a natural part of your healing journey because you know that you are experiencing it as a result of a choice you made for yourself, a choice that brings you closer to the life you want.

I've never wanted roses
to resist wilting
more than I do now.
That's how I know
that I want this love
to last.

My heart aches in
corners
I did not know
existed.

They do everything to
dim
your light,
and then they ask you why
you’re not shining.

You are just growing and blossoming into the world, and that scares those who want to keep you a certain way to feel better about themselves. Maybe they define their goodness as people or their being enough as people by the controlled image they have of you. The only way for you to not get that resistance is to stay stagnant and small without growing, and to live by the conditions that they’ve decided are the limits of who you can be to deserve their acceptance and approval.

One of the beautiful things about getting to know yourself is realizing all the places where you’ve been trying really hard to feel welcomed and the people who don’t truly see or accept you as you are.

The feeling of home is the feeling of I’m together with myself. This togetherness includes all the elements of your being. In order for you to achieve this togetherness, the foundation of your home is the most important part, because it necessitates your self-acceptance and self-awareness.

For the to see you shine, you must stay far way, for you are like the sun; when you’re too close, your light make them blind. And when you’re too far, they seek you. So let them seek you. They’re getting your light regardless, but appreciating your presence is different from recognizing your existence. If they don’t appreciate your presence, they may never recognize your absence.

The mistake most of us make is that we build our homes in other people in the hope that they will deem us worthy of being welcomed inside. We feel so abandoned and empty when people leave, because we’ve invested so much of ourselves in them.

Self-love is loving yourself exactly as you’d love the person you love the most. And that love actually feels like love and looks like meeting your own needs.