But Do I Really Love Myself?
It’s been a really heavy few days. Which is the greatest paradox, because the last week has really been incredible for me career and work-wise. Yet, I don’t know whether it’s the crazy shit that’s going on with the planets at the moment, Mercury still being in retrograde or the fact that my hormones are literally going absolutely mental with my impending period just around the corner – but it’s just been really intense, heavy and emotional, and every circle I am going around in is bringing me back to one thing – the question: do I really, actually love myself?
A few days ago, a work opportunity meant that I was able to spend time with an old friend who I haven’t seen in around 10 years; a stunning woman, not just physically but more so because of her evident growth, her journey and the light that she now exudes, simply because she learnt – over the years since we last saw each other – how to love and accept herself fully. I thought I was doing quite well on my own journey to self-love, but upon seeing her again and spending time with her, the realisation that maybe I still have a whole load of work to do in that area myself, kind of hit me like a tonne of bricks. She is a Muslim woman who is so unapologetically herself in the way that she looks, dresses, speaks and acts, that she actually blew me away. For me, she defines the word ‘liberation’ and I am just so happy to see how far she has come.
A couple of days later, this Sunday just gone actually, I was invited into the BBC Radio London studios with Sunny & Shay to speak about body image and body shaming among women of colour. You can listen back to the interview here, but basically just before the interview ended, Sunny looked at me, and live on air asked me, “What about you, Sabah? Are you happy with yourself and how you look?”
I am a firm believer in ‘no coincidences’ and I truly believe that the Universe sent me these situations, signs and feelings to heal some stuff that I realised quite obviously wasn’t yet healed.
I responded however I responded on air, which was actually a very honest and vulnerable answer, but since Sunny asked me that question, it’s been going round and round in my head. Why am I still not happy with myself, despite having been on this deep and hugely spiritual journey into myself for the last 8 years? Why am I still lacking in the areas of self-worth and self-love? Why am I still so insecure about how I look? Why do I still feel like I shouldn’t take up space, that I’m not good enough, that I am not worthy of being seen or heard?
I don’t know how to answer these questions right now as through my existence, I devote my life to reminding fellow human beings that we are worthy, we are whole, and we are beautiful exactly how we are. After all, how could anything crafted by the Divine hand of God be anything less than this? Yet it goes sooo much deeper than that. Wayyy deeper than that.
I am having to undo years and years of solid conditioning. Undo years of watching Bollywood films and wanting to look just like the heroines that appeared on the screens before me; undo years of family and friends making mindless comments about my weight; undo years of society shoving unattainable body and beauty standards down my throat; undo years of being told that I couldn’t be loved exactly how I was; undo years of shrinking myself, questioning myself and destroying myself; undo years of starving and gorging myself; undo years of feeling like I always had to be the best to be worthy of anything; undo years of settling for less than…
Just. So. Much. To undo.
But I am trying – I am trying so goddamn hard, and I guess that’s all we can do.
I know there is Divine light in me. I know the breath of the Universe is within me. I know I was created perfectly by the most Perfect of all. And I know that with His guidance, His mercy and His love, and with my own desires to become all and everything I can be, that I will find my way and I will get there. And I pray that whoever else holds the desire for the same, will make it there too.
We came from Love. We will return to Love. We can return to Love, right now, in this life, in this very moment.
Loving yourself fully is your divine birthright. It’s this world that stripped it away. Let’s get back to that.🙏🏼✨💛
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