My Brand New Look Blog & Finally Learning to Believe in Myself

So, here we are! My first post on my brand new look blog which, let’s be real, has been a bloody long time coming.

As far back as I can remember, I have always been an avid writer – particularly writing to express my emotions. Whenever I felt sad or confused or frustrated, as well as those times where I felt joy and happiness, I always wrote about it, even as a small, curly-haired little sprog. In my primary school days, I used to write poetry for my family, friends and teachers and gift it to them like it was the most amazing thing in the world, some of who still have theirs (Yes Holly, I’m looking at you!). And then I would have my diary – probably one of my most treasured possessions as a child growing up. I kept a diary from my early years of primary school up until the age of 16, when a family member decided to rifle through one and all hell broke loose… but that’s a story for another day.

I guess I lost writing for myself for a while after that, although I actively threw myself into my English language A Level. All throughout those years of doing something just because it was just as natural to me as breathing, it never occurred to me that writing for myself, expressing my opinion and feelings and sharing my stories with the world, was something I could build a career out of. Of course, I’m from that really special generation that lived a childhood free from the internet, mobile phones and digital media, yet just as I was transitioning from a child into a young adult, the internet was being born. This meant that growing up, blogging and vlogging were careers that just didn’t exist, and I guess I was always a bit lost as a very academic yet creative young person. I didn’t know where or how I could do all the things I loved to do and I really didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life.

Anyway, let’s fast-forward to around 2007/2008, during my college days aged 17 and 18. I began to use the Facebook ‘notes’ feature (bloody hell, do you remember those days!!!) to begin to share some old poetry and bits and pieces I had lying around. Then I discovered that people were beginning to share their writing on something called a ‘blog thingymajig’ so I had to get myself one of those. So I did, and I began to write and share my innermost thoughts and feelings with the Internet. Of course, I never stuck at it and I can’t really explain why – I guess I just didn’t take it or myself seriously.

Fast-forward again to 2010 and 2011 and my whole world kind of fell apart, in different ways in each of the corresponding years. During this time, while I was healing, I began to work in the British Asian media industry writing for other people’s blogs and helping to make their dreams become a reality rather than my own. I also started a YouTube channel at the same time, vlogging my life and adventures within the scene, but still, I didn’t really take it seriously. The same with my henna artistry business, which I was doing alongside all of this while also studying for my law degree. I never realised that these things I was doing while having the time of my life, could be something I could turn into a career, so I would do them on and off, on and off.

Let’s move forward to 2013, which I entered absolutely loving life. I had finally realised that the route I wanted to take career-wise in life was journalism, to help make a positive change in the world, so while studying for the final year of my law degree, I was actively applying to journalism trainee schemes and production training programs. But then, aged 24, I unexpectedly fell pregnant and I didn’t realise just how much my life was about to drastically change. I sat my final exams while being 6 months pregnant and any plans or ideas I had for the future, were gone. A baby was coming and I knew that being a mother would have to take complete priority in my life.

I entered a pretty dark place after having my son in December 2013, 3 weeks before my 25th birthday, (again, a story for another day) and I feel like I completely lost myself, my confidence and all of my hopes and dreams too. I can’t really explain. Last year, 2016, I finally felt like I was discovering myself again; my henna business was doing well and I was blessed enough to be travelling up and down the country; I started my YouTube channel again which was and still is a HUGE goal/dream of mine, and I was writing for newspapers and also here and there for my own blog but then… THEN, I fell pregnant with our daughter and also moved across oceans, from the UK to Mauritius, and I felt like I had lost myself all over again and simultaneously, my dreams had disappeared too.

Now, here I am, sitting at my lovely grey IKEA desk with the fan on full blast because it is BLOODY HOT in Mauritius right now, while my family sleep in the other room, writing my first post on my brand new look blog/website which I have been attempting to have redesigned since 2011 (just ask my old pal Asjad!) and I feel like I am, after allllllll this time, FINALLY in a place where I know who I am and what I want and need to do with my life. And it all starts right here, with you, and me together, on my own little corner of the Internet.

So after all that waffle (if you made it this far, pat yo’self on the back!), I present to you my beautiful, redesigned blog by the amazing Rosie Carter-Suso, that I am absolutely in love with. But at the same time, I present to you a Sabah Ismail that knows what she wants, believes in herself and knows that whatever she dreams or desires can be hers with self-love, self belief, a sprinkling of hard work and commitment – commitment being the main thing I have been lacking all of this time.

In this brand new, clean and happy place, I present to you the writer, artist and journalist that I am, writing regularly about my life, my artwork, the world we live in, things I love and of course sharing with you my personal little random bits of writing which I call poetry. After coming to understand that the universe and everything in it is all one, the focus of my blog is spirituality, consciousness and inner peace and more than anything else, becoming the change that we wish to see in the world.

I am so excited for the continuation of this adventure that started all those years ago, but this time with a girl sitting behind the screen whose mindset is so different to what it used to be. I finally believe in myself and believe that I can do, be and achieve absolutely anything I want to and this right here is step 1. So here we go… Chuck your email address in the ‘subscribe’ box, jump on board and join me for what I know is going to be one heck of a ride!