A tunnel

Where am I ? 

I ask myself, slouching on the couch, in the living room of my home.

I ask myself on a bright, peaceful, contemplative morning in Ramadhan. 

Reading on in Judith Herman’s book on the stages of recovery

I wonder where I have reached. 

Questions raised by words like “identity” and “re-integration” and “reconnecting” are stirring my mind. 

I guess I took a break 

But not actually

I took a swerve 

Into the tunnel

It’s like how dr. Sulhi had said to me

It’s a bridge;

Marriage 

You go all the way

Cant u-turn in the middle

The treatment is the crossing 

The treatment is the healthy relationship

Healing is the relationship

That is for people like me with complex PTSD. 

This was back in the days before my wedding, when the fact of committing almost drove me to lose my mind. 

I remember i would cry so hard that little capillaries would burst around my eyes and i walked around with little red dots around them for some time. 

We’ve been married for almost 4 months now

The third month was the hardest

Now i feel more above things

My shame, now acknowledged and seen for what it is

Shame is the disease survivors live with 

Shame of being helpless 

Of never, ever being enough

My compulsion to repeat, as the reason behind my overwhelming sense of paralysis, also seen and named

The nervous system chose to freeze in response to the trauma 

Even when it didn’t get me to safety, it still chooses it to this very day 

Achievements like cooking a meal can be very challenging

My transference (just learned this one right now) and how it’s causing my angry, lashing out reactions with my husband

I expect the worst because of what my past abusive relationships have taught me, and i respond accordingly, regardless of what he actually says or means. 

I become blind with fear. 

And i become blind with anger and self-protectiveness. 

A lot makes more sense

A lot has emerged in a small amount of time 

A lot of growing up to be done in a short time 

It feels now like i am finally seeing some light 

After a prolonged period of darkness 

Darkness and the lack of awareness that you are in the darkness..compounds that sense of helplessness and lost-ness 

It was an insanely difficult month

Alhamdulillah

I write because i forget

When i dont write, it feels like I lose sense of orientation

And I forget why I am the way I am

I forget and thus I dont appreciate how far i’ve come 

I forget how hard it is

To me, forgetting very much means losing sense of my internal, emotional world.

And suddenly i feel like i’m exaggerating 

But then i do art and ha!..i’m faced with what is really going on..

Trauma does this..can we call it dissociation ? 

Maybe

It’s just the difficulty of feeling your feelings

The difficulty of believing that you ARE facing difficulty

As i’ve described before, and as Judith described it, too

Healing is like a spiral

A lot of the times you feel as if you’re back to square one

But it’s always about revisiting what you’ve processed before..with new levels of awareness and with so much better integration 

Today I have these resolutions set

One. To try and find better ways to respond when people shame me or try to “fix” me when they notice that the healing is not “done” and i’m not “forgetting it” or “letting it go”. 

Two. Prolonged childhood trauma deforms and reforms personality. Questions of identity and purpose take time to answer. I will try to be forgiving and gentle with myself for still not setting certain paths in life. 

Three. 

To own my story. To share more. People need to be aware of how long and how complex and how difficult this really is. 

I once asked my therapist..how long will this take 

When will this stop

Am i exaggerating ? 

She gave me a simple answer that i fail yet to comprehend.

She said you’re describing your feelings. No exaggeration fits here. Exaggerations are for external stuff. 

That’s all. 

Myself's Recipe

Truth; Loud and unyielding. Bold and unafraid. 
Righteousness; I shall speak the truth and seek it. The world can do back flips. The world will see. 
Value; What am I investing myself in. What are the reasons behind my thoughts and feelings.
Perseverance; I know what I want, and I'll get it.
Transparency; I am no denier of who I am. And I am not ashamed of my humanity.
Judgements; I left them for God.
Wisdom; If life hurts too much, at least there's a cause for all of it.
Acceptance; God made me beautiful. God created me for a reason. God knows where He put me.
Honesty; Your heart needs discipline. People need reminders.
Sensitivity; Where truthfulness comes from. Where acceptance comes from. Where delight learns to smile in the face of harshness. Beauty and pain coexist, richness and bleakness balance each other.
Delight; Laughter is the cheapest medicine.
Kindness; Love and teach self-love.
Wonder; Joy comes easy.
Ruthless; I will not allow the world to trick me into thinking anything other than the truth when it comes to myself and my life. I will protect my sensitive heart, my purity, my authenticity. Yet to learn not to punish others for not communicating love and for not being as brutally honest as their souls need them to be.
Beauty; Private.

- 2015 draft

A break up

 I see you.

I can feel your bottled tears.

I see the child in you, who learned to swallow down their cries, grew up to be the adult who has swallowed down so much, they’re sick with bitterness.

I hope the all Merciful guides your soul to salvation. I hope the all Merciful teaches you to show mercy towards your own pains.

I hope you cry.

I hope you cry until your chest burns and your throat burns and your eyes burn.

I hope you cry until all your blisters burst and all your open wounds bleed and your heart gets swollen. 

I wish you cathartic sobs and full body shakes.

I wish you would discover how pillows wet with tears sometimes invite the most blissful slumber. 

I wish you wake up with swollen eye lids and a gentle sadness. 

I wish you would finally allow your heart to break, because that’s the only way for it to open, to breathe. 

I wish you light. 

Maybe you’ll laugh genuinely for the first time in ages. 

Maybe your passive aggressiveness will turn into child-like joy. 

Maybe you’ll see why you were so afraid and burdened by your loneliness, why you were so afraid and burdened by the thought of facing yourself..and all this pain.

This gaping wound can, and will, swallow you whole. 

But the only way out, my dear..is through.

In another realm, I would hold your hand. I would let you lean your heavy head on my shoulder, and kiss your teary cheek.

But instead, all I can do  is wish and pray.

I wish you healing with all my heart. 

Running Free.

Written in 2016

I have a story.
I believe I'm not the only one.
I believe we might be all going/gone through this, we might not even realize it.
I've been through a crisis lately.
An emotional crisis, you could say.
You know, before this, when I would hear about people "losing themselves", it sounds nonsense.
But now I know what this means.
I know how it feels.
I swear...it's the worst non-feeling there is to not-feel.
Because I felt nothing

It started with the feeling of wanting to kill parts of me because it felt like they were inadequate.
I did that. I started doing that some long time ago without even knowing.
But lately, it got worse.
The busier I got, the more of me I felt I had to kill.
I wasn't practical I guess.
Cause you know..
It's not practical to be emotional.
It's not practical to feel...feel anything.
It's not practical to stop and respect your pains.
It's not practical to stop and praise your progresses.
It's not practical to stop and reflect your growth.
It's not.
So I thought let's just hide all that till I go home.
Being a medical student this meant...never lol.
So I literally reached a point where I felt...estranged. Where did Yasmine go ?
I was fine...by the known sense of the word. But I wasn't fine at all.
I was nothing.
I wasn't me.
I didn't know what the hell I was anymore.
It took me so much time I swear, to feel like myself again. Just to feel familiar with my mind.

And then I started to question.
The first question I got was omg I can't do this I cant afford the time to go so deep and dive into the abyss of me to bring me back to life ? It felt that way. Like losing myself and retrieving it would occur to often.
Don't people normally go back to chill after a long day and that's what is needed ? but for me it took TOO LONG to feel like at home again.
I asked myself why.
Then a friend helped me. She told me that it's because of how you distance yourself too much, it becomes too far away to reach back to again.
And that was a mind blowing moment.
It made perfect sense.
I knew I couldn't keep doing this to myself.
It's not that I don't want to, I can't.
 It was literally costing me my time, and my health. Because I am not kidding when I tell you that it made me sick.
So yeah. I made the decision.
There's nothing to hide.
And why should I hide
No body's worth preening up falsely to.
And it's not a sane thing to do to choose the parts of you that are "suitable" to be shown.

And now..a month or so afterwards, I swear to God it makes me so sad to feel like I'm digging her up from somewhere so old and deep.
When did I kill you, you poor thing ?
And what did you do to deserve to be killed, by me.

But ohmygod don't I feel the rush.
I swear to god it feels like running free.
Like running free. 
I 'm rediscovering everything about her again, about me, but I like to call her her because I swear I don't even seem to know her.
Shes surprising me.
I am only now coming to knowing myself after all this time thinking that I do already.
But the rush!
Ugh I wish I can describe it better.
I'm discovering that she's loud.
So loud.
And sassy.
And she has such a unique humor.
I love it.
It's sad..to come to know only now that I love her..I love me.
I've disconnected her so badly that she's a different identity from me.
I'm seeing how silly and cheeky and childish and radiant and upbeat and excited for life she is.
I'm sure I killed her before she got the chance to face life with me.
I've been going without her, a shell.
And I do recall very well; the time in my life when I started learning to create this shell.
And by time that shell has grown thickness, grown so much, I thought it was me for real.
She was put to sleep before she got the chance to mature, and now I see how young she is, too young.

God..it feels like a new beginning.

From Scratch ?

It's a Friday night.
Almost 9 pm.
I am here. I am home.
2019 was all about finding home, in many ways.

2019 was long, and hard, so, so hard.
But I would dare say call it triumphant.
It was hard but living good.

I found a trauma specialist and an art therapist.
I delved into the wonderful world of using art to understand complex emotions and get in touch with myself.
I found out the core reason behind my career confusion.
I spoke up about my trauma openly like never before.
I stood up for myself against abuse.
I took more space than I ever though I deserved to take, and made my voice heard.
I, for the first time, am recognizing my worthiness, and acting upon it.

So 2020 does seem like a clean slate, a new canvas, an exciting road waiting to be taken.
Restarting life.
Dis-assembling how I view my contribution to the world, paint a new picture of how I would like to live my days.

Never thought I'd be here, but here I am.
And as scared as I am, there's no other way to go but forward.

Heaviness of Remembering

More serious than I think.
More heavy.
More grave.
More isolating.
Life, and it's true meaning.
Your presence in it. Your connections to it. Your responsibility towards it. Your perception of it.
If we weren't driven by systems, by routines, by rush, we would stop..and then we would be really afraid, really grey, blue, whatever. We would feel the true strength we behold, none. We would remember that we are leaving..leaving..gone.
We would stop and feel the heaviness of remembering. Of seeing life as it really is. Of seeing our responsibility towards it just as heavy and as scary.
Isolation..even if only in your head, can be good for you. You can redefine, re asses, review everything.
Ask yourself the questions that take some time to answer. Or rather..take some time to have the courage to pull its answer from deep within..where you hide it. Behind all that clutter of the rush of life.
Isolation. Why do you do everything you do ?
Everything you do, every move you take, every word you make, is documented.
But Allah is the most merciful.
Losing entity in the world. Losing character. Losing principles. It's not hard for that to happen, it's not hard for that to happen without you noticing it happening.
Close your cell phone. And feel the heaviness.
You need to be comfortable with the heaviness, so you can let it steer you into the lightness.
From the fear of facing truth, to the vulnerability and hope and fear of following it.

6/11/2015

ساعة صفا

الهدف آخرة. 

بس في هدف في الدنيا..أو في مكان. 

ماعرف لسا.

بس اتأكدت ان الوسيلة لأي مكان مقدّر لنا نروحه، اننا ما نقفل قلبنا، و اننا نستعين بالله يخلي قلبنا نضيف كفاية انو بصيرتنا ما تنطمس. 

Insomnia

Sitting up in bed at 2:32, paying my dues to the pains that are demanding to be felt.

Insomnia is the punishment we get when we don't feel the things that need to be felt, or when we don't think the thoughts that need to be thought. 

Well played, brain.

Hero

It's 1:21 am.

It's been an exhausting week. 

My daily lack of sleep is building up. 

I'm in over debt with sleep. 

And my body has this thing that it does that drives me crazy.

When I get TOO tired, I get insomniac.

It's insane.

Like can you please make sense ? Because you're not.

Anyhow.

It's 1:21 and I'm in bed for ages now.

I check my Ask (yes I still use it, I know it's pre-historic, and I don't care) for the random questions it suggests.

I get this question: 

What is the most heroic thing you've ever done ?

And I remembered my story from the ICU today. 

So I held this woman's hand. 

She was in the ICU. 

I took her case. 

As I was checking her charts, I noticed they were removing her breathing tubes, so I wanted to see. 

The room was filled with nurses. 

All I could see, though, were her eyes.

Now, mostly in the ICU, you'd expect patients to be unconscious, right ?

Yeah, me too. 

And I believe they wouldn't have wanted it in any other way. It's a very itchy place.

Beepings never stop. It's quite, cold, and there are no windows. You don't know how long you've been sleeping, don't know what day it is, what time it is and what exactly happened to you. 

And you find yourself in grey rooms that feel like cold metal and desperation, that reek of sickness. It's a demonstration of humanity's attempts against its own futility.

The patient is surrounded with machines.
Endless lines and monitors.
The rooms are relatively spacious, which is worse. There's room in there..and it feels worse, because it's empty, except for all those machines.

So this patient was conscious, unlike the majority of patients there. 

She was a middle aged woman. She underwent an open heart surgery and was admitted for post-op complications. 

But she was conscious and all. 

And this woman had fear screaming in her eyes.
Her eyes screamed so loud to me, it ached my heart.

They were so wide.

I could tell she was wondering how close she is to dying. 

It made my heart sink. 

Like all those people around her and all these expert doctors in this great facility yet not one of these people sensed how mortified this woman was.

How all she needed was a hand to hold. 

She couldn't speak because of all the tubes. 

She was gesturing, she wanted someone to hold her hand. 

So I did. 

And I assured her with my eyes, and squeezed her hand. 

Before they removed the tubes she was gesturing something else to me but I didn't understand. Then I realized she was asking me not to leave her. I said I won't.

And just seeing how different her eyes were right then...

She had the look of a wounded prey that had just found shelter.  

I was there when they removed it and I saw how painful it was. 

She later told me she felt they were killing her. 

When she was able to speak again, she prayed for me.

Such prayers aren't like any other prayers. 

My heart squeezed in on itself. 

I wiped her tears and told her she's okay.

Before I left I asked if she needed anything. She said she wished for fresh pomegranate juice.
And you wouldn't believe it, I got her just that lol. I got pomegranate juice for an ICU patient.
Wow huh.

So yeah, these are the kind of moments one should write about. 

And that, folks, is the silver lining of insomnia;

I wrote my heart-warming story. 

Good night. 

4th of January, 2016.

The "luxury"

She tells me she thinks it's a luxury to listen to your heart.
She blames me for taking the time to sit with myself. To listen.
How she thinks it's not really necessary.
How it's not really convenient to do so.
And she laughs.

Why is it that I feel insulted and angry by that remark.
Like all the work I've put in me in the past few years wasn't "necessary".
Like all the time I spent tending to my pains didn't lead me to healing.
Like all the softness I payed to myself didn't salvage me from rage.
Allowing myself the "luxury" of listening to myself and loving it was the only way I could save myself.

And when you've been bruised this bad, when your heart's been raised and grown oppressed, beaten, and silenced,
when it's been for too long learning to become invisible, and you've learned to dismiss its pleas like an itch,
how ignorant it is to call my right of ridding myself from all this baggage a luxury. 

City.

The heart is an untrustable thing.

القلب من التقلب 

It has the astounding ability of turning into something so alien of what it used to be, in a very little amount of time.
It could switch from holy and sacred to sinful and shameless in a night's time.

When I decided to shut my heart up on itself (for a while), it was because it had started to be as noisy,
and as crowded,
and as dirty,
as a city at night.
I strolled within its streets and I didn't like what I saw.
It was alive, yes, but not because it really knew why,
not because it really wanted to.
It was alive like a drunken city before dawn.
Loud, but on the brink of falling.
Thrilled, but only to live the moment.
Cheering on top of its lungs, only because it really doesn't want the night to end,
really wants to be as wasted as it can get.

When I decided to shut up my heart's doors,
I realized I had been longing for belonging for some time, I had lost sight, I had lost lead.
My chest has become filled with all the wrong things, it had become tightened up, it was hard for me to breathe.
I walked to find a home but it had been filled beyond that, occupied to its every corner.
When I found myself a stranger in my own heart, I realized something must be wrong.
I found myself weary, always weary.
I found no light within.
I searched for God but crowded hearts are not worthy of holy presence.
I tried to pray but my heart waned and failed to pray with me. I sat there on my mat looking at it; balled up and sleeping, snoring and drooling, like a child after a party.

The heart is a scary thing, if you turn your gaze away from it for just a little while, and come back to it, you could find what used to be a pious being has turned into a clown.
When I did shut my heart up, and all was empty, and all was quiet..I realized how long it has been since I was able to be alone with this heart that is so drunk off this dunya, how much it needs to be slapped to sobriety. Where are you going ? What do you think you'll get out of this ?
The verse

(فأصبح يقلب كفيه على ما أنفق فيها و هي خاوية على عروشها) 

snaps it back, and I know the verse was about a story but the words really sum up what you'll be left with if you only pursue dunya, it really portrays the end result. خاوية.
I close up my doors at night, the city sounds diminish with the gentle thud of the doors. I isolate myself from everything that is human, even myself. And at that moment, the setting apart of body and soul in my head, or rather of soul and drunken heart, is so clear, I can visualize it.
Sometimes I find myself giving it excuses like, it's still young, let it live! Or, give it a break, so what. Why do you have to give it such a hard time, now? 
But the world we live in today has become so scary, so Godless, so filthy, that if you don't hold on to your truths with claws and teeth, if you don't keep your light alive, if you don't keep your heart clean, teach it to play without being played, to party but still have God forever and always within, superior to all else, the world will swamp you with its pretty games, and drift you into oblivion.

Growing Wings

When the tears come, they come gushing. I lay there thinking of the good in my life, thinking of those who love me, and I let the thoughts hold me. And I cry. I feel sorry for myself, I can’t help it. I think of myself; an adult, held down by a broken child inside. When the anger comes, it comes big, flaming, and it burns my insides. If I would, I could burn this whole place down with the fire in my chest. My subconsciousness is probably the reason behind my inability to sleep. I can only imagine the clogged crevices, the jumbled memories and unresolved situations all cramped up in there. I hold my beat up face, my swollen eyes with dark circles to the world;..look..this is what you're doing to me. Not that they take much notice. But hey, feel free, stare away at my miserable features. We’re raised and we live in an emotionally crippled country, where people are perplexed by the mere fact that you have an emotional response. They're so perplexed that you're not a robot. I mean..how inconvenient! I sit there mulling over this non sense, thinking, if I weren't to take hold of my own emotional (and future mental) health, if I were to wait for recognition of the pain that's killing me, if I were to keep wrecking my nerves over their belittling of my anger, I would lose myself. All they ever did my heart was injustice. They dismissed its existence, its intensity, its swollen nature, stepping all over it saying, there..now it should stay like that..flat and neat at all edges, nothing problematic. But it only swelled more. It swelled so big it took over my body, taking over my ability to function in the world. And I spent years mending it, trying to heal the damage, trying to find it beneath all these scars, I had forgotten what it looked like. Some days would come when all I do is cry. Days when my heart would be taken over by the old, stagnant murky swamp, and I’d be pulled under, and I'd be always, always struggling to keep my head above the water. I'd be always trying to step out of the dark corners in my head, peeping out to get some sunlight, before my fears drag me in the dark again. But my eyes shall always be cast up to the skies of my life. I'm creating a ladder to the clouds, steps up to a h(e)aven, and growing wings along the way. I'm not gonna sit there watching them as they break me without even realizing their ignorance is ruining lives. No. I won't allow it.

التوبة، أمل.

Guilt and gratitude,
Darkness and light;

Guilt is not a pleasant feeling, obviously.
It can drive you nuts. It can.
Guilt can drive you into addictions, escapism, self-hatred, or off a cliff.
We're such weak beings, aren't we..it can be disgusting sometimes, honestly.
How can we face that guilt..if we can't even bare to feel it.
And how can we live life not carrying loads of past experiences that we aren't really proud of, to say the least, if we can't face it and deal with it, and move on?

The thing about guilt, is that it is very much related to gratitude.
The more gratitude we have, the more guilt there is tagging along to it.
This applies to an array of relationships, including that with God, which is the one I'll be talking about its guilt.

You noticed I mentioned the word relationship and God in the same sentence, and I'll explain this.
I can't really remember the day I realized that there could actually be such a thing as a "relationship" with God. Or the day I actually started feeling such a thing forming.
I don't remember when I started seeing that it's not just about sins and good deeds.
There was a feeling that started forming. A feeling of.. I know Him, I think I love Him. He has done so much good to me, He takes so much care of me, and He's so generous, and never closes His doors, even in the faces of the most sinful people on earth.
And maybe just just maybe, I think He loves me, too.
There was this higher sense of emotion that no one taught us about. All they did was scare us from Hell and teach us that Jannah is the goal.
I don't know about you but that is such a dry way to live life, without love, I think. Too dry.

With this higher sense, I felt a relationship starting to develop. And that's where the gratitude and guilt I'm talking about started to take place.

"Why can't I just be an angel ? Why did I have to be human?"
"I'm awful, why should He ever love me.."
"I'm too embarrassed, I promised I'd never do it again."
"I'm such a hypocrite, I do good deeds and feel like I could stand a chance when in fact I'm so horrible."
"Wouldn't it be easier and less aching to be flawless and sinless?"
I used to get these thoughts a LOT. And they were drilling through my brain and my heart, and they were painful. Because it feels like letting Him down. Letting someone you feel immensely grateful for, down.
I hated myself for being human.

But, then I remind myself that,
(إن الله يحب التوابين)
و ما نقدر نكون توابين لو ما كنا خطائين.

On day 12 of the online writing course, they asked
How do you deal with the negative darker aspects of you?
And here's what I had to say on the matter,

The aspect of darkness has very much changed in my perspective ever since I started viewing my relationship with God differently.
And the relationship between myself and I also radically changed.
And the relationship between myself and the world didn't stay the same, either.

I remember the itchiness I used to feel, the darkness, the bitterness, the hopelessness, the fear and the guilt.
I recall the feeling of being stuck within my darkest corners, not being able to crawl out.
I remember feeling like I'm never gonna be worthy of His love.
I remember feeling helpless.
Stuck.
Afraid.
I remember.

What I want to describe to you, is the change I mentioned.
The change is that the burden of having two sides in you, trying to conquer each other, that burden is gone.
You see, it's not the good side of me trying to take over the bad side anymore. It's not as despairing and gloomy and doomed as that anymore. Because, really. Who has that much will, and who isn't terrified by their darker sides?
Instead, there started to be a higher, much more powerful governing command, a loving command, a merciful, patient command.
There started to be more transparency.
You're exposed, really. There's nothing you can hide. And yet, that gives you the salvation that your heart dreams of.
No longer human against human. Or rather, there is that...but the good in you has allies now, as you can say.
He is your ally.
If you admit to Him, and ask for His higher power, if you give Him your true honest promise, that you truly want to change, and put your trust and belief in Him; your whole heart's trust (not a suspecting, trial kind of trust), He, the Trusee, has promised to be by your side in every second of it.

I stopped feeling so secretive and ashamed of my chamber of secrets, the dark side of me doesn't scare me or appall me anymore, and I no longer feel stuck and hopeless in my shadows. I'm not afraid of you knowing of my sins, because I'm exposed to Him, and it's Him I fear, not you. (Not that I do want people to know, though. الستر محمود برضو)

He has shown and taught that there WILL be darkness within us, and that there WILL be darkness in the world around us, too.
So it doesn't feel personal anymore, it feels more natural and shared. Because it's not just within me, it's within everyone else, and it's part of God's creation, the Most Wise, the Most Merciful.
So this helps accept the darkness in other people, too, never judge them by it, because the darkness is there and present in all of us, just in different forms. And people can change, and what you judge people with, can someday be within you, too.
This does not mean that we accept it as it is and give up on ourselves, no.
That's where Tawba comes in.
No matter what you do, no matter how many times you fail to change,
لا يمل الله حتى تملوا
He will accept you and love you once you repent and seek His forgiveness, and that's where space for self-forgiveness, self-love, and peace is found.

Hope is a powerful thing. And once you see Tawba as a source of hope, as an endlessly open door, as an unconditional source of acceptance and love and a chance to love back, life will change.
Because He can bring all your baggage, the hidden stuff that anchor your heart, to the surface. He can salvage your heart and make it light, light enough to float above all the ugliness of us and the world, light enough to breathe.

I Shall Make Us Work

Late at night, it's 2 am, I gotta wake up early. 
My heart's been on silent all day. 
Parched, hungry. 
I read poetry, and the moving of my heart brings me tears. 
I feel despair.
Am I destined to shut off my heart to be able to live in this world?
But I hold on to a belief. 
God did not create me with a heart like mine so that I would shut it off.
I was made different. Then I must have been created for a different cause. 
So I hold on to the belief. I shall make us work. 
Us; me, my heart, and the world. 

اللي ما عرفناه عن التوكل.

The thing I learned the night of the first OSCE exam (a clinical exam unlike all other written exams I've been through) in medical school was a very valuable lesson.
Things like Tawakkul become super clear in times of despair and complete helplessness and fear.

You see..when they taught us about Tawakkul, they never really focused on the fact that they consist of two things:
Your work,
and His.
And that these two are COMPLETELY separate things.
Here's what happened.
That night, I just couldn't anymore.
I absolutely couldn't push myself anymore.
I was done, beyond exhausted. Drained. Over. Toast. You name it.
As I tried to push myself for like 6 hours (you can imagine the desperation), the clock struck 11 pm and I haven't studied shit. I should say, I haven't reviewed shit.
But of course, I broke down.
I was trying to hunt motivation from my friends, from anything, but  n o t h i n g was working.
I lay on the bed, on my side, feeling powerless, helpless, crying my heart out (dramatic a little, yeah. But hey a big deal of marks depended on this exam. My GPA is important, too)
I was scared.
Angry. Why could everyone do it but not me ? Everyone is just as exhausted.
I was disappointed.
And stressed.
My father, who's a doctor, called me.
He saw my red nose and puffy eyes.
I told him about my stress over my inability to study, and he told me to stop trying, that I've been studying for more than two weeks (I was actually studying medicine literally from the very first day, I've never stressed over any subject the way I stressed over medicine. I was insanely stressed at minute one LOL)
So he told me to stop, gather my things and put them aside, relax and do whatever I wanted to do.
I trusted what he said (baba is very hard working and he wouldn't ever tell us to do anything les than work as hard as we need to)
So I believed him. I didn't need to study tonight, in baba's opinion.
I went up to mum, and she told me to make my self some juice, watch a movie, and sleep.
I was like okayH (hahahaha, no?)
But that's exactly what I did.
I watched a movie and it was real good. I did manage to relax.
The hard part though, was when I was trying to sleep.
Of course I had turned off my cell phone because I wouldn't handle the stress of remembering how everyone else is actively involved in reviewing for the exam.
But still, the stressing thoughts were haunting me.
"I haven't studied this, I haven't studied that, what if they ask about this, what if they ask about that"

I remembered something I had read the day before that had really rung a bell.
I read how when you're reminding someone of the right, cautioning them of their wrong (نصيحة), then un-patiently waiting for them to change and see the effect of your reminder.
The thing is,
You do what you do.
And He will do what He wants.
You don't do what you need to do because you're expecting the result, no.
You do what you need to do to SHOW Him that you've done it, then the result is up to Him.
بحكمته يقدر اش يسير
So it really stuck with me.
When we study for an exam, we do it to seek the result, the good mark.
But actually that's not how it's supposed to be.
When we study for an exam احنا بنفعل الاسباب
احنا بنوري الله اننا بنسوي اللي لازم نسويه, بنية ابتغاء مرضاته في النتيجة اللي نبغاها
و خلاص
الجزء التاني من المعادلة منفصل تماما عن الجزء الاول
الجزء التاني ما يعتمد على الاول
The realization that the two are separate things was enormously comforting. So that is honestly what enabled me to sleep that night, that I truly showed him how I tried my very very best, and that inshaAlla my niyya is well and that I want to be a good doctor, and knowing that it's all in His hands.

My Imaginary Book Tour Speech

As written for the Write Yourself Alive online course:

"Welcome everybody. Thank you all for coming. And thank you so much for reading the little thing I had to share with the world. I've never actually imagined I'd one day have the chance to actually do this. But here I am.
I used to disbelieve the power of words at one time, thinking it can only serve as a pastime, a gateway, a relief, or an entertainment. But no. I do believe the strongest things in this world aren't tangible, the strongest things in this world are thoughts. And I do see from my own experience and so many others' how books, even stories, have the potential to touch thoughts, to touch hearts. To reshape, add, mold, whatever it can do. If they're powerful enough.
I do hope you have sensed truth and authenticity in my words, I hope it has reached your hearts before it did your minds, because what comes from the heart reaches the heart.
As for the inspiration, process, and reason.
First, I would like to mention that some point, again, I did not believe what I have to offer can have any effect or benefit. Who am I anyway, right?
But then, I realized how..it's not just from that side. It's something to do with my side, too.
Because I have a gift, and I thank Allah for blessing me with the magical ability to use words, to build worlds and kill others with them, so easily. And I think we're all responsible about serving the world, and pleasing our lord with everything He has bestowed upon us. And so He has given me a gift to use it to try and help spread good. And that's the only reason that rung true to me. Because I didn't believe I was special. I don't really think that word has an absolute meaning anyway. Specialty is a relative thing, really. So that was my reason.
As for my inspiration, it was actually an online course lead by Tyler Knott and Andrea Balt.
Before joining that course, I treated my writing ability as a gift, yes, but only limited it in my head to using it as a hobby, and that there's no more I could get out of it.
Yet, after 30 days (I finished it in 60 actually) I started to see differently.
I was literally intimidated by how so much potential I beheld. For weeks, I was perplexed by this vague, yet powerful sense of discovery, of a dream being born, yet I didn't recognize it at first.
I was terrified of the fact that I had what it takes to truly be a writer, terrified.
At first I was confused. I didn't know why I was so scared. But as the days passed, and the end of the course got closer, and I was comforted by the reminder that I was going back to the old habits, the old lifestyle..I saw it.
Because for 60 days, I would wake up and the first and foremost important thing to do was to create. To excavate my superpowers. To write. And oh did I write. I was astonished when, a few days after I had written something and went back to reread it, I would see how amazing it actually was.
Suddenly, huge potentials were digged out of me, put in front of my eyes to see, and to touch with my own hands.
I saw it. I touched it. It was there. Real and true.
Yet, at that point in my life, I was so close to graduating from medical school. I believe I need to say no more.
Yet here I am, years later, when I graduated I decided to follow my dream, to formulate my message to the world, and to work so hard on balancing lives: my life as a doctor, my life as a wife and mother, and my life as a writer.
The world is changed by those who are crazy enough to believe in their dreams. I don't know if I'm crazy enough, but I sure as hell am telling you all to be that. That crazy, delusional person who wants to follow their hearts.
Nothing's impossible.
It was hard as hell, yes. At first, I suffered. mostly emotionally, because I was blaming this dream for haunting me and ruining my life? But then I decided that I would stick to it. It is my dream. And I'm going to protect it. And I'm going to work my ass off to do it. Allah's strength is what makes you merely breathe, and do every other thing in your busy, efficient life. point is, Allah's strength just as it did feed you, helped you breathe, walk, live day by day, pass through hell alive, it can sustain you to live your dream.
I have never met a doctor who is also a writer. Maybe I'm the first.
As for the process. I first dropped the idea completely, when I was done with the course, I was like, yes I have a talent, yes I have a dream , but I'm going to just give it enough air to keep it alive but not to let grow so much it overpowers and takes over everything else. I started planning my feeding sessions of that dream. Weekly, monthly writings. My casual blog for my thoughts that I'd like to share. That was the weekly part. As for the formal, more formulated, planned pieces and artistic poetic writing, that was the monthly part.
And it was not, NOT, easy. Nothing is, is there?
BUT, I decided to see it differently.
To see it as a source of life.
A piece of me.
Without it, I'm weaker, more faded, less oriented, less energetic, less hopeful, and less dreaming. With writing, I indulge in the daily little things that others don't even notice. My heart, my eyes, my ears, my mind they're all allies, ready and set to catch whatever it can to be the inspiration for the next thing I'll write about.
Writing is essential. Writing is lively. Writing is visionary.
Yes, I did postpone the CREATIVE kind of writing for later when I did finish the hectic frekkin years of my life, but I never stopped, never starved, never let the writer in me fade.
Writing isn't just to produce beautiful words, no. But far more necessary than that.
As I walk through my boring, hard days, the words I would later write seemed to create a sanctuary because it was a different world there on the paper. It was like..I had it written down, I made it beautiful, I made it last, I made it useful, I switched its sides, I contemplated it.
It gives my mind the ability to see things differently, to train myself into seeing the beauty in the gutter..because a heart breaking poem about suicide is beautiful, isn't that correct ?
Finally, I hope you one day realize what I had realized the day my dream was born. Once it's there, once you feel it growing and powerful and strong inside of you, I hope you realize it means it's a part of you, and you cannot deny its existence.
Thank you."

Your Sweetness

Your sweetness
seizes my entirety

My heart's walls are taken down
without my consent

My heart reaches out to get a taste
For too long it's been craving
to feed off the hunger

It's willing to eat itself up
to stave it of
it might perish

It's willing to eat itself up
to not hear the rattle shakes of its walls
to not know of their fragility
and the hollowness within 

And I ventured in.

She has a corner stone of gold. A shining silver ground of unshaken boldness and confidence.
She is a super woman. A vision of steel, a mind sharp as blades, and a heart that’s seeded with potential, but parched.

She used to be unaware of herself, unseeing of what’s inside. And she was daring enough to think she didn’t need to.
She thought the mind can rule, and reasoning is all there is. As for this clump of muscle that lies in your chest, nah. Useless.

Her eyes used to be heavy and dry. Her tongue hot with words that were made of anger, they stung.
She’s angry simply because everyone else just doesn’t measure up to her. How the world simply isn’t convenient. Yes, she’s that audacious, and yes, it’s true. Because she is a genius, indeed.

And then we clashed.
I took her smugness, tore it apart, and smothered it in her face.
She was fabulously annoying. And I didn’t want to allow it to be played on me, too.
I used to laugh at the irony of the two of us put together, blades and cotton candy ? I used to see it that way.
But we both tugged at each other’s ends. We both changed each other.
A journey of hardness and softness, learning to cope with each other.

And I saw her the way she failed to see herself.
I saw her spikes, and with time I saw her softness, too, beneath all that sassy brag of strength.
And she’s beautiful. She’s so beautiful and she doesn’t even know it.

I saw within her seeds that needed nourishment. I knew I needed to help bring these to life.
I was like the mirror she never faced. I was like the path into her heart that she never took.
It was a struggle of following my own heart into hers. Of following my instincts and breaking through even when she doesn’t want me to.

“Your soul is inflamed. Good. Pay attention. Find water. Come inside”
I brought the water. And I ventured in.
And I was scared. I was scared to love her the way I wanted to. The way she needed to.
You see, it’s not easy to love someone who doesn’t know they need to be loved. Who doesn’t realize they want to be loved.
I needed to constantly remind myself of how her needs show only to those who can detect the unspoken requests. I saw them in her eyes.
Her nature wouldn’t allow it in any other direct statement.
And I learned to love that, too.

And along the way, I too, am learning to grow into the healer I wish to be. I’m learning to be myself, regardless of how much inadequate cotton candy is perceived.
I learn to carry my armor of good intentions, to look past the ego.
Because how can you be truly kind to those who truly need it if at the first clashing of kindness and ego, you stopped in your way and walked away.

As the years go by, I see her heart swell. The colors of love are growing, filling her chest and reflecting in her eyes. And reflecting in mine, too. And her radiance shines more and more with time.
And as the years go by, I, too, saw my own heart grow. Grow big enough to contain hers, to have the desire to take care of it it no matter how hard it can be. No matter how many times she pushed me. No matter how many times she tries to fool me with her cunning words of reason.

*Quote by Nayyirah Waheed*

The Colors of Her Mind.

Coming back home, I walk through the door. 
In the corner of my eye, I see her coming towards me. 
The colors blind me from seeing her pretty face or hear her voice as she talks to me. 
the colors of her mind and its thoughts: 

Murky green, red fire, and thick maroon; 
Arrogance, anger, and a child’s broken heart. 

She raises her voice but all I can focus is the hurt and desperation in her eyes.
“You owe yourself the validation of your heart’s pain.” I say, in my mind. 
The buzz of the white noise starts to rise in her head, getting louder with her agitation with me.
I walk away from it. 
As she follows me, her fire’s flames grow and grow. 

There’s no logic in dealing with someone who’s ripped up by the anger of the consciousness as it tries to silence the unconsciousness' crying, hurting child, stuck in the dusty corners of the mind, the dark shadows of the soul, shielded with ignorance. 
And everything else inside suffers from the flames instead. 

Anger cannot destroy the old pain.
I think to myself  "I’ll pray for you."

A letter to my future self.

Hello. 
Been a while since I posted something new.
So I signed up about a month ago to this online course lead by Tyler Knott (if you haven't heard of him, he's this lovely, authentic writer I know). It's name is Write Yourself Alive.
Basically, this course is about a challenge. He wants writers, whether amateurs or professionals, to set their writing as a priority, by completing a 30-day challenge of writing daily. 
So everyday, there's a different writing task, a different thing to write about. 
Each day they ask a question under the category "Dig Deeper", which are questions that aim to make you discover yourself more, and then they ask you to write about something related to that question. 
And I really am loving that I decided to join. Because not only do they know what questions to ask (they got me doing some deep digging, alright), they also have this way to show you what all the other members of the challenge wrote and answered to the same daily task. 
So it's pretty inspiring to see how everyone else sees the same thing so differently, or so similarly. 
And today, I decided to share with you some of the good things I got to write. 

Day 2: Write a letter to the person you think you should have been by now. Explain to them why you aren't them and offer them proof that who you are is better.

Dear future -God knows how long or short- Yasmine,
You might be fit, you might be more emotionally mature, you might know how to experience the world outside the scope of your emotions, you might be less caring, or not at all to what people have to say about the truth you find in you, and about how you see the world.
You might be more sharing of your writings, just putting yourself out there for the world to see, and knowing that what you write could change someone’s mind, somewhere, somehow.
You might be more accepting, of your own community and your country, and of your humanity and your weakness, and (most importantly) more accepting of the lack of acceptance of this world.
You might be more forgiving.
You might be more mind-speaking, more communicating, and confident while you do so, not fearing people’s disapproval.

And I can tell you that I wouldn’t love you more than I love myself right now.
Because I know that I’m trying my best now, just like I’ll be trying my best then.
I don’t envy you, or compare myself to you, and I’m not desperate to be you.
I know that being who I am now is how I could reach who you are then, and I’m grateful for every step on the way.
You see, being afraid to speak up lead me to learn the right reason for which one must speak up.
And being afraid to show myself up to the world might be the reason why I learned to love my OWN company first, before anyone else’s, and to validate the good in me to my own self, and to grow.
And experiencing the world through my emotions has helped me learn how to get to the origin the thoughts and perceptions of these emotions. And that has unveiled to me a dark, old, hiding place in my mind. A place heavy with loads of false and old perceptions about me. And that has set me free, and I was able to rise above that.
I learned how emotions are impatient, narcissistic, and love to be the center of attention, while thoughts are slow, patient and allow themselves to be doubted.
Being unloving to my body has taught me to appreciate health over shape, and mind over appearance.
Hating on my humanity has taught me to be humble, and it has brought me closer to God, because I learned that he’s the all-forgiving and merciful who does love us, humans, when we repent and seek his guidance, no matter how weak and sinful we can get.

So yes, who I am now is nothing less than you.
And each version of me is the best there is for the time and the situation she’s at.
Because I trust myself and love it enough to know she is doing her best.