I use to believe justice is a pre requisite for peace. I now believe peace is what paves the way for justice.

I use to believe at the end of feelings was nothing. I now believe at the end of feelings is wholeness.

I prefer a growth mindset to a fixed one.
I prefer the me in the now, to the me from the past. Whilst simultaneously accepting both.

The old is not irrelevant when you come to possess the new. The old served a purpose. We are here to evolve not stagnate. Appreciate ourselves not berate.

True self love to me is best cultivated in garnering understanding for all the different versions of yourself. Different versions that once held lead roles in the past chapters of your life. As new chapters unfold we carry on. I put respect on all that I was. For the lens of right and wrong I once wore, are now gone.

Life is a caravan that moves, if we were meant to stay put we wouldn’t have feet we would have roots.

Moving into myself…

The only times I’ve ever had a peaceful exit from everything was when I wrote things uncensored. To achieve that my mind would first enter the valleys I’ve buried pieces of my self. I remember being aged 10 and re writing pages of a book just for “fun” I recall preferring that sometimes to playing what’s the time mr wolf.

These buried pieces of myself all had one thing in common, my vulnerability, they symbolise to me today how in the name of protection and self preservation I played myself.

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.” ~Brené Brown

When I look at this picture below,I see what me on the inside looked like. I’m grateful Allah kept what I didn’t realise I tossed

“Perhaps you dislike a thing that’s good for you, Allah knows and you know not” may we never lean on our own understanding in the form of our fragmented selves.

Life is an adventure filled with joy, blessings, discovery, plot twists. Some trials and some drudgery. What it isn’t is the end. It can be summarised as it goes on and it can be best lived in the moment.

If anything is constant in life it’s change, resistance is not your friend. What’s your friend is surrender. What best serves you is resilience. What you can best have, is a will that makes you want to align with all that’s good about life, rather than the pessimism that makes you wander without recourse. The former is a remarkable trait in an individual. It has a system operating within that runs on the mantra fall down 7 but get up 8.

Smile because you deserve to, re align your focus with what serves you. You have a choice. And Allah stands in that space compulsion makes you unconsciously flee from. It’s a space called surrender.

In it there are fruits called serenity, understanding, love, comfort, order, relief, sound perspective and most of all acceptance.

You ever wonder why in spite of all your religious short comings he receives you with mercy, blesses you and has your back? It’s because he knows your story, and to Allah there is a difference between your soul that made the pledge to him before you were born and the you environment cultivated.

He is closer than your jugular vein, has access to the root of your pain. Don’t stand bewildered when upon you his mercy rains. Be grateful and decipher what he has always been trying to show you.

Allah stands behind the door of releasing the false illusion of control. The door of surrender open to all. Your deeds don’t matter your vulnerability does.