A story
Choose the stories you read wisely. be picky about the heroes and heroines who represent who you are and what you wish to become. Could I suggest one more thing? write your own story.
365 days: Day 3
A day with my sister
Although this was plan C for the holiday after omicron and last minutes changes, it could not be any better! Alhamdilillah!
I planned to spend the day with my sister in London. We did not want to go to a specific destination but to go to random places in the city and have a very random walk letting our feet and the roads surprise us with what they bring!
A plan could not start without a full stomach and a late breakfast at King’s cross. However, our feet took us a bit further, and I told my sister “I am going to take you to places where I have been on my own before to recreate a beautiful memory in places where I have felt lonely before!”.
In a rainy day a few years back my feet led me to a restaurant in Woburn place almost midway between Tavistock and Russell’s squares. I remember that they had tasty food and a friendly waiter that I could once leave the restaurant feeling happier and more satisfied with life and their food! 
Too many photos for someone obsessed with taking random shots and another break at the Hay’s galleria this time at Côte brasserie made my day even more. Another place I have been to on my own years back. It was a good memory then as I enjoyed my own company, with good food and a luxurious atmosphere by the Thames.
By the end of today as I take the train back home, my heart is pleased, my stomach is full, my feet are well worked out and my family are pleased to have shared our journey with us with photos and videos shared. And I go ready for a week of work at home/a cafe with some promised leisure breaks, I could not be more grateful for how I am spending the last days of 2021!
Thank you Azza!
And I wish you all a happy end for this year!
365 days: Day 2
Kintsugi
Kintsugi: The Japanese art of mending broken pottery by gold making the object more valuable than before its breakage.
I came across this word twice today from two different unrelated authors. It reminded me to value every painful experience or failure because hurt have made me stronger and more compassionate.
The day was a quiet one where I got lost in my own thoughts. But, the highlight of the day was a book. I delved into an adventure with Robin Sharma’s Everyday hero manifesto at a cafe.
The lessons learnt so far from Sharma’s:
1- Change your mentality from that of a victim to that of a hero. Replace can’t with can, excuses with results, the past with making the future, busyness with productivity and taking with giving.
2- Journal always and be not afraid if someone reads your words without your permission since there is no shame from being authentic and from being a human.
3- Always be kind!
4- “treat each person you meet with exceptional courtesy and extraordinary respect”
5- Serve others
6- have an obligation to lift others
7- “Input positivity and you will output positivity”
8- Choose your words carefully.
9- Be relentless!
10- Work on your whole self: mindset, heart-set, health-set, and soul-set.
11- Do not compare yourself to others
12- Try something new.
13- Avoid people with red flags and do not deceive yourself by seeing them the way you wish them to be rather than what they show you who they are.
The book is full of treasures, and I am sure it will take most of my night. But what I like the most about it is that he is so humble and human that you could relate to him and learn that it is never impossible to be a hero!
PS. Today, I am grateful for being alive, for having the opportunity to learn and grow and for having the gift of time.
Above the shadows
Film review
I randomly picked the film to see given that I wanted to stop my mind from thinking and it had 4 stars review on Amazon prime. However, I found it deep, and it made me cry in the end.
Invisible?! I once wanted to be invisible so that I peacefully live in the world and be free. But as you see the film you realise that visibility is sometimes synonymous with being alive. Our reality could be distorted if we are not seen, which makes it kind of scary, as does it mean that our reality could be manipulated by others on the way they see us? Anyway, that was not what the film is exactly about.
It starts with a middle child (I thought it was a clever choice from psychological point of view) attached to her mother and to herself she is not being acknowledged by anyone else. As her mother dies, she becomes invisible to her father, her two siblings and everyone else and she goes to live a lonely but not very sad life, taking advantage of her invisibility to earn a living. However, visibility matters to her most after she meets the only guy who can see her. Someone who is himself lost and needs rescue to put his life back in track. The story unfolds and she becomes visible only when she becomes present for the sake of another person and not for herself. You better see the film for yourself but there are things that could be learnt from it:
- Before you ask to be seen, see others.
- Your story of things is not necessarily the story as everyone else sees it. The truth is something in-between.
- We long to be loved as who we are, and we are only happy when we can be who we are.
- Everyone struggles in their own world, but the struggle could be less painful if we support each other.
- Family is everything.
- Love makes as visible and alive. Everybody knows this anyway!
Give it a try!
365 Days: Day 1
Authentic
I have been writhing within myself for the last few days between the person I need to become vs the person I am. Things happen sometime that question what is necessary to be able to live in the world. Is there something called “giving too much”, “loving too much” or “caring too much”?! Is there something called too direct and too innocent that one is too naive to live in the world where sometimes people say what they do not mean or show what is not within their chest?! Do I need to worry about being misunderstood?
I thought to myself that I need to be stronger, a bit colder, less caring and learning to measure what I say, and detach myself as well as create boundaries to live within a stronger independent self that is maybe a bit more selfish that it does not get hurt or it does not allow any within the walls of what belongs to it.
Unhappy that would be, I realise.
The person I am is the person I need. Give as much as you wish, love as much as you wish, care as much as you care and smile and dance and play and be a child if you wish or a serious adult when you feel like it. Say what comes within your heart if it is kind and do only what you believe in. Do not worry about being misunderstood, as you know your own intentions. By all means be measured and create boundaries when you need to, but do not change yourself. Show a little of who you are or cover up but make sure that whatever you show is true and real and is exactly who you are.
Just be true to yourself. Make it better when you can but always be real. Do not worry about the world. Accept hurt as a price for authenticity & originality.
Very Personal Notes: A Girl From The Bride of Sands (1)
To Write or Not To Write?!
I love writing and sharing how I feel and think. I also love to feel and think. For when I feel, I become alive and when I think I become aware of my existence and when I share all that I become immortal and I expand beyond the limitation of my body.
I did it for the joy it brought to me, then joy alone was no longer enough to write. I started having that sense of time flying, that the days of my life no matter how many remaining are slipping from my hands and as they slip, I realised how valuable they are and as they are of such value, I could not waste them without creating a meaning and adding a value from the moments of my life. I had two choices, either to stop writing for joy or to start writing for meaning and with that I could continue to enjoy the writing process.
It then happened to become very challenging to write. If I am writing for value, what is valuable there that I have to say and share? What could someone who did not create much YET in this world share with others that could make their lives better or their hearts lighter?!
I asked myself many times and I continued to shy away from writing. I have started many scripts but I finished none of them because in the middle of my writing, I would doubt myself, and my writings, and then I lose the motivation. My father and mother told me endlessly that I should write a book. My friends encouraged me to do so and promised that they would read it. One told me that it makes her happy to read my short notes on Social media and another said that it gives her hope to read my words. I promised myself before not to write anything that I do not feel and believe on social media. “My Facebook page is my heart open to the world” I told once. It happened that for that very same reason I have deactivated my page many times, because as much as I get the courage to write and share, at times I feel shy, vulnerable and just want to hide. This was another challenge to writing a book. When it is out there, I could not get it back, I told myself. Another challenge was that I always write the truth as I see it, full and pure. But what if that truth hurts someone else?! What if my truth is not what someone else sees it?! I then told myself. I will write my truth, fully and sincerely and then I will edit to remove any word and comment that could hurt someone else because I am writing my story to help not to harm!
What value could I add with my writing? Saturday the 5th of June 2021. I spent more than half of the day asking myself about how much value I am adding to the world and how could I add more value?!
I took my notebook and a pen and I have written some of the skills that I have especially those that I enjoy doing. Writing came first. And hence it must become the number one thing I add value with! I told myself as I remembered Ahmed Emara, one of the famous Egyptian psychologists who said in one of his teaching videos “your currency is the thing that you like to do even if you are not paid for!” What more than writing ?! I asked myself with the answer in the question. Photography comes second. And though I love my current job, the joy, peace and comfort with no worries, comes to me from writing and from capturing the beauty of nature and human art.
You do not have an extra-ordinary story! That was the next obstacle to my writing. Then I remembered, I do not have to be an important person to write. I am an ordinary person and I am writing for ordinary people. Most of the world is of ordinary people. I am writing for any ordinary person to remind her or him that an ordinary person can still live a life of meaning and contribution. As long as one of us is doing the best of that they could do and is trying to do things the best way they could ever be done, one of us has something to share. I written it down in my notebook:
Very personal notes:
- A girl from the bride of sands: Birth to Cambridge
- I want to help ordinary people to find their way in the world.
- I want to help people not feel alone in their journey when they see someone like them is creating their path to a dream no matter how far and big the dream is
- I want to help people to know that one could get where she/he wants and be whatever she/he wants.
- *********
- *********
The next two titles shall be shared in another time.
This is the story of the day I became serious about writing my book.
And my story, that of a very ordinary girl follows…
I write it with love 🙂
A star is born
Kindness conquers all…Difficulties are there all the time but choosing to deal with them with kindness makes all the difference. Peace and love are a choice; they are not accidental.
These were my thoughts as I watched the re-making of the film “A star is born” by Bradley Cooper, released in 2018.
It was surreal how accidental their first meeting was, like the stars aligning for them to meet. Though they both needed poking into it from her friend, they spoke to each other at a deeper level from the first time their eyes met. He wanted to see her natural self, beyond the fake hair, eyebrows, shadows and colours, and she did not stop from showing herself.
I loved their first interaction, just two humans warm, kind and interested from the start with no previous agenda, who let themselves just live the moment but equally knowing that this was not just something, that was SOMETHING! It was casual yet deep. He saw something in her and she trusted him. He made her believe in herself to take the leap that would have been very unlikely had she not met him.
“Look, talent comes everywhere. Everybody’s talented, f***ing everyone in this bar is talented at one thing or another. But having something to say and a way to say it so that people listen to it, that’s a whole other bag. And unless you get out and you try to do it, you’ll never know. That’s just the truth. And there’s one reason we’re supposed to be here is to say something so people want to hear. Don’t you understand what I’m trying to tell you?” Jack tells Ally.
The wisdom of not letting a talent be lost because we are afraid to show what we have and to say what we have to say. She needed him to have the courage to say what she had to say but she had it all within her. He did not just stop there, he reminded her that the truth and how she sees it and how she believes it is all that matters.
“If you don’t dig deep into your f****’ soul you won’t have legs. I’m just telling you that. If you don’t tell the truth out there, you’re f**ed. All you got is you and what you have to say to people and they are listening right now, and they are not going to be listening forever. Trust me. So, you gotta grab it and you don’t apologise or worry about why they’re listening or how long they’re gonna be listening for. You just tell them what you want to say.”
Their first song together was beautiful, how he encouraged her and led her to her words to be voiced to the world, how hesitant she was then when her heart started to speak the words, it did not matter how many pair of eyes were focusing on her and if she was being judged or not.
But what was most beautiful in all this, was not how the voices, the music and performance was, but how the story tells that they have accepted each other, they committed to each other that they chose to be in it together, all of it. He did not control her and let her shine even when her light became stronger than his. And she did not leave him and pursue higher roads without him even though she had the choice, and she could probably do without him once everyone learnt how good she was. She did not leave him, and she did not get angry with him even when he made a show of her big day with his drunken attitude, and she genuinely worried for him and he mattered to her more than all the glory or the shame.
They were two both strong and weak people who held each other hands to step up and though he let her go by choosing to commit suicide, he left her with a song of his love, and they gave us a performance on what kind commitment makes of life.
Highly recommended. Not the drinking or the suicide part though!
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1517451/characters/nm0177896
Vast!
The best thing about this lockdown and pandemic is that one realises how much life has to offer and how vast the options are. How many places one could visit and so many people to meet. Endless options of skills to explore and experiences to live! In and out! I am grateful for being alive and I cannot wait for the restrictions to be lifted!
You and me!
BECAUSE WE ARE ALIVE WE HOPE; OTHERWISE WE DIE!
I bought the plant from the supermarket. I paused and browsed to find one that talks to my soul. It was young, beautiful and I did not see like it before. I did not think to know its name though like all other things to me. Their names do not stand out to me as much as what they are and what they mean and how they make me feel. I identify them with their spirits. I see the beauty in them, and they all have meaning, they are all equally important and they all matter.
I brought it to my house. I left it on the stairway, and I got busy for the coming days. In one week, it was dying, the leaves have fallen, and the stem remained brown and dead. I was very sad to see its state and I felt guilty, I have killed it! I did not know how to care for it. I let a living being die with negligence. I had to do something; I held the pot in my hand. Should I throw it and bring a replacement?! I looked for a minute and the answer came to me: There are things that you must not replace. You cannot just give up on it. Give it a chance!
I brought it indoors. I put it on the kitchen counter to see it before my eyes. I decided to water it even if it looked dead. Day by day, the brown stem became green again, leaves started to show up and a little gift on the side another plant was growing too. Little by little, more leaves were budding, and the new friend has been growing too. I talked to them, with love. They became alive and they have filled me with peace, love, happiness and life! I told myself then: The plant needed the right place, the right light, the right food and care and so are other living things; to flourish, they need to be in the right place, receiving the right care and love that they deserve.
Among all my other plants, it is the one I love the most, because it taught me a lesson: Never to give up on living things, never to stop hoping, never to stop loving, and never to let the ones I care about go.
Then it happened that I broke your heart unintentionally. The one spirit that talked to me from the very first moment we have met. I was not actually listening to your voice of the talking body on that day, I was hearing your spirit. I turned around that day and I smiled, I knew that you are somebody in my life even though I did not know who you are and what you do. I knew that we will have a story and that it will be a good one.
It was peace. I said the right things, behaved the right way, and I was just myself with you. I knew that you are the one I have waited to meet all those long years. Then I was afraid. I do not know of what, but fear took over and a new clumsy person took my place. I said the wrong things, did the wrong things and behaved the wrong way and I pushed you away. It was painful but I could not fix it.
Then one day I looked at my plant, it kept budding more leaves. I found myself speaking to it: You are hope! The one who resurrected you is capable of mending the broken bond.
I called it by your name. I watered it with love. I talked to it. I know that one day we will share it. And then when its friend was growing to reach it, when the new plant was embraced by the resurrected one, I realised that it is not just you; it is you and me! There is hope. What I saw was real. What we both feel is real. You are not ready, and I am afraid, but we will take our time and then we will find our destiny to each other because we are meant to be, you and me!
You live and I am born and we will tell the story.
A good day!
A good day…
After two weeks of wards cover the final day has come. Though I know it will shortly start over again, it feels like a celebration to be able to have a break to do the other piling stuff and to have enough time in the weekend to live a normal life. But, today was not only a good day because it is the last day. It was good because of people, both colleagues, patients, their relatives and strangers on the way.
It lifts the heart to stay in a place long enough to know people and for people to know you so that around any corner you might meet a person to salute. Someones that you have been privileged by having a glimpse of their lives or a part of who they are so that when you see them, you connect even if for a moment, you feel safe, you belong and you recognise that you could positively interact to make each others’ lives easier and more peaceful.
The stranger at the lift, who was kind to appreciate even a simple natural act of holding the lift for her to reach and join the journey upwards by wishing you “a very nice day” as she comes out of the lift leaving you behind smiling your way two floors up and starting a difficult but good day.
The relative being very understanding of the team effort to give his father the best chance of fulfilling his wishes despite the difficulty of his situation and the fact that the father might die anytime in the coming days, weeks or months.
The patient so unexpectedly telling you “Thank you for being calm, this helped me feel more relaxed” at the end of your review as you are leaving her bedside, that you end telling yourself “Well, maybe I am doing something right!”.
Your colleague, coming out of their way to get the right drug for your patient and sharing with you the joy of the magic medicine that is not so often used and you are about to use for a patient for the first time in your career. With joy, they tell you how it is made, how it looks and guide you on how to use it!The sisters in the ward working like bees (ma sha-Allah) to get things sorted for the patients as they come, stay and go!
The colleagues telling you that they enjoyed working with you and your juniors comfortable and unthreatened by you despite the difficult work they endured for the last two weeks, thanking you with a happy air as you salute them on your way out signalling the end of your two-weeks block.
I walked my way out humming to myself through the corridors of the hospital “Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow, you are only a day away!”. I tell myself that I should have been humming this yesterday for today as I walk free again as a child!
It is so peaceful to stay long enough in a place that you are settled enough to be able to share with people the best of who you can be, giving the best you can and getting the best out of yourself and others. Settled enough to embrace, welcome, support and receive.
And family is another story! 
It is a good day that I am grateful for (alhamdolillah).
I won’t regret if it is the last day and I am happy if there is a “Tomorrow”!
I wish you all a blessed beautiful life!
Good night, and maybe I see you tomorrow!
shetellsastory 