I stand in front of the group and I’m tasked with listing 50 things I love about myself. I get through the first five and quickly realize I’m stuck and don’t have much else to share. A cloud of silence blankets the room. The facilitator gives me a piercing, almost snarky look and, without uttering a word, makes it abundantly clear I have no exit.
My body feels funny. I feel quite awkward even, a construct I’ve refused to believe in, yet I find it overcoming me with full force. I usually enjoy speaking in front of an audience - but this time is different. I carry an immense weight of self-loathing, with the extra pounds I’ve put on reminding me of that. I lack the confidence to show myself love, let alone share the reasons for it with others. I try to utter more words, but my body is working against me.
The facilitator asks the group to help me get the momentum going. The group goes around sharing things they love about me, until it’s my dad’s turn. He looks at me with glistening eyes and a wide smile and shares, “I love the way you light up my life.” My eyes instantly well up with tears and a flood of energy electrifies my body. I muster the courage to go on and to my surprise, the words start rolling and I begin to recall all the things I once loved about myself. In that moment, I was face-to-face with unconditional love. The type of love that frees you. The type of love that makes you feel anything is possible. The type of love that empowers, transcends and has no boundaries.
See, the months leading up to this moment were some of the toughest of my life. A void had been slowly emerging, one I was at a loss on how to fill. Nothing seemed to do it for me: work was unsatisfying; social gatherings were unexciting; and alone time was far from replenishing. Food seemed to be the only outlet through which I could temporarily numb my pain. It provided me with an instant, yet ephemeral, sense of relief. I was being confronted with some of the darkest thoughts I’ve ever encountered and was determined to find a way to deal with them.
I decided to embark on a retreat to Bali. I expressed my intent to my parents and took off, only to find out hours after I landed that my dad had decided to join. His spontaneity, quite unusual for him, left me intrigued and eager to see how the trip would unfold. I knew the experience was going to be a sentimental one, and as an Arab daughter (as I’m sure many of you can imagine), the extent of our emotional vulnerability was limited to “Keefik Yaba? “Mnee7a”, which translates to “How are you baba?” and “Good”. Side note: I never quite fully understood why in Arabic your dad also calls you “baba”.
Over the course of the week, we wrote a lot, shared a lot and answered a myriad of questions, in attempt to dig deep into our consciousness and understand why we are who we are and why we do what we do. We were seeking to learn how to control our brains rather than be controlled by our thoughts and emotions. The ultimate goal was to learn how to live our most fulfilling lives, leveraging our utmost potential.
As the onion peeled day after day, and we uncovered more of our truths to ourselves and the group, I was alarmed to see similarities emerging between myself and my dad, some 30-years and 7,417 miles apart, yet almost an identical mirror image of one another: both experiencing the same feelings of “stuck-ness”, yearning for belonging, love, personal achievement and a sense of fulfillment. It became clear that we were both in search for one thing: unconditional love, from the self and others.
In the Arab world, unconditional love might be a notion few of us have experienced deeply. Family, friends and society can expect a lot from us. It’s easy, perhaps even easier, to live our lives for those around us rather than for ourselves. Most times we might be doing this subconsciously. We may think we are living our lives for ourselves, only to find out years - or even decades - later, that our actions have been reactions rather than calculated decisions. They could be reactions to our emotional needs being unmet from our families or communities or they could be acts of rebellion against societal expectations. But they are actions we hope will bring us security, love and belongingness.
For many years, I was doing everything I could to obtain unconditional love and unwavering admiration from my family and society. I felt like I had to fit a certain mold to receive that love. Going to Harvard was no mistake; it was the result of years of hard work that were aimed at receiving some form of recognition, and ultimately, love. I was relying on external validation to feel self-worth, not really seeking it from within.
Hearing my dad say those words suddenly filled the void that seemed to have endured for longer than I could remember. His unconditional love for me made me feel like everything in the world was alright. I was a child again, waiting to be soothed by a mother or a father.
While I felt so fortunate to hear those words from my dad, I recognize that many of us will not always feel such love from a parent. Whether we do or don’t get unconditional love from our parents, we usually also try to seek it from romantic and platonic relationships. The unfortunate reality is that none of those relationships are fully in our control. However, what is in our control is how we love ourselves and meet our personal needs for belonging, security and self-worth. When we meet these needs ourselves, and love ourselves fully, we attract others who do the same. And that’s when we pave the path for unconditional love for the self and others.
Last week, my dad and I pledged to the group and one another that we will love and accept ourselves unconditionally. We promised to look in the mirror every morning and say: I love and accept myself unconditionally. Today, I invite you to do the same. Look into the mirror, put on a smile for yourself and say: I love and accept myself unconditionally. Maybe after doing so, reach out to a loved one, a daughter, a father, or a brother, and pledge your unconditional love to them too. #ilovemyself
Captured in Pemuteran - Bali, Indonesia.