Book Excerpt: The Only Constant

Most people want something in their life to change, whether it's their job, their personal relationships, or their ability to live authentically. And sometimes, unwanted change comes all too swiftly. In The Only Constant, celebrated poet and educator Najwa Zebian guides her reader through the changes we must make (or those we need to endure) on the journey to our most authentic lives. She quiets the noise, teaches us to accept ourselves as we are now, and focuses on the necessity and beauty of those messy transitional times.

Ultimately, Zebian teaches that the purpose of change is to step into the world as your most authentic self. A highly practical guide to unfamiliar terrain, The Only Constant is here to assure us that uncertainty is natural. Yes, change is scary. But it's the path to living as your true self. This is a mantra that is not alien the purpose of her writing.  She had first explored it in her debut book of inspiration, Welcome Home. In it she had shared her revolutionary concept of home — the place of safety where you can embrace your vulnerability and discover your self-worth. It's the place where your soul feels like it belongs, where you are loved for who you are. Building your home inside yourself — and never experiencing inner homelessness again — begins here. In the book she had shared her story for the first time, powerfully weaving memoir, poetry and deeply resonant teachings into her storytelling, from leaving Lebanon at sixteen, to coming of age as a young Muslim woman in Canada, to building a new identity for herself as she learned to speak her truth. After the profound alienations she experienced, she learned to build a stable foundation inside herself, an identity independent of cultural expectations and the influence of others. With practical tools and prompts for self-understanding, she shows you how to build each room in your house, which form a firm basis for your self-worth, sense of belonging and happiness. Welcome Home provided the life-changing tools for building that inner space of healing and solace.

The Only Constant in a similar fashion is a profound guide to embracing the impermanence, and celebrating the fact that change is what puts the life in life. Written with poetic wisdom, Najwa shares her personal experiences with change (for example, rejecting her culture's definition of what constitutes a "good woman" so that she could live more honestly). She guides us through the changes we choose, like embarking on a new career or setting boundaries, and changes we don't choose, like the loss of a loved one, a relationship, or a job.

Najwa Zebian is a Lebanese-Canadian author, speaker, and educator. Her passion for language was evident from a young age, as she delved into Arabic poetry and novels. The search for a home―what Najwa describes as a place where the soul and heart feel at peace―was central to her early years. When she arrived in Canada at the age of sixteen, she felt unstable and adrift in an unfamiliar place. Nevertheless, she completed her education, and went on to become a teacher as well as a doctoral candidate in educational leadership. Her first students, a group of young refugees, led her back to her original passion: writing. She began to heal her sixteen-year-old self by writing to heal her students. Since self-publishing her first collection of poetry and prose in 2016, Najwa has become an inspiration to millions of people worldwide. Drawing on her own experiences of displacement, discrimination, and abuse, Najwa uses her words to encourage others to build a home within themselves; to live, love, and create fearlessly.

The author of three collections of poetry, she delivered the TEDx talk 'Finding Home Through Poetry' and recently launched a digital school, Soul Academy, and a podcast, Stories of the Soul. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Glamour, Elle Canada, HuffPost and more.

The following extract has been published with permission.

Jaya Bhattacharji Rose

*****

The Only Constant

When you know there is a change you need to make in your life, whether it’s a big or small one, just remember that your body has a choice to make just as your mind does. Your body will not make the choice that your mind has decided is healthy if you don’t give it a seat at the table. The most beautiful moment will be when your mind and body are in alignment, when your mind stops judging you and shaming you for not making the changes you know you need to make, and when your mind actually sits with your body and gives it the same compassion and empathy it would give to anyone out there. But to get there, you have to actually feel the feelings that flow through your body.

I’m going to give you an example. Later that day, after I spoke to my therapist, I decided to start rewiring the mental pathway that I took every time I did something that I judged myself for (because I was “betraying myself”). That pathway typically went something like:

Being spoken to/treated in a way that disrespects me and my boundaries.

→ Thinking, “How can I accept this?! How can I allow this to happen again?”

 → Feeling stuck because I feel like I just can’t put an end to this relationship.

I worked on changing it to:

Being spoken to/treated in a way that disrespects me and my boundaries.

→ Thinking, “How can I accept this?! How can I allow this to happen again?”

 → Feeling stuck because I feel like I just can’t put an end to this relationship.

→ Turning in- ward to my body and asking myself, “How does this feel in my body?”

 → Soothing my body by allowing that sensation to be validated so it can be released.

→ Setting a boundary for my body by removing it from the environment in which that treatment happened. (“I will leave the room, the house, the space where I was disrespected to give my body time to recover from the pain it just experienced.”)

Do you see how the focus in the second scenario was 100 percent about me approaching myself with no judgment or shame? How, instead of feeling “stuck,” I gave my body an opportunity to be validated? I gave my body an opportunity to question how good its old definition of “safe” feels?

I gave myself a hug that day. I recalled being told by someone I love that I am selfish for wanting to be included in their expression of love and affection to those whom they love. In- stead of judging myself for continuing to give that person access to my life, I immediately went to my body. I closed my eyes and started feeling where the pain was. It was in my chest and my arms. They felt like fire. All I could think was, this feels awful! It was so shocking to me because I always knew I became tense when I heard words like that, but I did not know it was this intense. As I felt that fire in my arms and chest, I just sat with those sensations. Every time my mind would try to jump in, I would just say, “Stop.” I wrapped my arms around myself and started moving my hands up and down where the pain was in my arms. I started feeling that hug in my chest. The feeling went from being awful to being at peace. At no time did I spend a moment judging myself. Instead, I sat with my body and listened to it and gave it a chance to be seen and heard. The beautiful thing was, I was practicing self-love in the purest form; giving myself the love (the being seen, the being heard, the being tended to) I so badly wanted from others.

From that moment on, everything changed for me in terms of the way I spoke to myself when my actions did not align with my knowledge. I decided that my body is in the process of changing what safety looks like for it. If my body spent thirty years believing that safety is working hard to prove my worth, it’ll take time before my body learns that I am worthy just as I am. If my body spent thirty years believing that safety is accepting being excluded because if I spoke up, I’d be shunned and excluded even more, it’ll take time before my body learns that being punished for standing up for myself is a sign that I’m with the wrong people and in the wrong place for myself.

If your body has spent X number of years believing that safety is financial security, which is more important than doing something you love, it will take time for your body to learn that leaving a job you’re not happy with is okay. If your body has spent years believing that you must be done with school by a certain age, get married by a certain age, or own a home by a certain age, it will take time for it to learn that you get to choose what you want for yourself and when. What happens when you follow these expectations is that you will prioritize reaching them overreaching them on your terms, at the right time for you, and with the right people for you.

It’s okay to slow down. Learn to tune in and listen to your body instead of constantly judging it for not making the change you’ve logically decided is right for you. One thing we are not going to do is try to shame ourselves into change. Because you know what that does? It only makes the shame grow and pushes the change farther away. Even if we were to change as a result of shame, that change would not be authentic, and going back to our situation before the change is highly likely. What’s driven by shame is sustained by shame. And what’s driven by compassion is sustained by compassion. Show yourself compassion. Be kind to yourself as you go through change.

Najwa Zebian The Only Constant: A Guide to Embracing Change and Leading an Authentic Life Yellow Kite, an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton, Hachette India. Pb. Pp. 272 Rs. 599