Welcome Home: A Guide to Building a Home for Your Soul

by Najwa Zebian

My ego wanted to hold on to the identity I had given myself for so long to give itself a sense of importance. It gave me the story that would reinforce what I’d always believed about myself.

remember taking out a piece of paper and drawing a line down the middle of the page. On one side of the line I listed all the conclusions I’d made about myself as a result of what Noah had said to me. On the other side of the line I answered each conclusion according to the following questions: Is this true? and even if it were, Is it helpful to believe it?

wrote no. This simple reflection can show you that you’re seeing yourself and your story through someone else’s eyes, through someone else’s home, not yours.

surrender to yourself. To what’s really going on inside. Drop the mask. Drop the excuses. Drop the resistance. Drop the need to look like you’re doing well by whatever standards there are around you.

Just surrender. Don’t just hear your inner voice. Actually listen to yourself. Listen to your heart. Hear your soul. And… Listen to your pain. Listen to your self.

I hid my desperation very well while I sought every possible confirmation that I was unworthy of love. And wherever I found those confirmations I convinced myself was a source of love.

I was seeking medicine from the pain. Because I thought the pain had more power to change the way I saw myself than I did.

Every rejection, every no, every sign of indifference proved to me I wasn’t worthy of love. As a result, I’d run back to those who gave me slivers of their attention and lov...

It was a feedback loop that plunged me into pits of sa...

And I would internalize that as You deserve to hurt and be let down until you learn the lesson.

I had to go back and ask why this child continued to believe that home, belonging, love, being okay, was something she could never have.

resistance looked like, it would be years of aching to be truly seen, heard, and loved while judging myself for having that ache and veiling it with what I thought was strength.

So while I was carrying it, I was also convincing myself that not giving it my attention would keep it outside of me. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

Denying the existence of anything doesn’t erase its existence. It just keeps you in denial.

Just as you must unveil multiple layers of yourself, every story has multiple layers that must be unveiled as well.

Give yourself permission to feel the emotion. And remember there’s nothing shameful about having to experience it. Don’t judge yourself for having something to work through.

Stop rushing. You miss out on the journey when you focus on the destination.

First, a feeling is a product of the meaning that your brain attaches to experiencing an emotion.

For example, disappointment (an emotion) is experienced through feeling that something you hoped would happen didn’t happen. Anxiety (an emotion) is experienced through feeling that something bad is going to happen, mixed with uncertainty of what that bad thing is.

Second, feelings are experienced consciously, whereas emotions can be experienced consciously or subconsciously. That explains why sometimes you can’t pinpoint what’s going on inside of you that’s causing a disturbance.

And there was an underlying fear associated with accepting that I could deserve the experiences that positive emotions could lead me to.

We send each other a voice note that includes three things we are grateful for.

conditioning. It has me looking for positive emotions and listening to that knock on the inside and opening the door for it.

Asking “lofty questions” is a clever way to trick your brain into looking for the positive.

Thus if you are wondering why you are so beautiful, your brain will show you evidence of your beauty throughout the day. And if you ask a question as a negative, your brain will look for the negative.

I didn’t really love Noah, let alone like him. I loved the validation I got just by him accepting what I had to give. Because that somehow made me feel like what I had to give was worth it, making me worth it.

Building a sense of home in other people distracts us from the real work we need to do for ourselves, within ourselves.

And the reason why when I’m sad I think of every person who didn’t see me. And it’s like…I want to change the ending of those stories. So I put everything together. I take all these stories with bad endings, or endings that make me feel like I’m not good enough or don’t deserve to be seen or loved. And I put them together and I go into a hole. And I don’t know how to get out of it.

The ending that each one of those stories and people proved to me…that I wasn’t worthy. That I was less than. That I was not good enough. Not only was the truth revealed to me, but the level of empathy I spoke to myself with was mind-blowing.

Instead of telling myself You deserved that kind of end, I said things like You accepted that kind of end because it’s the only end you’ve known. And it’s familiar.

And, yes, we could say that we pushed them away out of fear, but is it truly fear or is it the unpredictability of stability? Is it fear or is it stability that we’ve never felt before? Stability that’s so unfamiliar to us?

And let me tell you something…If what’s familiar to you is fighting to be seen, that’s not normal. If what’s familiar to you is fighting to be heard, that’s not normal. If what’s familiar to you is fighting to be loved, that’s not normal. You need to make being seen familiar. You need to make being heard familiar. You need to make being loved familiar.

know how hard it is to accept the unfamiliar. You’ll feel your body resisting it. You’ll feel your body experiencing more pain while you’re trying to make the unfamiliar familiar.

Feeling that intense pain initially tells you You’re on the wrong path! Turn around!!! We don’t want to feel this!!! But I’m telling you that feeling that pain with that intensity is actually a great sign you’re on the right path to your home.

It’s the same thing with accepting what’s unfamiliar to you. It takes time. It takes adjustment. It takes understanding that you won’t go overnight from believing you don’t deserve a home to building it and feeling at home.

deserved. That’s why I unconsciously held on to what was so much less than what I deserved because I thought it was more than what I could ever get.

The best example I can give you is when someone walks into your life who actually treats you right. Someone who doesn’t play games. Someone who gives you attention and is considerate of your feelings. Someone who respects your boundaries. The emotion you’re resisting feeling here is love, because it’s unfamiliar to you. So you push it away. You keep it knocking. Until it goes away.

Me!

To surrender does not mean to stay in your spot and wait for the world to save you. It means to surrender to the world inside of you. To build that home inside of you.

Never be grateful for the person who causes you pain. Be grateful for yourself. Be grateful for the endurance you displayed in healing.

Never give credit for who you are now to the pain someone chose to throw your way.

You get the credit for being the strong person you are now.

Ask yourself: Why does this stimulus (behavior, comment,…) really hurt? What are my options for responding? List at least three and organize them in order of least to most severe. Is it something I need to respond to? You figure that out by determining whether your response will actually alleviate the hurt it causes. If yes, what’s the most effective (is it powerful?), efficient (is it worth my energy?), and constructive (will it effect change?) response? If no, don’t respond.

did meet Adam, yes. Had I not built a home for myself, I probably would’ve pushed him away. Because he is unfamiliar to me. He is secure. He respects me in every meaning of the word. He respects my time. He respects what I’ve been through. He respects my boundaries. And not once since we’ve met has he ever said or done anything with the expectation of anything in return. He communicates—and I mean really communicates. He is…at-home with himself. I don’t know what the future holds. I might build a home with him one day, but that will never make me sell or abandon the home I have within myself. Every day that goes by, I express gratitude for working toward being at home with myself before rushing to be welcomed into someone else’s home. The pages of my journals are filling up with new poetry and reflections on what true love and companionship look like.

If you’re waiting for someone to save you, you can keep waiting to be picked up and broken down to pieces over and over or you can look in the mirror and say welcome home.

want you to look deep inside of yourself and ask yourself about those little moments when you daydream about the possibility of something.

The moment when your brain jumps in and says But you’ve already spent so much time on this goal, this dream, this career, this relationship, that everyone will laugh at you. No one will believe in you. Who do you think you are to achieve that? To get there? All of this…that’s the process of blinding. And what you’re using to blind yourself is:

And if you base the value of your dream on how the world around you sees it, you will feel an added pressure to “succeed.”

many people spend their life working hard, or “hustling,” without knowing whether they actually want what they are chasing after.

When you equate the value of your dream with the hope of what it will bring you, you are likely to allow other aspects of your life to suffer.

The dream you live, whatever it is, should always nourish your state of being at home with yourself. When you look at your life holistically, your dream should not be hindering any primary components of your life, such as your mental health, relationships, or goals.