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

by Najwa Zebian

But feeling chained wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was when I realized I had wings, when I’d realized my power but was still choosing not to fly. To not be free. That is one of the most defeating forms of self-oppression—to know you have power, but not use it.

You will spend years of your life being fully aware of how much more you deserve but blaming your surroundings for keeping you from choosing to be the leader of your own life.

Once you have built a home within yourself, you are unstoppable. Because you are no longer a walking homeless person begging for someone to give you shelter. You are not standing at every intersection and every corner begging for whatever leftovers or pocket change people have to give you.

The foundation is built from two things: self-acceptance (you must feel worthy of the foundation) and self-awareness (knowing who you are).

I’d think How could you not see my worth?! When the real question needed to be asked in the mirror. Because if I myself saw my worth, I wouldn’t base my worthiness on someone else’s seeing it.

Self-acceptance at its core means knowing yourself as you are, with all your weaknesses and strengths, with all that makes you who you are. Whether you look at those things as flaws or as superpowers is in your own hands.

To accept yourself, you must first know yourself—something

ask yourself Is this something that serves me? Or is it just consuming my time?

I had the dangerous disease of trying to please everyone.

I didn’t write for many years, and during that time, I didn’t allow myself to work through my emotions. Once I started writing again, I started to heal the person who had become afraid of speaking up.

And I did not accept the silent me anymore.

My authentic self is worthy of my own acceptance.

Before you accept yourself, you must know yourself. To know yourself, you must be aware of yourself.

Being able to accept yourself in any context, independent of where you are or who you’re around, is the true meaning of deep, authentic self-acceptance.

You see, when you don’t know why you believe something, you don’t feel right.

I was still that girl because I wasn’t self-aware, and I was at a shallow level of accepting myself. Without healing that little girl and understanding why she learned to believe that scraps of love is all she would ever get, there was no way I was going to understand why I chased after scraps of what people had to give.

Before you can genuinely love yourself, you must believe that you are worthy of love.

When you believe you are worthy of love, you will start seeing love around you. You will also start to define yourself by the love you have within you, not the love you receive from external sources.

Self-love means you do not beg anyone to welcome you into their home or to validate your love by giving it a place to stay.

Self-love is loving yourself exactly as you’d love the person you love the most. And that love actually feels like love and looks like meeting your own needs.

Self-Love Requires Self-Discovery

Since university, I’d been that friend everyone who was struggling would seek out for advice and comfort. Even if they had hurt me in the past. They knew I wouldn’t turn them away or judge them.

An empath? “You are highly sensitive and you take on people’s emotions as if they’re your own,”

Because instead of asking how I could stop this emotional bleeding, I took on the mentality of Oh well, that’s just how I am. People need to stop pouring their emotions on me.

Putting the responsibility on others to not project their emotions on you is unreasonable.

You have to develop tools and strategies to balance accepting yourself as an empath while also knowing how to not emotionally bleed at the sight of someone else’s pain. Or your own pain.

This is where you can ask yourself: 1. Is this emotion mine to carry? 2. Am I being asked to carry this emotion?

Giving is noble. Loving is noble. But not if you aren’t included in that giving and loving.

giving love to others is noble, what is giving love to oneself? Not selfish, that’s for sure.

Self-Love Is Embracing Your Authentic Self

Instead of asking yourself Why doesn’t X love me? What do I need to change about myself so that they can love me? What is it about me that’s making them not love me?, understand that just because someone doesn’t love you, it doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. It could just mean this person isn’t right for you. So quit trying to change yourself in hopes that person will love you. Embrace your authentic self, and the right people will respect you for being authentic with yourself.

there are are four major styles of attachment that people form early in life and carry into adulthood: secure, anxious, avoidant, and anxious-avoidant. A secure person is an at-home person; they’re comfortable with connection and don’t base their worthiness on external sources of validation. An anxious person is the complete opposite; they’re in constant need of validation and come from a place of fear of abandonment. An avoidant person may come across as secure, but they avoid connection out of fear of abandonment. And an anxious-avoidant is a combination of the previous two.

Self-Love Is Being Empathetic with Yourself

Self-Love Is Reflected in the Way You Treat Yourself

In this Self-Love room, even the people who love you dearly are not allowed to enter. There’s another room for them, Compassion.

If you say that you love yourself, what are you doing to show that?

Being Open to Receiving Love Reflects Self-Love

was actively choosing not to see all the love around me.

was constantly feeling unworthy of love was that I was blocking my eyes from seeing love from any source other than the places I was seeking love.

your ego is looking for proof that reinforces what you believe about yourself. You walk around constantly trying to make everything mean something about you.

Whatever your brain is looking for, your eyes will see.

Self-Love Is a Practice, Not a Destination

It’s akin to giving a fire more oxygen; the fire will only get bigger.

see you. I accept that I am thinking and feeling you. And I understand that you are coming from my mind. But you are not who I am. You are not welcome as a permanent resident in my home. You are here because my mind is thinking you, because my heart is feeling you, but you are not me. And I choose not to follow you.

You can begin by reading the following affirmations: 1. I am the only person in charge of loving myself. 2. I will see evidence of love throughout my day. 3. I am my number one priority. I deserve my own love. 4. Loving myself means being at home with myself. 5. My whole power is inside of me. 6. Today I will answer my own call for love. 7. I understand that I might have moments of falling back into old habits rooted in self-hate or unworthiness, but I promise myself to practice self-love any moment I become aware of my own negative self-talk.

Stop waiting for something to happen. Stop waiting for someone to save you. Stop waiting for answers. Stop waiting for love. Stop waiting for the right moment, for the right situation. Stop waiting for relief. Stop waiting for clarity.

All that waiting is an escape. An escape from your reality. A denial of it. And indirectly a judgment of it.

I used to love the word rejection. I’ve written hundreds of poems on it. But now it doesn’t even exist in my dictionary. Rejection does not exist. The only rejection that exists is the rejection of the self, period.

Gem #9: Sign Your Self-Love Contract Read this contract carefully, and sign it. Come back to it as often as you need to.

Do not seek a cure from the person who caused you pain.