Halahealing

Author: halahealing

  • Hala and hello…to the difficult days.

    I’ve not been doing much the past few days. Well, by ‘not much’, what my overachiever inner critic really means is: ‘not been doing very much by way of anything very productive, meaningful, or leading to some monetary reward.’

    In reality, I have been doing some things. Like going to the gym, for example. And cleaning up my flat and taking some small joy in making my place of solace look more aesthetically pleasing. Taking out the overflowing bag of recycling out in a more timely manner. Picking up a book and actually reading again. A long ago hobby that fell by the wayside a long time ago. And it feels so good to be able to read again.

    The truth is, I finally accepted my fate of being burnt out last week. I did one final shift last week, then promptly came home and declared to my partner I just cannot do any more shifts for the foreseeable future. Not until I am capable of feeling anything like myself again.

    Being burnt out is hard. The only thing that is harder than being burnt out and still plouging on through it, is being burnt out and not plouging on through it. Because then you have nothing between you and your thoughts and feelings anymore. No barrier, no shield, no distraction.

    And my thoughts and feelings seem to have built up until they started festering and rotting. The most difficult of all: shame. To feel shame is to feel subhuman. Amidst the swirling hurricane of thoughts it creates, it denies you your humanity. You have no capability to feel entitled to yourself. Your past, present or future self. Your past self is the first order of business, and the weapon with which your other selves are targeted: your weakest moments used against your present self, to preemptively destroy your future self.

    I read somewhere the antidote to shame is compassion. I’m not sure I have much of that in me at the moment. I don’t feel entitled to it. But hey, that is of course, shame talking. This blog is difficult to do; because I don’t feel worthy to even do this properly. So all I will do, right now, is speak of shame and give it light, and hope it does something. Until then, I will rest. Well, first I will do the shift I have booked for tomorrow. To be burnt out and debilitated by toxic shame is one thing. To live in these difficult economic times where financial needs constantly hang over us, is quite another. Its just yet another layer we have to fight through. Sometimes, you simply cannot afford to be burnt out. And that’s a wretched thing.

    I was hoping to be able to type out something more meaningful. Or at least, to wind the post up with something more conclusive. Like a positive twist, or a reflective sentence. But, truth is, today, that’s too hard. I don’t have it in me. For now, I will go back to my book, and my cosy, recently-cleaned-up-living room, and prepare for what I hope to be an enjoyable shift tomorrow. And hey, maybe sometimes you may just not know what’s around the corner. Maybe something new will happen, that will breath a little bit of life into your weary soul.

    ………Did I just end this post on a more meaningful, reflective sentence? I’m not sure, but that’s the best I can do right now and somehow, it feels the teeniest bit more hopeful.

  • Hala and hello…to halloumi fries and healing.

    The inspiration for my blog today is a very dear friend of mine. The type of friend who, through just by their very being, can turn a day of despair into one of healing and hope. All whilst sharing a plate of halloumi fries with you.

    That’s what I did yesterday. After accidentally locking myself out of my own flat in a bid for a quick escape out of both cabin fever and a cluttered mind. I was momentarily panicked, realizing my partner wouldn’t be back for hours to let me in again, and wondering how I would pass the time until then. Luckily, my friend wanted to meet and happens to live around the corner from me.

    She wanted to meet to share with me some dating difficulties she had experienced recently. The typical mind-boggling situations many people report finding themselves in, if they dare to venture into dating in recent years. I could empathize; having had my fair share of confusing experiences over a dating period that spanned 15 years. We sat and chatted for a few hours; whilst sipping lattes and snacking on a plate of halloumi fries. After a while, something she said touched on something within me. Something I had been grappling with for a number of years. It came spilling out, as did my tears, as I felt the true emotional safety that this particular friend had a particular talent for cultivating. I hadn’t realized I’d needed her as much as she needed me when she texted me to ask for some support that morning.

    It reminded me of the significance of simplicity. And how this, perhaps, felt like much more of a ‘given’, in the past. As seems to be a common conundrum that perplexes us as we age, I asked myself once again: is this yet another thing that is simply easier to do when younger (/am I romanticizing yesteryear?) or have things truly changed with the new generation that we have lost important values that should have been upheld?

    I’m not sure I know the answer. But, the day certainly reminded me that oft times, all you really need is to be truly heard. With a side of halloumi.

  • Hala and hello…from a very sunny London!

    We have had an unusually sunny Spring this year. Not that I’m complaining. It’s been a refreshing change from merely surviving through the early grey, dark months, living off a prayer for brighter days.

    And it’s a nicer backdrop for experiencing grief. This sounds like a ridiculous sentence. But allow me to explain. Grief is a difficult topic at the best of times. It is hard to talk about, and even harder to allow oneself to feel. And this is what I’ve been trying to explore the last few months. To sit with, and feel, my grief. Grief, like unpaid loans, does not simply go away by itself. Once accumulated, it remains in the background, accruing debt onto the beholder. The emotional tax levied over time becomes a heavier burden to bear, leading it to become angrier, louder, more debilitating.

    Looking around oneself externally for inspiration doesn’t seem to yield meaningful breakthroughs. Displacing grief with a focus on work, seems to be the most obvious and ‘easiest’ of solutions, at first glance. Subtle and unsubtle clues from those around you can make it appear an almost non-negotiable first ‘point of call’. It wont be long, however, before work simply becomes the place where the grief spills out of you, leaking from tiny pores and slowly gathering momentum.

    In my experience, any means of dealing with grief other than simply…dealing with it will simply take you further away from it. With a heavy price to pay. The currency we pay in this system is a dangerous one. It is the currency of the Self. Attempting to rid yourself of a part of you through any means – ignoring, suppressing, displacing, fighting, rejecting – will demand to take the rest of you too. You may end up away from your grief, but you will also be away from the most valuable thing of all: yourself.

    So, I decided to sit with my grief. And it isn’t easy. It certainly isn’t a bright and sunny landscape, to dwell in these fields. Which is why a sunny Spring makes for a welcome backdrop. Because it serves as a reminder; that though you may feel the despair and hopelessness the grieving process brings with it, there remains a brightness. That transitory states need not be a sentence. That duality exists; you can grieve and you can live.

    And that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been grieving and living. I’ve felt anger, and then hope. I’ve felt hopeless, and then still tried. I’ve tried, and then failed. I failed, and then tried again. I succeeded, and then felt overwhelmed. Its messy, its inconsistent and its difficult. But I remain there, underneath it all, ready for when the Spring ends and the next chapter begins.

  • Hala and hello…to my first blog post!

    I have been yearning to start my own blog for so long. And now I am here…*gulp*, it is a bit daunting. I’ve wanted to write for so long. I knew since I was the age of 5. I knew that I knew, because I had just moved to the UK one year prior and learning English words became THE MOST EXCITING THING IN THE WORLD.

    But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let us re-wind a bit. Fill in a few background details, and all that.

    I was born in the Middle East. I don’t remember much of it, as we left when I was 4. I remember the journey over to the UK, though. One of my clearer earliest memories, as it goes. I remember feeling bamboozled as to where I was (at the airport) and why I was there (to board a plane to start a new life in a completely different culture). I remember just observing everything around me with fascination. I was especially fascinated by a kind, glamorous-looking woman who gave my siblings sweets.

    I wanted sweets, too. But I was always afraid of putting my head above the parapet (judging by how long it took me to start this journal, and the fact that is anonymous, not much has changed). So, I watched carefully from the sidelines, acting nonchalant (no, I’m not completely enamored by the bright shiny wrappers of the delicious looking sweets, thank you kind stranger, wondering how best to ask for one, by not asking for one. My mum had installed a firm sense of ‘we-never-ask-people-for-anything-because-it-looks-uncouth’ in me (told you I’m Arab) and this was always one of the more prioritized motivating factors behind decision-making back then (and turns out, since then too, but more on that another time).

    So I stood and watched shyly, desperately yearning for sweeties and pretending I wasn’t. She caught me watching and smiled brightly, and offered me one of the tasty treasures. I felt so embarrassed as I took one. This lady now knows I want something! What will my mum say? Well, after tasting its delicious chocolatey goodness, my fears melted away. Not long after, I repeatedly returned to her with an outstretched hand for seconds. And thirds.

    My mum did find out and she did tell us all off. Apparently we had shown ourselves up and it was most unbecoming. I hopped on the plane feeling shameful. I don’t remember much else about the journey, and don’t have many memories of exactly how the first few weeks of our new life in the UK unfolded.

    The next memories are hazy and with gaps. I remembered a house that had mice on the loose, that my father set traps for. I remember I cried when I saw a mouse caught in one of said traps. I remembered home life being…difficult. And crying when I was one day dropped off at a nursery.

    And then quick as a flash….I started school. English classes. Words. Its funny how quickly kids learn at this age, isn’t it? I don’t remember exactly how I went from speaking zero English to suddenly…making my own little mini-book, ‘publishing it’ by making a cover and stapling the pages together and then ‘illustrating’ it with my own drawings. But I did, and I loved it, and I yearned for more of it. A little while later, came the incessant reading. I discovered books with longer stories and sequels and in some cases, parts of whole series! Which makes me now wonder, what comes first with writing/reading? Do we first learn to read, and then we figure out how to write based on what our brains have learnt from looking at letters? Or do we sort of learn how to do both together, interchangeably? I’m not sure…but in my case, the writing stands out more as the start of it all. In any case, I started to write, read and the rest was history, sort of. Well, not really, but it might as well have been.

    Nothing much seemed to matter now I could do both. It felt like the world was at my fingertips, when I had a pen or book in my hand. Writing was the portal to my inner world, and reading to the outer world. And now, as it happens, both have proven to be a portal to my healing. Which leads me to here. Why I wanted to start this blog. And why it has been given its name.

    ‘Hala’ in Arabic, means: ‘welcome’ (of sorts). It sort of like ‘Hello’ but not exactly. Its an expression of greeting/welcoming someone. So, Hala – and Hello – reader. I want to welcome you to my journey. I wanted to include both Arabic and English in my title, to reflect on the two languages and cultures that have influenced me, for better or for worse, the most in my life. I wanted to create a space that my younger self would have wanted, and benefited from. I want to let you in on my world – the trials, tribulations, mishaps, growths, challenges, traumas, the good and the bad – all of it, to showcase life in a way that perhaps, many of us have not been allowed a spotlight on, in all its entirety. To not have to shun parts of life, or ourselves, in favour of preserving appearances that in the end, may sometimes do little more than dehumanize what may be perfectly human. I invite you to read my words with openness; to allow them to stand in solidarity with you where you may see your own challenges in them, and to laugh at the absurdity of it all where at times, it may seem unfathomably ridiculous. Because these are the things that have helped me to heal, and to continue to grow: to be able to share and unite in my pain with friends who gifted me safety in vulnerability, and at other times, to laugh with me through the insanity of it all. My wish for you, is that you may also find such healing here, or at least, the courage to look it in the eye and think: I can do this, too. So, hala, hello, and welcome to my world.

  • Journey to the self

    Daily writing prompt
    If there were a biography about you, what would the title be?
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