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Hi habiba,

It’s been about a week for me on the Camino de Santiago — a 270km walk from Portugal to Spain. Today in particular I am exhausted. On my walking days, I am currently averaging 17 miles. Before this, the most I have ever walked/run was back in 2019 when I did a half marathon. I knew there was a reason I swore I’d never do another one again.

I’m challenging myself to not listen to music on this journey. I think it’s a great way to tap into my inner world and self and hear me. If I do listen to music, I try to keep it instrumental or Quran. The days where I’m able to complete this additional challenge are always so insightful.

Here’s some of what I’ve learned this first week:

• This Camino isn’t a race, even though it sometimes feels like it. On the first days I saw pilgrim after pilgrim passing me and I though to myself, “oh I must be moving slower than normal”. The reality is that there is no “normal” pace, there is only your pace, and there is only your race. Yesterday, I was the one passing people. Tomorrow, I may be the one being passed again. The only concern on the road is your own body and your own ability. It is not a comparison, and it is not a race.

• Travel is a form or worship. To travel to see God’s creation, what he’s made in this world for us and to admire it is one of the highest forms of prayer and worship in my opinion. And when I’m talking about creation, yes I mean the mountains and the ocean, and the forests, but I also mean each other. And I also mean yourself.

• Another form of worship? Taking care of your body. Brushing your teeth, washing your hair, nourishing your body with healthy food, movement. To me, these are all high forms of gratitude and praise for His creation.

• Older people on the Camino have taught me what it means to LIVE. These people want to talk to you so they do. They’re not scared to share, to be vulnerable, to express, to connect, and I respect that so much. There is a transparency they have that’s admirable.

• Just because you’ve reached the same destination as someone else doesn’t mean you took the same path to get there. You don’t know what they had to go through to get to that point, and they don’t know what you’ve had to endure to reach either. Neither path is better or worse, they’re just different. And even if you took the exact same path rest assured that they would still be two completely different journeys because you’re two different humans, different bodies, with different luggage, and different gear, and different everything. Stay kind.

• If there is something I want in this world, I must first be willing to give it. I can not expect what I can not give.

• It’s time to restrict access to yourself. (I will not be explaining this one further).

• Not a lesson, but two questions that came up for me this week: what does actual rest look like for me, and have I seen it demonstrated? What does releasing control look like for me, and can I do it?

I hope you got something from these insights, habiba. If you’re interested…

Here’s a little bit more info about the Camino de Santiago:

• It’s a network of ancient routes all across Europe leading to Santiago, Spain.

• Routes can take anywhere from 5 days to 5 weeks depending on a number of factors: where you start, your pace, the specific route.

• The Camino de Santiago was originally a medieval Catholic pilgrimage leading to the shrine of the apostle James in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Many believe the remains of the apostle are buried there.

Here’s a little bit about my specific journey:

• I’m doing what I’m dubbing a Comfort Camino. This means that while traditional ‘pilgrims’ (that’s what they call those doing the Camino) stay in hostels or albergues, I will be staying in cute little hotels. I’ll also have a luggage transfer company taking my bags from hotel to hotel. I will be carrying my day bag on my walks.

• I’m walking the Portuguese Coastal route leading from Porto, Portugal all the way to Santiago. It’s about 270km or 170 miles.

• I’ll be doing this over 19 days. Most people do this route in 12/13 days, but again ~ Comfort Camino~

I still have 2 more weeks until I reach Santiago, so you’ll be getting two more reflections from me on things that have come to mind on my Camino de Santiago. I’m posting daily on Instagram and Tiktok if you’re i

nterested in mini vlogs to go along with these reflections.

Wishing you a safe journey on whichever path you’re taking these days. Bom Caminho!

With love, Wad

This week’s reflection: What have you always wanted to do that scared you a little? Did you do it anyway? Are you still waiting to do it? Why?

If this piece made you want to sit with yourself a little longer, I made something for you — a free mini journal (link below). And when you’re ready to go a little deeper, Letters to Myself is the full journal with 39 prompts for those in the middle of chapters they’re still figuring out.

free mini journal here — full journal here

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Hi habiba,

I missed you last week. I’ve been preparing to walk the Camino de Santiago—a 270km trek from Portugal to Spain. While I’m beyond excited to complete one of my side quests, I’m also incredibly nervous. Tomorrow’s the day, and if you can believe it or not, one of the things that has been top of mind has been finding a job.

It’s been 8 months of joyous unemployment (alhamdulilah), but I’m reaching a point where the joy has begun to share space with anxiety. Everyone keeps talking about how brutal the job market is right now. There was a time not too long ago where I was a career coach and consultant, so my friends and family always tell me they’re not concerned about me finding a job, but I’m finding myself…well, concerned frankly.

I’ve always been confident about securing work, so this is new territory for me. When I don’t know what to do with feelings, I go back to what steadies me—prayer and affirmations. I genuinely credit them for the shape of my life.

So I created a 13 minute guided affirmation meditation for calling in an aligned, well-paid career in a market that has all of us a little frazzled. I recorded it for myself as much as I did for you. I’ll be playing this daily on my 270km trek, but you can play it before a job search session, before an interview, or before your own walk into the unknown.

Calling this one in for both of us <3

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Hi habiba,

Someone once asked me how long heartbreak is supposed to last. I laughed—I was in the middle of a heartbreak myself. I didn’t have a clean answer for her then, and I don’t necessarily have one now, but I’m gonna try to find one here, with you.

How do you get over a heartbreak? I’m asking because I genuinely want to know. I’m the kind of person that doesn’t let people in super quickly. I take my time assessing whether they deserve access to the most sacred part of me—my heart.

But once I decide that someone is worthy, I’m all in. Fully encompassed, and ready to go to the ends of the earth for them. So a heartbreak isn’t really on my register until I’m sitting in the actual shit of it swiveling my head going ‘oh no’.

See, I’m someone who has a realllllyyyyy hard time letting go. And I’m not a short relationship girlie. I’m a “let’s fall in love and get married and grow old together” girlie. I’ve had 2 serious relationships, once of which was 10 years long. So as you can imagine, heartbreak is a whirlwind of it’s own with this mindset. When you build a whole life with someone, the heartbreak hits different.

The advice is so general for heartbreak, don’t you think? Everyone tells you the same things…

1. Cry when you need to

2. Pick up a hobby

3. Distract yourself

4. Get under someone new

5. Cut contact

Cool. So what happens when I’ve done all of that and it still feels like a tractor trailer is running over my heart?

People act like heartbreak is one big incident, it’s not. It’s a million tiny reminders of the life you built and the future you could have had with someone. It’s going into a grocery store and seeing their favorite snack. It’s stopping in an aisle and noticing the shampoo brand they use. It’s standing in the checkout line and remembering the joke he told that made the clerk rumble a chuckle. It’s packing the car and realizing that you never used to have to. It’s driving home and hearing the song he showed you. It’s unloading the car and mourning the additional pair of hands that no longer help take things inside as the plastic cuts into your wrists. It’s closing the apartment door with tears in your eyes.

It’s the countless inside jokes that you can’t phone anyone to share, because…well, it just wouldn’t make sense to them. Papas fritas, happy friday, I’m a brave, uppies — these are all just words to you, but they’re worlds of intricacies and intimate moments for me. I’m sure you have your own.

The thing is, you’re in the dismantling of the life you thought you had with someone, and that’s ok. I call this the untangling.

Moving through heartbreak is like that pile of knotted and twisted necklaces you have laying around, except there are only 2 necklaces and they REALLY want to be attached to each other. If you yank too hard in one direction they become even more difficult to unravel, so it’s a slow and torturous process. You have to wiggle one piece at a time, finding the right loop to free it from it’s jumble. A full untangling requires surrendering to time and submitting to the task. Good luck.

There is no quick-fix. No amount of cutting contact, crying, or getting under someone can replace what you’ve lost. There’s some validity for each, but ultimately, even time isn’t a healer in these circumstances.

Maybe there is no getting through heartbreak, maybe like all grief, there is only learning to live with heartbreak. The rock in your living room you just grow to acknowledge and move around. At least, that’s how it feels for me.

Don’t get me wrong, enough time will pass when the pain isn’t as severe as it feels in the beginning. Eventually you’ll feel a more dull pain, and later maybe even numb. Then you’ll question, ‘is numbness actually worse than feeling it all?’ Some days I think yes, Numbness means those two necklaces kept pulling and yanking and stretching until they gave up. But most days I think numbness is just an earlier knot in the same chain, and if you keep tugging gently enough to free them, feeling comes back slowly too.

So I guess the real answer I have for the person who asked how long it takes is that you don’t really ever get over heartbreak. You learn where that rock sits in your living room— it’s a constant reminder of the lessons it taught you. And one loop at a time, the two necklaces that clung to each other for dear life, finally let go.

Heartbreak is an overwhelming game of patience, and boy do you need it.

With love, Wad

This week’s reflection: If something ended this week, big or small, notice one thing you're still doing out of habit for a person or a version of you that isn't there anymore.

If this piece made you want to sit with yourself a little longer, I made something for you — a free mini journal (link below). And when you’re ready to go a little deeper, Letters to Myself is the full journal with 39 prompts for those in the middle of chapters they’re still figuring out.

free mini journal here — full journal here

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Hi habiba,

I recently saw a sunset so beautiful I fell to my knees and bowed. It sounds so dramatic when I see it written out, but what other way do you know to show gratitude to a creator whose only ask is submission?

And honestly, I found my head on the ground before I really had a chance to think about it much. But I do know that in those split seconds before my forehead kissed the bare earth, I wondered, “what will everyone think?” “weird girl with her head on the ground,” they’d all mutter to themselves. I imagined whispers amongst them, heads turning from the sunset to face the Muslim girl in shorts and a crop top with her face to the ground in some weird act of devotion. “She’s a relic!” they’d yell. And somehow I’d be escorted out in a ‘shame, shame, shame’ Game-of-Thrones type of anti-parade.

Miraculous what the mind can do in milliseconds, isn’t it?

Well, before I knew it, I was full forehead to the ground with so much gratitude in my body that the invasive thoughts had no real room to breathe. “Thank you,” I whispered, as silent tears slipped down my face.

As I got up and dusted myself off, I noticed everyone around me staring. Some of them were staring at images of themselves on phone screens. Others had their eyes buried into a lovers, listening intently with a cotton candy backdrop. The last of them were staring at the very creation that dropped me to my knees—the sunset. I understood why.

But no one was staring at me, no one gave me a second thought or a look or a glance. And if they did, I could only imagine that it would be out of curiosity, awe, or respect.

It’s interesting to me that my body was so overwhelmed by the beauty, magic, and gratitude, that my first instinct was prostration. Placing your forehead, nose, palms, knees, and toes on the ground is a 1,400 year-old prayer position. Buddhists call it Gyangchag, Yogis call it Balasana or Child’s Pose, and Muslims call it Sijood.

Science says prostration activates your parasympathetic nervous system, drops your cortisol, slows down your heart rate, and shifts your body into recovery mode. I think it’s the most beautiful form of surrender and gesture of gratitude.

Of course I sought comfort in prostration.

I bowed to a God who gave me eyes to see the blues, hues, and views of the Indian coast. I submitted to the creator of creation.

And what greater form of submission is there?

With love, Wad

This week’s reflection: What's one moment you almost didn't let yourself have, because you were too busy imagining how it looked to someone else? Journal about it or let me know in the comments <3

If this piece made you want to sit with yourself a little longer, I made something for you — a free mini journal (link below). And when you’re ready to go a little deeper, Letters to Myself is the full journal with 39 prompts for those in the middle of chapters they’re still figuring out.

free mini journal here — full journal here

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Hi habiba,

I’m currently sitting in a cafe in the heart of Istanbul writing to you. This place is truly a poet’s dream. Having returned to Istanbul, I’m reminded of the last time I was here with my mom. We came for my 30th birthday. A trip I planned for her to celebrate her 30 years of motherhood. Take a look at our time together, if you’re interested.

Th…

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Hi habiba,

How are you with setting boundaries? Don’t run…it’s a genuine question 😂

It’s a scary thing to do, and while I’ve come miles down that road, just when i think to myself, “hey, i think we have the hang of this thing.” BAM! New level unlock.

Now you gotta talk to your auntie about why she needs to worry about her own failing marriage instead of your lack of one. Oop. That was too much?

Boundaries are hard, but I wanted to share with you how I learned to set my own.

I grew up in a home where negative feelings weren’t really talked about. Positive feelings? We have all the time and space, but negative feelings? Hard pass.

When I was younger, I had explosive anger— I would yell and scream and give crazy attitude (God bless my parents). But it was in these outbursts that I felt release.

Time and time and time again, I was told that my actions weren’t acceptable, and that was largely true. There were definitely better ways to express myself, but I wasn’t given an alternative to release. I couldn’t observe how the people around me were addressing difficult conversations, pain points, because frankly….they weren’t. We lived in a world of passive aggression. Pain was transmuted to side-eyes, silent treatments, and one word answers.

And once enough time had passed, a good joke was told or good news came out, magically we were all back to normal.

It was in this environment that I learned to stifle my anger, disappointment, and most negative feelings. I would still feel big emotions, but I slowly began to retreat to my room. It didn’t feel safe to share myself outside of that room. And yet…

I was applauded. “Great job not yelling, Wad. Wonderful job maintaining your emotions. You’re becoming so patient. You’re really maturing.” My emotions weren’t maintained, or managed, they were just no longer visible enough to cause discomfort.

In my home, maturing equated to hiding myself. So I learned to do it well. But behind that door, I was a mess.

I learned to keep the peace by hiding bits of myself.

In retrospect, I know the way I was expressing myself wasn’t healthy. But instead of redirecting my anger, my parents tried to stifle it. And I’m not sure how much you know about big emotions friend, but the more you try to push them down, the fiercer they bubble in you. I spent more and more time in my room as a result.

For years after that, anytime someone hurt me or upset me or harmed me, I said nothing. I stayed quiet. I retreated, became passive aggressive, and in turn perpetuated the same cycle that initially harmed me. Interesting how we do that, isn’t it?

What’s shocking is that if I saw someone harm someone around me, I could provide an articulately calm mouthful. Something about standing up for others felt justified, but I couldn’t extend that same protection to myself. When I tried, my hands would get sweaty, my throat would constrict, I couldn’t pull up the words or understand how I felt quickly enough to share.

This became a pain point in my last relationship. I had a wonderful partner who I would consider an excellent communicator. He knew how to express discomfort, unease, and disappointment in a way that was so vulnerable and disarming. And I was working with the same tools: passive aggression, side eyes, and silent treatments. He played the ‘what’s wrong’ and the ‘are you ok’ game enough times before he sat me down one day.

“You’re visibly not okay, and you need to start telling me what it is that’s not okay, because I don’t know, and I can’t know until you tell me”

This shifted something in our relationship.

The Technique:

In therapy, I started going through an exercise that completely changed the trajectory of our relationship and frankly, of my life.

We came up with a technique where when someone upset me, disappointed me, hurt me, or made me angry in some way, I would write it all down. In the beginning, I honestly couldn’t even name the emotions, I just knew they were big feelings. That’s when I was introduced to the feelings wheel. Something about pinpointing my exact emotion felt freeing. Then I began to understand why I felt that way. Eventually, I would write exactly what I would say to the person who hurt me.

The day came where something came up that I needed to address with my partner. He upset me in some way and I found the courage to ask for a conversation. When we sat on the couch, I asked him if he could turn around. He did.

Still nervous, I also turned around. Now we were back to back. It’s actually comical thinking back on this. Then I slowly opened up my notes app and began reading word for word what I had written. I remember being so out of breath by the time I had finished, but I felt grounded in knowing I didn’t have to think, only read.

When I finished he asked if we could turn around. I agreed and unwillingly turned around to look at him. I was so scared. I remember the feeling of fear coursing through my system. I had no idea what he was going to say or how he was going to react.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “And I’m proud of you for sharing how you felt with me. Thank you.”

I cried. We hugged.

I felt like I could breathe for the first time in a really long time. I was upset and I shared and it was received and we moved past it. There was another way. It felt like such a large unlock at the time.

Over the months, I found the courage to look at his back as I read from my notes, then slowly I felt comfortable enough to let him look at me as I read my notes, and eventually I could look him in his eyes as I shared my grievances. The notes were always there as a form of comfort, but I started to use them less and less as a crutch.

Once I knew this was possible, I began having transparent conversations to set boundaries with almost everyone I knew. My friends have an ongoing joke of ‘you already know you’re in trouble when Wad pulls out her notes app’. I smile at the thought of a community that welcomes me fully and wholly. For that I do feel grateful.

I thought that telling the people I love most that they hurt me would make them mad at me. I learned through this exercise that the right people always want to do right by you, and you gotta give them a fair chance to do that. It’s vulnerable to share how you feel, but I’m in a place where I’m always willing to have the difficult conversation if it gives us a chance to deepen our relationship or gives us a chance to reassess our relationship. Both are beautiful outcomes and lessons on the journey towards discernment.

For me, love is about giving people a door in, and showing them what it means to love you, and being vulnerable not only in your joy and your pleasures, but also in your hurt and in your pain.

So here’s to building boundaries to deepen the closest of our relationships.

With love, Wad

This week’s reflection: When something small stings this week (a comment, a plan change, a joke that landed wrong), open your notes and write one line: what happened, what you felt, why. You don't have to send it or confront anyone. Just prove to yourself you can name the thing in real time instead of swallowing it. That's the whole exercise — noticing and naming, nothing else yet.

If this piece made you want to sit with yourself a little longer, I made something for you — a free mini journal (link below). And when you’re ready to go a little deeper, Letters to Myself is the full journal with 39 prompts for those in the middle of chapters they’re still figuring out.

free mini journal here — full journal here

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Hi habiba,

Last I left you, I was laid off from my job (yay!). And well, it’s been about 6 months since then, so I figured it was time for a little update on what it is I’ve been doing with my time since then.

Here’s a list of what I’ve gotten to do since being laid off:

• finished 300 hours of yoga teacher training in India

• visited three new country (heyyyy Mauritius, Singapore, and Nepal!)

• was in a residency in Vietnam. Read about Ember.

• took yoga classes in: Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Nepal

• took friends up on their offers to visit (thank you Mhraf in Mauritius and Nameri in Vietnam)

• realized I hate Bali

• found community in new spaces

• almost died on a boat that almost flipped over in choppy waters

• locked into my workout routine

• started tracking my macros

• rekindled old friendships and made new friends

• saw 2 fireworks shows, and one that made me cry

• launched this Substack

• saw Mount Everest

• visited 4 different art museums

• ziplined in Singapore

• paraglided in Nepal

• tried countless new foods

• rode more motorbikes than I can count

• completed the ha giang loop!

• hiked in sapa, and got 27,000 steps in one day

• watched more jaw-dropping sunsets than I can count

• taught yoga classes in Vietnam and India

• dealt with a leak in my home in dc

• got really good at pickleball

• tried aerial yoga

• started posting on socials again

• rode an overnight bus for the first time

Here’s some of the things I’ve missed out on:

• more birthdays than I can count

• a baby shower of a close friend I was gutted to miss

• hugging my mom when her cousin passed

• annoying my brothers in person

• observing my parents to asses their health in person

• going to doctors appointments with people I love

• intimate dinners with the girlies

• hot girl walks and coffee with a sweet treat after

• showing up for my mom on Mother’s Day

• a first birthday of a baby i love

• random calls to hang out

• random hangouts at a friends homes

• spontaneous going out nights

• showing up for my dad on Father’s Day

• community that knows me deeply and loves me infinitely

I short, I’ve been living. Experiencing the highs and lows of constant travel (it’s been 10 months, can you believe that?). In many ways I’m living the dream, in many other ways I’m missing the point. But I’m staying grateful through it all.

It’s been feeling like my side quest year, and I’m really leaning into it. All the things I’ve been wanting to do in this life, I now have an opportunity to do. I’ve always been a believer in taking life by the reigns, so giddy-up yall.

The way I look at it: I’m the youngest I’ll ever be with the least amount of responsibilities I’ll have and enough money (thanks severance) to do it all, so why not?

If not now, then truly—when?

Here’s to making the most of your life, living your dreams and going after the things that bring you so much joy in this life (even if there’s a little grief attached too).

With love, Wad

This week’s reflection:

If this piece made you want to sit with yourself a little longer, I made something for you — a free mini journal (link below). And when you’re ready to go a little deeper, Letters to Myself is the full journal with 39 prompts for those in the middle of chapters they’re still figuring out.

free mini journal here — full journal here

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Hi habiba,

I have been writing with em dashes since before most people knew what they were called. Not as a style choice or a flex, but it’s just how I write. The same way some people use semicolons and some people use ellipses, it was just mine.

And now I have to be careful about it. Now I have to think about whether using the punctuation I have always used, in the sentences I actually wrote, is going to make someone somewhere think I didn’t write them. I literally have to manage the optics of my own grammar.

How embarrassing. Not for me, actually. For all of us.

Recruiters started flagging resumes. Teachers started scanning essays. Colleagues started squinting at each other’s emails.

Somewhere along the way, the em dash became a tell. An indicator that someone had used AI. But friends, the em dash has been in use since the 1800s. It didn’t ask for this

And you know what I can’t get over? Writers who’ve used em dashes for decades, for their entire careers, in books and essays and newsletters that had nothing to do with AI, started quietly removing them (including me). Not because anything was wrong, but because they were afraid of being misread. A machine had learned their habit and now the habit belonged to the machine, and they had to find a new one.

We are the ones who built language. AI learned from us. And we’re the ones who have to change? Fuck that!

I find this enraging in a way that is hard to fully articulate, which is ironic given that the thing I am enraged about is being made to feel inarticulate.

There is something so insulting about having a tool that was trained on human writing turn around and make human writers doubt themselves. We gave it every sentence, every habit, every little stylistic tick that makes one person’s voice different from another’s. And the price we are apparently paying for that is that we now have to write around our own instincts to prove we had them in the first place.

What’re we supposed to do, exactly? Use worse punctuation? Write flatter sentences? Chip away at every edge that might look, to some classifier somewhere, like evidence of a machine? That’s not a solution, it’s SURRENDER!

And I know the fear is real. There are real contexts where the question of authorship matters. I understand not wanting to be misread in those moments. But most writing isn’t that.

Most writing is just someone trying to reach someone else. A newsletter, a note, a stupid email, or a text you rewrote four times to get the tone right. Nobody is running that through a detector. And even if they were — you wrote it the way you have always written it, with the marks and the rhythms that are yours, and that is true regardless of what a language model absorbed from a hundred years of human text.

I’m putting my em dashes back. Because frankly I’m tired of writing sentences that sound a little less like me for the benefit of a suspicion that was never about me to begin with.

Your voice has been yours longer than any of this has existed. Write like it!

With love, Wad

This week’s reflection: Write something without editing it for optics. A text, a note, a caption, anything. Use whatever punctuation you actually use. Send it before you can second-guess it.

If this piece made you want to sit with yourself a little longer, I made something for you. Start with the free mini journal — a few prompts to ease you in. And when you're ready to stay a while, the full Letters to Myself journal has 39 prompts for those in the middle of a chapter they're still figuring out.

free mini journal here — full journal here

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Hi habiba,

Today I completed 300 hours of Yoga Teacher Training in the birthplace of yoga: Rishikesh, India. In honor of this achievement, I wanted to share some of the crazy bars that have been casually dropped during my favorite class: philosophy.

I had an Einstein-looking teacher with long curly hair who only ever wore white. His name is Sadhu-Ji. He gave me more bars this month than I visited during my hot girl summer in DC last year, and trust me, I was OUTSIDE. So that’s really saying a lot.

For one reason or another, these words felt important enough to jot down in a notebook, on my phone or on the closest piece of paper I could find. For two reasons or another, I now feel compelled to share these insights with you. I hope they land for you in the way they did for me.

The 8 Things A Yogi Taught Me:

1. Your next level of achievement comes after your next level of discomfort. Said during the hardest point of the month for me emotionally—week 2. If you know, you know. (If you don’t know, you can find out here).

2. Sometimes you’re rejected for something because you’re chosen for something else. Said during a conversation about your calling.

3. Can you hide from your own self? Asked in a conversation about visibility and the fear of being seen.

4. When you’re clear with yourself, the world has no choice but to be clear with you. On the law of nature and needing to create space for what you’re asking for. Before matter existed, space did.

5. Noone can judge you if you’re not judging yourself, and noone has the time to judge you because they’re all too busy judging themselves. I think this one is self-explanatory.

6. Sometimes people aren’t meant to understand you because their opinion on the matter isn’t meant for you to hear. A discussion on why we feel misunderstood.

7. Through continuous practice, even a dull mind becomes wise. Just as a rope, when drawn repeatedly over stone, leaves a mark. A reminder that no matter the circumstance, you are capable of all you desire if you’re willing to be disciplined and determined.

8. Your floor is someones ceiling, and your ceiling is someones floor. Perspective on gratitude and human nature’s constant desire for more.

Tell me, which one of these took you by suprise?. I was honestly speechless after every single one ‘cuz yeah, it IS that deep for me. During my 200 hour training, I had a monk as a philosophy teacher—Swami-Ji. He shook my world with his insight. Should I drop his bars in a post too?

I’ll be writing a bit more about my time in India, all I’ve learned and some of the things I struggled with here, but for today I just wanted to take a moment to celebrate this accomplishment. I can’t believe I did it, and I’m so proud of me.

Here’s to doing all the crazy shit that scares you!

With love, Wad

This week’s reflection: What are you proud of yourself for? Have a mini celebration of self, you’ve done so much!

If this piece made you want to sit with yourself a little longer, I made something for you — a free mini journal (link below). And when you’re ready to go a little deeper, Letters to Myself is the full journal with 39 prompts for those in the middle of chapters they’re still figuring out.

free mini journal here — full journal here

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Hi habiba,

Once in middle school, I told a boy I liked him in a letter and he told the whole class. It was beyond embarrassing. I remember feeling shame. There was also that time I got caught stealing bubblegum from family friends at the ripe age of 8. They confronted me and I continued to lie my way through it. Don’t worry, everyone could tell I was lying. That was bad…and hella embarrassing. The look of disappointment on my moms face? Whew, yeah, I’ll never steal bubblegum again.

Oh yeah, there was also the time I slipped and fell on sand as I walked into a music festival in Portugal. Everyone around me just looking. My friends helping me up. That was pretty bad too. I guess my point is that no matter how old we are, we’ll never outrun embarrassment.

And while some embarrassment is good – I told you I don’t steal bubblegum anymore – there’s a different kind of embarrassment that I think is costing us our lives.

There’s the embarrassment that keeps you from opening up to people you love –ew, how embarrassing, why would I tell them how I feel?. There’s the embarrassment that keeps you from sharing your story, no one would even care about this. And lest we not forget the embarrassment about what people will think – what will my family say? How will my friends see me after this?

I personally believe embarrassment is a preliminary feeling, kind of like anger. It’s an initial emotion that pops out, but what sits underneath tells a different story. For anger, there could be a million underlying stories–fear, anxiety, hurt, abandonment. The list goes on.

Embarrassment only has one underlying emotion, and it’s shame.

How many things have you stopped yourself from doing for the sake of embarrassment? How many conversations have you passed up? How many dances have you skipped? How many people have you refused to approach? How many songs have you pretended to like? How many lovers have you walked away from? How many laughs have you stifled? How many tears have you held in? How much life have you left on the table for the sake of embarrassment?

And really, I want to know, who’s shamed you to the point of domestication?

See for me, shame is an interesting one because there are things we should be ashamed of as a society. If you do wrong by someone, you should be ashamed. If you hurt someone, you should be ashamed. If you have ill intent, you should also be ashamed. There are reasonable sources of shame. And being ashamed of something isn’t inherently a bad thing, it’s our internal compass for the kind of human we are. Shame is good in these instances.

You see how shame is inherent here? That means it can only come from YOU. But we’ve given other people so much authority over our lives, that now shame is something that comes from them. They can shame you. They can tell you the kind of human you are. And the worst part is that you believe them.

Embarrassment has no age limits, habiba. But you can have limits on what you choose to be embarrassed about. If you want to dance in the middle of the party when everyone is posted up against a wall, do it (no, like forreal, i’m out there alone guys). If it’s raining and you want to jump around, I encourage you. If you fall in front of a crowd and you think it’s funny, laugh!

Stop being a domesticated version of yourself in an effort to appease people that don’t have your internal compass.

It’s one life you get habiba, and I hope you squeeze every drop of joy it tries to deliver to you.

With love, Wad

This week’s reflection: Think about the last time you’ve stopped yourself from doing something for the sake of embarrassment. It’s your side quest this week to go do it! Report back with how you felt afterwards.

If this piece made you want to sit with yourself a little longer, I made something for you — a free mini journal (link below). And when you’re ready to go a little deeper, Letters to Myself is the full journal with 39 prompts for those in the middle of chapters they’re still figuring out.

free mini journal here — full journal here

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Hi habiba,

I’m not sure about you, but I used to be the biggest people pleaser. Looking back, it’s almost shameful the things I let people get away with when it came to me. I’m no longer in the business of shaming myself either.

If you’ve ever let people walk over you, made yourself a little smaller in order to keep the peace, or morphed yourself into something else to be ‘easy to love’ — hi. I see you. And even moreso, I was you.

I asked on my Instagram story, and you asked for a podcast this go around, or as I like to call it, a Wadcast.

So take a listen to find out what helped me move from people pleaser to boundaried woman.

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Hi habiba,

Are you living in your values?

Ooph. Hefty question, I know. Sit with it for a minute and really ask yourself.

Well, this week I’ve been thinking about what it means to actually live in your values. I mean the question can’t even be answered without first knowing what your values are. So quick question: do you know what your values are?

No judgment if you don’t. I spent the majority of my life not knowing what my values were, but it didn’t feel that way. If you asked me I would say ‘yeah, I have values’ or I could have given you a list of things I valued, but I think that’s very different from having a clear distinction of what your top values are and why you value them so much.

We can largely agree that all values are important – fairness, loyalty, kindness, freedom, authenticity, belonging, collaboration, gratitude (and the list goes on). Yeah, those sound good! But if you’re asked to cross out five of these, it becomes increasingly difficult to decide. Is kindness more important than authenticity? Is loyalty more important than freedom? Is gratitude more important than belonging? And more importantly, how will you decide? The answer to the how is your why.

When I was younger, one of my brothers would always say that he lived by his ‘constitution’. He would go on and on about how important it was, how helpful it was to him, and how it gave him direction. This was his guide, his North Star. I never really understood what he meant by a ‘constitution’, but looking back now, I think he had clarity from a very young age about what it was that moved him, what it was that he valued, and what a gift that was and still is.

Have you ever taken a moment to really consider what it is that you value? I didn’t until I was in grad school. To be clear, that’s a good 25 years roaming this world relatively aimlessly. How long has it been for you?

Well, I had a professor who made us do an exercise to help us identify our top 3 values, and it was the most difficult exercise of the year. How do you decide if, freedom is more important than peace? (Fun fact: for me, it is). It took me the full 90-minute class to answer that question.

What I didn’t anticipate is how often I would refer back to that exercise. And what I’m eternally grateful for is what that exercise has given me – a constitution of my own.

Now, when I’m faced with difficult decisions the first question I ask myself is ‘which of these paths aligns with my values?’ Asking this as the precursor ensures that I live a life that is ultimately true to who I am.

And almost nothing is as important to me as staying true to myself, because at the end of the day, I have to answer to me. And she don’t play.

It’s miraculous how often we can change, grow, adapt, and evolve through the years. I definitely have. But as often as I have revisited this exercise over the past 8 years, my top 3 values have remained constant: Freedom, Community, and Love. They’ve never steered me wrong, they’ve never made me feel guilty for making difficult decisions, and they’ve never waivered. There is a power in knowing your values and in standing firm in them. There is a beauty in embodying your knowing in this way and in communicating it through your actions. There is a courage, too.

Whatever decision you are grappling with will never be the wrong decision when it’s rooted in your ultimate knowing and truth.

Here’s the same exercise I completed in grad school that helped me uncover my values and ultimately build my constitution. I think you deserve the gift of knowing. Once you finish the exercise, let me know what your top 3 values are, I’d love to know!

Here’s to living up to our potential, rooting ourselves in our values, and having the courage to show up authentically.

With love,

Wad

This week’s reflection: If you don’t know your values, take the time to click the link above and complete the exercise. If you already know your values, take the time to click the link above and see if they’re still ringing true in this season of your life.

If this piece made you want to sit with yourself a little longer, I made something for you — a free mini journal (link below). And when you’re ready to go a little deeper, Letters to Myself is the full journal with 39 prompts for those in the middle of chapters they’re still figuring out.

free mini journal here — full journal here

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Hi habiba,

I’ve been feeling really unsettled recently. Maybe it’s being unemployed, maybe it’s living out of a carry-on for the past 9 months, maybe it’s not having hugged my mom for 121 days, maybe its Maybelline.

For some reason, this feeling reminded me of when I ended a 10-year relationship. I remember feeling guilty for staying with him for so long, ashamed at the ways I had disrespected myself throughout the relationship, and unsettled in what it meant to build a life without someone I was sure was going to be around forever.

Through therapy, a mountain of tears, and an army of friendship I came out of that shame spiral. I began to understand how guilt and shame shaped my view of the world and of myself. And I slowly came to know the power of grace, compassion, and self-love.

In the weeks leading up to my 27th birthday, I wrote a poem about that time. I’m 33 now, but I re-read this poem whenever I feel unsettled. It’s a reminder of what I have come through, what I have conquered, and the ferocious, brave, kind woman that lives in me (and in you). This week I want to share that poem with you. I hope it opens something up in you the way it does in me.

27th Birthday Poem:

I just got back together with myself,

there’s no way we’re breaking up again.

I lost her in a crowd of hopeless romanticism and unworthy lovers.

Searched for her in the hearts of ones I fell for, in the dreams others imprinted on me, the sacrifices of my parents, the ideals of loved ones, the hopes of teachers.

I searched for her there, and still I did not find her. She was busy performing.

She hid behind fear-of failing and falling and hurting and disappointing; of believing and growing, succeeding and and intimidating;

So she lay still.

Unable to move. Paralyzed by expectations. Frozen in fear.

I found her at the corner of self and respect. Right after the intersection of self and love, before you hit the u-turn at what other people think of you.

I was so busy finding her in other people, in places too dark to remember, too painful to recall that I didn’t realize she was only a heartbeat away.

I feared her awakening for I did not know what it held. And when I allowed her to unfurl, the stars aligned.

It was as if she held the entirety of the universe in her chest, just waiting for permission to let the world see.

Powerful grace, divine spirit, courageous heart.

I just got back together with myself, and

there’s no way we’re breaking up again.

If you’re interested in hearing the spoken word version of this poem, click here ***

With love, Wad

This week’s reflection: What do you tend to do when you’re unsettled? How do you find your way back to. yourself? Take some time and journal about this.

If this piece made you want to sit with yourself a little longer, I made something for you — a free mini journal (link below). And when you’re ready to go a little deeper, Letters to Myself is the full journal with 39 prompts for those in the middle of chapters they’re still figuring out.

free mini journal here — full journal here

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Hi habiba,

I have a confession to make – and it’s not one I ever intended to address, but here we are. I’ve used AI to help me write to you in the past. Could you tell?

The truth is, it doesn’t matter whether you could detect it or not, because I knew. To be fair, I always wrote my articles in full. Where AI came in was to fix my grammar, work on structure, and ensure that my points landed when they were supposed to. But that doesn’t really matter much because I used it anyway, and it felt icky.

So, why tell you now? I guess I could have kept this confession to myself and adjusted on my own, but the point of this space is to share the uncomfortable. And this is uncomfortable.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to create art. To bear my soul to you in this way. How intimate it is and how special it is that we get to share this space. Something about including a machine in that process felt disingenuous to the craft, the art, the beauty of what we share.

I know there are many writers, especially here on Substack, that use AI to write — and I can tell. If you use AI enough, you can almost always detect its presence. It gives the same structure, the same rhythm, the same cadence to just about everyone. And I can’t shame these writers for doing so, I get it.

Maybe you want to be more clear, maybe you need help structuring your thoughts, or maybe you’re looking to find another word to really hit the point. I had the same thoughts at some point too.

But, tech billionaires have bet their bottom dollar that we’ll use these machines without considering the effects on our environment (fun fact: it’s bad), our brain health (it’s really bad), and on our social ties (it’s dismally bad). Well, as it comes to me, they were right.

It’s not that I didn’t think about the effects of using AI, it’s that I selfishly valued the convenience and efficiency more than the consequences of the use. I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to live in a world where I can breathe crisp air and drink from cool streams. I want to remember the creases on my moms face when she smiles at me. I want to entrench myself in the very fabric of my community and tether myself to our survival as a sheer act of resistance. And hopefully, I’ll also get the chance to prove the tech billionaires wrong.

So what’s gonna change in my process?

As for editing and structure, I’m going to turn to my greatest asset: my community. Friends, I hope you’re ready to read rough drafts! As for finding synonymous words, Thesaurus.com I hope you’re ready to see me coming. See, there are other ways to achieve our goals of clarity, we don’t need AI for our art.

And I really want you to consider this: there is nothing more clear than your own voice. You were blessed with it for a reason, so use it. I personally want to protect the authenticity of my art, and I urge you to do the same.

You have my word. Moving forward, I’ll never use AI to write these letters to you. Every word will come directly from me. This means that you’ll probably run into more mistakes on my end (run-on sentences, spelling mistakes, even a misplaced comma or two), and I’m asking you to be comfortable with that.

I hope that through this letter you can see my humanity. It takes a lot of courage to share the thoughts that keep me up at night, riddle my heart and give me pause. And with each one I feel like I’m baring my soul to you in an effort to have the uncomfortable conversation. I hope you’ll hold me tenderly, and more importantly, accountable.

Here’s to being more human.

With love, Wad

This week’s reflection: What conversation have you been avoiding? Take this moment to reflect on why you’ve been avoiding it and take the first step towards doing the scary thing. That step could be a list of your grievances, gathering some much-needed information, or making the actual call. It’s up to you babe!

If this piece made you want to sit with yourself a little longer, I made something for you — a free mini journal (link below). And when you’re ready to go a little deeper, Letters to Myself is the full journal with 39 prompts for those in the middle of chapters they’re still figuring out.

free mini journal here — full journal here

Subscribe now

Hi habiba,

Four times in the last two weeks I’ve heard some version of the same thing, from different people, with slightly different words. I know you’re traveling so I didn’t want to bother you. Or: I figured you were probably on some adventure, I didn’t want to distract. One friend told me she’d had a mental block about reaching out since I left. Another said she didn’t want to interrupt. And every single time, the answer is the same. CALL ANYWAY.

I think we’ve gotten something backwards about community. Somewhere along the way we started treating it like it’s supposed to feel frictionless. Like a good friendship is one where reaching out happens naturally and the timing always works and nobody ever has to do the awkward thing of calling someone in a different time zone on a Tuesday afternoon with nothing specific to say.

And so when it doesn’t feel that way, when you’re not sure what’s going on in their life anymore and catching up feels like a lot and the longer you leave it the more it accumulates, you wait.

You mean to. You plan to find a better moment, and the better moment doesn’t come, and then six months have passed and calling feels like it requires a whole production you don’t have the energy for.

But community was never supposed to be convenient. That was never the deal. The calls that mean the most to me are the ones that cost something, not money or effort in any dramatic sense, just the small cost of doing it anyway when it wasn’t perfectly timed.

The voice note you almost didn’t send because you weren’t sure it was worth the interruption. The FaceTime you initiated before you could talk yourself out of it. You could have not done it, and you had decent reasons not to, and you did it anyway. That is the whole thing. That is what people feel when they’re on the other end.

The best calls I get, and the best calls I make, are the unplanned ones. Not the “let’s find a time that works for both of us across seven time zones” calls, not the ones that get scheduled and then rescheduled and start to feel like an obligation by the time they actually happen. The ones that come out of nowhere, where someone was just thinking about me and picked up the phone before they could think too hard about it.

Those calls are looser. Funnier. They go sideways in the best way because there’s no agenda to work through, so you end up talking about the thing you actually wanted to talk about rather than the efficient summary of the last three months. And the person on the other end is more likely to answer, because an unexpected call in the middle of a weekday reads as something worth picking up.

And if I don’t answer? That’s okay too. Because when I see the missed call, I feel it. I feel that someone was in the middle of their day, their actual life, and thought of me enough to try, and that is not a failed call, that is a love note sitting in my recent history. I look at it and I think: she thought of me today. That matters so much more than people give it credit for.

I understand the hesitation, I really do. There’s something that feels presumptuous about calling someone whose life looks full from the outside. You don’t want to interrupt, you don’t want to be the one dragging them back to the ordinary when they’re out there doing the extraordinary, and there’s also this quieter thing underneath all of that, this sense that you’re not sure where you stand anymore, and the longer you wait the harder it gets to know, and eventually the call feels like it might require an explanation you’re not ready to give.

I know. The logic is coherent, I’m not dismissing it. And still: call anyway.

There is a specific feeling I want to tell you about, because I think it’s the best argument I have.

It’s the feeling of being in a different country, time zones away from everyone you love, and having your phone light up with a FaceTime from a group of friends who were all together somewhere and wanted you there badly enough to just call. Without planning it, without checking the time, just: she should be here for this.

Sometimes I was awake and answered these calls. And many times, I couldn’t. But that was never the point. The point was what happened in my chest the moment I saw the notification: seen, missed, considered, cared for, adored, wanted, needed.

Not left behind, not someone they’d get around to eventually but someone they wanted in the room right now, even when the room was in a different hemisphere.

You can deliver that feeling in three seconds. At an inconvenient hour. With nothing prepared to say.

Staying in someone’s life isn’t a feeling you have about them, it’s a choice you make, sometimes at a bad time, sometimes imperfectly, sometimes with nothing specific to say except that you were thinking about them and wanted them to know it. And the people who are far away can feel the difference between friends who are choosing them and friends who are meaning to.

I’m not saying this to make anyone feel guilty. I’m saying it because the mental block is almost always about not wanting to get it wrong, and there is almost no way to get this wrong. A two-minute call. A missed call. A voice note you recorded in the car. Any of it. All of it.

Community doesn’t wait for a clear calendar and perfect signal and something meaningful to say. It happens in the stolen two minutes, the slightly awkward timing, the “I only have a sec but I was just thinking of you.” These are inconvenient little acts and they are, genuinely, the whole point.

The bar is just: try.

Call your friends who are far away, habiba. Call them when the time isn’t perfect, when you don’t have anything specific to say, when you’re not sure they’ll answer because the missed call still counts. Call when they’re in Vietnam, or Zanzibar, or Colombia, or six hours ahead of you in some direction you keep mixing up.

You don’t have to have a reason. You don’t have to have an hour. You don’t even have to have solved the inconvenience of the time zone or the life distance or the fact that you’re not sure where things stand.

That is how people know they’re loved. Not by the perfect, planned, find-a-time-that-works call, but by the ordinary, slightly impulsive, I-was-just-thinking-about-you one.

Those are the ones I remember.

With love, Wad

This week’s reflection: If this made you think of someone, close this and call them right now. Unplanned is the whole point.

If this piece made you want to turn the mirror on yourself, I made something for that. The free mini journal is a good place to start - a few prompts to help you sit with the questions this essay raised. And if you want to go deeper, the full Letters to Myself journal has 39 prompts for the woman in the middle of a chapter she’s still figuring out.

Grab the free mini here — Get the full journal here

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Hi habiba,

The world is a bit of a shitshow right now. What’s going on, you ask? Pick something. There’s plenty to choose from.

We get so desensitized to it all that we forget how much it’s actually draining us. Not just mentally. Energetically. You’re carrying the weight of things you haven’t even fully processed yet, and you’re still trying to show up and function.

I made this on a week where I was fine but also not fine at all. I didn’t need advice. I didn’t need to journal about it. I needed someone to just tell me to sit down and breathe for twelve minutes.

So here’s me, telling you to sit down and breathe for twelve minutes.

Press play.

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Hi habiba,

There is an offer you are going to turn down today. Not because you don’t want it. Because some quiet part of you will decide you are too much.

You are quietly opting out of the best moments of your life. I can prove it.

Nameri is one of my best friends and she reigns from Sierra Leone. A few years ago she traveled to Ghana, and while she was there, met a travel guide named Charles.

The way she describes him, you get the sense he was one of those people who make a place feel like home. He knew the streets like he had named them. He knew the stories behind the walls. By the end of the trip, Charles was no longer just her guide. He was a friend.

They kept in touch the way good people do when they find each other across geography: a call every few months, a check-in, a laugh, a “how are you really.” The distance between Accra and wherever Nameri was at the time collapsed every time they spoke.

Then one day Charles called to mention he was planning a cross-Africa road trip with a tourist. One of the stops was going to be Sierra Leone.

Nameri said, almost casually: stop at my mom’s house.

Charles mentioned they’d been looking for somewhere to stay and Nameri reaffirmed: don’t worry, stop at my mom’s house. She’ll take care of you.

And he did.

While Nameri was thousands of miles away, Charles and the tourist pulled up to her mother’s home in Sierra Leone. They sat at the table. They ate dinner. They laughed. Her mother laughed. They spent the night. And by the time they left, something had happened that cannot be planned and cannot be bought: a group of people who were mostly strangers had become, in the space of an evening, something closer to family.

This story gave me pause.

Because I know the version of this story where Charles says thank you, I don’t want to be a bother. I’’ll figure something out.

I know it because I have been this version of Charles more times than I can count.

Someone makes an offer, genuine and open, and something in me quietly declines it before my mouth even moves. Not because I don’t want what’s being offered. But because some small, shy voice says: you’re asking too much. You’ll be a burden. They don’t really mean it. And so I say “it’s okay, don’t worry,” and I go find somewhere else to stay, and I spend the night alone in a perfectly fine hotel, and I never meet the mother. I never sit at the table. I never have the evening that changes something.

We do this constantly. With the birthday in another city for the person we met three months ago and really clicked with but we’re not sure if we’re close enough yet. With the “you should come visit sometime” that we file away as a nicety instead of an invitation. With the trip that someone mentions and we say oh I’d love that and then never follow up because we don’t want to seem too eager, too needy, too much.

We talk ourselves out of the table before we’ve even been asked to sit down.

Here is what I want you to consider.

When Nameri said stop at my mom’s house, she wasn’t doing Charles a favor. She was doing it because Charles had already given her something: his time, his knowledge, his stories, his friendship, his willingness to show her a place the way it deserved to be seen. The offer wasn’t charity. It was a circle completing itself.

This is what we get wrong about accepting. We think we are taking. We think the equation is uneven, that we are on the receiving end of something we haven’t earned. But most of the time, the offer exists precisely because we have already given. We gave our presence. Our full attention. Our laughter at the right moment. Something we said that stayed with someone longer than we knew. The invisible things, the things we give without realizing we’re giving, those are the currency.

You have been generous in ways you have not given yourself credit for.

And when someone offers you something, they are often just trying to hand it back.

I am not telling you to say yes to everything. I am not talking about overriding your instincts or ignoring the quiet signals that tell you when something is off.

I am talking about the other voice. The one that says this is too good or I don’t deserve this yet or what if it’s awkward. The one that has talked you out of a thousand small adventures, a hundred potential friendships, maybe even a love or two. That voice is not your instincts. That voice is just fear cosplaying as politeness.

Say yes to the birthday in another city. Book the ticket. Take the trip with the person you met six weeks ago. Go to the dinner. Stay at the mother’s house.

The discomfort you feel when you say yes to something vulnerable, that is not a warning. That is just the feeling of your life getting bigger.

Charles could have said no. He could have found somewhere else to stay in Sierra Leone, some accommodation that asked nothing of him, that required no leap of trust. And it would have been fine.

But he would never have gotten the chance to laugh with Nameri’s mother. The opportunity to know his friend just a little bit better through knowing the people she loved. He would never have had that evening. He would never have known what he was capable of finding when he stopped somewhere unexpected and let himself be received.

So say yes, habiba. Show up.

That is where everything worth telling begins.

With love,

Wad

This week’s reflection: What offer are you sitting on right now? It could be a birthday, a trip, or a "come visit sometime" you quietly filed away. What is the voice telling you about why you can't take it?

If this piece made you want to sit with yourself a little longer, I made something for you. Start with the free mini journal — a few prompts to ease you in. And when you're ready to stay a while, the full Letters to Myself journal has 39 prompts for the woman in the middle of a chapter she's still figuring out.

free mini journal here — full journal here

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Hi habiba,

Do you know what a step-friend is? They’re the friends of your friends. The ones you hear short blurbs about in passing, maybe meet a couple different times, but you have no real relationship with them. You may love learning about their newfound interest in pottery, or the fact they got engaged, and it’s more than likely you’ll never get invited to the wedding, but you’ll watch from the sidelines just the same.

You may be the person your friend comes to in order to get clarity about a disagreement between them, or to share a joint excitement, maybe a funny story. These people become your step-friends. Not exactly friends, but not exactly irrelevant characters either.

I have a step-friend that I’ve heard about for years, met a handful of different times, and even gone on a cabin trip with once. During the last couple of years, the stories have not been flattering about this step-friend. Repeated patterns that lead me to questioning the friendship. Oh, she’s not coming to yet another event of yours? Are you feeling supported by her? She ditched you? She didn’t communicate? And eventually this led to: are you sure this is the kind of relationship you want to invest in?

I questioned this relationship a lot, but my friend kept telling me: you don’t know her. You’ve known about her for a short period of time. I’ve known her for years.

And I had to sit with that.

See, there’s a version of my brother that an ex-boyfriend of mine never got to see. And I remember saying the same thing to him in defense of my brother: you don’t know him. You’ve known about him for a short period of time. I’ve known him his whole life.

My ex witnessed my brother and me through the worst period of our relationship. He saw us mid-argument. Two siblings who had thirty years of accumulated friction and shorthand and old wounds, playing out in real time in front of someone with no context for any of it. He saw the tension. He saw us failing to be easy with each other. And he made a judgment.

An understandable one, honestly, from where he was standing.

But he never got to see my brother cry when I told him about my first heartbreak. He never got to see me help my brother across the McDonald’s playplace when he was too scared to go alone. He never got to see the version of my brother that stood up to our parents for me.

And I kept wanting to say - you’re only seeing a chapter. You don’t know the whole book.

The people who have known us longest hold all our versions at once. They remember who you were when you were still figuring it out. They were there for the before, so the during looks different to them. It has more room. More grace. Someone new walks in and they only get what’s in front of them. And sometimes what’s in front of them is the hardest part.

I’ve been doing to my step-friend exactly what my ex did with my brother. I got a window, a specific and unflattering window, and I let it become the whole story. I never got the McDonald’s playplace version. I never got the crying-over-heartbreaks version. I just got the version that made it into the stories, which is almost never the whole person.

I think about how many people I’ve quietly filed away based on a chapter I caught at the wrong time. How many people have done the same with me, meeting me mid-argument, mid-grief, mid-the hardest version of myself, and walking away thinking they knew what I was.

We’re all someone’s limited window.

And I think the work is to hold that lightly. To hear a story about someone and remember you’re hearing it from a particular angle, during a particular season. To leave room for the pieces you’ll never get to see.

My brother is one of the most important people in my life. And the people who only caught us during those years got a chapter, not a book. I’m learning to remember that about everyone. The step-friend I’ve been quietly judging. The person your friend keeps defending. The version of you that someone met on your worst day and walked away from thinking they had the whole story.

We deserve more than our worst chapter. So does everyone else.

With love, Wad

This week’s reflection: Think about your own step-friends. Who have you quietly filed away based on a window that was never the whole picture? You don't have to reach out. You don't have to forgive anything. Just hold the question: what's the version of them you never got to see?

If this piece made you want to turn the mirror on yourself, I made something for that. The free mini journal is a good place to start - a few prompts to help you sit with the questions this essay raised. And if you want to go deeper, the full Letters to Myself journal has 39 prompts for the woman in the middle of a chapter she’s still figuring out.

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Hi habiba,

I’ve been sitting with a particular kind of grief lately: the kind that arrives slowly, when you start to understand the people who raised you as people.

My mom grew up in a Sudan where a woman’s power came from who she married. The ultimate measure of success was landing a wealthy man who treated you well, and wealthy Sudanese men had very specific taste: lighter skin, longer hair, a thin body. How convenient that their specific desires all map neatly onto colonial beauty standards.

This was the equation she inherited. Marry well and you had access, social capital, and an unmistakably successful life. Fail to marry well, and you didn’t.

So when I grew up hearing comments about my weight, about staying out of the sun, about combing out my curls or straightening them more often, I thought my mom believed something was inherently wrong with me. It felt like she hated my hair, had an issue with my weight, and wasn’t a fan of…well, me.

But as I got older, I started to understand her intentions a little more clearly. My mom’s intention was to give me armor for a world she understood. This was her form of protection, her guide for success, her way in love. It was just the wrong material.

The protection and the harm were the same thing.

She wanted me to be thin because she thought thinness would make me loved. She wanted me to present a certain way because she thought presentation was protection. She’d watched the world punish people for being too visibly themselves, too black, too loud, too much, and she thought if she could sand down the edges early, if she could do it before the world did, at least it would come from love.

She was trying to prepare me for a world that would tell me my body was wrong. She just didn’t realize she became the first voice to say it.

I have to remind myself: the harm came through her, not from her.

The same system that shaped Sudan shaped what she believed about love and bodies and survival. But still.

Intention doesn’t change impact.

We don’t have good enough language for this. We want parents to be either loving or harmful, and the truth is they can be both simultaneously, in the same gesture. The same breath.

I called her recently and sat on the phone thinking: I love you so much, and there are parts of me that are still healing from you. And that seems right, actually. That seems like what it is to have been raised by someone who loved you imperfectly the way all humans love.

The work isn’t to stop loving them. The work is to stop letting their fear become your instructions.

I’m still figuring out what that looks like. But something about feeling my own edges without anyone else’s definitions pressing in is making me more compassionate toward her. Toward the woman in the photo I keep coming back to, smiling at something off-camera. Before she knew everything the world was going to ask of her, and everything she was going to ask of me.

She was scared. She was doing her best with the beliefs she’d inherited about how survival worked. I know she was only trying to help.

And I get to decide what to do with all of it.

With love, Wad

This week's reflection: Think about a belief you inherited that you've never questioned. About your body, your worth, your place in the world. Write it down. Sit with where it came from. Then burn it. Not because it didn't shape you, but because you get to decide what you carry forward.

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Hi habiba,

You should know that laughter is the only honest thing I have. It cannot be faked, performed, or made palatable. So I made it my love language. And every time I let it boom across a room without apology, I’m saying no to everyone who ever told me to be smaller.

“Why do you laugh like that?” she asked.

“Like what?” I asked innocently.

At 10 years old, I was already being conditioned by the adults in my life. My parents. My parent’s friends. My aunts. Teachers who wanted me compliant. Calm down. Tone it down. Settle down. I know they were trying to make me palatable to society, but I wanted nothing more than to turn it up. The rebel in me grew louder, hotter, and took up more space.

But as the years passed, the message became clearer: my laugh took up too much space. It boomed too boisterously for a girl. It was too obnoxious to be feminine. And to be honest, for many years I stifled it in an effort to conform. I tried to laugh quieter, more reserved, more silent. I tried to make my joy less noticeable so as not to bring attention to myself.

But my beautiful, beautiful joy refused to be kept. She refused to be tamed, trained, or conditioned. She rebelled through the snort I developed.

How many cages can we develop for women before we allow them to just exist?

I love the moment right before a laugh when you make eye contact with someone whose stomach is on the verge of rumbling with laughter too. There’s something that happens in the microseconds before the laugh rumbles that I cling to: an acknowledgement that I’m not alone in this world. That my joy is meant to be shared. That there are humans who crave my joy in the world.

Joy in solitude is a private flame. But laughter is joy in community demanding to be heard. It requires witnesses. It requires permission to take up space.

Laughter looks at all the grief and the pain and the loads that I carry and eases them. I can carry you, she says. And that’s why I love laughter. When nothing and no one else can carry my burdens, laughter can.

I love the feel of the gurgle of a laugh rumbling through my belly, the ache it causes rising through my chest and the roar that shakes my whole body awake. I love the snort that escapes when I’m trying to be composed. I love the way laughter makes me forget every instruction I was ever given about being smaller.

I make it a point to laugh with everything in my being. To let the world know I’m alive and my joy exists in spite of the cages and the expectations and the shackles they tried to put on me.

Laughter is my love language because it is the most honest thing I have. It cannot be faked. When I laugh with you, I am choosing you. I am saying: you make me so alive that I cannot contain it. You matter enough that my guard drops. You are worth this vulnerability.

In a world that profits from our dimness, from our self-doubt, from the carefully curated versions of ourselves, joy is radical. Laughter is rebellion. Every time I let my laugh boom across a room without apology, I am saying no to the conditioning. I am saying yes to being fully, unapologetically myself.

So laugh, habiba. Laugh loud and messy and without permission. Make sure it’s loud enough for the world to know you’re alive. Make sure they hear that you refuse to be tamed. Your joy is not too much. Your laughter is not obnoxious. The space is yours to take.

Laugh like you mean it, like you’re reclaiming it. Because you are.

And somewhere, there’s a 10-year-old girl listening. Learning that her joy doesn’t need permission.

This week, I want you to laugh without apology. Really laugh! Let your laugh boom, relish in your snort, take up space. Notice what comes up. Share in the comments if you feel inclined <3

With love, Wad