31 day reset - Day 26

Make a new friend

The person should be in your community of support, someone who is like-minded and can hel you achieve your goals.

Funny how this friend "came to me" she keeps saying, "you're amazing and I was drawn to you" which can be creepy but somehow I get it. She is someone I work with, much older than I am but I already see her as a friend, a mentor and someone I will learn a lot from the upcoming months.

She and I have talked about everything from self development (especially that) to relationships to character building all the way down to clean eating. since we started having our DMCs (Deep meaningful conversations) I've been saying a prayer for here everyday, thanking God for bringing her into my life. It was truly like magic.

Here's a Toast to my new friend!

Cheers!

Love always,
Sabirah.

31 day reset - Day 22

Start a side hustle.

Na so?
Na so e easy reach?

OK I shouldn't have this attitude but really though, aunty rosetta chill now, lol. Ermm I kinda already have one across the ocean and I guess I should be working on reviving it.

So despite being away and having extremely limited (monetary) resources, I used my most valuable resource- my brain- and spent the day writing up ideas, reading and researching.

It's kinda frustrating to see everything at my disposal and not be able to access it. Sigh. For now I'll continue fine tuning ideas and plans and surely something will fall into place and get things in motion. Till then i'll just stay inspired and keep doing what I can with what I have.

Love always,
Sabirah.

Do it!

A good reminder. Somes I catch myself saying if only I had...

Start where you are. 

Use what you have. 

Do what you can.

Love,
Sabirah.

:)

“Even 

After 

All this time

The Sun never says to the Earth,

"You owe me."

Look

What happens

With a love like that,

It lights the whole sky.”

- fourteenth century Sufi poet, Hafiz.

I love this, So I shared.

Sabirah. 

31 day reset- Day 12

Today's task was to craft our ideal life narrative. I really enjoyed writing this :)

I am living in a quiet surburb filled with the sounds of birds, wind and children playing. Our house is spacious and has a lot of light coming in through the large windows, I especially love my home office because of the giant inspiration board above my computer. It is organized and messy at the same time. This is where I create. We own a lot of art and It's everywhere. Mostly by me and the people I love but also some prints of famous pieces. Our Decor is very DIY- Quirky. I love to entertain and my huge kitchen has been the home to lots of laughter, tears of joy and reunions. My partner and I host dinner parties often to catch up with friends and I hold a monthly book club meeting.


I am not "famous" but I am well known and respected in my field. I am good at what I do. I am a teacher, a creator and inspiration, a mover and shaker(lol). I run a successful cosmetic line and own an all natural salon and spa. I am active with the youth in my community especially girls and I am a mentor to many. I am part of a successful NGO in this area. I also run a blog/website where I share random things like recipes, book reviews etc and remind myself to stay happy and not forget me.


I spend my summers with my family in Florence doing some work, relaxing and continuing to practice my Italian. Travel is important to me and I try to experience a new area often whether 100km or 10,000km away. I enjoy and cherish my time alone and try to find at least a little time to spend by myself often. I take long baths in my vintage cast iron tub with claw feet to relax and often dance/go dancing with my partner for fun.


My partner is a handsome loving caring man who supports my quest to be a better person as I support his. I am very close to my parents and see them at least every two weeks. My brother and I are very close and he often spends a lot of time at my house. I am in touch with extended family members and often call, send gifts and visit.


I exercise often and cook healthy meals for my family. I am healthy physically and mentally. I earn enough to live the life I want and enjoy a few luxuries once in a while. I portion at least 10% of my earnings to helping others have a better life.


I am consistent on my self development journey and I continue to find ways to learn more, read more, give more and create more. God is ever present in my life and I bring him into my consciousness all the time. I stay on track with meditation, quiet time daily and prayer.
I am living my truth, and you can see it in all the love that shines upon me.

Creative License

On Christmas day last year I was out in the evening with a couple of people. I was dancing on my own to Fela (I couldn't resist), I got into conversation with a guy about my obvious love for Fela and Art in general, as we talked on and on about different art forms he finally asked "So since you like the arts so much, how do you express your self creatively?" I froze for a second because I didn't have a definite answer, "erm I like to dance, I write some poetry but I don't show anyone, I make jewellery sometimes too, I cook very well, and DIY a lot errr" I rambled on. I was glad when we changed subjects.

At the time my thought was how can I call myself a creative person when I don't have a definite creative outlet? What does it mean to even be creative? I began to ask myself these questions and realized that little everyday things matter. Even more than the big stuff. In conjunction with gathering inspiration from many different sources, I find myself expressing myself in things like the way I dress, my mum always jokes that "Why won't people ask if you're Nigerian?" , the way I style my hair, the way I cook, This blog, how I wear make up, how I paint my nails. Little drops make an ocean yes?

It's one of the reasons I decided that I wanted to be a teacher, main reason I wanted to do something fulfilling in which I was actively positively impacting young minds.  I wanted to be i an environment that was constantly changing and creatively charged. Unfortunately I haven't had much of a chance to be really creative, when a school has a set way they do things nobody wants change, especially from a 22 year old who knows "nothing" sigh. slowly but surely I hope.

Anyways that's my rant about giving yourself creative license.

So tell me, how do you express yourself creatively?

Love and creativity,
Sab.

Back to Happy- 1.1

Hey!

So in keeping up with the back to happy theme, I want to continue to push myself creatively. A great way to do this for me has been to look at someone else's creation. The video i'm about to share moved me in ways that I haven't been moved in a while. It was inspiring yet sad and beautiful, I want to meet the composer/producer - Adaeze Elechi and just sit and have tea with her and talk cos there is so much in this video. She presents the topic of race and how it affects our psychology in such a beautiful manner. She is so eloquent and I could really relate with this on many levels. I'm still waiting to find her contact information (If you know her pls help me out). Here is the short (5min) film. Pls watch it will be worth it.


Suspended Animation: An Essay Film from Ada Elechi on Vimeo.

What did you think of it?

Opinion: Challenging your own beauty standards

Hey everyone,

One of those topics that just keeps coming up nowadays is beauty standards. The negative effects of unattainable beauty standard on the self-esteem, psychological and physical health are undeniable and many efforts to change these standards have not been successful. Even in non-western countries such as Nigeria, beauty standards are changing but not for the better. I could list all the one million reasons why this is a problem, but that is not the topic today.

 I believe change begins with the individual, I'm pretty comfortable with the person I am but I have my own insecurities too, while most days I'm satisfied with the way my body looks, other days I don't feel so good. It is important that while we are trying to make changes to the status quo, we start from within.

Its hard to stay unaffected by the various images around us and unless you live in a blank white room and never come out, you will be affected one way or the other. I don't watch TV but I go out, at the grocery store check out line I see the glossy magazines etc, its hard to escape all these reminders that we are "sub par".

I remember when I first cut of all my hair when I went natural, even though I had been thinking about it for a long time, when I finally cut my hair I was excited but I didn't feel beautiful. The first few days I wore a wig, and then when I left the wig go, I wore lots of make-up. When I look at the pictures now it's funny. For some people though thats everyday reality.


So here is how I started to work on challenging notions of beauty bearing down on me

1) Knowledge : I began to read about the history of different beauty practices, about the evolution of body images, models and whatever I could lay my hands on to understand the processes behind them.

2) Discussion: I began to discuss with friends, family and myself. Challenging all of us on the things we find attractive and why and what could be problematic.

3) Affirmations: I have some things about myself posted in different places in my apartment, telling me i'm beautiful and smart and worthy, it may seem silly, but on those down days they really help.

4) Inspiration: In addition to the above, I needed something more, a place where I could go to see people who looked like me, beautiful images of women with darker skin tones and natural hair, with different body types, who were fashionable, smart and more. So I created a tumblr sabirah.tumblr.com  as a place to store all of this. It is working very well.

All of this may seem like a lot of work, but i'm heavily invested in it, it is a women's issue and women's issues are everybody's issues! If you didn't know already my life's purpose is to empower young women, starting with myself. As a young feminist, I continue to gain knowledge, encourage discussion and fight the good fight!

Any thoughts?

Till next time,
Sabirah.