Poet, speaker, and educator Najwa Zebian has gained a loyal following online for her authentic and moving poems. The Lebanese-Canadian author’s Insta-poetry rose in popularity during the #MeToo movement and her Ted Talk on building solidarity has been viewed thousands of times. Her latest book, Welcome Home, is her first work of non-fiction. “I'd been building my sense of identity outside of myself. And that's what led me to writing Welcome Home,” she tells us. Listen in to hear her thoughts on how to build a home within yourself and develop self-acceptance, and learn more about her transformative experience with writing and journaling.
Poet, speaker, and educator Najwa Zebian has gained a loyal following online for her authentic and moving poems. The Lebanese-Canadian author’s Insta-poetry rose in popularity during the #MeToo movement and her Ted Talk on building solidarity has been viewed thousands of times. Her latest book, Welcome Home, is her first work of non-fiction. “I'd been building my sense of identity outside of myself. And that's what led me to writing Welcome Home,” she tells us. Listen in to hear her thoughts on how to build a home within yourself and develop self-acceptance, and learn more about her transformative experience with writing and journaling.
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[music]
Heather Reisman:
Hi, I’m Heather Reisman, and this is Well Said, a podcast on the art and science of living well. This podcast is brought to you by Indigo. Today’s episode is hosted by Shivani Persad, a wonderfully curious journalist and a fellow booklover.
Shivani Persad:
I’m Shivani Persad. And my guest today is the wonderful Najwa Zebian.
Najwa Zebian [preview]:
You can’t begin healing here, where you are right now. You have to go back. You have to understand what led you here.
Shivani Persad:
Najwa is a Lebanese-Canadian author, speaker, and activist. She arrived in Canada at the age of 16 and was forced to adjust to a completely new way of living. Najwa went on to use her experiences, and feelings of displacement and discrimination, to educate and uplift others. She self-published her first book of poetry in 2016 and has since published three more books, along with a podcast, and her Soul Academy—a digital school of transformation. Najwa’s latest book, Welcome Home, explores the concepts of finding home within yourself, and how to come home to yourself no matter how long you’ve been away. I’m delighted to welcome Najwa Zebian to Well Said.
Thank you so much for being here. We’re so excited.
Najwa Zebian:
Thank you for having me. I’m really excited too.
Shivani Persad:
I love the book. So thank you so much, it was so helpful.
Najwa Zebian:
Of course, thank you.
Shivani Persad:
So let’s get into some questions. I want to start off with: the book is called Welcome Home. You talk a lot about “the home within.” What is “the home within”?
Najwa Zebian:
You home isn’t in people; it’s not in places; it’s not in the identities that you carry. Your home is your authentic self. So the reason that I came up with this analogy of actually building a home within is to put it in practical terms—to get you to visualize why it’s so important for you to take all the elements of knowledge that you know about self-love, and forgiveness, and clarity, and surrending to your emotions, and figuring out what your dreams are. I wanted the visual of it’s an actual home that has these rooms, and you need a solid foundation just like a house needs a solid foundation.
So that was just the visual I wanted everyone to see and… and to think about every time they think, “Am I actually building a home within? Am I coming home to myself or am I building homes in other people? Am I investing everything that I have within, in them? Am I seeing the value in myself through their eyes under their roof, or under my roof in my eyes?” So “home” is you.
Shivani Persad:
When you say “building a home in other people,” that resonated with me a lot. That’s something so many of us do, especially in romantic relationships, and we don’t realize. And when you spoke about your story of why you never really felt like you had a home, I felt like that was so inspiring and probably very relatable for a lot of people, potentially aso a lot of immigrants to Canada. I’m an immigrant as well, so I definitely relate to that. Can you just tell anybody who’s listening, who may not know your story, about why you never really felt like you had a home, growing up?
Najwa Zebian:
From a young age, I felt that something was missing. I always felt incomplete, in a way. Like I wanted to feel loved but I didn’t know that those were the words to describe it. I just never really felt like I belonged somewhere. I never really felt like I mattered to someone, like I was important to someone. My siblings were much older than me; my parents, obviously, much older than me. And so I would, as a… as an outsider to their adult life constantly say to myself, “I can’t wait until I walk in their shoes.” So I always felt like I was like rushing out of my childhood to feel what they’re feeling, to be where they are, so that maybe I would feel like I’m part of something.
And I… I was always super-sensitive but never knew how to put those words to what I was feeling—that I’m… I’m sensitive, or that I’m empathic. I feel things very deeply. As a child you don’t know that, you just feel things very deeply.
And I… I remember being bullied in school because I always did the right thing. And the students in my class, and in my school, didn’t really like that, because they wanted to just, you know, be children, and make mistakes and whatever. I never really felt like I could speak about what I was going through without somehow being judged or… or feeling like I should know better. So I kind of stayed quiet.
And the first time in my life that I felt that I actually could speak my mind and my heart without being judged was when I was 13 and my friend, Mariam, gifted me a journal. And when I started writing in that journal, I started feeling like this is the most beautiful and liberating thing ever, because I could write and no one is going to read it but… but I’m feeling heard.
And so that journal became my home. That was the first time in my life that I actually felt like I’m not being told that I should know better. I’m just writing what’s going on on the inside. And that was my journey with writing. That’s how it began, until the age of 16 when I moved to Canada and all of a sudden all the things I was writing about in my journal seemed to be further and further away, because now I was living in a new country. You know?
And I had visited Canada, but it was like I was used to speaking in Arabic all the time, and now I was speaking in English all the time. I was used to certain cultural and religious norms back home, and now I had to be okay with seeing people living in a different way. And it was like a shock to my system but I never got the chance to process it, because I spoke perfect English and people thought I came from a different province, but really I didn’t. And so then I just… I didn’t want to feel any more. It was way too much to process, as a 16-year-old. And so I ripped up that journal and said, “I’m never writing again.”
And I started writing again when I started teaching. And the first group of students that I had…. I… I talk about this moment so often, but I will never forget the look I saw in their eyes. It was that same look of, “I don’t belong here. What am I doing here? I used to be happy back home, and now I’m here.” And they were… so, they were refuges. And I felt like something within me woke up and really wanted to fight for them.
And it was with time that I realized that it was that 16-year-old self of mine that I didn’t heal, that I didn’t listen to, that I didn’t… I didn’t give her what she needed. And so I was healing them and helping myself heal. And it was through that process, that’s what gave birth to all the writings that led me to a point where I was like, “You know what I’ve been doing my whole life? The reason that I’ve been feeling like something is missing is that I’ve been building my sense of who I am—my home—in other people.” In my family, in potential romantic partners, in my school and degrees and jobs I’ve been building my sense of identity outside of myself. And that’s what led me to writing Welcome Home.
Shivani Persad:
And there’s so many amazing concepts that you talk about in the book. There’s one that you talk about all the time. You also talked about it in your TED Talk that I watched. And you said, “The mountains you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.” So I would love if you could talk about that and what that really means.
Najwa Zebian:
Absolutely. So, “These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb,” that’s probably one of the most profound things I’ve ever written. And it came from a place of feeling like this weight of thinking that I don’t deserve love, and feeling like I don’t deserve love, feeling left out, feeling like I don’t fit in, they felt like they were literally holding me back, dragging me back, and… and pulling me down so that I don’t move forward in my life. Because, wherever I went, it felt like I was carrying those emotions and thoughts with me. And everything that would happen in my life, I would say, “See. This proves this,” or, “Why would you even try? You already know.” I imagine that, you know, the reason I believed this is years and years and years of conditioning, years and years and years of experience.
So for me to overcome that to climb that mountain, it’s going to be a difficult journey—just like climbing a mountain would be. It’s going to be a journey where I might relapse; I might go halfway and go back to that thought about myself or that belief about myself. But once I actually worked through it, and worked through all the hard parts, and cry it out, and laugh it out, and do whatever I need to do to feel it and release it, and I reach the top of that mountain, reach the top of that healing from it, I can look back and say, “Look how far I’ve come.” And I can also look at my pain, all the way from the top, and say, “Wow, that’s so small. Like look at where I am now. And if I can overcome this, look at how many things I can overcome. Look at how many other mountains I can climb.”
Shivani Persad:
Right. And that’s just one concept that you talk about in the book. The chapters are separated into different rooms in the home that you’re building. What do those rooms represent, and why did you choose to structure the book that way?
Najwa Zebian:
Yeah. So, as I said, I wanted it to be something that you could visualize. And I… I begin by saying at that point in my life—when I made that realization about building homes in other people—after doing some work on learning what, you know, what self-love looked like, what being there for myself looked like, what understanding who I am looked like, I started that journey. And then at one point, I realized that I knew everything there was to know about all of these concepts of self-love, forgiveness, clarity on who I am, surrending to my emotions, compassion with myself and with the world. I knew everything there was to know. And I would be sitting with friends, and I would be talking to people on social media, and giving them advice based on that knowledge. But when it came to my own life, I found myself falling back into that habit of thinking to myself, “Well, I know better, so this doesn’t apply to me.”
So it felt like there was this cognitive dissonance, where I knew so much but there was something that was standing in the way of me actually applying it to my life. And I talked about this. In Welcome Home, I said, “What is it that brings that knowledge together and keeps it in one place?” And I thought about actually building a house. If you were to build a house, you could have the kitchen, and you could have your livingroom, and you could have a bedroom and a washroom, but if you don’t have them together in one place then you can’t really call it a house. So if you don’t have all of those elements—all of that knowledge that you have—in one place, then you can know it but you’re at risk of actually placing those elements in other people, still seeing them through other people’s eyes.
And so I thought: that’s what’s missing, the togetherness. And what brings those rooms together? It’s that solid foundation. What’s that foundation made of? Self-acceptance and self-awareness. And once I came to that, it blew my mind. Because you can’t begin healing here, where you are right now. You have to go back. You have to understand what led you here, before you start here. And so that’s why the… the foundation of self-acceptance and self-awareness necessitates that you understand why you are the way that you are, why you believe the things that you believe about yourself, why you identify the way that you identify. And once you’re able to see that whole journey, then you’re able to go back and say, “But you know what? That belief that I developed wasn’t a conscious one. That’s not something I chose for myself. That’s something the world around me—my family, my environment—chose for me. So now I can accept that I am where I am because of that. But that doesn’t mean that I deserved that. That doesn’t mean that I chose that. And now I can begin to shed those layers.”
Like, in the Clarity room, I describe it in a way that’s like imagine that you’re standing in front of a mirror and you’re looking at yourself. Now, you’re not going to be able to see your authentic self, because it’s kind of like a mirror that hasn’t been cleaned in years. It’s going to have like a fog. It’s going to have a blur that’s standing in the way of you seeing your actual authentic self. And that blur is created by that history that brought you here.
So let’s start by cleaning it. Let’s decode it. Let’s go back. Let’s accept who we are. Let’s be aware of who we are—in the past leading up to this point, and from now moving forward. So that’s how that came about. That’s why I wanted those rooms to be referred to as “rooms within.” And I wanted them to encompass all of the most important elements of what are the things we seek within others to feel at home, let’s start seeking those things within, so that we could feel at home with ourselves.
Shivani Persad:
One of the rooms that I really loved was when you talk about the Dream Garden. Because I don’t think I’ve ever really heard people, when they talk about healing, to talk about dreams. I love that you reference it in a person’s journey to creating the home within. How would you describe the power of dreaming?
Najwa Zebian:
So, the Dream Garden, I put it there to figure out what your purpose is—what your authentic purpose is. And if you noticed, in all of the rooms I put pillars, because I… I imagine what keeps up a room up, what keeps a house up. There’s pillars and then there’s strategies that reflect what that room is about. So in the Dream Garden, because it’s about your purpose and it’s about figuring out what would feel like…. Kind of like what I do. I don’t feel like what I do is actual work. I feel like I would be doing this whether I made money out of it or not. This is what my heart wants to do at all times. And I want it to be like that for any person reading it.
So if you imagine what a garden would look like. So I used lanterns and… as opposed to pillars, because now we’re outside. And I used watering cans. Because the way I visualized it was once that lightbulb comes off and you could see something—which, one of them is “‘Failure’ is not a word,” okay, so change the word “failure” to something else—once you see that and you genuinely start believing it, then you can water whatever it is that’s… that you’ve just lit—you shined whatever light it is on it. And so that’s one of them.
Another one would be “Don’t chase your dream, live your dream.” And I talk about how it’s so important to not…. Again, don’t build your home in a future moment; build your home now. Like start living in the present moment. Don’t think, “I’m going to work for 10 years to get to that point, and that’s when I will be happy, or that’s when I will feel like I actually achieved what I’m supposed to achieve.” And I gave the example of if five years ago someone asked me, “Where will you be five years from now?” I would’ve said, you know, “I’ll be married with two kids. And I’ll be teaching full-time.” But because I took little steps, instead of thinking to myself, “That’s where I’m going to be in five years, so I need to start working towards that,” it was more like walking through doors that opened as I went along. And that’s what led me to now.
And my life is so different now. So don’t chase that dream. Don’t chase after the image of what you think you need to be living. Live it from now, and it will lead you to where you’re meant to be. So that’s the purpose of the Dream Garden—is for you to actually nourish your dream. Nourish your feeling of at-homeness with yourself, so that you could…. I was just going to say, so that you could lead yourself to the dream that you’re supposed to be living, but it genuinely so you could walk in this dream that you are living.
Shivani Persad:
How does writing continue to serve as part of your evolution?
Najwa Zebian:
Ever since I started writing, it’s been real and raw. There’s nothing hidden. So, my very first book was actually my collection of journal entries. It’s always been kind of like a spill from my heart. I say it as it is; I say it as I feel it; I say it as I think it. So when I say writing was my revolution, and then I say writing is my revolution, I am the most courageous when I write, because there are no limits, there are no boundaries. There is… there is no fear. I’m not thinking 10 minutes ahead; I’m thinking now, what feels like the right thing to write now. When I’m sad, I write. When I’m happy, I write. When I’m upset, I write. When something happens in my life that causes me pain, I write. When I see someone in pain, I sit down and write. And I just let it be what it is. And then later when I read it, it heals me to read it because of the truth that was held in it.
So writing will always be my most powerful weapon—not only against everything in the world that is the opposite of the truth but also against my own fear of being myself, my own fear of feeling the shame that I felt throughout my life, my own fear of not belonging to a place. I always say: write it as it is. And I actually gave that example in Welcome Home, because at the very end, I say, “What rooms would you add?” And if I could add a room, it would be Writing. And the only pillar in that room would be: write it as it is. Don’t hide; don’t take parts out; don’t think, “What’s that person going to think, or this person going to think?” Just sit down and write it as it is, and don’t have any voices in your mind other than your own.
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Shivani Persad:
I want to ask you a few questions that we ask a lot of authors. First of all, what book has had a profound impact in your life?
Najwa Zebian:
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran—and I can’t say his name in English, obviously, because I’m Lebanese and Arabic is my first language but—The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. Broken Wings also by him. And I… I read both in Arabic before I read them in English. The wisdom that’s in there, and also the raw soul that comes through his writings, it… it… it just… it pushed me to be that way and also pushed me to feel like I’m not the only one who’s like this. And it… it helped me feel like I was part of a deep community.
Maybe more recent books would be: The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown. It changed my life. Because I had carried a lot of shame. Vulnerability, to me, was a very weak word. But ever since I watched that and read that book, vulnerability became so beautiful and so necessary to… to… to be myself and to live through this world.
Shivani Persad:
What brings you joy?
Najwa Zebian:
Well, my nieces and nephews bring me joy. That’s for sure. The… their innocence, their… the way that they see the world.
More recently in my life, since I started talking about home, and building a home within, is seeing what living the way that I genuinely believe I need to be living for myself, and… and breaking through all of the things that scare me from that—that I… that I carried from my past, that I carried from culture, from religion, from just expectations and… and breaking through and breaking out of all of that—to put my voice, and my feelings, and my thoughts ahead of all of that and say, “This is more important to me because this feels more true to who I am,” that brings me joy.
I feel like I have wings of fire when I do something that feels right to me but that in the past maybe I was afraid of it. Maybe I just couldn’t even give myself permission to think I could live that way, I could be that way, I could say that, I could do that. It makes me feel like the most powerful human on Earth. And that brings me joy. Because it’s like I’m breaking out of fear—fear of being myself. And that… that brings me so much joy.
Shivani Persad:
That’s a very, very beautiful answer. And I’m just so happy that we got to have this conversation. Thank you so much.
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Heather Reisman:
For more ideas to help you live well, including the book featured in this episode, visit indigo.ca/podcast.
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Well Said was produced for Indigo Inc. by Vocal Fry Studios and is hosted by me, Heather Reisman.
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