#1: The One with the Beginning

Get out of your own way.

Photo by Hansjörg Keller on Unsplash

Dear friend,

How are you? How is your heart?

Welcome to the first ever Letter of Love & Light, coming from my heart directly to yours.💛

You may be receiving this email as you previously signed up for emails on my old blog, sabah-ismail.com. I hope you’ll stick around. Or you may be here through social media and Medium - however you are here, I welcome you with an open heart and with the knowing that this is a safe space for us to share together.

Some of you may be aware that I am a writer, artist and now recently certified therapeutic healing coach, who has been on her own journey of spiritual and self-growth and healing, for 11+ years now. Through these Letters of Love & Light, I hope to share some of the insights I have gained as a spiritual being having this human experience with the hope that we can heal, grow and thrive as our authentic selves, individually and together.

So here we are. Beginning at the beginning, and the last couple of weeks for me have seen the beginning of a couple of new things - now including these letters. And that got me thinking about how, as human beings, we put things off time and time again, waiting for the perfect time, the perfect opportunity, the perfect circumstances to begin something new. To start the things our hearts are calling us to; to begin the journey our souls are pulling us to.

Take me writing a newsletter for example. I relaunched my blog in 2018, set up an email capture system and was SO excited about writing regularly and connecting with my audience. But did I ever send out a newsletter? NOPE. 

I always thought, “I’ll get to that when I have the right thing to say” or “Now isn’t the right time” and I just continued to put it off, and off, and off. 

But the truth is, that perfect time will never come. We only ever have now. There is nothing else.

And being here, at the precipice of a new beginning with these Letters of Love & Light, I’m reflecting on how we somehow make ourselves believe that it is external circumstances that are holding us back when really it is usually ourselves who are getting in our own way.

I published an article in 2021 on Medium titled ‘5 Ways You’re Getting in Your Own Way’ and today I’d love to share some snippets of that with you. You can read the full article here.

Some reasons why you might be holding yourself back from doing the things you really want to do include:

1. You have little or no self-belief

2. You suffer from comparisonitis

3. You’re in a state of judgement

4. You can’t let go of the past

5. You’re living on a timescale

I get into these in more detail in the article, but what they all have in common is the fact that you have the ability to change them all. 

You can cultivate self-belief.

You can stop comparing yourself to others.

You can stop judging yourself, situations and others around you.

You can choose to forgive and release the past.

And you can remind yourself that there is no such thing as a timescale because your journey is completely unique, and yours alone.

On my own journey (and it is an ongoing process, trust me!), I am continually learning how to get out of my own way and allow God and life to flow through me, so I can do what I was put on this earth to do. Some of the things that have worked for me and may work for you too include:

1. Healing through journaling and meditation

2. The use of positive affirmations to reinforce a new belief system

3. Learning to trust the journey and submitting to the flow of life

4. Giving yourself the love you give to others

5. Surrounding yourself with positivity and removing toxicity from your life

Again, please read the full article here in order to get a deeper understanding of what I’ve shared above, along with examples of how to actually do them.

So what I want to say today to you as you’re reading this is…

…please, stop putting off that dream. Stop waiting for a better time. Stop thinking you’re not good enough. You can begin or begin again whenever you choose to. It takes only one step for the path to begin opening up before you, but only you can take that step. 

So take that step, my friend. And begin a new beginning, too - whatever that may be. I’m rooting for you.💛

I would love to hear back from you, so if you feel called to, shoot me a reply back or if you’re reading on SubStack, please comment below. And if you’re on Instagram or Twitter, come by and say hi. My username is currently @sabahdabahdoo (that’s another story for another time!).

See you again next week!

Sending you Light, Love and Peace today and always,

Sabah ✨💛

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📚What I’m reading: The Myth of Normal by Dr Gabor Maté

🎧What I’m listening to: Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins on Audible

🎶Song of the Week: I Am Light by India Arie

💭Quote I’m contemplating: “Stay close to anything that makes you glad you are alive.” ~ Hafez.

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