#4: The One with the Dreaded Number on the Scale

When will we stop allowing anything outside of us to define us?

Photo by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash

Dear friend,

This week seems to have sped by super quickly! It seems like only yesterday that I was sitting down to write last week’s letter, but here we are again already.

It’s late on a Saturday night, the kids are in bed and in all honesty, I’m pretty hormonal and just want to curl up in bed, too. But I made a commitment to write these letters on a regular basis and I gain so much from doing so. I hope you do through reading them, too.

Anyway, how are you? How has your week been and most importantly, how is your heart? Since the last time I wrote to you, I hope you’ve been taking really good care of yourself and honouring your needs, as you always should. Let me know how you’re doing when you can, I’d love to hear from you.💛

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This week, just a few days ago actually, I did something I haven’t done in a while. I stepped on the scales despite knowing - deeply knowing -  that what I would see would upset me in some way.

Bloated, due on my period and having just had a major treat day the day before, now was not the time to be weighing myself. I knew that, but I did it anyway.

And yes, what I saw immediately got under my skin and crawled maliciously into my head, awakening my recently laid dormant old companions - shame, guilt and self-loathing - from a slumber which I wished they’d never have to return from. But here they were. Awake again. Alive again. And desperately hungry.

You see, my body image and weight have been two things I have been in a constant tug-of-war with ever since I can remember. It was only through embarking on my health and fitness journey in 2021 and becoming the healthiest and fittest version of myself that I began to suddenly realise just how much.

As the numbers on the scale went down, as inches fell away, as I began to feel healthier, stronger, and more confident and beautiful in my skin, it was only then that the feelings and beliefs I had unknowingly carried my whole life began to make themselves known.

The extra weight I had been carrying was not just extra body weight: the extra weight I had been carrying was years and years of never feeling good enough; it was the weight of other people’s expectations; it was the sly comments; the abusive words disguised in jest; it was the deep, desperate longing to look like the mesmerising actresses I saw in Bollywood movies; it was being the curvy friend and knowing that I didn’t quite fit in; it was starving myself, abusing myself and taking laxatives on a daily basis in the frenzied, desperate hope that I COULD JUST BE SKINNY ONE DAY.

Having gained back in recent months some of the pounds I had dropped last year, I know that the feelings that arose when I weighed myself this week arrived not as enemies, but as messengers.

Why was I once again allowing the number I saw flashing up at me from between my feet, dictate how I felt about myself? Why was I allowing a number to define to me my own worth as a human being?

Why had I only ever found myself worthy of my own love and acceptance when the scales showed a number that I liked? Why?

This experience has had me reflecting quite deeply over the last few days over other times or other areas in my life where numbers have affected how I feel about myself.

And more so, how, as a society, we are taught to place all of our worth in numbers - our conditioning running so deep that many of us are drowning in the constant struggle to keep up, without even being aware of it. 

Weight on the scales, grade point averages in school, money in the bank, number of followers on social media… in every facet of society, our worth is inextricably linked to what we have.

We are applauded and celebrated when we have more, when we do more, believing that this makes us more. And you see it everywhere - most of us constantly swinging back and forth like a pendulum, from one extreme to the other as we try to keep up.

So the question I want to pose today is:

Who are you when you don’t see the numbers that you like? Who are you when there is no money, when there is extra weight, when all of the things you have constructed to be your identity are stripped away? Who are you then?

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My Spiritual Master, Sheikh Aly N’Daw, a Sufi Saint from Senegal often spoke of human beings being caught up in the dynamic of HAVE-DO-BE, explaining to be truly free we need to turn this dynamic on its head.

In a world that pressurises us to have certain things by constantly pushing us to do, do, do; to accumulate as much as we can in terms of possessions and achievements; to keep chasing numbers and to follow the socially constructed order of doing things, and in doing so, tells us that only then we will be able to be free and happy, Sheikh Aly taught the opposite.

He told us that before anything else, we must first BE, or come into our Being. That is, to be still, to be present and to understand we have all that we need inside of us in this very given moment. We do not need to do anything or have anything to be enough. We do not need specific numbers, in any area of our lives, to be worthy. 

We were created whole, worthy and enough.

We were born whole, worthy and enough.

Simply as human BEINGS, we are whole, worthy and enough.

In his life-changing book, Liberation Therapy, Sheikh Aly writes:

“The objective is to live a balanced life - peace lies in the middle way. Divine inspiration has taught that the best community is one that practises the middle way. This is why each of us must make use of the subtle principle of opposites, the basis of creation and of our existence. The transition from one to the other is not achieved through suppression or control but by the transformation of one into the other. We must therefore endeavour to leave emotions behind, emerge from what we judge as evil, and transform it into is opposite. Such is the beginning of change.”

These profound words show me that, despite having been on my spiritual path for a number of years now (again, there we have that dreaded word: ‘number’!), that I have still not fully returned to my state of Being. I have still been chasing things outside of myself to fulfil me - things that I have believed give me permission to feel worthy and enough, without taking the time to return within first.

What I have come to understand on a deeper level over these last few days is that true change can only and must only come from the Being.

I must transform the guilt and shame I feel into unconditional acceptance of myself and others; I must transform the fear I have of not being enough, into unconditional love for myself and for all. And if I am able to do that, then nothing will be able to disturb my peace - because peace is what I am.

Rumi wrote:

“Knock, And He'll open the door

Vanish, And He'll make you shine like the sun

Fall, And He'll raise you to the heavens

Become nothing, And He'll turn you into everything.”

How many of us are willing to let go of all that we have been and all that we have known to become who we truly are? How many of us are willing to become ‘nothing’ so that we can be turned into everything?

It is only through this act of complete surrender and submission, that we can transform who we are into the truth of who we have always been (behind all of the noise) and enable ourselves fully to play our part in the transformation and the healing of humanity - which for me, is the ultimate goal.

I pray that God helps each and every sincere soul on this path of returning, of finding the middle way and of becoming peace.

Isn’t it amazing what ten seconds of stepping on a weighing scale can teach you about life?😅

I hope today’s letter has perhaps given you some inspiration for meditation and reflection. Let me know by shooting across a reply to this email or leaving a comment below, right here on Substack. 

See you next Sunday, my friend.

Light, Love and Peace,

Sabah x

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🖋What I’ve been writing: 6 Life-Changing Lessons that My Spiritual Master Left Me

📚What I’m reading: Essential Sufism by Robert Frager

🎧What I’m listening to: 8 Secrets to Powerful Manifesting by Mandy Morris (Don’t judge - this is actually one of the best things I’ve heard in a while!)

🎶Song of the Week: Chariot by Mega

💭Quote I’m contemplating: “Become nothing, and He’ll turn you into everything.” ~ Mevlana Rumi.

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