Hello From the Other Side

On the other side of pain, there is peace... eventually.

Sabah ✨💛

Aug 04, 2024

multicolored hallway — Photo by Efe Kurnaz on Unsplash

Hello?

It’s me.

I was wondering if after all these years you’d like to meet

To go over everything?

They say that time’s supposed to heal ya, but I ain’t done much healing…

I once heard that Adele’s ‘Hello’ was not written for an old lover; it was actually written for a past version of herself. I heard that… and I crumbled. Go back and listen to it with that new perspective - believe me, it will blow your mind.

In my late teens/early twenties, before iPhones and impressive phone cameras, I was known as ‘the girl with the camera’. Every day or night out and every event with family and friends was captured through the lens of my 10 mega-pixel Canon (yeah, TEN mega-pixels!😱), and instantly uploaded to a Facebook photo album as soon as I possibly could.

I didn’t realise it then but I was slightly obsessed with this practice. I thought I was happier than I’d ever been at the time, so much so that I wanted to capture, keep and relive those memories as long as I could. With each click and flash, every photograph was downloaded into the chambers of my heart and hung proudly on display.

But during that time and the years that followed, that heart, filled with all those photographs was broken numerous times. Firstly, by my first love. Then, by friends who just changed overnight and disappeared. Then, through failing university and losing jobs. And then, massively by my ‘best friend’ who betrayed me in ways I never thought she could. In the depths of this pain, I moved all those captured memories onto an external hard drive, put my camera in a box in the back of my wardrobe, and deleted my Facebook profile forever.

It was devastating and it all broke me beyond recognition. But all of those endings led to the start of my spiritual re-awakening and the beginning of my brand-new life; one where I was alone physically, but filled spiritually, walking in the Light with God.

13 years down the line and counting, it has been an incredible journey that has simultaneously tested me beyond my limits and helped me to fly beyond the self-imposed limits of my imagination. There has been so much healing and so much growth, so much Love and so much peace. When I was trapped in the throes of darkness, no longer wanting to live but too afraid to end it all, I never would have believed me being here today and becoming the person I am would have been possible.

Yet, as you may know if you too are on a spiritual journey of healing, becoming and Being, the spiritual path continues to test you and present you with opportunities for continued growth and expansion. For many years I truly thought I was healed and over that time of my life, yet a recurring dream that suddenly became more frequent in recent times was screaming at me that in fact, that wasn’t true.

In the dream, I would find myself back in my old university accommodation, packing up my stuff into boxes ready to move out and leave. But I would never quite make it to the leaving part before waking up. Now that I type it out for the world to see, it’s glaringly obvious, isn’t it?😂

Journalling and meditating on that time in my life wasn’t enough, it seemed. Like Adele, I somehow needed to revisit the past, I needed to have a conversation and I needed to lay it all to rest. Then, the little voice within me told me what I must do: “Pull out the hard drive”, it insisted.

Pull out the hard drive.

Past midnight, when my little one who has a very disturbed sleep pattern had finally fallen into a deep sleep, I heeded the call. I’d done this before, once, but when I had I was very aware of all the uncomfortable feelings that had arisen. Feelings of rejection, abandonment, self-doubt, self-criticism. The knot that came up in my stomach every time I caught a glimpse of my ex-best friend. The anxiety that bubbled to the surface when I realised that these people I had once given my life to probably hadn’t even given me a second thought in years. I’d quickly shut the hard drive down and put it away, returning it to its place at the back of the wardrobe. But this time felt different. This time I felt different. I felt ready.

Determinedly, I went in. I spent over three hours that night, poring through the countless albums on that hard drive. Pictures, videos and voice recordings of times gone by, where I was also witnessing a completely different version of myself. And you know what? It was beautifully liberating.

Me, aged 21. (Don’t ask me about the pose - I have no idea!😅)

I wasn’t expecting to, but I clicked through the photographs with joy, with a smile on my face, taking in every person who was once such a big part of my life. I laughed out loud, I allowed myself to reminisce, I spoke to the me I saw on the screen and sent her so much love. There were no longer any uncomfortable feelings. There was just gratitude, immense gratitude, for all of these people who are now complete strangers but who were pivotal in my becoming. Without those people, without those thousands of captured memories, there is no way I would be the person that I am today.

As I stepped back into the past as the present me, I sent everyone love, wished them happiness, peace and good health, and I released them. Not through anger, resistance or pain… I released them in love and with love, and that is something I now realise I hadn’t been able to do fully before. There was a reason I’d kept the hard drive all these years, and there was a reason that it had called out to me at this point in my life. It was this.

Making it through to the other side, without leaving any baggage stuck in the past, is the most beautiful feeling, my friend. It’s acceptance. And with acceptance, there is peace. And nothing beats that.

Sometimes the answers you are searching for are not found in looking forward. Sometimes, you have to step back into the past, so you can truly move forward in peace. Give yourself that gift.

Hello from the other side, 21-year-old me. You made it.

With Light, Love & Peace,

Sabah x

Hello From the Other Side

On the other side of pain, there is peace... eventually.

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