Welcome Home

“Zebian’s gentle and honest words hold the reader in an environment of realness and encouragement. Meeting us where we are, she equips us with tools and exercises that help us step into the role of architect. With her interwoven poetry and stories, she shows us her heart—and keeps us connected to our own.”—Mindful

“The world tells us to be authentic, but Najwa Zebian teaches us how to be authentic. This book is a master class in self-actualization and compassion. For anyone who has ever asked ‘How do I find myself?’ or ‘How do I forgive myself?’ or ‘How do I learn to love myself?’ Najwa has your answers. She's written us a lovely guide that teaches us how to find home within ourselves—what a gift.”—New York Times bestselling author Mari Andrew

“Welcome Home is a powerful, comprehensive guide to one of the most important tasks we’ll ever complete: building a home within ourselves. Zebian shares her personal story and deepest vulnerabilities so we, too, can discover our self-worth. A must-read to build a stable foundation inside ourselves.”—Mel Robbins, speaker, international bestselling author of The 5 Second Rule

“Welcome Home takes readers on an emotional journey by teaching us how to build a home within ourselves. A stunning, insightful read that deeply resonated with me.”—Jen Pastiloff, author of On Being Human

Autorentext
Najwa Zebian is a Lebanese Canadian activist, author, speaker, and educator. Her search for a home was central to her early years as she struggled to find her place in the world. She became a teacher and a doctoral candidate in educational leadership. As Najwa began to write in an effort to connect with and heal her first students, a group of young refugees, she found that she was also writing to heal herself. The author of three collections of poetry, she delivered the TEDx talk “Finding Home Through Poetry” and recently launched a digital school, Soul Academy, and a podcast, Stories of the Soul. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Glamour, Elle Canada, HuffPost, and more.

Klappentext

From the celebrated poet, speaker, and educator Najwa Zebian comes a powerful approach to healing focused on building a home within yourself.

In her debut book in the self-development space, poet Najwa Zebian shares her revolutionary concept of home to guide readers to embrace their vulnerability, discover their self-worth, and build their own strong foundations from the ground up. In Welcome Home, Najwa shares her own personal story for the first time, powerfully weaving memoir, poetry, and deeply resonant teachings, from leaving war-torn Lebanon for Canada at sixteen, to coming of age as a young Muslim woman in Canada, to sexual harassment that left her alienated from her community, to building a new identity for herself as she learned to speak her truth.

She teaches that home is not a physical place, but instead where your soul feels like it belongs, where you are loved for who you are. Every human deserves to own a home within themselves, and Najwa guides you in building this home. She begins by showing how to divide your house into the following rooms: Compassion, Self-Love, Guilt, Forgiveness, Silence, Sadness, Happiness, Confusion, Vulnerability, and Anger. And then, with stories and practical advice, she shows you how to build each room. Welcome Home is ultimately a guide to building that space inside yourself rather than looking outside yourself for that sense of safety and worth. Written with Najwa's trademark power, candor, and warmth, Welcome Home offers a universal approach to healing and solace for those navigating heartbreak, identity, and mental health challenges.

Zusammenfassung
*From the celebrated poet, speaker, and educator comes *Welcome Home, a powerful blueprint for building a strong foundation of self-worth, belonging, and happiness.

“A master class in self-actualization and compassion.”—Mari Andrew, New York Times bestselling author of Am I There Yet?
 
The powerful metaphor of home provides a structure for you to customize your journey to personal transformation as Najwa Zebian shares her own experiences in building a home within herself, and shows you how to construct the following “rooms”:
 
• Self-Love: Learn how to build an individualized self-care routine to reflect your daily needs.
• Forgiveness: Learn how to allow yourself time, reflection, and space to accept and let go of painful events.
• Compassion: Discover the three different types of compassion and learn how you can let people in while maintaining boundaries.
• Clarity: Learn how to remove the walls you put up around your authentic self.
• Surrender: Learn how to lower your defenses and give yourself space to feel and process your emotions.
• The Dream Garden: Learn how to nurture your dreams and create an authentic, original path.
 
With practical tools, poetry, and prompts for journaling and meditation to lead to self-understanding in each chapter, Zebian shows you how to build each room in your house. Written with her trademark power, candor, and warmth, Welcome Home is an answer to the pain we all experience when we don't feel at peace with ourselves.

Leseprobe
Introduction

It was a Monday morning.

I woke up to a message that said “Can I call you?” This was a little unusual for Noah to ask, because we usually planned our calls days in advance. It didn’t sit right with me, but since we’d been texting a lot more recently, I decided a phone call was a natural progression. So I answered “Of course!” I jumped out of bed, threw my hair up in a bun, and sat at the island in my kitchen, where I spend much of my time writing.

He called me on his way to work. We talked about his job for a little bit. We laughed a lot. I don’t remember why. But I was always very giddy with him on the phone. I liked to make him laugh, even if it meant making a fool of myself.

As we chatted about random life things, something in my heart said This can’t be it. He’s calling to tell me something.

Does he want to find out when he can see me next? Does he want to start opening up more? Does he miss me? No . . . that can’t be it. He’s so emotionally independent. He would never admit that even if it were true.

But another voice, one that I’d been working so hard on listening to, said He just wants to talk to you. Relax. You deserve to have someone call you out of the blue just because he wants to hear your voice.

I listened to that voice this time. It was the same voice I’d listened to a few days earlier when I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and started speaking to him in a more complimentary tone. He wasn’t reciprocating every single time, but he was happy to receive the compliments. And at that point, that’s all that mattered to me. He was trying to overcome a toxic past, and for him to accept a compliment was a huge step.

I felt happy someone had accepted my praise.

That inner voice took me so far past my comfort zone that I surprised myself. I wasn’t used to telling someone how much I wished I could see them. That thought alone—to tell someone I wished I were in their presence—made me blush uncontrollably. I somehow felt ashamed for expressing that . . . for wanting that . . . for admitting that.

You see, in my culture, talking about feelings and romance is taboo. It’s only for the movies an…