If you are anything like me, I find change very hard... any change... so, now after the 30 days of the holy month are over, I need time to resettle into my daily life...

To start getting back into my routine I needed some mindfulness practice. And, my favorite is Art journaling.

I’ve kept an art practice for years… I’ve always used visual art as a form of meditation, stress management, and self-exploration... But, it was only a few years back when I realized that I have been documenting my life in those pieces. I have always seen and interpreted my world within the pages of my art journals - my visual representation was an attempt to make sense of a very complicated (or maybe rich) reality that I struggled to make sense of.
In the Quran, God tells us: “We will show them Our signs in the horizons [the universe] and within themselves until it is evident to them that it is the Truth.” (Q. 41: 53)

سَنُرِيهِمْ آيَاتِنَا فِي الْآفَاقِ وَفِي أَنفُسِهِمْ حَتَّىٰ يَتَبَيَّنَ لَهُمْ أَنَّهُ الْحَقُّ (فصلت ٥٣)
My art practice was my humble attempt to discern those Signs that God was sending me “in the horizons”. And, my Body Whispers’ teaching was an attempt to discern those Signs “within ourselves.”

Avicenna (Ibn Sina), the famous Muslim physician (d. 1037 C.E.) saw that, in addition to our five external senses, our soul has amazing 5 inner senses that help us “see” the world and connect to its higher meaning and purpose. One of those inner senses is Imagination (Al-khayāl). In our Western culture, we might be familiar with creativity and intuition, but Al-khayāl goes way deeper than that. Imagination (Al-khayāl), according to Avicenna, is the power that bridges the soul (al-nafs) to the Spirit (al-ruh), it connects us to the higher wisdom, the sacred Divine Breath within us.

Yet, this Imagination (Al-khayāl) needs to be trained for it to be able to discern the signs, to speak the language of symbolism and archetypes, and for this, it needs reflection, creative practices, silence & mindfulness, and self-awareness & awakening.
And, like all faculties of the soul, Imagination (Al-khayāl) also needs to be tamed, and this is the role of the heart - a pure, sincere heart is our gateway for a whole magical world of imagination - a world that strengthens our connection with our Creator as we see His Signs everywhere “in the horizons” and “within ourselves.”

Maybe I will be brave enough to share some pages of my art journals with you …

For now, I highly encourage you to start your own mindfulness practice… Open up to the universe and it will open up to you! Let your imagination roam freely.
Have a beautiful week,

Do you feel that something is wrong with your body but you cannot quite define it?
Your lab results are normal. The doctors tell you that it is all in your head or maybe it is just stress. Yet, in your heart, you’re just not ‘you’.
Or, maybe you’ve been diagnosed with a chronic disease. You took medicine after medicine with no sign of relief. Some symptoms are fading; yet, you’re still tired, exhausted, and depleted. You lack energy… You’ve lost the zest of life, motivation, and enthusiasm.
Or, you’ve just recovered from a serious illness, life trauma, or grief. People praise you for how brave and resilient you have been. Your doctor tells you that you can finally get off your meds; you don’t need them any more… Yet, deep inside, you still feel depleted and weak. You’ve tried to eat healthy, live healthy, exercise, and sleep early. You’ve tried all the supplements, herbs and superfoods your friends and nutritionists recommended. Yet, you still have a deep feeling of unrest and unease. You start feeling helpless and discouraged with all your seemingly endless complaints that no one acknowledges. You start believing that this is the norm and you just have to get used to those body aches and pains... you have to get used to this brain fog, chronic exhaustion, anxiety, and depressive mood...
Your body communicates to you in a way that is uniquely yours—it is the sum of your experiences, memories, feelings, thoughts, and beliefs. You are the only one who can decode those Whispers… You are the only one who can devise your healing plan. Start by listening… What is your body trying to tell you?
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Are you feeling stuck, tired, and depleted? You cared for everyone and about everything. You have put your dreams on hold for so long that you don’t even remember what they were any more. Or, you might have achieved many successes, climbed the corporate ladder, took care of the home and the kids… and feel that you should be happy… but you are not.
 
Inside you, there is something missing… the joy… the excitement of everyday life… you are feeling incomplete, un-fulfilled… maybe even depressed, bored, or lonely… You are hungry for more… more joy, more love, more peace, more energy, more impact in the world… You crave excitement… You crave passion.
 
You’ve tried in the past to fight depression, random aches and pains, brain fog, or chronic illness and fatigue but failed… You are still feeling stuck, depleted and overwhelmed… You still feel lost, unfulfilled, and are hungry for more despite all your efforts. You’ve been wondering why you just can’t manage to live joyfully, excited and inspired… Dear exhausted soul, if you’ve been concerned that you just can’t find motivation and passion that make you jump out of bed in the morning looking forward to the new day, it is not your fault.
 
I don’t want you to lose sight of your dream. … I know you have a dream … that’s why you’re here reading those words. It doesn’t matter whether it is a big or a small dream… Whether you just want to be happy or pain-free or you want to heal yourself or embark on a mission to heal the world… regardless of the size of your dream… it is important to you and I believe you can make it a living reality.
But, what matters the most, do you believe you can make your dream a living reality?
 
David Feinstein in his book The Promise of Energy Psychology, says that in order to change our life, we need first to be receptive for this change. While we logically accept and wish for those positive changes (like being happy, losing weight, healing our body, taming with our anger, calming our anxiety…) many of us hold this inner conflict that is unconsciously running the show, blocking our progress and hindering our healing.
 
Don’t underestimate this subconscious resistance. It cannot be simply overcome by will power, in fact, the harder you try, the tougher the resistance becomes… The more strictly you hold on to that diet, the more stubborn those fat cells become in holding on to your waist line… the stronger you push to hold your temper and repeat those mantras, the louder those anger bursts erupt at the most unexpected time… Your relentless efforts produce opposite results as your subconscious is trying to protect you at all cost. It is trying to hold on to some values or beliefs you acquired years back and don’t even realize they existed… “Those fats will keep men away, so I won’t be hurt by another failed love story”; “This anger keeps me safe in a hostile world”; “This drama feeds my muse”… Those are the inner stories that run in our heads all the time…To heal, you need to unravel those deeply held tales… you need to challenge them, you need to change the story you run in your head and write your own new version…

Few years back, after a tough personal trial, I was left broken… emotionally and physically broken… I woke up one morning with a cloud on my right eye that would not lift. I could barely feel my right leg and moving my right arm felt like swimming in molasses.
I embarked on my personal healing journey. It took drastic changes in my diet and lifestyle to be able to lift the cloud and move my leg and arm again. It took tremendous time and efforts, but most importantly, it took changing of a thinking pattern I was conditioned on since my early childhood years… A pattern of “I’m not good enough”… “I am not worthy”… “I need to keep giving and giving, accepting what I hate and denying what I need in order for me to gain people love and approval”
 
Changing the diet to a highly restrictive one wasn’t an easy task, yet changing the thought and belief patterns was even harder… way harder…
It took me a whole year of relentless work… working on my thoughts, my actions and my feelings… when you embark on such a journey you never know where it’s going to lead you… Sometimes the improvement is so slow, you think nothing is changing… little that we know most of the change is taking place below the surface…
 
I am a mixed media artist and art quilter… I specialize in a special form of art that entails drawing with the sewing machine in a free motion intuitive stitching. This needs tremendous leg and hand control and coordination… After my ‘perfect storm’, I could no longer do that… My leg was too weak to control the sewing patterns.
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​On the outside, people saw me back on my feet, working, running and rushing. But, behind the perfect façade, I was putting a relentless effort to hide that limp, I was crying over a lost hobby, a lost passion and a lost strength…
I shifted to acrylic painting… no sewing required. It worked well, people admired my painting, they were exhibited in shows and galleries, but again, behind the perfect façade, only I knew that those weren’t mine… This wasn’t my art, my choice, my work or my passion…
I kept going any way… working on my diet, my supplements, my lifestyle, my choices, my mission and my career… and above all, working on my thinking pattern… Shedding the helplessness, martyrdom and worthless mentality… generating joy and honouring the struggle as my favourite mentor Brendon Bruchard says.
 
You need to keep going until this becomes your life, until you forget about your pain and your wounds and you only remember the Big Picture, the big meaning… Until you find yourself effortlessly smiling again, laughing again and engaging in life again and again…

And, one day, I took my sewing machine out and gave it another try… It worked! My leg wasn’t protesting any longer… It was moving forward along with my life!
 
My clients keep asking me: “will I be able to walk normally again?”; “Will I ever be pain-free? Headache-free?”; “Will I ever get my vitality back? My strength? My life back?”
The truth is, I don’t know… No one can give you guarantees… But what I can guarantee is putting you on the right track; empowering you with the knowledge, science and information; motivating you to keep going and supporting you all the way until you reach your goal…

True healing comes from the One & Only Healer… from God. Our role is seeking all the worldly means: eating the right food, taking the right supplements, managing stresses, changing perception, making better choices… doing all the work while praying for guidance. Divine guidance is our ultimate goal… guidance to the Right Path, to the right intention, to the right decision… guidance to be the best version of ourselves that we can possibly be… guidance to finding our true life meaning, purpose and calling and embarking on a quest to fulfil it… Only then, healing is achieved.

When I was a young girl, my art teacher never liked my drawings. They weren’t very ‘artistic’, she used to say. I always tried to conform to the rules: color within the lines, watch myperspectives, follow design ‘rules’… No wonder I never felt artistic enough. I never gave the chance for my deep feelings to be expressed, explored or released on papper.

It was only when I decided to draw for ‘myself’, not for pleasing anyone else that I started to feel free. Only then, I gave room for my true creative self. ART for me is my therapeutic tool that heals life stresses, worries, woes, aches and pains. Art therapists teach that the word ART stands for: Access, Release, & Transform. And, this is exactly what it does for me. Colors, shapes, pictures, symbols, chosen ephemera, collaged bits and pieces, fabric scraps, and charms… all have meaning, a deep meaning hidden in every selection, in every choice you make, in every decision that alters the shape of your canvas as it alters the shape of your life. These selections are your mean to access your heart feelings, your insights, ideas, and creative thoughts, as well as your hidden hopes and fears. Your canvas, or any other medium you choose to express your art on, is your way of releasing. Releasing negative thoughts and beliefs, releasing erroneous perceptions and hurtful feelings that no longer serve you at this point of your journey. And, as your piece of art develops, as it takes shape and form, you gently, yet powerfully, start the transformation journey. You experience your anger melting into acceptance and forgiveness; your frustration converted into peace and wisdoms; your challenges transmuted into lessons and tools for growth; your pains shaped into a mold of satisfaction and insights… With my art, I heal my heart.

Surprisingly, now that I no longer wait for others appreciations and acceptance, I receive loads of that. Many friends try to convince me to take a professional step in art practice, sell my paintings or accept orders. I diligently refuse. “It will just take the magic out of it” I reply. It will force me back to look outside for acceptance rather than looking inside for answers. I choose to keep my ART as my heart healing ally.

Try it for your self
Have a wonderful week
With Health & Healing