Mariam-Saba Ahmad
Playing Both Sides of the Relationship and How ...

The problem with not “showing up” in a relationship, namely not speaking up, sharing my reality, or conveying what’s going on with me, is I automatically have determined the outcome of the interaction. By making the choice to not show up, I’m making the choice for both of us, how the scenario is going to play out. Because it’s already playing out with my current silence. In this way, I’m playing both sides of the relationship. I’m playing my side, having my experience of the relationship and reacting to my experience. I’m playing the other side, in my head, imagining showing up and sharing whatever I want to share, imagining their reaction based on either my history and projections or based on our history and projection of who I see them as, imagining the fallout and difficulty in repair, if there even is a repair, and then choosing to not go down that road because it’s not worth it. I’ve just made the choice for both of us.

Playing Both Sides of the Relationship and How to Stop

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Love: Where Emotion Meets Action

Love: Where Emotion Meets Action

“At its core, I think love is help. Everybody is having a hard time. So love is really devotion to their struggle. It’s when you’re committed to helping somebody with their life. Helping them to suffer less. Helping them to manage their minds and their emotions. I think love is a deep desire for our loved one’s growth and their blossoming and their all-around wellbeing. When you love somebody, you want them to feel good, and you want to see them succeed in life. Love really demands an in-depth understanding of their hopes, and their dreams and their fears, their needs and trauma. I think love is giving and sharing our gifts for the purpose of nurturing them and empowering them and helping them to create their greatest joys.” ~Will Smith

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Love Is An Offering

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Love Is An Offering

My love, imagine a blank, light-filled space. Place the Light of Allah, like a wall, next to you. Look at the wall and there’s a window. When a man truly loves you, he will stand at that window, respecting Allah’s Light between you, and offer his love to you, like beautiful flowers. He may offer one or a bouquet, but he will not cross the threshold, he will offer his love, delicate, beautiful, and patient, at the threshold. My beloved, know, “no” is as valid an answer as “yes”. He is an adult, he wants you to receive him, but without you, he is still whole. Your answer will not break or harm him, as long as your response is equally loving, meaning delivered with truth, mercy, respect and care.