How I learned to love my curls — Part 2
A story of self-acceptance | control, surrender, compassion, and a trip to paradise.
If you haven’t read part 1, read that first. :)
“Seemingly, I needed the lows in my life to find and mend the broken pieces within myself.”
Curling into darkness
Then our second child, our daughter, was born with a slim chance at life. After going through hell to save our baby girl, I started going through years of deeply challenging and painful internal work.
Side note: the story around our daughter's early life is too long and detailed to recount here. So instead, if you're curious about how human connection, perseverance, and surrender can save a life, please listen to minute 43:05 onward of this podcast episode [spotify] on which I was a guest.
This internal work was around early life trauma; much of it was about not accepting myself for who I am. The pain in myself, hidden beneath layers of cope, control, and subjugation, started rearing its head more visibly. I had been using the skills I acquired to control my surroundings—so I could fit in—as a coping mechanism against being disappointed again and again.
This coping mechanism came to the forefront as I felt the need to control my surroundings and my loved ones more and more because the fear of losing them was a massive presence in my life. This need for control asserted itself quite strongly after such an act of control helped me save our daughter's life again when she was ten months old. But this urge to control created a rift between me and GG, slowly tearing our relationship apart. After all that we had gone through together—maybe because of everything we went through—this hurt so much.
A ship without a rudder
I quit my tech job during that same period and started working for myself, but I had a hard time searching for new clients after my first few projects ended. You see, I was all over the place and didn't know what the next steps in my career should be. I was floating in an ocean of choices and constantly asking myself questions. Should I pursue tech or writing? Why can't I do what I like and get paid the same as in the tech industry? Why am I so bad at sales?
I was without compass or map, so I sailed in every which way the wind was blowing.
Then, on a Friday afternoon in late summer, a friend came back from Portugal and talked to me about his experience with micro-dosing psychedelic mushrooms. He told me it helped him alleviate some social anxiety. I first thought it was probably a placebo experience—I was very much against doing drugs, you see.
At the time, I didn't realize that my fear of taking drugs stemmed from a fear of losing control. I was intrigued, though, intrigued enough to try a little myself.
So one morning, I took one gram of magic truffles (not as strong per gram as magic mushrooms) and found myself indeed with much less anxiety. I was more present in my body where previously I was only in my mind. And because the constant weight of worry lifted, I was suddenly thinking more freely and creatively. I sat in front of my computer and out of my fingers words came pouring that I vehemently typed in a Google doc. What I wrote down immediately hit the core of my being. It was about my fears of following my true intent and purpose. About how my "robot" side was suppressing my "muse" side.
After that psychedelic experience, I started journaling every day. My emotional life was still a mess, but I found more moments of light when I was journaling, even though I saw dark things within myself through journaling that I didn't dare see before. Eventually, this journaling led me to start a ten-week challenge. In the challenge, I would write every day and lift weights every day. (I wrote an article on this challenge, which is still my most read article to date.)
I started the challenge because I was sick of myself floating in a different direction every other week. I needed an anchor of sorts. Something to stay in one place so I could get my bearings. Thus doing daily writing, for my mind and heart, and lifting weights, for my body, was a welcoming constraint to help me pave a path forward. It was a no-excuses way to get results.
New Years' Day passed, and I had indeed written and lifted weights for all of those seventy days—sometimes to the chagrin of GG, "Can't you write it tomorrow, it's 11:30 PM!"
But damn, did I feel a sense of accomplishment after I finished! I felt I wasn't a loser after all; I felt I could do something if I set my mind to it. The challenge helped me to survive my dark night of the soul, at least until I saw a little bit of light in the morning sky.
But while I was in that long dark night, I wasn't seeing any clients or even pursuing new ones, so I was letting my hair grow. Not because I liked it, but because—feeling depressed—I didn't care about my looks at all.
A trip of compassion
A few days after New Years' Day, GG and I went on a weekend trip without our kids. It was the first trip since our daughter's latest brush with death. It's hard to state how afraid I was to leave our daughter with someone else for a few days. In the same first week of January—but two years before—I had held our daughter in my arms while she was close to death for the first time since leaving the hospital. So my level of anxiety was through the roof when GG and I were away from her for an extended time since that dreadful moment.
But we had to go, our relationship was on the brink of failure, and it hadn't gotten better in those dark winter months. Our backs were against the wall, and we felt that only outside intervention could help us. It was an intervention based on a recommendation from one of my closest friends.
My friend recommended we take MDMA together.
MDMA is an interesting drug. I know some people use it during rave parties to keep dancing and feeling happy. But I think that's only the surface level of what you can use it for. I think it's much more valuable in the setting of therapy (in the way Johns Hopkins Centre for Psychedelic Research is studying it). So that's how GG and I went into the experience, like a therapy session.
We took some, not too much at first, and waited. And waited.
My anxiety was reaching its zenith 45 minutes in. I felt nothing except fear even though GG was already 'sinking' into the king-sized bed and feeling totally relaxed. I started wondering all kinds of crazy things: Is there something wrong with me. Doesn't this drug work for me? What if I go crazy? Will I still be me after this? Do I need more? Damn, why isn't it working!?
It took another 45 minutes, what seemed likes ages, for me to finally start feeling some of the effects. No doubt my fear and need for control were suppressing the substance so much. Then, finally, the dark cloud over my soul lifted, and I only felt love. (The rest of my MDMA experience can be another tale, I'm sure, but for this story, not essential to know.)
GG and I found each other again. And I found me.
“In those moments, where we held each other, we healed each other.”
We talked for over ten hours straight, pausing only to cry or hold each other. In those moments, where we held each other, we healed each other. And I could finally see myself without the filter of a controlling and demanding Jibran. So when I looked into the mirror, instead of seeing an angry and depressed me, I saw a kind, beautiful, and curious person.
I also saw my curls, so neglected. But pure in how they fell around my face because of the neglect. I hadn't done anything with my hair for months. So no straightening or combing either. I immediately saw that I had never appreciated my curls. That I had only let my curls grow for GG to accept me—at least, that is what I told myself—or I had tried to get rid of them. Now with my eyes wide open, my pupils open even wider, I understood how cruel I had been with myself. I had been more hurtful to myself than I had been with anyone else in my life. I saw how I had felt a constant shame to be myself, I saw how I had forsaken my true self.
But at that moment, I could forgive myself for all that. GG and I forgave each other for all the messiness of our relationship in the last years as well. And I could see and understand why Christ, and other prophets, talk so much about forgiveness; forgiveness is a miracle that every person on earth can offer.
Kintsugi your heart
There is so much more to tell, but the core of both the mind-altering substances and the journaling is that I had to experience self-love to accept myself. I had rationally known for a long time that not accepting myself—not loving myself—wasn't a healthy way to go through life, but I just couldn't find a way to get to the other side.
What got me to the other side was opening up, to myself and others, while feeling safe enough to do so. But opening up also exposes the pains in your heart. So it's like breaking open your heart and then mending it again with love and compassion as glue—a bit like the Chinese Kintsugi bowls where you repair the broken bowl with gold and silver.
The opening and mending of my heart is something I couldn't have done without support from GG, friends, journaling, the love for my children—and a bit of mind-altering substances.
Journey before destination
Just two weeks after this 'therapy trip,' GG and I took another trip. This time to another side of the world—as I mentioned in part 1, I followed GG to South America in the act of courtship. This time—like a restart of our relationship after ten years—we went to New Zealand. But now, instead of the two of us, we were with four!
We disconnected from all media and digital devices and connected as a family. We truly had a life in paradise there: I asked GG to marry me, we hiked up to the foot of Mount Cook, we saw killer whales in the wild, and we met wonderful people with amazing stories to tell. Our trip was a celebration of life, humanity, our family, and ourselves.
Now, two years after GG took the picture above, I still have my curls—now reaching between my shoulder blades—and can only look back with gratefulness and love for the journey I have had up till now. The lows in my life have shown me what courage, kindness, and beauty there is in every one of us. Seemingly, I needed the lows in my life to find and mend the broken pieces within myself.
I feel blessed to still write or journal nearly every day, spend time with GG and our kids, and connect more deeply with friends and family—and myself. I even made a bunch of new like-minded internet friends only because I was able to open up.
Though it took me close to 35 years, I haven't been happier.
To close off, I want to share this phrase I wholeheartedly believe in (by Brandon Sanderson):
Journey Before Destination
Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to read a story so close to my heart! I really appreciate it! ❤️
If you think anyone else could find it helpful or enjoy it, please do share.
Sincerely,
Jibran