You can become the change driver of your own life. The celebrated poet, educator, and author of Welcome Home shows you how in this practical, wise, and tender guide to all of life s changes.
Change is hard but Najwa shows you what s on the other side, and she s the one you want to lead you through it. Melissa Urban, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Boundaries In
The Only Constant, Najwa Zebian guides you through the changes we must make and those we must endure in life, offering support, stabilizing practices, and step-by-step guidance to make it through the uncertainty. With timeless wisdom, Najwa shares stories of change from her own life, including the bonds to the past she needed to break so that she could live more honestly, the loss of a loved one, and accepting the changes required to manage chronic illness.
She also guides you through changes like:
The end of a romantic relationship or friendship
Setting boundaries with a friend or family member
Changing your educational and career path
Grieving the death of a loved one
Breaking trauma bonds
Venturing outside of your survival mode
Living an authentic life
Practicing radical acceptance
A highly practical guide to unfamiliar terrain,
The Only Constant teaches that the purpose of change is to be true to yourself. Zebian simplifies change, teaches us to accept ourselves as we are now, and helps us focus on the necessity and unexpected beauty of those messy transitional times. And she guides you through it so that you can not only reach the better life that awaits you on the other side, but also so that you can take the wheel and become the
driver of change in your own life.
Dr. Najwa Zebian offers profound wisdom and healing insights, encouraging you not only to welcome change but to wholeheartedly embrace it as the path to creating the life you truly desire. With her perceptive guidance, she gently navigates the challenging experiences of loss, transitions, and heartbreak, providing manageable steps that lead you from your current reality to the future you seek. Her clear, tender, and wise advice serves as a beautiful source of encouragement for anyone facing the uncertainties of change, offering a steady hand to guide you through uncertain times.
Todd Baratz, LMHC, creator of YourDiagnonsense and author of How to Love Someone Without Losing Your Mind
Najwa Zebian, Ed.D., is a Lebanese Canadian activist, author, speaker, and educator with a doctorate in educational leadership. Dr. Zebian began to write in an effort to connect with and heal her first students, a group of young refugees. The author of four books that guide readers to navigate hard emotions, most recently
Welcome Home, Dr. Zebian delivered the TEDx talk Finding Home Through Poetry. She recently launched her podcast,
In the Clear, with cohost Stephan Maighan to guide listeners in gaining clarity through a holistic look through logic and emotion. Her work has been featured in
The New York Times, Glamour, Elle Canada, HuffPost, and more.
Chapter 1 Why Change Is Hard Hint: Because we want it to be easy. I will never forget the moment everything changed for me. I ve always known that change is hard, whether it s a change I choose, or one life chooses for me. I ve also always known that change is one of life s only constants. Not just that, change is one of life s most beautiful truths. Change is what puts life in our lives. Change is the gateway to authentic transformation.
I don t know about you, but the part I couldn t quite put my finger on for the longest time was this: How on Earth do I actually embrace change instead of just knowing and believing that change is an integral part of life? How do I make change beautiful and necessary, instead of staying stuck at the intersection of knowing and doing? How do I stop trying to skip the part that is messy, uncertain, and unstable? How do I just do change?
How do I go from knowing that I need to live my life authentically to actually living that way? Especially when it means that my life will be flipped upside down in this pursuit? How do I go from knowing that the self-loving thing to do is to leave all toxic relationships behind and believe that I can form healthy connections, to actually doing that? How do I go from knowing that I want a career I love, not what my family or friends think is best for me, to actually pursuing it? How do I go from knowing that boundaries are essential for my self-preservation to not allowing guilt to make me go back on them? How do I go from knowing that grief is healing to actually sitting with it?
There is one thing I know for sure. As Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, Change is the only constant in life. You can resist the flow of life, but all that does is keep you living in resistance, going against the current of being alive. Embracing the only constant in life eases your transformation into the person you are meant to be the most authentic version of yourself.
Life gave me opportunities to try embracing change. And without fail, it will give you opportunities to embrace change. I will tell you my stories in this book, and I hope that they help you feel less alone as you confront your own changes the changes you choose, the ones you don t, and the ones you need to make. But first I want to tell you about a moment that brought it all together for me and taught me five truths about change.
1. Change Is Hard Because We Focus So Much on How Hard Change Is Instead of Seeing It as a Path to the Life We Want Right before I started writing this book, my grandma passed away peacefully in her sleep. She and my grandpa had been together for seventy-five years.
The day after she died, my mom and I and a few family friends were sitting with my grandpa in his front yard, surrounded by all the beautiful flowers my grandma grew over the years. We sat under the same grapevine where I had spent many childhood hours waiting for its bunches to turn from tiny sour green grapes to big juicy drops from heaven. It was always my grandma who made sure my grandpa picked me the exact one I wanted.
We were all engulfed in the big void of her absence. When you lose someone you love, their absence somehow intensifies how their presence would feel.
It was quiet. We could hear the leaves and the wind make the most peaceful symphony that somehow put us all in a trance of feeling as if my grandma were still there. Then moments would come when we would snap back into reality and tears would just start quietly streaming down our faces. My grandpa s tears carved two streets on his cheeks for his grief to express itself. He had been quietly crying, but this time he said out loud, How am I going to live without you, my best friend? A family friend, who I am sure had the best intention
Über den Autor
Najwa Zebian
Klappentext
A wise and tender guide to coming to terms with impermanence and recognizing that change is the force that allows you to become you—from the celebrated author of Welcome Home
“Change is hard—but Najwa shows you what’s on the other side, and she’s the one you want to lead you through it.”—Melissa Urban, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Boundaries
“I’ve always known that change is hard, whether it’s a change I choose, or one life chooses for me. I’ve also always known that change is one of life’s only constants. Not just that, change is one of life’s most beautiful truths. Change is what puts life in our lives. Change is the gateway to authentic transformation.”
Whether it’s your job, your relationships, or just the way you move through the world, if you’re like most people you have something in your life you’d like to change. And sometimes, unwanted change comes all too swiftly: a breakup, a death, an upheaval to the everyday reality you thought you could rely on. Dr. Zebian guides you through the changes we must make and those we must endure on the journey to our most authentic lives. She quiets the noise, teaches us to accept ourselves as we are now, and helps us focus on the necessity and beauty of those messy transitional times.
With timeless wisdom, Najwa shares her personal experiences with change (for example, rejecting her culture’s definition of what constitutes a “good woman” so that she could live more honestly). She guides us through the changes we choose, like embarking on a new career or setting boundaries, changes we don’t choose, like the loss of a loved one, a relationship, or a job.
Ultimately, Dr. Zebian teaches that the purpose of change is to step into the world as your most authentic self. A highly practical guide to unfamiliar terrain, The Only Constant is here to assure us that uncertainty is natural. Yes, change is scary. You may want to hide from it by clinging to your past. But embracing change is the path to shedding old ideas of who you are and living your life as your true self.
