Finding home through poetry | Najwa Zebian | TEDxCoventGardenWomen

Drawing on her experiences growing up in different countries and struggling to find a place where she felt she belonged, Najwa Zebian reveals the power of the spoken and written words. She demonstrates how words can pave the journey that leads us to our home, to a place where we feel we belong and are understood and valued, and most importantly where we feel worthy of feeling that way. She shared the lesson she had learn, an universal truth, in very personal words.

Najwa Zebian is a Lebanese Canadian educator and author based in London, Ontario, Canada. Her passion for creative expression was evident from a young age as she delved into Arabic poetry and novels. She arrived to Canada at sixteen years of age and pursued higher education. In 2011, she became a teacher and is currently pursuing her Doctorate in Educational Leadership as she teaches high school students.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

For me, being here
is the definition of vulnerability,

and I could have a speech that's scripted
and rehearsed a million times,

but you're going to see
a different side of me

than the side that I know
and the side that you know,

if you already know me.

I am going to begin
with a poem that I wrote.

"I had no home,
and with that I was content,

because I never knew
what it felt like to feel like home.

So you built a home for me,

and all of my scattered pieces
suddenly came together.

Somewhere, I put my heart to sleep
as you cradled my worries away.

I woke up one day cold, abandoned,

without a roof on top,
without windows or walls,

without you.

And you wonder why
I'm so unable to let you go.

Before you, I never knew
what a home was.

You gave me a taste of heaven,
and with your hands, you took it away.

Once you enter heaven,

you can never live again the same way."

This poem is me.

This poem is probably most of you.

When we think of the word "home,"

most of us live for so many years
not knowing what it means.

We long for a place

where our hearts feel at peace,
and our souls feel loved.

And the first instance
that we get that feeling,

we get so attached to it.

That's the story of my life.

You see, I've spent most of my years
building homes in other people

and defining my self-worth based on
how much those homes welcomed me,

and how much those homes loved me.

I truly believe that there is
a big power in stories.

So I'm going to tell you my story.

Would you like to hear it ?
(Audience) Yes.

Years ago, decades ago actually,

my parents met
and got married in Canada.

They had five children and decided
that they wanted to go to Lebanon

so that their children could learn Arabic.

And many, many years later, I was born,

making me the youngest
by many years in the family.

I had five older siblings
and they were all so much older than me.

Maturity came to me at a young age,

because I was constantly
surrounded by people

who were from a different generation,
that's how it seemed to me.

So I struggled a lot.

I was bullied in school,

not physically but emotionally.

I was bullied for being too sensitive,
for being too vulnerable,

and even my teachers took part in this.

So I always felt like
I was a shadow of a person.

I actually believed that I wasn't
worthy of being loved.

I actually believed that something
was wrong with me,

for feeling the way that I was feeling

and for wanting to express
certain things within me,

but feeling like I couldn't.

So I was silent for most of my life,

and I was just quietly
observing everyone around me.

I'd go to school, I'd come home.

But here's the thing, there wasn't just
one place that I went to after school

because from the age of eight,

my parents and my siblings
were in constant motion

between Lebanon and Canada.

So I lived at different points
with different uncles and aunts

and my sister and many
people took care of me.

So I didn't have a constant home
that I could go to everyday,

a safe place where I could speak
about what I was going through.

And if my parents were around
and I knew how much they loved me,

I didn't want to talk about
what I was going through

because I felt that
there was such a distance,

and again, I felt like it was wrong
for me to feel the way I was feeling.

So when I turned 13, a friend of mine
gave me a journal for my birthday,

and I remember the first time
I wrote in it, I felt weird,

because it wasn't something
that I normally did.

But day after day, I found myself
coming back to the journal

and just writing, writing and writing,

even if it was just about
what I did that day.

And day after day,
that journal became my home

because it was a place of no judgment,

no one telling me, ''No,
you're not allowed to feel that way,''

no one telling me,
''You're too sensitive,''

no one telling me,
''I don't want to listen to you.''

So that home welcomed me,
and I kept coming back to it.

Fast forward three years,

when I came to Canada
just for the summer to visit my family,

and the war broke out that summer
in Lebanon, so I couldn't go back.

I remember, when I finally decided
that this is where I was going to stay,

I felt so stuck and I felt I was angry,
I had this anger on the inside,

because yes, maybe back home
I didn't feel like home,

but I knew the streets,
I knew people.

People spoke to me in my first language.

I spoke in my first language
and it was a language I loved.

I knew the mountains and the trees.

I was familiar with everything there
and now I'm in a new place

where I'm supposed to find a home,
but I don't even feel welcome.

So all of those dreams
that I wrote about in my journal,

I felt like they,

like everyone and everything else
in my life betrayed me,

because I was writing about reaching
a place where I felt like home

and if anything,
I was further away from it.

So I ripped up my journal,

and I said, "I'm never going
to write again,"

because writing meant feeling,
and feeling meant

that I was fully aware
of what I was going through

and how wrong it was,

but it also reminded me that there
was nothing I could do about it.

So for seven straight years,
I never wrote.

I did grade 12, first year university,

second year, third year, fourth year,

teachers college, my master's,

and during that time, I felt colorless.

I felt invisible and I was okay with that.

I didn't fit in and it bothered me,

but it was easier for me to stay
on the sidelines and not express myself

than express myself and get hurt
because I was expressing myself.

So, at the end of those seven years,
I started teaching.

My very first teaching assignment

was with eight Libyan students
who had just arrived form Libya,

which was also torn by war.

And I remember looking at them

and seeing them going through exactly
the same struggles that I went through.

So I started writing for them
to motivate them.

And as long as I was writing
for someone else, that was okay.

But with writing,
something magical happens.

Sometimes you think
that you're leading your writing,

but at a certain point,
it starts leading you.

So little by little, I started
writing for myself

and about myself and feelings
that I went through.

And this is how "Mind Platter",
my very first book came about.

It is just a compilation
of reflections on my experiences.

Those were addressed to me,

and they were addressed
to those students,

and they were addressed to anybody
out there who goes through feelings,

thinking that it's wrong
to feel them or express them.

So this was my very first shout
into the world to say,

''You know what? I have a voice,
and it's going to be out there.

And if this book makes one person
feel heard or understood

or takes that feeling
of judgement away from them,

that's enough for me."

And I put it out there
and I'm very proud of it.

I'm very proud of how many people
reached out and said,

"I feel exactly the same way,

and I'm no longer embarrassed
to say that I feel this way."

During the process of compiling
everything in Mind Platter,

I met the first person
who I actually felt loved me,

who I actually felt cared about me,

who I actually felt home with.

He never touched my body
but deeply touched my soul,

and I felt at peace
and it was an amazing feeling.

One day,

he, like everyone else, walked away

although he promised he wouldn't.

And slowly colors started
fading again from my life,

and I started going back
to that same 16-year-old

who decided to rip up her journal.

I was weak.

I was still functioning fully,

but I was so miserable on the inside,

I was suffering on the inside.

One night, before my dad
took off to Lebanon,

he sat with me
and he reminded me of this.

This was the picture
that I shared for Father's day.

He said to me,

"Do you remember that picture
that you shared?"

He said,

"When I was holding
your hand in that picture,

I looked at you and I said,
'This girl is going places'

because of the look
that you had in your eyes."

and that look is gone.

I remember that night
looking in the mirror

at a person that I had
no idea who she was.

My face didn't resemble me.

My features actually looked distorted.

I felt like I was looking at a sky,

when it was just choking on grayness,

no sun, no clouds, no rain,

nothing, just choking.

And tears started
streaming down my face,

but they were a different kind of tears.

I realized how far
I've come from myself,

looking at this stranger.

And I also realized that I needed
to come back to myself.

So this time, my pen didn't go dry,

and I didn't rip up my journal.

I wrote about my pain
as painful as it was,

and the deeper I dug into that pain,

the higher I rose in confidence,

and in feeling like I was heard.

If I could describe that day
and that moment, this is what it was:

"These mountains that you are carrying,
you were only supposed to climb."

I realized that the mountains
of rejection, fear, and feeling neglected,

all of those things,
I had been carrying them with me

when really what I should
have been doing was climbing them,

reaching their tops and saying,
"Look how far I've come."

So I take this with me wherever I go.

I always remind myself

that just because I have things
on my shoulders,

it doesn't mean that I have
to keep dragging them.

I could be doing something else
with them and empowering myself.

So on this journey, "The Nectar of Pain"
came about, but I want to tell you

what realizations I had to make
while I was writing,

and these weren't writings
written for a certain audience.

These writings were from me
and they were about me.

I realized that the biggest
mistake that we make

is that we build homes in other people.

We build those homes,

and we decorate them
with the love, and care, and respect

that we want to come home to
at the end of the day.

We invest in homes in other people.

And we evaluate our self-worth based on
how much those homes welcome us.

When those people walk away,

those homes walk away with them,

and all of a sudden, we feel empty,

because everything we had within us,
we put in those homes,

and we trusted someone else
with pieces of us.

So that emptiness that we feel doesn't
mean that we had nothing to give

or that we have nothing within us.

It's just that we built
our home in the wrong place.

We built our home
that should be within us

and we should come home to
at the end of the day,

in someone else and, all of a sudden,
it's not our own anymore.

So, I'll leave you with this:

I truly believe that it's time for us

to embrace the homes
that are already within us.

And instead of expecting
the world to bring things to us,

we should start cultivating
our own strength,

and we should start
building homes within us.

And I'm going to leave you with this poem:

"My dear self, forgive me
for building a home

for the broken pieces of my soul
within someone else.

My dear self, forgive me
for only loving you,

if that home loved you,
welcomed you and welcomed me.

I will not pretend to be the victim
and say that they abandoned me.

You see, in my stories,
I'm always the hero.

So from today, I promise you
to start building a home

for you, for me, within me."

Thank you.

(Applause)