I picked up the book “Welcome Home” because of its tag line, “a guide to building a home for your soul”. We are told that when great loss arrives, we will never be the same.  Nor should we want to. I have bought into that theory. However, this belief then begs the question, where does my soul live now? Thus, a guide to answering this question intrigued me.

Najwa is a young poet and author.  She is a Lebanese Canadian activist who has struggled all her life with where she belongs and finding ‘homes’ in all the wrong places. Her journey has led her to write about a concept of building within your mind a home that is for your soul happiness. She takes the reader through seven chapters, each one a room to develop.

Her writing includes clips of her past poetry, details of her own journey as to why each room was created and ideas of how to build your own. The rooms are simple; self-love, compassion, respect, listening and dreaming. The two I enjoyed most were clarity and surrender.

Clarity was all about intuition.  We forget to listen to our gut in grief because our feelings are raw and mixed and uncertain. Although Najwa was not referring to those mourning, but rather an overall, “I’m not happy, but I want to be” discovery, it can be applicable to grief warriors. It is important that we begin to trust our gut once again.

Surrender was the room where you take off the mask. This is the room, in building a life of joy, that Najwa suggests we listen to our self, to our heart, and to our soul. She writes, “Just surrender. Don’t just hear your inner voice.  Actually, listen to yourself.  Listen to your heart.  Hear your soul.  And…Listen to your pain.” 

That chapter hit me.  I would like to think that is what we do in mourning.  But maybe not. Or maybe we listen to our pain but then what? Do we put it back on the shelf, close the door, or ignore it? What would that feel like to really hear our pain.  The thought scares me. I struggle leaning into my pain. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to immerse myself in it. What would it say? And how would I answer? Or maybe, I don’t answer.  Maybe, for now, I just start to listen better, deeper, and more often.

Although this book wasn’t a typical book to find on your grief reading list, it contains some ideas to support our heart when we are searching for ways to how we continue this path that loss has placed us on. Hope can be found in the building of a safe and peaceful place for our broken heart to reside.