THOUGHTS, WORDS & aCTIONS

By Aida M.

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I have struggled for weeks now trying to write down what Love is. Many of you who know me well, know that I had fallen in love with a man I could not be with for many reasons. After 5 years of this, I think I’ve learnt a thing or two about love and I painted this piece inspired by the beauty of love in all of its outcomes. J

Love has no religion; Love goes to the root of all religions. Love is the common language we all crave to speak because in the end we all simply crave to be loved. Love teaches you how to live in the moment and be present to cherish what is in the here and the now. Love shows you what selflessness means because one day it will take away what you claimed was ‘yours’. Love will teach you that it was never truly yours but it was only yours to learn from and then to willingly let go whenever it has served its purpose whenever life has decided that is meant to be.

We have all had our hearts broken in one way or another, and that brokenness is a sign that you tried, you opened, you lived. Love is one of the most powerful forces, and I strive for it every day when I wake up and open my eyes to pray to thank God for blessing me with another chance to give and receive love by giving love to myself, love to my family, love to my friends, love to my work, love to the unmet friends I will make, love to the unmet partners, and love to all of Gods beautiful creations.

Life is remarkably short, so love love love and love again deeply because a person with more scars has lived fuller than a person with a closed heart.

With lots of Love – Aida

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Let's encourage the future generations of women to be more comfortable in their own skin.#nomakeupphotoshoot Soul&Story Celebrates women one story at a time. Check out my story on self-worth and natural beauty. ✨💖💃 https://issuu.com/soulandstory/docs/soul_story_aida

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Soul&Story ft. Aida

Natural Beauty is Worth a Photoshoot.

So incredibly honored to be part of Soul&Story latest series of celebrating women around the world. Check out my story on self-worth and natural beauty.

Hope you enjoy it! :) :)

Thanks to the awesome superwoman Founder Megan Bo-yeun Won who is working to inspire and empower women one story at a time.

[aidamurad]

Next week I will be giving a talk and presenting this video at FHI 360focusing on Vulnerability and Resilience. The video says it all. I hope my message somehow helps someone who needed a reminder to stay strong, honor their vulnerability and stay resilient in the roller coaster ride of life.

Thank you infinitely to Haydé Adams FitzPatrick for making this video happen & for helping me share my message with the world.

[aidamurad]

A Life Lessons Learnt Letter to My Brothers

My most special brothers, you are the people that mean the world to me and you are the people who I believe have so much potential to do miracelous things in this world. So as your sister and best friend I advise you on the following things:

1) Be part of something much larger than yourself. This way you always stay humble and grounded. I personally see this as myself being a part of God’s plan. Something that is much greater than myself. It always leaves me protected, faithful in the ups and downs of life and strong because I know I have something greater than anything imaginable next to me, around me and within me. 

2) Be good. Be good to all that is around you. Be delicate. Be patient and most importantly be loving. Do not underestimate the power of being kind to even a tree, the power of being delicate to even the mug you hold, the power of being loving to a stranger. Be good and kind to others because at the end the of the day, the angry person who sleeps with all his negativity is the person at loss. So do yourselves a favor and be at peace. You will all be much happier people and surely someone will follow your positive ways.

3) Your thoughts create your reality. I have throughout my life been constantly shown that my thoughts are what govern my life. So please think good thoughts, think of thoughts again that are greater than the person you are now.

A simple example for this is the concept of Love. You are the role model to teach how someone should love you. How can you expect them to love you dearly if you do not love yourself and think negatively of yourself? You must again think highly of yourself but knowing always that you are powered through God and for God. and when you have God within you, why would you ever want to think of anything negative?

4) Be aware & do all things with Love. As I mentioned earlier, everything you do leaves a footprint and same goes with everything you listen, watch, think, and do leaves a footprint within You. Try to be more aware of what it is you are doing, what energy you are absorbing, what energy are you releasing..etc. Even when you work do it with Love. When you eat do it with Love, when you cook, cook as if you are cooking for your most beloved. Be present, aware and loving. Don’t miss the many beautiful tiny miracles that happen in the day for you.

[darwishism]

“The gold in you does not rust.”

[aidamurad]

It’s been over a year since I last closed my left hand fully.

Life with all its beauty gives us all different challenges, some challenges that can be easily seen such as a broken leg and some more hidden like a broken heart. and I think we have all had both but the question is what do we do with them.

Some people choose to close up and let the pain swallow and change them. While others learn from it and somehow celebrate the pain by transforming themselves to be more loving, kinder, wiser and most importantly more open.

I today, with a semi-functional hand choose the latter path. I paint with my fingers to turn my pain into a beautiful creation because while I can no longer hold things so easily, I can make beautiful creations of art. And if one day I can no longer use my fingers, I will be sure to adapt to learn how to create another beautiful thing with whatever it is I am blessed to have.

Thankss to Haydé Adams FitzPatrick for the photo <3

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My favorite things: Blue, hand painting and simplicity.

Thanksss Haydé Adams FitzPatrick for the photographyy

[aidamurad]

Ramadan Mubarak

Fasting on the surface is about the restriction of eating and drinking from sunrise to sunset. but on a deeper level, fasting for me is practicing the restriction from negative thoughts, judgement, hatred, greed..etc. Its the intense cleansing of one's mind, body and spirit to remind ourselves that there is no other way in life but to live humbly, kindly filled with gentleness and compassion to oneself and all of Gods creations even to the creations that seem to be in your eyes ugly or rude.

This month is a reminder to love all no matter what, to give whatever you can regardless of what you may or may not receive because in the end, a life lived on the foundation of Gods love and unconditional love is truly a life well lived.

May you all have a blessed Ramadan <3

[aidamurad]

Lessons learnt from going to the World Bank in tennis shoes

Two days ago I had the wonderful pleasure of being invited to have lunch at the World Bank with a friend. The morning of that day, I was finding it hard to walk in normal shoes and the only shoes that was ok for me to walk in were my tennis shoes so I had two options: (1) Cancel my lunch to avoid the embarrassment of walking in tennis shoes at the World Bank or (2) Go enjoy lunch and be the odd one out.

At first I was leaning to option 1 because really who goes to one of the most prestigious institutions in tennis shoes? But then I asked myself what if I’m not alive tomorrow, would I have cared if I went in my tennis shoes or not? No.

So I went and had a wonderful time but I prepped my attitude for it. I promised to bring humor to my pain. To laugh when life gives me obstacles because there are plenty and life is far from over. So here are a few lessons learnt:

1- Don’t wait to do the things you want to do till they perfectly fit because chances are you will be waiting for a very very long time.

2- Bring humor to your pain. Pain will always be there so you might as well learn how to enjoy it while you move forward.

3- Surround yourself with awesome people because when you forget the first two you need people who will do that for you until you catch up.

[gomcgill]

You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?

Rumi (via mysimplereminders)

[aidamurad]

In a world that seems to be nonstop lets take a second to appreciate the beautiful nature around us while we can

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Discovering Tunisias underground shops

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St. Francis. 

[the-citythatneversleeps-deactiv]

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Nafsika Skourti, one of the best upcoming designers. In her new collection she softly protests about the war and crisis in the Middle East

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Get out there

It’s crazy how exactly a year ago I moved from my home country, Jordan, to the US. I moved away from my family, my comfortable home, easy access to home cooked meals, cars, warm motherly hugs  and my comfort zone. But I moved because even though I had all those around me, my heart felt it needed to grow somewhere else for a while and so I took the risk, quit my job, took my few thousand dollars of savings and embarked on my new journey and challenge in life and moved to the capital of the US, Washington DC. 

Fast forward a year, I’m in Tunisia working for my dream company and dream team based in Washington DC. In a year i’ve learnt so much about love, spirituality, courage, self-power, family, friendship, work, money, strangers and life. I’ve had times when fear took over me, and times where love took over. Then I decided to let love take over for good and I opened myself for great things, retaught myself about patience and true love for life and now my breathe is taken away from how beautifully my life has thankfully turned around in one year. 

The purpose of this post is to remind myself and others to always shoot for greater things, always go out of your comfort zone to a greater zone, trust in life and more importantly trust in yourself, lean on your loved ones when you need that push, show gratitude to your loved ones, don’t be afraid to ask for help and go out strong and take charge of the beautiful life ahead of you. You really are the only person who sets your own limits, so lets aim together to expand our limits, supporting each other to achieve our own individual dreams however big or small they are because they are all beautiful.