On sustainability & honouring our true value

How it all comes down to a reciprocal approach to tending and caring for our needs

Hi folks, a little intro/refresh on the who, what & the why of this space...

I’m Aliya, my aim is to inspire, encourage and usefully challenge us to explore and free our minds - especially from limiting thought patterns - by embracing our imperfections, unravelling from our confusions, and realising the clarity that can help us live more wisely. I'm interested in how we relate to ourselves and each other. Through my writing, I endeavour to bring greater mutual understanding, courage, care and compassion to how we process our experiences. This, I feel (because I know from personal experience, lifelong studies and teaching, which all shapes what you'll find in my work) is the most important thing. I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in...

In this essay, you can learn about:

• sustainability as it applies to individual and collective flourishing
• what happens when we're socialised/cultured to misbelieve we're not (good) enough and the importance of reclaiming our sense of worth
• why I'm moving some content behind a paywall
• my commitment to you, us, this space as one of insight, inspiration, conversation and connection
• what you'll (continue to) receive from me each month

My partner and I recently had to pay a large car repair bill on our ageing tin-can that has served us well for many years, but as a second (third, fourth) vehicle, much like us in our middle years, needs a little more TLC as the years go by. My dad, who used to run his own business as a motor mechanic and has a lifetime of experience with cars, told me we'd been overcharged, My partner said that maybe that's because my dad, who spent many decades grafting arguably too bloody hard, might have charged less than he should have done when he was in the business.

I remember when I lived at home and my dad did indeed work crazy 15-hour days, sometimes sleeping in his workshop, to finish jobs and make sure he got everything done to absolute perfection, on time and with intense pride in his work. In the way loved ones do, when we don't like to see people overworked and stressed, we did wonder and kindly ask if he was giving more than he really needed. I remember watching through my bedroom window one morning as I woke to realise my dad was being taken away in an ambulance having had a heart attack at the age of 45.

Part of the complex story of causes and conditions (more of which I write about and am exploring in my memoir) that led my dad to labour the way he did and start his own business, is that he had to galvanise the emotional and practical will to start over when he was forced to drop his previous life and ambitions to secure the safe release of his family from East Africa under the threat of death - he did all that in the pursuit of freedom. It was about survival, of course, but starting over, doing his own thing (a quality of stubborn determination I'm glad to have inherited) was also, crucially, about the freedom to do as he wished, not other family members or society wanted him to do for their benefit.

The unsurprising irony is that he got caught in the cycle of striving and achieving, and freedom was more relative than really lived. We had a good life and there's nothing we wanted for, but my dad does occasionally lament the time he spent working and the time he didn't get to spend with his family as a result. My mum too, doing the bulk of the work raising two girls while also working, has similarly had reason to bemoan the choices that they had to make and the ones that weren't as available to them, which led them to struggle when they needn't have.

There's another work-money based anecdote in our family: when I got a work experience gig at my mum's place as a young teenager, I asked her boss to pay me the minimum wage for actual work I was doing after I stayed on for a short time. Was I full of youthful belligerence and naivety? Maybe. What I remember is really resenting how hard my mum worked for a man I viewed as exploitative and haughty. I could have been wrong about that. I simply hated the idea and the impression I got of both my parents being undervalued, overworked and poorly compensated, and I wasn't about to let someone do the same to me.

Again, maybe this was partly about perceptions rooted in intergenerational wounding - my parents came to the UK in the 1970s out of compulsion rather than choice, forced to abandon happy and comfortable lives in Uganda because a dictator, driven by delusional and racist ideals (fuelled by the British Empire) decided that South Asians no longer belonged there.

Challenging power imbalances

So I grew to feel bitter and hateful about the way social systems construct a suffocating value system that equates productivity with human purpose, that teaches us that our worth depends on how much we give, sacrifice and forsake.

I purposefully chose to commit myself to work and ways of being that would disrupt and expose power imbalances. Hence I went into journalism, then human rights, then independently wrote for social justice causes and worked in support of mental health and environmental activism.

Everything that interests me now, the way I work, how I endeavour to engage and relate to the world, the causes I work, volunteer and advocate for, the practices I teach, are consequently shaped by a belief in upholding and facilitating a sense of care and compassion, of fairness and equity, of righting wrongs that hold people back or down.

This has all been coming up as I've been thinking about sustainability, about value, how we view ourselves and how we take care in a way that balances our needs and responsibilities at the individual level, within the wider relational and unavoidable societal whole.

When I started out as a freelance writer, and also when I began teaching yoga, I became aware of a subtle and unhelpful division in the way things were done. We're all just trying to figure things out when we begin, of course, but I noticed a few questionable tactics that were antithetical to the goals of the work I do, which in both communication and yoga, is rooted in (but doesn't always manifest as) mutual regard.

For instance, how some undercharged or gave things away for free, either because they felt they should or they because they were sufficiently resourced to be able do so - thus creating further imbalances and inequities in expectations and value. And how some yoga studios paid contractors a pittance while claiming to uphold ideals of equity and fairness.

And thus the vicious cycle of disparity continues, because not everyone is able or agrees with working this way, and yet many do because they feel they will be disregarded if they don't.

I wholly understand and support the practice of accessible pricing, I have always offered different rates to charities and created sliding scales. But as a sole trader with no organisation or funding behind me, I've subsidised this myself in various ways that are no longer sustainable.

Definitions of sustainability: the "avoidance of depletion" (Oxford dictionary), "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the future" (UN), and "providing what is needed in order for someone or something to exist" (Britannica).

And while I am glad to make things available and actually want to work with people who might otherwise feel disregarded, if I end up coming from a place of depletion, then that's not serving anyone particularly well. There has to be a better way, we have to break the loop.

This is 0ne of the reasons that I moved my work over to Ghost* (see below for more on that) - because the platform, and the team behind it, is committed to doing things differently, in a way that nurtures, supports and uplifts people for the sake of good quality readership rather than profit. It's early days and I'm still figuring things out but so far, I really like and appreciate this way of working and sharing, because it feels more connected, authentic, personable, accessible and empowering - some of the values that I hold dear.

Breaking free from the not-enough narrative

I'm sure many can relate to the cursed thought-loop of of not-enoughness, in fact I know this to be so from conversations I have with others who contend with the same inner dialogue and observe the effects in their personal and work lives, often people whose roots and histories have been ripped up and reshaped by migratory journeys and displacement.

In her book We'll All Be Free, Caroline J Sumlin explores the lie of feeling we are never enough as she traces the history of white supremacy culture and the impact of all that it has bred in terms of inequality, capitalism, individualism, and the racial wealth and achievement gaps:

"A bunch of European men gave themselves power by brutally stealing humanity and dignity from other nations, and they set out to construct a world that bowed down to them. And they were successful... They created a world of unattainable standards, and unless you're one of the privileged few who receive secret help to attain those standards, you will burn out trying to 'make it', to no avail..."

All of which is to say, as much as I've committed myself to not getting trapped, to breaking free, I have still limited myself by subconsciously operating from this not-enough mindset, to striving and perfectionism, to undervaluing and over-catering. As Sumlin says, when we understand the roots of the lies, we can be emboldened to change the narrative, for all our sakes.

Reclaiming my audacity

There's a story about how my great grandad on my father's side used to walk around his local village in Pakistan with his shirt off, proudly parading his large stature in a show of such self-belief that apparently made him infamous for his shameless pride. Whenever me or my sister act or speak boldly, "overly" confidently or if we get passionately engaged in conflict or argument, our mum will sometimes tell us we are demonstrating the "bubban" side of our identity - "bubban" being the nickname given to my great grandad, loosely translated from Swahili/Punjabi as "gorilla", which he was compared to because of the aforesaid muscular chest-bearing behaviour.

I haven't yet delved into the story of my great grandad but I like to think that this quality of self-belief might have had more positives to it than the way the nickname is sometimes used. He was a Mughal after all, part of a famous warrior tribe. To channel this sense of conviction generations later, often as me and my sister do when we feel either we or someone we love is facing an unjust affront, actually feels like a reclamation of our audacity, our inherent worth, beyond and before history and culture imposed the belittling narratives of excess humility, submissiveness and subserviance.

One of my teachers, Lama Rod Owens, has talked often about the importance of being audacious when it comes to liberation work, which is to say, unbinding from ways of being that maintain inequity and injustice rather than nourish and sustain freedom of being, thought and relating.

As I was nearing the end of writing this essay, Lama Rod's latest book, New Saints, dropped through my letterbox. He talks about the performative approach to "being good" that many of us have learned from systems of dominance and division, and have adopted because that's what we've been made to think is how we can get what we need.

The sickening imposed and inculcated narrative of being "a good immigrant" comes to mind as I contemplate this, in relation to the over-striving and over-achieving mindset that immigrants are compelled to adopt - and abandon.

This line stopped me short, floored then emboldened and affirmed my resolve to recover my audacity, to take a more sustainable approach to my why, what and how:

"When we start caring about ourselves, we can finally establish the boundaries that make it safer for us to start really caring for others and what they need to get free."

Writing and reading as reciprocity

I feel fortunate to say that I love what I do, writing this newsletter and sharing things with you, and especially hearing back from people about how much of a difference it makes, how my words and experiences resonate or illuminate, inspire or move you. It, like life, like anything, is not without its frustrations of course. And that's partly the why of what I do - which is to explore, practice and share ways of navigating life's challenges, changes and rifts, by diving into personal experiences and experimenting with/researching what helps to build awareness, composure, understanding and the ability to shift perspective/let go.

Many of you have been here with me since I started my Substack page Real & Raw over a year ago, and possibly even before that when I was blogging on my website and other platforms/publications. Thank you for your support all this time.

Believing in sustainability, asserting the value of my words and worth, with authenticity and audacity, is why there is now a paywall on my archive posts and I'm inviting you to consider a paid subscription.

I want to grow this space as somewhere we can connect, converse, share and explore how we feel, how and what we think. The "we" and the "us" is important, so while I write from the "I" (hence the former title Real & Raw), this newsletter is about and for more than me. As one of my other teachers Natalie Goldberg says:

"I write for myself, and through myself I write for everyone."

We are shaped by each other, to readers and writers across the times I am indebted, in truth, because it's why I believe in what we do and how it makes a difference to how we relate, how we feel, how we coexist.

I hope, as with all my work, to provide you with ideas, resources and insights that help. If you feel you receive some measure of intellectual, emotional and heartful value from my work, I would love for your continued support - if you're able to do that with a paid subscription, that would be deeply appreciated, and if not, then with your continued readership and engagement. It all matters when it comes to sustaining that very human and wonderfully humanising impulse to keep going.

Why (it) matters

I feel it's important to be open about my process and reasons for inviting you to invest in this space. Some might say this is symptomatic of the whole proving oneself to be worthy and the not-enoughness skit. Maybe; deconditioning takes time.

Equally, I believe that knowing the why of things helps us to understand, and then respond from a place of information and greater awareness. In this case, it's also about gratitude and accountability for/to you, my readers, because to be read, as I know as a reader, is a big part of writing. Related to that is because I think we all want to know what we're getting when we pay for something.

I get that paywalls can be a nuisance and a hindrance, and not everyone can or wants to pay - it's taken me a long time to get to this point of explicitly going down this route, for all the reasons I've outlined around navigating my sense of worth and learning to ask/speak up for what I need/believe in.

Why pay, why not?

I've asked myself this question when I've signed up for a paid subscription to support writers and publications that I enjoy and respect (and when I've decided not to), and whenever I engage in additional training and pay my teachers/mentors for the exchange.

For me, it comes down to valuing people's time, energy, wisdom and insight; it's about feeling connected to and moved by what's being offered, and believing in the power of a more balanced approach to relating, engaging, giving and receiving. Plus I've always favoured independent traders (back to what my dad showed and taught me, and the reasons I went freelance) so that's where I'll give my time and money when I can.

And then of course, it's whether I can afford it, which is related to having a realistic and abundance mindset, to stretching myself where and when I can, and related to that, checking my perspective on what else I spend on and appreciating what matters most. It's all a rebalancing act, you might say.

You will have your own views and the decision is, of course, all yours.

What's in it for you if you do decide to come along with me?

• At least one new essay every month, full of depth of thought and insights that draw on personal experience (the place from which I think anyone can ever usefully speak) alongside the wisdom of my teachers as well as research into any given subject - from recovery and addiction, to intergenerational trauma and healing, the complexity of memory and forgetting, the ways we suffer and the ways we heal, the magic of poetry and music, the nature and challenge of communication and crafting stories, belonging and identity, mind stuff, body stuff, relational stuff - and so much more of all the juicy topics that make us perfectly imperfect in our humanness.
• Words of Wonder, a monthly digest of all the teachings and readings, from poetry, literature, philosophy, music, podcasts and various other inspirational sources, with annotations and light commentary to fuel your own responses to the same.
• Another essay framed around a monthly contemplative teaching, with a prompted invite to engage in what the Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron calls "compassionate inquiry" - essentially a passage/excerpt and a reflective prompt/topic to guide your own explorations, which might mean using it for your own writing/journaling practice, or letting it be a source of inspiration and motivation for your own monthly intentions.
• The ability to comment on my pieces and talk to each other, share your thoughts and maybe your own explorations, whether to gain confidence in your own voice, or just to listen and soak up what you find.
• Access to my full archive of writing.
• I'm thinking of trialling a correspondence thing too, whereby I'm open to you writing directly to me with your curiosities, thoughts, inquiries, reflections around the things I share, and me publishing a response (anonymously of course, if preferred) because like I said, and I believe, we learn alongside each other.
• Occasional bonus content such as audio-video teachings/meditations and inquiries.

Okay, that's a lot of words from me! Thanks for sticking with me if you made it this far, and thanks for giving me/this your attention, whatever you decide.

Until next time, take good care, Aliya xx

*Why Ghost?

In case you're new to Ghost, it's a non-profit, open source and decentralised platform dedicated to helping creatives make an impact while keeping their independence. As a freelancer this is massively important to me for the same reasons that I became a freelancer in the first place nearly ten years ago.

The non-profit bit is important to me too. I loved Substack for how it connected me with writers I love, some I knew and some I discovered there. So there's no negative reason for moving. It's a value thing, also an aesthetic thing, because I like the freedom and flexibility Ghost gives me to make this look and feel how I want it to, and the ability to change things as I wish.

If you're a creative who is similarly interested in alternative ways of being, check it out. Full disclosure, this is an affiliate link which means if you follow through on my recommendation, I receive a commission but at no cost to you. It goes back to the whole sustainability and value thing - I get to keep doing what I do with less worry about paying the bills. I think we can all relate to that when it comes to the desire to survive and thrive.