02 March 2026

Hello, you wondrously lovable creature, and welcome to the latest scroll.

For this one, I stood at the shelves and pulled a few out, reading titles from scrolls that didn’t seem to resonate with how I’ve been feeling this past week. I’m in what can be considered new territory, and I needed a scroll that would properly depict how I’m feeling, while also being resonant with anyone feeling the same.

I finally found the scroll I was searching for, one my heart so desperately desired, tucked away in the farthest corner of the shelf, dusty, the edges worn, wilted, and curled inward like those of a flower petal that hadn’t been receiving the love and nurturing care it so desperately needed to grow. Truth is, I’ve been avoiding this kind of connection like the plague, and shunning it, turning my face away in disgust, all because of an incessant voice in my head that I want to run away from.

Unrolling the scroll, I sat down and discovered the parts of me that were still clinging to an old narrative—a narrative so ancient that it echoed over the wise words of my ancestors, and bleated louder than the wisdom of the scroll, my inner knowing, that sacred remembrance that I’d been exposed to on my journey of healing, nearly drowned out by a single voice.

Mother’s voice.

It haunts me like a ghoul inhabits ruins, whispering words to lure my subconscious mind into moments of unrest, self-sabotage, and sometimes, self-loathing.

It requires a lot of conscious work to ignore that voice, but the sad reality is that it still exists. It stirs every time I find myself experiencing life’s joys, trying to remind me that I am not worthy of receiving any goodness in my life.

The thing is, we are born from our mothers, and they are our first source of love—or, they should be. The love you receive from her, or don’t, creates the blueprint of human connection as you grow up and navigate other relationships in your life. I’ve experienced both sides of the coin—love that required me to dim my shine because it’s what she wanted for me, and love that requires me to flourish.

I choose the latter.

I choose it because, despite the blueprint of love I’d been given from the moment I took my first breath in the world, I’d also been blessed with meeting someone who became a mother figure later on in my life.

My therapist, Aunty Firhana, isn’t just my therapist. She’d helped me create a new blueprint of love according to my own specifications, one that doesn’t require me to abandon parts of myself, or dim my shine. Being nurtured back to life by her healing hands, I have become the woman standing before you today—a woman capable of extraordinary love, who wishes to see the light turn on in others’ eyes.

Apart from being my therapist, she’d soon become family, and Queen RaHa—the name she goes by in spirit—birthed Raaia, a child born from love, into love, to be love. To be the love I was always meant to be. And in the moments when I hear the faint voice of the ghoul trying to reel me back into the throes of the hell constructed by their narcissism, I turn back to the arms of my mother, Queen RaHa, or Aunty Firhana, because those are arms of nourishment and care that have always been open to welcome me home, back to myself, back to God, just as a mother should.

Her love has thus allowed me to become a better version of myself, one who is able to give and receive love, and become the kind of mother my son deserves, to pour into him the love I didn’t have growing up.

Her advice is always a soft landing for my soul in moments of chaos, and over the years, throughout my healing journey, she’s been there for me as a voice of reason. She’s helped drown out the screeching sounds of the ghastly creature that threatens my peace, to a point, filling me with words of affirmation that I carry through my lips when I look into a mirror, or through my pen when I journal my mornings.

But the dark being still exists. I can’t seem to rid myself of it, and it’s left me wondering if it ever goes away…

Especially in moments when I find myself navigating a relationship with another human.

I am no stranger to one side of this coin—the dark, destructive side that rips its tendrils through the ribcage and steals the light from the soul. I’ve often spoken about it in previous scrolls, about my soul-depleting relationship with my mother and her second husband.

But neither of these two relationships ever stole my hope that healthy relationships can exist. With RaHa’s help, not only was I changing the blueprints of relationships in my life, but I was also healing the deep, core “mother wound” that existed like a gnarly void which kept me severed, detached from my Creator.

Ultimately, the mother is the first idea of the Creator, or God. Mother creates you in her womb, births you, and nurses you while you’re a babe. God is Mother, and Mother is God, until you’re whisked into the world of organized religion, or define God on your own terms. The wound that was created from my mother’s inability to connect with me on a soul-level—for whatever reason she had—made it nearly impossible to understand what healthy relationships look like, or what I should or shouldn’t accept in my life.

That wound bled into my friendships, turning sisterhood into comparison, and what should have been platonic love into deep-seated resentment. As I heal, I’m learning how to be more present with my sisters, allowing sisterhood to flourish in my life, and allowing me to uplift my fellow sisters in the ways they need, and opening myself up to being uplifted by my sisters.

But that wound—the “mother wound”---bled into my relationships with the opposite gender as well. It’s a ruthless shadow that’s crept up every time I thought I found “the one”, even if it’s only happened twice in the past, filling my ears with things like “I’m not good enough”, or “I’m not worthy of being loved”.

Luckily for me, RaHa has been there through both these scenarios, not to correct me in my mistakes, but to nurture the parts of me that needed both these relationships to form my blueprint of romantic love, while allowing me to realise that “the one” did not exist.

I figured this out through both these relationships…

The first one sent me into a downward spiral, and I’d lost myself to another, thinking that I needed someone else to save me. I thought he was “the one”, but he turned out to be the sharpest, clearest mirror, holding up the reflections of rejection, abandonment, betrayal, humilliation, and injustice—the five core soul wounds—in my face, allowing me to see into myself, see the wounds that were shaping my personality, and reality, and causing me to self-sabotage.

It wasn’t pretty.

The end of that relationship, or rather, the lead-up to the end of it, felt like death itself. Parts of me died, no doubt, but they were the masks I’d been wearing, the persons I was pretending to be to be accepted by society, and they all died, until I came back home to myself.

During the whole relationship, or encounter with this person, RaHa’s advice to me was the same every time I spoke to her in our therapy sessions: “Give it time.”.

The only thing time gave me was the revelation that that man was just another narc with a face pretty and charming enough to be distracting. At the time, I had no idea what her advice meant, but I marched on.

I picked myself up and did the real healing work, intense shadow work sprung on me as if RaHa herself kicked me off the tallest mountain and willed me to trust that God would catch me. Of course, my Creator came through, caught me in the arms of love, and there I was, feeling whole again.

Enter the next test: the most physically repulsive creature who masqueraded as a divine man. The only reason I gave him a fighting chance was that… well, I was still clearing remnants of debris from the aftermath of my shadow work, and I had nothing to lose. The only thing he had going for him was good character, and he failed dismally at that. Turns out, that one came in just for me to tighten up the loose ends of my psyche, and discover that I was stronger, proving to myself that I didn’t need another, or “the one”, and that I am the one.

RaHa’s advice to me at the time: “Just go with the flow.”.

There wasn’t much to go with, no fluidity there, because it ended as quickly as it began, and truthfully, I was just glad that I didn’t have to see that face again.

Then, came the big move after months of confusion, and I had finally reached a point in my life where I was as whole as ever, not seeking outside validation, not needing another—or even wanting one—and I was done with the male species. The rage part of healing surfaced, and I was enraged about all the injustices of the world, specifically the injustices women face by the hands of men.

Enter the next suitor...

Completely unexpectedly, and during the most unsuspecting times of my life. The best part? This one doesn’t threaten to dim my shine. In fact, he worships the light I walk in, worships the ground I walk upon, because he sees me as the Goddess I am. Unlike the ones from the past, this one has clear intentions, doesn't cause chaos or confusion, and doesn't require me to wear masks to be palatable.

Am I scared? Am I terrified that for the first time in my life, a man doesn’t wish to break me, but instead, uplift me?

I am petrified!

And while I’d allowed myself to open up to recieving this kind of love, that ghoulish voice crept in one night, and swore to self-sabotage this relationship, trying to get me to fall back into old patterns and think of myself as unworthy.

Pffft!

As if I’d listen?!

I don’t know if that voice will ever truly go away, but I know that I am stronger than its threat. I can be, and it may be conscious work on a daily basis to remind myself that I am worthy of receiving the love I give so freely, but it is worth it in the end.

My soul mother seems to think so, and she’s never been wrong. RaHa’s advice was simple this time when she said, “Love hard.”.

It makes sense now. All of it does, all three pieces of advice coming together to create a post-catharsis picture that’s clearer than ever.

“Give it time… Just go with the flow… Love hard.”

It doesn’t matter what the outcome of this new relationship is. Nothing can be taken from me ever again, and while I am whole, a relationship is only meant to complement me in ways that uplift me. Perhaps, through this experience, and allowing myself to be loved unabashedly, wholly, and freely, I will master the art of drowning out the ghoul for good this time.

Perhaps two swords are better than one.

So, I will give it time, nurture it the way I nurture the bergenia plant he’d gifted me, because nothing good comes from impatience. Patience is a virtue, and only time can reap the benefits of seeds planted, and flowers bloom when hands of love take care of it.

I will go with the flow, no longer letting fear dictate the course of my life, and instead, flowing with the current of God’s plan for my life. I am grateful, either way, and no longer wish to control my life. Control was merely an illusion.

And I will love hard, because in the end, I am love. It is the frequency of my soul, and I can never be like those who have hurt me. I only wish to love, so I will do it fiercely, unabashedly, unapologetically, because I know I am deserving of the same. I am worthy of being loved… 

… So are you, beautiful soul.

If no one has ever told you this, you will hear it from me now. From RaHa’s lips, to Raaia’s pen, you are worthy of the love you are able to put into the world.

You are worthy of being valued for who you are, just as you are, because you exist. 

Give it time… Just go with the flow… Love hard… because in the end, that’s all that matters. Love is all that matters, because you matter...

From my heart to yours,

Yumna Vally (Raaia)