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You’ve been taught that being nice is the safest way to survive conflict—especially with people who are cruel, dishonest, or inconsiderate. But niceness can become a way of abandoning yourself.

In this episode, I’m talking about why you keep meeting mistreatment with more kindness, more patience, more understanding—while forgetting the most important person in your life: you.

We’ll unpack:

• Why “being nice” can be a trauma response (fawning)
• The difference between niceness and kindness
• Why self-respect starts with accepting what just happened
• How boundaries aren’t punishment—they’re protection
• Why you don’t have to endure someone’s hell to “earn” their heaven

Words That Found Me: Brené Brown — “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.”
Words From Me to You: Welcome Home — “Give Yourself Validation”

If someone’s approval requires your self-abandonment, let them keep it.

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“If they wanted to, they would” is missing one word — and that word changes everything.

In this episode of Beyond Words, Najwa unpacks the difference between wanting and trying, and why intention without effort doesn’t protect your heart, your time, or your dignity. Wanting is easy to say. Trying is what shows priority, care, and commitment.

You’ll be invited to look at the people in your life (and yourself) through one simple lens: Behavior over intention. Actions over words. Effort over excuses. Because when nothing is being done, “they want to” and “they don’t want to” lead to the same outcome.

Najwa also explores how mixed signals keep you stuck on hope, how breadcrumbs train you to survive on scraps of love, and why waiting for someone’s actions to match their words isn’t patience — it’s self-abandonment.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why “If they wanted to, they would” isn’t the full truth
• The difference between being unable… and being unwilling
• How effort reveals your place in someone’s life
• Why mixed signals are a signal — and what to do with them
• How to become a “person of choice” in your own life
• A simple self-check: “This is me trying.”

Segments:

• Words That Found Me — Maya Angelou: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”
• Words From Me To You — an excerpt from The Only Constant (page 205) on scarcity, breadcrumbs, and why we hold on.

If this episode supported you, it would mean the world if you left a rating or review wherever you listen or watch.

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What do you do when your partner says they’re uncomfortable with a “friendship” you have with someone else?

In this soul-nourishing conversation, I’m joined by one of my dearest friends—IN-Q (you may know him as @inq.life)—for a deep dive into love, boundaries, trust, and the quiet ways we betray ourselves when we try to be “easygoing” at the cost of emotional safety.

We talk about the difference between secure love and detached love, why “unconditional” doesn’t mean “anything goes,” and how your non-negotiables aren’t demands—they’re clarity. We explore the nuance behind opposite-sex friendships, the idea of “leaky energy,” and what it actually means to honor your relationship without policing each other.

We also go inward: why expression heals, why the right words can become medicine, and why the most powerful relationship you’ll ever build is the one where you learn to speak to yourself with respect.

This episode is for anyone who’s ever asked:

• Am I allowed to have needs in love?
• When is compromise healthy—and when is it self-abandonment?
• How do I walk away from someone I still love?
• What does trust actually require?

And it ends with something you might not know you needed to hear: I don’t need to know you to be proud of you.

Guest: IN-Q (@inq.life)
Find IN-Q: in-q.com | Inquire Within | Never-Ending Now Poetry Journal | retreats + tour dates via his newsletter

If this conversation held you, share it with someone who needs permission to choose themselves—without guilt.

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We think our time is endless. So we waste so much of our lives chasing what we think life “should” look like, and calling avoidance “moving on.” But you don’t move on from pain without it being dragged behind you.

In this episode of Beyond Words, I’m joined by my very first guest, grief expert and bestselling author David Kessler. We talk about what grief really is, why denial can be a form of grace, and how judgment keeps us stuck in pain. We explore finding meaning—not in loss itself, but in who we become after it—and why grief needs witnessing, not fixing.

We also talk about grief in relationships, including narcissistic abuse and gaslighting, how to support someone who is grieving without abandoning yourself, and why the worst grief is always your own—because it’s the one you’re living.

Guest: David Kessler
Website: grief.com
Support Groups: Tender Hearts (online)
Social: @IamDavidKessler

Timestamps (Simplified)

00:00 We think our time is endless & why avoidance isn’t healing
02:38 What grief really is: a change we didn’t want
06:00 Denial as grace & how the brain processes loss
11:32 Finding meaning: not in the event, but in who we become
16:16 Why grief must be witnessed, not fixed
20:59 Grieving identities, futures, and relationships
26:45 Judgment, self-compassion, and why shame keeps us stuck
34:35 Cultural rituals of grief & what we’re missing today
40:59 Boundaries while loving someone who’s grieving
46:32 Grieving narcissistic relationships & the death of self
53:21 Freedom is found in reality
56:26 Words From Me to You: don’t do grief alone
58:26 “The worst grief is yours”
01:00:35 Where to find David’s work & support

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We’re told, “Don’t take it personally. It’s not about you.”
But what if that message is exactly what keeps you in cycles of betrayal, self-blame, and repeated hurt?

In this episode of Beyond Words, Najwa Zebian reframes what it means to take things personally. Not as self-blame, not as shame, and not as “I must have deserved this”, but as a powerful way to validate your pain, revoke people’s access to you, and rebuild your definition of love.

If someone has lied to you, betrayed you, humiliated you, or consistently disrespected you behind your back, this conversation will help you say:

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• Why “don’t take it personally” can become spiritual gaslighting
• The difference between internalizing blame and claiming your pain
• How to use hurt as data: this person knew what they were doing
• Why people who rely on your maturity count on you not reacting
• How to revoke emotional access and rebuild your sense of self-worth
• How to redefine love so it no longer equals being used, walked on, and manipulated

Najwa also reads from her book The Only Constant, exploring what it really means to take something personally, without making it mean you deserved the pain.

🎧 Listen when you’re ready to stop minimizing what was done to you, and start holding people to their choices.

Books by Najwa Zebian mentioned / related to this episode:

📚 The Only Constant
📚 Welcome Home
📚 The Book of Healing

Explore the books here:
https://www.najwazebian.com/books

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Najwa+Zebian

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We often wait for the person who broke us to bring us the medicine that will heal what they broke.

Their apology.
Their acknowledgment.
Their guilt.
Their suffering.

But when you give someone the power to heal you in the same way you gave them the power to break you, you place yourself in a dangerous position, because the source you’re waiting on has already proven to be a source of pain.

In this episode of Beyond Words, Najwa Zebian explores what it truly means to be your own medicine. Not as a way of becoming cold, detached, or self-sufficient in isolation — but as a way of reclaiming your power, your compassion, and your wholeness.

This episode is for anyone who:

• Is waiting for closure that may never come
• Gives endlessly to others but neglects themselves
• Confuses love with self-depletion
• Has been conditioned to believe they are last on their own priority list

Najwa speaks about:

• Why the person who caused the wound cannot be the source of the cure
• How people-pleasing trains us to abandon ourselves
• The difference between survival safety and expansive safety
• How to give yourself the empathy, validation, and care you give so freely to others
• Why revenge is a distortion of your medicine, and self-return is its true power

This episode includes a reading from Mind Platter and reflections from The Only Constant on healing, self-worth, and becoming the person you’ve been waiting for.

🎧 Listen when you’re ready to stop begging for crumbs,  and start giving yourself the whole meal.

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We often believe that happiness lives in a different version of our life — a new job, a new relationship, a new body, or a new place. But real transformation doesn’t start from the outside in. It starts from the inside out.

In this deeply reflective episode of Beyond Words, Najwa reminds us that the most important glow up isn’t about what the world sees, but who we become within. She explores the illusion of external validation, the beauty of integrity, and what it truly means to embody the person you say you are.

Najwa reads from her first book Mind Platter and shares insights from The Only Constant, guiding you to shift your focus from changing your circumstances to strengthening your character.

You’ll learn:

• Why external success can never heal internal emptiness
• How to stop chasing validation and start embodying wholeness
• What it means to have a “soul’s glow up”
• How to rebuild your self-worth from the inside out

Your job isn’t to create a new life that looks better. It’s to become a new you that feels better.

#BeyondWords #NajwaZebian #Healing #PersonalGrowth #GlowUp #SelfWorth #Podcast

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Letting go isn’t a single decision. It’s a slow, sacred process.

In this episode of Beyond Words, Najwa explores what it really means to release someone, something, or a dream that once felt like home. You’ll learn why your struggle to let go is not a sign of weakness, but proof of how deeply you love, care, and stay loyal to what matters.

Through stories, analogies, and soulful reflection, Najwa guides you through the gentle art of loosening your grip without abandoning yourself in the process.

"Your struggle to let go is not failure. It’s evidence of your depth.”

🕒 Timestamps

00:00 — The truth about why letting go feels impossible
 01:26 — How do you actually make peace with what’s gone?
 03:45 — The beauty in your ability to hold on
 06:17 — Why holding on isn’t weakness
 07:21 — When people make you feel foolish for still caring
 08:23 — Listening to what your pain is trying to say
 09:26 — The power of going slowly
 10:38 — How to ground yourself when you shut down
 12:52 — Numbing and distraction as survival
 14:59 — “God doesn’t burden a soul more than it can bear”
 17:22 — Relapse is not failure
 19:36 — Practical steps for letting go
 20:41 — Journal prompts to understand your attachment
 22:38 — Why time alone doesn’t heal you
 25:20 — The rope analogy: how healing happens in layers
 28:54 — Climbing your emotional mountain
 30:16 — Grieving what you thought would last
 31:55 — The parts of you that still hold on
 33:03 — Words That Found Me: Epictetus on acceptance
35:07 — The nature of impermanence
36:16 — Final reflection and gratitude

🧭 Show Notes

In this episode, Najwa shares:

• The real reason it’s so hard to let go
• How holding on can be an expression of loyalty, not weakness
• The difference between forcing closure and finding peace
• What grief actually looks like when love still lingers
• How to stop judging yourself for still caring
• Why letting go takes safety, patience, and time

Key quotes:

• “If it took you years to hold on, you can’t let go in a day.”
• “Your ability to hold on shows not your weakness, but your power.”
• “You don’t let go by deciding to forget; you let go by deciding to feel.”
• “Maybe you were never meant to drop the mountain — only to climb it.”

Mentioned in this episode:
📖 The Only Constant – “I will go as fast as the slowest part of me feels safe.”
🎵 Gentle With Myself by Karen Drucker
📜 Epictetus — “Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish...”

Reflection prompts:

1. What am I still holding on to that no longer holds me?
2. What part of me is afraid of what life will look like when I finally let go?
3. What small step could I take today to release one thread of that rope?

Listen and remember:
You don’t let go by being stronger.
You let go by being gentler with the parts of you that still care.

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We all have habits that feel harmless but quietly drain our energy and self-worth. In this episode of Beyond Words, Najwa Zebian breaks down how habits born from pain (people-pleasing, shrinking, over-explaining) keep us stuck in survival mode.

Learn how to stop punishing yourself through your routines and start creating habits that honor your healing, growth, and peace.

✨ “Some of your habits aren’t neutral. They’re teaching you to abandon yourself.”

🕒 Timestamps

00:00 — Opening hook: The habits that betray your peace
 02:14 — How childhood wounds shape your patterns
 05:32 — Habits that look “good” but are rooted in fear
 09:00 — Why discipline without compassion becomes self-punishment
 12:45 — Replacing self-betrayal with self-respect
 16:08 — The question that changes everything: Is this habit building me or breaking me?
19:40 — How to make healing a daily habit
22:10 — Closing reflection: becoming who your habits believe in

🧭 Show Notes

You’ll learn:
• The emotional roots of destructive habits
• How “good habits” can still come from self-rejection
• Ways to replace punishing routines with nurturing ones
• How to make peace a daily practice

Reflective prompts:
• Which habit feels like a quiet betrayal of myself?
• Which new habit would help me feel more at home in my own life?

Mentioned:
📖 Welcome Home — learning to build emotional safety
📚 The Only Constant — on conscious transformation

Connect:
Follow @najwazebian for more reflections, and leave a 5-star review if this episode helped you build habits that honor who you’re becoming.

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In this episode of Beyond Words, we’re diving deep into one of the most exhausting, identity-shaping patterns so many of us carry: people pleasing.

If you've spent your life monitoring everyone’s emotions…
If you jump at the first sign of someone being upset…
If your peace depends on whether everyone around you is okay…

This episode is going to hit home.

Together, we explore:

• Why people pleasers often give the most to those who value them the least
• How childhood conditioning trains you to carry emotions that were never yours
• Why avoidant people make you feel like the villain when you express your needs
• How “fixing” others becomes a form of abandoning yourself
• Why you feel guilty when someone rejects your help
• How to stop shrinking, over-explaining, and trying to earn love through effort

This is not a conversation about becoming hard or cold.
It’s a conversation about returning to yourself... the self you left behind while saving everyone else.

Words That Found Me:
“The only people who get upset when you set boundaries are the ones who benefited from you having none.” — Unknown

Words That Held Me (from The Book of Healing):
Because You Are a Good Heart

If this episode resonates with you, please leave a rating or review. Your support helps this podcast reach the people who need it most.