I often say that I was born with a broken heart.
From my earliest memories, life felt unstable, like standing on sand that could collapse beneath my feet at any moment. My father was an alcoholic, and my parents’ marriage was full of chaos. Their fights were loud and violent. Things were always being thrown in my house. Doors always slammed. But I think it was the screaming and the shouting that felt most unbearable. I never knew if I’d wake up in the morning to find one of them dead. It was the kind of energy that makes a child never know what safety feels like, as if the ground beneath them might crack open.
Some of my earliest memories are of lying in bed pretending to be asleep while my sister and I cried quietly, listening to the shouting outside our bedroom door.
But even in those moments of fear, something else was always there. A presence. Often it was a dark presence, but sometimes it felt like what I could only describe as God.
I remember I’d lightly tickle my tummy as I lay there, like I was self-soothing myself. And in my mind I would whisper to God.
Why am I here? I’m scared. I want to go home. This was a question I’d ask God often as a child.
Every time I asked, I felt something answer. Not with words exactly, but with this quiet knowing that comforted me during those scary moments.
I am always with you.
I didn’t know the word spirituality. I didn’t know theology or religion or doctrine. I only knew that when I reached toward God in those moments, I didn’t feel alone. And that feeling would follow me for the rest of my life.
The Dream That’s Always Stayed With Me
When I was very young, I had a dream that stayed with me for years. In the dream, God appeared to me as a woman. She was veiled, wearing traditional Islamic garments, wrapped in hot pink. In her hands she held a Qur’an that was wrapped in a delicate white chiffon scarf.
She didn’t feel distant or authoritarian. She felt maternal and protective, in this sacred way I couldn’t explain.
In the dream, I remember observing her; she simply sat there in silence with her eyes closed, holding the book as though she were holding something holy.
As a child, I took this dream very literally. I thought of God as a woman for a long time afterward. It seemed completely natural to me.
But as I grew older, I began to dismiss the memory. I told myself it was silly. Just the imagination of a child.
But that image never really left me.
And now, looking back at that moment through the lens of my spiritual journey, I sometimes wonder if what I experienced was a form of gnosis, a direct encounter with the divine that bypasses doctrine entirely.
Not something taught but, rather something known. Or perhaps it was simply the way a child’s soul experiences God when it is searching for comfort.
Either way, the presence I felt in that dream felt the same as the one I felt whispering to God in the dark as a child.
Even though I often felt alone, I also felt protected by something greater out there; what we call in my native language of Farsi, Khuda jaan, a way of speaking to God the same way you would speak to someone you love, someone close to your soul.
The Faith That Was Planted in Me
Despite the chaos in my home, there was one place where I always felt a sense of peace, and that was with my grandmother.
She was a devout Muslim. She prayed five times a day without fail. Her life revolved around devotion to God in a way that felt steady and grounded, even when everything around us was not.
Before she died, she made the pilgrimage to Mecca. I remember how much that meant to her. My grandmother taught me the only Islamic prayer I still know today.
At the time it was simply something I repeated after her. But even now, decades later, it is still the prayer that comes to my mind when I need grounding.
For many years I thought I had abandoned the religion I was born into. But looking back, I realize that the moral compass it planted in me never left.
There were things I simply could not bring myself to do, even when everyone around me did them. Something in me resisted anything that felt deeply out of alignment with my soul.
For a long time I didn’t know where that inner compass came from.
Now I can see it more clearly.
My grandmother’s devotion shaped me in ways I didn’t understand at the time.
Running Away From Religion
By the time I reached adolescence, I wanted nothing to do with religion because I always got picked on in school by kids who would make fun of me for being different (My name, my culture, my heritage, and for being Muslim). Because of this, I rejected Islam, which ultimately disconnected me from GOD. I also rejected rules, and all authority.
I wanted freedom.
For more than a decade I lived recklessly, chasing experiences that made me feel in control and alive in the moment but left me emptier afterward.
Looking back now, I can see that the further I strayed from my own moral compass, the more disconnected and unhappy I felt. But at the time I didn’t see it that way. I thought I was living freely.
It wasn’t until 20 years ago, in my early twenties, when I found myself in an abusive relationship that eventually broke me, that forced something inside me to finally wake up.
When I left that relationship, I wasn’t just walking away from another person. I was walking away from the version of myself that had abandoned her own worth and allowed that level of mistreatment and disrespect.
That moment was the beginning of rebuilding my life. But even as I rebuilt, something deeper was still missing inside of me.
The Search for God
On the surface, my life began to look successful. I built a strong career and became financially independent. I developed the resilience and confidence that had at one point seemed impossible.
But internally, my mental health was unraveling. Anxiety. Depression. A sense that something inside my soul was still missing.
Eventually I reached a point where I realized that no amount of external success could fill what felt empty inside me. So I did something I had never truly done before. In my desperation and search to end my suffering I began searching for God.
Not through doctrine, but through Gnosis, and exploring the Many Paths to the Divine.
What surprised me most was where I began encountering God. It wasn’t in one single tradition. But in glimpses across many of them.
In Taoism, I encountered the balance between light and shadow and the wisdom of embracing both.
In Buddhism, I discovered the power of surrender and the possibility that suffering itself could become a doorway to awakening.
In Christianity, I felt something deeply alive in the teachings of Jesus, a message of love so radical it transcended all dogma.
In Hindu traditions, particularly through Bhakti, I discovered devotion. I found myself singing mantras and sitting before altars, sometimes bawling without understanding why.
In Sufism, the mystical heart of Islam, I encountered the ecstatic remembrance of God through my own inner journey.
In yogic traditions and kundalini practices, I encountered the idea that divine energy itself lives within the human being.
In Kabbalah, I discovered the teaching that the human soul itself is a spark of the divine returning home.
And in Catholicism, I unexpectedly fell in love with the Church itself. The quiet reverence, the beautiful artwork, the sculptures of Saints, the Mother and Jesus; and my favorite part, the candles flickering in dim sanctuaries. Visiting the church became a ritual for me. Sometimes I would sit there in silence. Sometimes I’d be on my knees in quiet prayer. Sometimes I would bring my own music and just sit with it. And sometimes I’d find myself in tears, feeling something ancient and sacred move through my body; a kind of homecoming I couldn’t explain.
What surprised me most was how familiar it felt. The structure, the devotion, the reverence for the sacred. In many ways it reminded me of Islam. The same seriousness about honoring God through ritual and discipline. It made me realize that traditions the world often treat as separate or opposing are sometimes speaking the same language of devotion in different forms.
The common thread amongst each tradition carried pieces of something familiar to me. They each felt, in my experience, like a different doorway into the same sacred presence.
Over time I came to realize something that felt true for me. I wasn’t really searching for a religion. I was searching for God.
And it began to feel as though God was revealing Himself/Herself everywhere.
Beyond Fear and Division
Many religious institutions teach that their path is the only path and that exploring anything outside of it risks deception. Even though I’ve always understood that fear because I was raised with it, I also always rejected it.
And the deeper I explored into the mystical heart of these traditions, the more I began to feel that they all shared a current of devotion, remembrance, and surrender.
Sure, different languages and symbols, but ultimately the same longing for the divine.
Personally, I believe every soul should be free to find its own relationship with God in whatever way feels most honest and sacred to them.
Some people find that through religion. Some through prayer. Some through meditation, devotion, or acts of service.
What matters is not the label. It’s the relationship. The devotion. The discipline. The root of them all which is love.
When I look back on my life now, I see a pattern. As a child, I whispered to God in the dark. As a teenager, I ran from Him. As an adult, I tried to build a life entirely through my own strength.
And eventually, through suffering, searching, and devotion, I found my way back.
Not to a religion. But to God. “A force that is so vast that is beyond all limits known to man.” (Japji Sahib, Stanza 22, Sikhism)
This journey is what eventually led me to begin stepping into the work I feel called to do, supporting others in reconnecting with their own inner compass.
And I want to be honest about something. Devotion, for me, is not something I’ve mastered. It’s a daily practice. There are times I feel deeply connected, and there are times I get caught up in life and drift away from that connection. Right now, I’m learning what discipline looks like in my relationship with God. It’s not perfection, but returning, again, and again, with humility.
Not through rigid rules or belief systems, but through remembrance of my own connection to the divine through listening, and reconnecting with the inner voice that has always been guiding me.
Because the truth is, the same presence I felt as a child is still there. And no matter where my life has taken me since then, one thing continues to feel true for me.
No matter where my feet land in this world, they are always resting in the palm of God’s hand.
With Love & Devotion,
Saddaf
Xo