Hi friends,

 

I am appreciating these August days, before my dearest family members head back home, before school starts, before early night tuck-ins, before mummy WhatsApp groups start chiming. I will surely miss these days and plan to savor them as much as possible.

 

I wish I had a GoPro camera stuck to my forehead to record all the newborn silliness and cuteness that goes by so fast. I want to capture it all. But I had something close done last week, which was indeed the highlight of my week: a newborn photo session with the most talented baby photographer, who has become one of my closest friends over the years, Nadia Bata. As usual, Nadia and her partner Sarah were super professional. I loved the massive upgrade they did to the studio since I last visited with baby Faris, 8 years ago! I can’t wait to see the results of their impossible patience to take the most perfect photos. 

 

I also attended a wedding reception for a dear friend last week. It was my first outing after the baby, and although it was early for me to leave the baby, I chose to go because my husband and sisters convinced me not to miss out on our group gathering in one happy occasion. I am glad I went. It was the first time that baby Basil visited my parents, too. During the party, I had the chance to talk with my friend Dima (Hi Dima😉) who never misses reading a Sunday Spark email, and she said that these emails opened up a door to know me better as a friend. How endearing is that? I was so glad she shared that with me.

 

Wishing you a great new week, dear friends, I love to read your replies, keep them coming!

Snapshot from my week: Newborn photo session at the one and only Welight Studio

Here is your weekly dose of The Sunday Spark ⚡️ a newsletter listing 3 sparks that I thought were worth starting your week with: 

 

1. 🌅 A great question to start your day is: What would it mean to be done for the day? I love the reflection shared by Oliver Burkeman, whose writing style is one of my favorites. His book Four Thousand Weeks is highly recommended. You can read any Kindle book, even if you don’t have a Kindle, using the Kindle desktop or mobile apps. The question is closely aligned with a post I wrote earlier this year: Win Your Day.

 

2.  ✋ I am leaning into questions today, and here is a journaling-worthy question that Tim Ferriss shared in his latest newsletter:

 

“Question I’m asking myself frequently

 

“How do you feel when you wake up and when you get into bed at night, and how easily do you fall asleep?” The time in bed in the morning and at night tells you all you need to know. It’s not purely intellectual reasoning. It’s not a pro-and-con list. It’s not a spreadsheet. It’s not a Venn diagram. How do you feel? Are you even aware of how you’re feeling? How much energy have you spent blocking out certain feelings because you don’t want to feel certain things? 

 

To borrow from Tara Brach: “There was a wise old sage who said, ‘There’s really only one question worth considering, and that is: What are you unwilling to feel?’”

 

Do you wake up with a sense of foreboding and anxiety and a desire to stay in bed? When you go to bed, are you full of anxiety and worries and preoccupation about what happened, or what could happen the next day? I use this question as a systems check-in for identifying things I should stop, lessen, or double down on.”

 

3. 💬 An amazing definition of abundance from a book I am currently reading called It's Not Your Money:

 

“The power of constant incoming grace, the joy of receiving, the arrival of synchronicity after synchronicity like crashing waves onto the sacred shore of your life—now that is true abundance.”

 

-Tosha Silver

 

( Readwise helped me find this quote. It is my favorite app to recall favorite passages in books and articles I read and now they have a new product, Reader, which will make you forget about all the other read-it-later apps)

 

 

 

 

 

See you next Sunday First name / my dear friend

 

* Note: To the best of my ability, I am trying to share content by authors who have not disappointed me, and they are hard to come by! Please let me know if any author I share about was disrespectful to Palestine.