Salams Cherished Readers!
For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Sara (aka Inspirity) and Cherished and Successful is my online home. Alhamdolillah, I got married and the crazily young age of 18 and I have been married for 20 years to my dear hubby, Jawad. We have 4 children: three teenage boys and one claim to hairbands, skirts and loud singing. We have a Bengal cat named Ezio Auditore da Firenze. Our home is a full house, MashaAllah, with my parents-in-law, who live with us. Life seems extra-ordinarily busy now the children are older. Life is the hardest as its ever been – does it ever get any easier? No. Jawad takes one of the boys out each week for date-with-dad and everyone seems to have something on at some point or the other. We literally have to escape the house to have some time alone.
More about me
I’ve been coaching women since 2008. I have run one-day workshops and online seminars in the past, but currently, I’m focusing on one-to-one coaching for women and couples while I focus on writing my book – which is something I’ve been doing for many, many years! My local park calls out to me regularly as does the dawn chorus, yet I find myself ignoring them while I focus on more-important-things.
I am an ENFJ personality type. I am very organised, yet the feeling part of me makes me quite scatty and all over the place. The extroverted intuitive part of me wants to be a part of 100s of projects but I have to make myself focus on coaching! Yet coaching often gets put on hold while I refocus on the home and kids. Life is always busy in the Malik House, lots of hustle and bustle and a high priority in savouring low-lit down-time in the Quiet Room.
I had a cleaner for 12- years straight and for about 3 of those years I had a cleaner come in every weekday, yet my home was always a mess after she left. And then I found out about Marie Kondo. I no longer have a cleaner and I delegate regular chores to my boys and it has worked out perfectly! My focus for the home is to make it as decluttered as possible. I have regular 24-fling boogeys! My wardrobe has been purged al Missus Smarypants.
I am very conscious of the food I eat and feed my family. Our journey to a healthier lifestyle started with The Amazing Fitness Adventure For Your Kids which helped us to cut down on the processed foods we ate regularly. From there we added Deep Nutrition which helped me to be more wholesome in my cooking. Along came Jason Vale who helped us to control how much sugar we consumed as a family. And now we have started getting serious about low-carb eating. The journey has been really interesting; we took good pointers from each approach and turned it into the Malik Way of Doing Things.
I am very pro women’s and men’s rights. My self-development journey was kick-started with a critical need to improve my marriage and I did this essentially by learning to respect my husband. Respecting others came easy to me as I wasn’t really respecting myself and I was a people-pleaser; it made others happy with me and I liked the way that made me feel. My self was developed further when I started respecting others and myself simultaneously. I am now a firm advocate for women’s rights. Respect for women! And for men! At whatever cost. Suffragette is one of my favourite films and I have watched it 5 times already – with my friends, sisters, mum, nieces and also my hubby and the kids – I rarely watch anything more than once! I know the Suffragette movement wasn’t perfect, but it gave oppression a voice, one which transcends status and colour, and even gender. I am passionate about smuggling back the rights the Islam gave to women which have morphed into something unjust, strange-feeling yet widespread. I am desperate to smuggle back the God who loves women just as much as He loves men. #GodSmuggling
I struggle with Whatsapp and Facebook. My need to be connected to others often has to be forcefully switched off in order to stay connected to the people in front of me. We have a phones-box in which we exile phones when we sit together in the Quiet Room.
I love flowers and beauty. I love singing and I am currently learning to play the duff. I listen to nasheeds and qasidas I like good coffee, sofas, blankets, cushions, movie night, sleeping, parks, nature, cycling and cooking. I love going for breakfast/lunch/dinner with my husband/sons/daughter/sister/friends, any combination will do! I love Lebanese food and really good biryani that I haven’t cooked myself.
Thanks for reading!
