Abdul-Rahman Abdullah

من هو

عبدالرحمن عبدالله؟

But I don’t believe a person can truly be known through titles, certificates, or the number of
years they have worked.
A human being is greater than a résumé…
And deeper than the image they have managed to build in the eyes of the world.
So…
I’m not going to tell you the story of a man who knew his path from the beginning.
Nor the story of someone who moved in a straight line from suffering to peace.
This is the story of a human being who spent many years searching for himself in the world…
Before discovering that everything he had been searching for…
Was waiting in the one place he had never learned how to turn toward…
Himself.
This is not a story of arrival…
It is a journey of remembering.
The journey of a human being who lost himself in the pursuit of achievement and identity…
While beneath all that striving…
Were layers of fear and adaptation.

My mother was a teacher of Arabic and Islamic studies.
From my earliest years, I was surrounded by a mixture of knowledge, religion, discipline, and
service to others.
But life at home was not always stable.
My parents separated when I was three years old.
I still remember something of that scene today.
The separation lasted for about three years…
Then our family came back together.
To adults, this may seem like a temporary chapter that ended when the family reunited…
But a child does not experience events the way adults explain them.
A child doesn’t say:
These are temporary circumstances. They will pass.
A child receives what is happening through the body…
Through their sense of life…
And through the way they learn to move toward people, or fear losing them.
Very early in life, I became highly attentive to everything happening around me.
I watched faces…
Tones of voice…
What pleased people and what upset them.
And I tried to be calm…
High-achieving…
Responsible…
A “good boy.”
I didn’t know then that I was learning one of my most important survival strategies:
To adapt to the world…
Before I knew who I was.

At the time, I didn’t understand what had happened…
I didn’t know how to speak about it…
And I didn’t have the awareness to separate what had happened to me…
From who I truly was.
So the pain didn’t remain only as a memory…
It became part of the way I saw myself.
I began living as though there were two people inside me…
The person people could see…
Composed… capable… responsible.
And another person hiding behind him…
Afraid…
Ashamed…
Sometimes wondering whether he was enough…
Or worthy of being loved as he was.
Over time…
I became very good at hiding what was happening inside me.
I learned how to look okay…
How to be strong…
How to give people what they needed…
And how to hide the parts of myself I was afraid they might see.
For many years…
I didn’t realize that I wasn’t living as my whole self…
I was living through a personality I had created…
To survive.

And the opportunity to become a successful engineer with respect and stability.
But something inside me wasn’t at peace.
The problem wasn’t engineering…
Or the university…
Or success itself.
The problem was that I was walking a path that didn’t feel like mine.
And a question was becoming increasingly present inside me…
Who am I…
Beyond the person I’m supposed to be?
In 2004…
I made one of the hardest decisions of my life.
I left engineering…
And chose to dedicate my journey to understanding myself and the human being.
The decision didn’t make sense to many people…
And there was no guarantee of where it would lead…
But it was one of the first major decisions I felt I had made from an honest place within myself.
Today…
I see that I wasn’t simply leaving a field of study…
I was taking my first conscious step…
On the journey back to myself.

Spirituality and Sufism…
Along with many other schools, approaches, and experiences.
I read and learned with enormous passion.
And part of me felt that the answer I was searching for…
Might be in the next book…
The next training…
The next certificate…
Or with the next teacher.
At the same time…
I began working professionally in training, human development, and coaching.
And God blessed me with the opportunity to accompany thousands of people through their
psychological, human, and professional journeys.
The work grew…
My experience expanded…
And I began achieving many of the things I once believed would finally bring me peace.
But every time I reached something…
Something else appeared.
Every time I achieved one goal…
Another goal emerged.
And the more I learned…
The more I began to see that knowledge alone cannot give a person themselves.
A person can study a great deal about the self…
Without knowing themselves.
They can explain fear…
While still living from within it.
They can speak about awareness…
While hiding behind the image of “the conscious person.”
And they can help others…
While still not knowing…
How to stay with their own pain.

It wasn’t simply the end of a relationship…
For me, it was a collision between the life I was expected to live…
And the life I felt I needed to be honest with.
But even after choosing my own path…
I still hadn’t freed myself from the need to prove myself.
I believed that when I succeeded…
The suffering would end.
When people loved me…
The suffering would end.
When I made a greater impact…
The suffering would end.
When I learned more…
And became more aware…
The suffering would end.
I was achieving…
Working…
Learning…
Growing…
But I couldn’t yet see that part of this striving…
Wasn’t coming only from love or a sense of purpose.
Something else was moving inside me…
A deep belief that I needed to become someone important…
And achieve something worthy of being seen…
So I could feel that I deserved to exist.
I thought I was building my life…
I couldn’t yet see…
That I was also using success…
To build my sense of self.

And they may also give because giving has become the source of their sense of worth.
They may become consumed with rescuing others…
Because being occupied with someone else’s pain can sometimes be easier than staying with
their own.
I began to see that part of me was living through the identity of “the rescuer.”
I felt valuable when I was the person who understood…
The person who had the answer…
The person whose presence people asked for…
The person who could carry for others what they couldn’t carry themselves.
For years…
I thought all of this was love.
Then I began to discover that there was indeed love in it…
But there was also an old fear.
A question I never said out loud…
But one that lived inside me:
If I have nothing to offer others…
Am I still enough?
That was one of the hardest things I ever saw in myself.
Because some identities don’t look bad.
They can look noble…
Helpful…
Even full of light.
People may even applaud them.
But they remain a prison…
If you don’t know who you are…
Without them.

The feeling of importance…
Even awareness itself…
When it shifts from a living presence…
Into an image I try to hold on to.
Over time…
I began to understand that addiction isn’t always an attachment to a drug.
It can be an attachment to anything I use…
So I don’t have to feel what is happening inside me.
Something I turn to whenever I come close to emptiness…
Shame…
Fear…
Or the feeling that I’m not enough.
And I began to see that the problem wasn’t always the thing itself.
It wasn’t food…
Or work…
Or knowledge…
Or success.
It was my relationship with it…
And what I was asking it to do for me.
To calm me…
To fill me…
To make me feel valuable…
Or to take me away from what I didn’t want to feel.
This is when I began to see addiction in my life differently.
At its core, it wasn’t love for these things…
It was a repeated attempt…
To escape myself.

This time, I wasn’t simply looking for new information…
Something inside me had begun to crack.
And I began to see that some of the things I had thought were me…
Were not me.
My success…
My knowledge…
The image I had created of myself…
The roles I played in other people’s lives.
That period was painful…
But it opened a door inside me that I hadn’t known existed.
Some stages of our lives…
Don’t come to add something new to us.
They come to let something fall away…
Something we can no longer hold onto and still live honestly.
I began to see that I wasn’t the images I had created…
Or the successes I had achieved…
Or even the roles I played in people’s lives.
But I still didn’t know…
Who I was without them.
And that emptiness…
As difficult as it was…
Was a real beginning.

I began to open to the possibility of loving the parts of myself I had spent years rejecting…
Feeling ashamed of…
Or wishing weren’t there.
I began to understand that I wasn’t going to return to myself…
By fighting myself.
And that what I reject inside me…
Doesn’t disappear.
It hides…
And continues influencing my life from a place I cannot see.
That was the beginning of an important shift in my journey…
From trying to fix myself…
To learning to embrace myself.
From wanting to get rid of my weakness…
To learning to stay with it.
From feeling ashamed of what I didn’t like about myself…
To becoming willing to see it.
From trying to become someone else…
To getting to know the person who was already there.
I hadn’t arrived…
And my struggles with myself hadn’t ended.
But something important was beginning to change…
For the first time…
Returning to myself no longer meant that I had to fix myself first.
I was beginning to learn…
How to meet myself.

Life’s challenges didn’t disappear…
But something in my relationship with them began to change.
I began to discover that inner peace…
Doesn’t mean that the future becomes guaranteed…
Or that life always unfolds the way I want.
It means that I stop abandoning myself…
Whenever the future becomes uncertain.
During those years…
My relationship with Prophet Muhammad also began to unfold in a deeper way.
His presence in my life was no longer only that of a person whose life I learned from…
Or a model I tried to follow from the outside.
It became a doorway through which I learned…
Compassion…
Honesty…
Love…
And servanthood.
And I began to see that the support I had spent so long searching for in the world…
Might not be something I needed to possess…
But something I needed to learn how to receive…
And allow to emerge from within.

The path I had been living through for so many years.
I saw the identity of the rescuer…
I saw how much of my need to prove myself had been hidden behind giving…
And I saw how I had been searching the world for recognition…
That would allow me to feel that I deserved to live.
My outer life didn’t suddenly change…
The challenges didn’t disappear…
And I didn’t become a perfect human being.
But something inside me began to reveal itself.
I began to see that my suffering wasn’t only in what had happened to me…
Or in people…
Or in circumstances.
A large part of it was in the way I saw myself…
And the way I met myself within life.
I saw how I had made my life conditional…
I’ll live when I succeed…
I’ll rest when I arrive…
I’ll feel at peace when people love me…
I’ll feel that I’m enough when I achieve more.
I had been postponing life…
For a day that never came.
And in the middle of everything I knew…
Everything I had learned…
Something much simpler began to appear.
To stop…
To breathe…
To stay…
And to learn how to be present…
With myself as I am, right now.

Or allowing them to lead me without realizing it.
Present with my thoughts…
Instead of believing everything they said…
Or going to war with them.
Present with my fears…
Instead of running from them…
Or remaining trapped inside them.
Present with my needs…
Instead of feeling ashamed of them…
Denying them…
Or demanding that the world meet them for me.
Present with my weakness…
Without hiding it…
Or surrendering to it.
Present with my strength…
Without denying it…
Or building my identity around it.
Present with life as it is…
Not as I insisted it should be.
Over time…
I began noticing something I hadn’t expected.
Life didn’t disappear…
But my need to control it began to soften.
The challenges didn’t disappear…
But my constant resistance to them began to dissolve.
And I didn’t become someone else…
I simply began to stop running from the person I already was.
I began to see that presence isn’t a state I reach…
And then remain in forever.
It is a relationship I return to…
Again…
And again.
Whenever I forget myself…
I return.
Whenever fear carries me away…
I return.
Whenever I find myself living through an old image…
I return.
I didn’t need to be present all the time.
I only needed…
To learn how to return.

Not only in your strength…
Or through the image people are used to seeing…
But in your confusion…
Your weakness…
Your fear…
Your contradictions…
And for that person to remain present with you…
Can open doors within you that knowledge alone cannot open.
Rania didn’t change me by giving me answers…
Or by trying to fix me.
But her love and presence often allowed me…
To show up without hiding.
To allow myself to be seen…
Without needing to be strong…
Or conscious…
Or the person who always knows what to do.
And I began to experience relationship differently.
Not as a place where I prove that I deserve love…
Nor as a place I ask to compensate for what I believe is missing in me…
But as a space where I learn…
To love…
To receive love…
To be honest…
And to allow another person to come close to me…
Without losing myself.
And here I understood something else…
There are parts of ourselves…
That we cannot see when we are alone.
Sometimes we need the mirror of another human being…
To see ourselves.
And a relationship…
When there is enough love, presence, and honesty within it…
Can become one of the deepest spaces…
In which we meet ourselves.

I experienced life as it was…
Without the same old suffering…
And without the familiar need to escape…
Hold on…
Or control what was happening.
There was a great deal of stillness…
Spaciousness…
And inner peace.
But the experience also brought a new question.
Does presence mean withdrawing from life…
So I can remain present?
Or can I enter life fully…
Work…
Love…
Carry my responsibilities…
Pursue what I want…
Choose…
And still not lose myself within it?
In January 2025…
A new chapter of the journey began.
The question was no longer only:
How do I return to myself?
But:
How do I remain close to myself…
While I’m living?
How do I move through the world…
Without returning to the belief that the world is the source of my worth?
How do I succeed…
Without making success my identity?
How do I love…
Without losing myself in the person I love?
How do I carry responsibility…
Without returning to the role of the rescuer?
And how do I desire things from life…
And pursue them…
Without making my inner peace dependent on getting them?
I haven’t found a final answer to all these questions.
Even today…
I’m still learning them as I live them.
Because for me, the journey is no longer a journey out of life…
It is a journey into life…
Without leaving myself behind.

My inner world…
And the way I learned to live.
But I began to see that much of the suffering that continued afterward…
Was also connected to my own choices.
To how honest I was with myself…
And how aligned or misaligned I was with myself.
I saw how, at times, the desire to gain something…
Or the fear of losing something…
Led me into choices that, somewhere inside me, I knew…
Were not aligned with me…
And did not honor my real needs.
I began to understand that the quality of my experience of life…
Is not determined only by what happens to me.
Or by what I own…
Success…
Money…
Or status.
But by the degree of honesty and integrity I have with myself…
And toward myself.
So today…
What concerns me most is no longer appearing to be right all the time.
Or protecting a beautiful image of myself.
What concerns me more…
Is that I don’t move away from myself…
While believing that I’m doing good.
That I remain able to see my fear…
My desires…
My attachments…
My need for acceptance…
Even when they hide behind intentions that appear beautiful.
That’s why you may sometimes hear me say something about myself…
Then stop.
Become present with what I just said…
And realize that I wasn’t accurate.
And say:
I’m sorry…
I was wrong.
The more accurate thing to say isn’t what I said…
It’s this.
I don’t do this because I always know myself…
But because I’m learning not to place any image of myself…
Above honesty.
And perhaps this has become one of the most important things I try to protect in my journey
today…
Not to trust the image I’ve created of myself…
More than I trust what I can see…
When I am honestly present.

More exceptional or creative…
More intelligent or rational…
More responsible or devoted…
Or even more free.
I didn’t always need more.
I needed to see what was already here.
And I began to discover that much of what I had been searching for in the world…
Had never been absent from me.
It had been covered by layers of fear…
Shame…
Adaptation…
And the identities I had built over the years.
I began remembering the body I had abandoned…
The heart I had been afraid of…
The needs I had been ashamed of…
The strength I had denied…
The weakness I had hidden…
And the human being who had been there all along…
While I was busy trying to become someone else.
And I began to understand my journey differently.
It was no longer, for me, the journey of a person trying to add more to himself…
But the journey of a person learning to see himself.
To get to know himself…
To receive himself…
And to be present with himself…
As he is.
So…
If I were to describe my entire journey today in two words…
I would call it:
A Journey of Remembering.
Remembering myself…
Again…
And again.
*******

I don’t want to place another image in front of you that you have to live up to.
And I don’t want to tell you how you should live your life.
I want to help you return to yourself.
To pause for a moment amid everything the world asks of you…
And everything you ask of yourself…
And begin getting to know the person you live with every day.
Your body…
Your emotions…
Your thoughts…
Your fears…
Your needs…
Your desires…
Your strength…
Your weakness…
Without needing to hide one part of yourself…
Or fight another.
My message is to create spaces for you…
Where you can see yourself more clearly…
Be more honest and true with yourself…
And see what is moving inside you before it becomes a decision…
A relationship…
A conflict…
Or a choice through which you recreate the same reality again.
I don’t want you to become someone without fear.
Or without pain.
Or someone who is present all the time.
I want you to know how to return to yourself…
Whenever you move away from yourself.
To live…
To love…
To work…
To succeed…
To make mistakes…
To learn…
And to begin again…
Without losing yourself in any of it.
That’s why…
I’m not inviting you to withdraw from life in order to be present.
I’m inviting you to enter it…
And allow your presence to show in your home…
In your relationships…
In the way you raise your children…
In your work…
And in every space you help create.
Because you cannot control everything that happens around you…
But you can be present with the person who meets everything that happens.
You can see…
Understand…
Choose…
And take responsibility for the part you can change.
And from here came the message I carry today:
A New Reality Begins with Presence.
Not a perfect reality…
And not a life without pain, differences, or challenges.
But a new reality that begins with you…
With your presence with yourself…
With your honesty and integrity with yourself…
And with the way you choose to live what happens in your life.
I’m not asking you to believe what I believe.
Or to see life the way I see it.
Or to walk the path I’ve walked.
I simply hope…
That something I share with you…
Can give you the space to come closer to yourself.
To see yourself…
To get to know yourself…
And to learn how to return to yourself…
Again…
And again.
Because after all this journey…
I still see that the closest place your new reality can begin…
Is the closest place to you.
Yourself.