Hi Cringers, This is my Cringe story

I feel it’s important to introduce myself before I share any thoughts or writing. I'm sitting here on my bed, seven months pregnant, because my body decided that today the pregnancy won the battle. It’s been asking me to rest for the last month, but my conditioning makes me want to keep fighting for my independence. It's as if this pregnancy came to take it away, as if my life depended on it.

So, Hi, I’m Walaa, founder of the cringe method. I’m a girl from Kuwait who, at ten years old, promised herself that she would live far away and live life the way she wanted.

At 17, I managed to get away to Qatar. Just a 50-minute plane ride, but it was a start. At 24, I hit rock bottom: a toxic marriage (it takes two to tango, I admit that after many years of healing cringe work), no career, and a life that just wasn’t working. This prompted me to begin a healing journey. I had rage, grief, and sadness that I really wanted to get rid of, but then I understood that the only way is through it. As cliché as it sounds, I had to be in my anger, go underneath it, open my heart, and, man, that was muddy.

By 29, I had managed to achieve that. I moved to Spain with hopes and dreams and a very confused vision of what I wanted my life to become. The pandemic happened, and this vision began to become clearer. I found my now-husband at a kombucha shop, and that vision was complete two years later: a beautiful house in the mountains, a horse, dogs, a lovely stepdaughter, and a whole garden plan.

Then, one night, I woke up, and it was dark. I couldn’t see anything. I remember feeling fear like never before. I was dizzy, I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t stand up. I didn’t even know where I was. All I could hear was my husband’s voice, screaming with fear, calling our daughter. I was crawling, trying to figure out where I was. I was touching things around me, and it hit me—I was about to die. This feeling washed over me, and I decided to leave my body. I could hear my husband and stepdaughter calling me, but I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know where to go. I could feel heat in my lungs, and I surrendered to death. I accepted my fate. Then some voice said to me in Arabic, “You don’t die like this. No.” I found myself on the balcony of my bedroom, and I was breathing. I realized that I needed to jump, so I jumped out of the window, and my husband caught me. We could see the flames from the outside corner of the house.

We tried to re-enter to rescue the dogs, but we couldn’t. The girls and I ran for help, but we couldn’t find anyone.

We were attacked in the middle of the night. Someone tried to kill us. We knew who it was, and we were right.

The whole incident is still under investigation, but it's clear to the police and detectives who did it. I will discuss this in a podcast interview soon.

We spent the next six months in Ireland, and now we are figuring out where our next home will be.

Fast forward 11 months, I am safe with my family. It feels like the start of a new journey as we close that chapter.

I am here. The world decided I get to live another day. I decided to create the cringe method because I believe deep, real healing is what we need to heal the world from the evil that possesses it today.

I will be sharing my journey and thoughts here and see where that takes me. That’s my intention.

I also want you to know that no matter where you are in life you can change it. No matter what it looks like for you, you can transmute it and live big.