A Brief History

I was born in 1988, during the brutal final stretch of the Lebanese Civil War — a war that raged from 1975 to 1990. Those last years were chaos: factions fighting for power, influence, and survival, while ordinary people tried to cling to life.

Away from the politics and headlines, a child was born that year — nameless for months until my late aunt gave me my name: Ashraf.

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War Begins Again When Those Left Behind Try to Live

As a child, I never understood why I felt so anxious, restless, and disconnected. Wherever I was, I wanted to go home. To feel safe. I couldn’t explain it, and no one — not even my parents — could see it.

I remember feeling trapped inside my own skin, wanting to crawl out of my shoes, my clothes, my body, to escape that unnamed tension humming inside me. I didn’t know it then, but that was my first inheritance from the war.

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My Mother’s Fear, My Fear – Born in War

That fear wasn’t just mine — it was hers.

When she was pregnant with me, bombs were falling on our village. She and my family fled into a bunker, carrying that terror in their bodies. She used to say, “That was the norm back then.” But trauma doesn’t disappear just because we normalize it. It buries itself deep.

And I carried it with me, even before I was born. That constant hypervigilance — that readiness to run, to hide, to never fully rest — became my quiet companion.

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Growing Up in the Shadow

In school, I was bullied for years. I didn’t understand why it had to be me, or why I kept it to myself, never telling my parents. Something in me couldn’t connect, couldn’t interact, couldn’t live the life I quietly fantasized about.

Until I was eighteen, I felt like I was always on the run — under attack, unsafe, unprotected, and always alert to flee. That feeling shaped me in ways I still uncover.

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War, Again

In 2006, war found me again. Israel’s assault on Lebanon didn’t just shake the ground around me — it shook something deep inside me, something that had been waiting since birth.

Living through that second war carved new layers onto old wounds. It taught me how deeply war embeds itself in the body and how long it lingers after the bombs stop falling.

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The Cost of War

I share this reflection now, as wars erupt across the world, to remind us: every war scars generations.

When we support war — actively or silently — we do more than destroy lives in the present. We strip ourselves of our humanity and forgo our kindness, empathy, integrity, and peace and all our values, not just from others, but from ourselves.

We hand that suffering to our children, and they to theirs. And those we’ve inflicted violence on? They carry it forward too. This is how war sustains itself — a vicious cycle of trauma and retribution passed down, generation to generation.

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A Call to Reflect

I think of the children of Ukraine. The children of Palestine.

What are the chances they will grow up without anger, without hatred, without a desire for revenge? What are the chances that this cycle won’t repeat, fed by our silence, our support, our detachment?

My story is just one thread in this tapestry.

I leave you with this to reflect:
War doesn’t end when the bombs stop. It begins again when those left behind try to live.

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Enjoy my other reads:

Recover Your Sovereignty: On this link.

Stop Blaming Your Parents: Turning Mindfulness into Self‑Responsibility. On this link.

Living in Peace: How to Find Inner Peace in this World? On this link.

How to Transform Self-Sabotage with Mindfulness and Love? On this link.

Emotional Identity and Pain: Who Are You Without the Struggle? On this link.

External Resources:

Zen & Engaged Buddhism:

Plum Village 

EIAB