MEET AQILAH ZAILAN
“All my resilience and doggedness, I owe it to my parents.”
MY STORY IS …
I am on a journey to connect with my heritage and discover the stories of ancestors in the Malay archipelago. I can say that all the roads in my life have led to this.
From the moment I unlocked my passion for Malay dance when I was eight, to the heritage and lifestyle label I am building today, the journey remains the same. This, strangely, has never left me no matter how many detours I took.
I collect stories.
Stories such as my Javanese great-grandfather who was a master meditator. The grandmother, plucked from her family home in Patani to become a bride – at the tender age of 13. She never stopped wearing batik in her lifetime but sold most of it away to be able to raise her children. And the grandfather who escaped capture during the Japanese Occupation in Malaya. How? He hid in a drain for a week! Such stories are not unique. Many before us share such tales. And these tales shouldn’t vanish with them. Am I bound tightly by these stories? No. They serve as a creative compass.
My challenge: to live a life guided by their legacy while creating and seeing a fresh perspective in my lifetime. And without losing our essence as people of the Nusantara.
My parents are deeply spiritual people. Life has at many points been extremely unkind to them. And yet, they have always managed to overcome the odds by drawing from a well of inner strength. I take after them a lot. All my resilience and doggedness, I owe it to my parents. They have set the example for me, my future children and their children to come.
In conjunction with World Mental Health Day, we are dedicating the month of October to mental health awareness. We asked Aqilah about the importance of caring for your mental health and this is what she shared —
My mental health is directly connected to the amount of rest I get, and I mean quality rest. So I practise taking time out and I do it pretty often. I intentionally set work aside, spend time with people IRL, reading, in nature, doing some deep cleaning at home, gardening and forget about my phone.
Carve out time to slow down and be present. Rest should not be a “reward” for “working hard”. Rest is a human right. So rest when you feel you need it. Doing that means being responsible for your well-being. Your loved ones will benefit from that, your community will benefit from that and you will benefit from it the most.
Most importantly, resting clears the fog. I appreciate that deeply. There’s nothing to pour from an empty cup.
In a world that glorifies busy, go the other way.
photography Studio Gypsied