Haleh Banani – Happiness Part 2 of 2

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			Assalamualaikum in 900 in Mathematica, when I start you know who when I stopped federal when I was a
villa him in sruti on phocoena women say tiama, Elena May, Allah who follow him with a Lula woman,
your little fella her the Ala Wai Chateau, and ilaha illallah wa Chateau, a number 100, and up the
hood, and my bad. Last time we spoke about happiness, and how most people think that happiness is
being wealthy, good looking and famous. And we talked about how fleeting all these things are. And I
spoke about that by establishing four critical relationships, you can have lasting happiness, the
form relationships are the relationship with Allah, which is the essence of all of these
		

			relationships, the relationship with yourself, that if you nurture yourself, and that happiness has
to come from within, and the relationship with others and relationship with community. Last time I
spoke about the first two relationship, today, I will continue with the relationship with others and
their relationship with the community. The most important aspect of having a relationship with
others is having a positive outlook, on life and on others, because there are many people who are
very, very pessimistic and very negative, and they're very miserable inside and they make everyone
around them miserable. So it's really, really critical is to get ourselves to be more optimistic.
		

			The way to do this is through reframing. reframing is a term is a term used in psychology, which is
to look at things from a different perspective. So when something happens to you, you ask yourself,
What is good about the situation, you may say, there's nothing good about it, because I just lost my
job, what could possibly be good about this, but if you reframe, you can look and see, or maybe this
is the chance for you to finally get the job you've been wanting to get. Or maybe you can pursue
your education and invest in that. Or maybe it's just time for you to sit and reflect and gather
your thoughts. So there's always something good in the things that happen. And if we believe that
		

			Allah is Al Hakim, then we trust that everything that happens is for the best. What do we think
about the words of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Sallam that said that the situation for a Muslim
is strange in that when good happens to him, he is grateful, and he is rewarded, if any harm or any
afflictions occur, he is patient, and he is rewarded. So in all situations are good for a believer.
Now, if you have individuals in your life who are challenging or difficult to deal with, you can
also be a positive about that by asking the question, what is good about this person, because every
single person has good in them. And you need to just start searching for the good and each person
		

			you come in contact with. When you do this by asking what's good about the situation and what's good
about the person that you come in contact with two things happen. One is that you start feeling the
positivity, you feel good about the situation and the things that are happening to you. And you're
also searching out for good in others. And what happens is that you become kind of like this huge
magnet for positivity, you're looking for good that happens and searching for good qualities. And
this way, it really affects your outlook.
		

			Another way we can do this is use our minds camera to focus on the things that are really good in
our life. Now, let me give you an example. Let's say you're in the most beautiful place, I like to
use the example of Lake Tahoe in California, where there's majestic mountains and there's serene
rivers and flowers. And I tell you take a picture and capture the beauty of this. And you go and you
take your camera and you don't take a picture of the mountain you don't take a picture of the lake
or the flowers. But you take a picture of a piece of trash that happens to be by your foot. And you
say that this is like Taha would that be a correct representation event? Of course not. And this is
		

			what many people do with their spouse, with their children with themselves even that they take they
overlook all the positive traits in a person or within themselves and just look at that one negative
thing. So we have to train ourselves that we use the camera of our mind and focus it on those things
that are really pulling
		

			Positive in our life. I have over 10 years experience in getting leadership training in America. And
one of the things that affected me most was learning about the optimistic creed. The optimistic
creed is basically the philosophy of optimist. And many of you may have not had that upbringing,
maybe you had parents who were very negative, and so it affected you. And it's basically become a
habit to look at things in a in a negative light. By understanding this, you'll have a better idea
how to be an optimist, it starts off like this, promise yourself to be so strong, that nothing can
disturb your peace of mind. So that means you're not easily affected. If someone cuts you off on the
		

			highway, or you're writing late or someone gives you a dirty look, you're not affected, you remain
stable, to talk health, happiness and prosperity to every single person that you meet, that you're
not talking about your problems and about your aches and pains and about the inflation and the
recession, you talk only about good things, because that will also get your mind to focus on the
good things in your life. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi salam either said something that was good or
remain silent. So we need to try to train ourselves to do the same.
		

			To make all your friends feel that there's something very special in them. So you ask yourself, this
is about reframing what is good about this person, and you seek that out. And not only are you going
to enjoy the person more, but take all the good qualities you see in other people, and make it a
part of yourself. So you're in this constant mode of becoming a better person
		

			to look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true. This, again, is about
reframing and ask yourself what is good about this situation. So regardless of what's happening in
your life, whether it's a trial, or a test, or some kind of difficulty, ask yourself, what's good
about this, to think only of the best, which means having a list of them that you think that people
are generally good and they have good intentions to work only for the best, and to expect only only
the best. And this is about hopefulness that your hopefulness is a reflection of your level of faith
and emaan. So the more hopeful you are, the higher your faith is. And inserts, uses I 87. Allah
		

			says, Do not despair of the solace of Allah. No one despairs of the solace from Allah, except for
people who do not believe so we have to be always hopeful and optimistic to be just as enthusiastic
about the success of others as you are about your own. This reminds me of the Hadith of the Prophet
salallahu alaihe salam that said that you are not a believer until you want for your brother or
sister in a song, what you want for yourself. And it this is very difficult to implement, it's easy
to say, but it's very difficult to implement. And if we just took this one habit and implemented, it
would change our relationships drastically. So forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the
		

			greater achievements of the future. And this means that the past does not equal the present. If you
were really negative before, it doesn't mean that you always have to be negative. So the past does
not equal the present. Regardless of who you are in the past how you want to change. Now you can be
a different person, to wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you
meet a smile. And the Prophet sallallahu Sallam taught us that a smile is charity and it doesn't
cost the thing. You can look at someone give them a smile, and you're earning hassanal reward
rewards,
		

			to give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others. And
so this is when you're committed to constant self improvement. When you're working on yourself, then
you have no time to sit there and look for each person's faults or shortcomings. So you're focusing
more on improving yourself than criticizing others. And to be too large for worry, too noble for
anger and the Prophet sallallahu Sallam emphasized so much about not to get angry because when you
get angry, so many things happen. You can destroy relationships, too strong for fear. No one should
have any fear if you have a law by your side that there's no fear and too happy to permit the
		

			presence of trouble. So this is the optimistic creed and if you follow this, you will have a better
opportunity and being an optimist. The second quality that you need to establish in having a
relationship with others is maintaining trust.
		

			Trust is one of the fundamental elements in having a relationship. And it's something that is very
hard to earn, and very easy to lose. So the best thing is to cherish it, to protect it, and not to
let anything affect the trust that you have with people. And basically, the way to do that is to
never lie. Because if you're caught in a situation when you are lying to someone, that's when the
trust is broken. And it's very, very hard to maintain it or to regain it. The third thing to keep in
mind is forgiveness, there will be people who will hurt you, they may talk bad about you, they may
lie to you. And this is just bound to happen. So we have to be able to forgive the people in our
		

			life, whether they're family members, friends, employees, whoever they are, we need to learn to be
forgiving.
		

			The way to do this is to remember our own shortcomings, and that we make mistakes and how we would
like to be forgiven. That way, we will be more forgiving of others. The way to do this is remember
your own shortcomings because we all make mistakes. And we would want to be forgiven if we make a
mistake. If we hurt someone's feeling. If we say something that is wrong, we would love for the
other person to forgive us. So we need to be forgiven if you're forgiving of other people. True
forgiveness means forgetting, forgetting means that you never bring it up. You don't bring up things
from the past and say, six months ago, you did so and so or in 1989, you did this and this is just
		

			terrible. And women have a tendency to do this a lot. So we need to just forgive and forget. And
don't even replay it in your mind. Because what would happen if you saw someone who is playing a
movie over and over again, a movie that they hate it that made them feel terrible, who thinks that
they're insane, right? So you need to replay the movies in your mind that make you happiest. So
think back of your memories that really brought happiness into your life and stop playing those
movies that are bringing you down and making you very upset. Allah says in the Quran, in certain lm
Ron I 133 be quick and forgiveness from your Lord and pardon all men, for Allah loves those who are
		

			good. So he's saying to be quick. So if you get into some kind of disagreement, or you have an
argument with your husband, or with a friend, the one who is the quickest to forgive, that's the one
who won. So look at it as some kind of competition, a healthy positive competition, where you are
racing to forgive the other person, instead of having the pride and thinking Well, no, I'm not going
to take the first step. And I'm not going to initiate just go ahead and forgiving your heart and
forgive the person.
		

			And the Prophet sallallahu Sallam said that the best person is the one to who is slow to get angry
and quick to forgive. And the worst person is the one who is quick to get angry and very slow to
forgive. The next thing we need to do in establishing our relationship with others is to lower our
expectation. What happens is most people have very, very high expectation, and they are just setting
themselves up for disappointment. For instance, a woman could have her expectation here, okay, and
the husband is trying, trying try and try and he gets all the way here. And she's still
disappointed, even though he's tried. So what we need to do is bring down our expectation, bring it
		

			down, down, and it's hard, but we have to push down to expectation. And that way, we're always
pleasantly surprised. So whatever a person does, you're happy about it because you weren't expecting
anything to begin with. And we need to look at each relationship as having an emotional bank
account. So with each person, whether it's your spouse, your children, your co workers, whoever they
are, think of it as having some kind of emotional bank account. And when you have this you have to
make daily deposits. How do you make deposits, by giving compliments by being understanding by maybe
helping out or even just listening now listening is such an important skill, and not many people
		

			have it. They're so ready to talk about themselves and they can hold back and sit and totally
listened to what you have to say. So by listening to a person when they're really in need, this is a
great emotional deposit. The next thing we need to do is make excuses for others. The Prophet
sallallahu Sallam said make 70 excuses for your brother and sister in Islam. How many excuses do we
make if someone doesn't return our phone call? Or if they don't give our salaams or that they're in
a bad mood? Are we very quick to judge them and blacklist them
		

			My guess is that we don't make enough excuses for others. Now the benefit of making excuses when
something happens and you're making excuses for your brother and sister and his son, is that it
gives you a peace of mind. You're not getting all angry and upset that this person did this to me
and this person did that. You're making excuses. You're letting things go. And so you're gonna have
more internal peace. And also, it improves the relationships with other relationship with other
people. The next thing that we need to do is do things for the sake of Allah, when you love for the
sake of Allah, when you give for the sake of Allah, when you have other for the sake of Allah, it
		

			changes the dynamics of the relationship completely, because you're no longer waiting for Thank you,
you're no longer waiting for someone to repay you in any way. You're just doing it for the pleasure
of Allah. And that way you overlook, you even overlook the person's shortcomings. If they're not
being appreciative, you overlook it, if they're not giving you the same in return, you overlook it,
because your main objective is to please Allah. And when you do that, it will change your
relationship completely. And I have seen in therapy when I'm doing couples therapy, when a husband
and wife get to a point that they can understand this and implement it in their life, their whole
		

			relationship changes, because it's no longer about what you did what I did and keeping track. It's
about doing it for the sake of Allah and this is the most beautiful thing to be able to do. And we
remember the Hadith of the Prophet salallahu alaihe salam that says that those who love for the sake
of Allah will be raised on pillars of light, and they will be the envy of prophets and martyrs. Can
you imagine prophets like the different prophets that we know looking up and the martyrs and saying,
Wow, who are these people, and allow us to tell them these are the people who love each other for
the sake of Allah. So we need to implement this in our relationships. The last thing we need to do
		

			is have good conflict resolution. My guess is that conflict resolution is non existent, what I have
seen how people handle the small difficulties that come up, many people have not been taught how to
solve their problems. So we really need to resolve our problems with grace and with wisdom, we have
to think about it look at it and try to resolve it so that we can maintain our relationships. We
have to keep in mind that salata Rahim, which is the bonds of kinship is so important that the
Prophet sallallahu Sallam said that Allah has used the word rahem, from his name, which comes from
mercy. And the person who cut the siliconera him the one who cuts this bond of kinship, that Allah
		

			will cut him from his mercy. So it's a very severe and scary thing to think of. And people do this
all the time, you hear people talking about how, oh, they're no longer talking to their brother, and
they're not longer, no longer talking to their sister. And they're cutting people off just because
they don't get along with them, or they don't like them, or they don't like their way of life. And
this is totally wrong. What we need to do is to keep those bonds of kinship, because who has chosen
these people to be in your life who has chosen your brother, or your father or your in laws, who has
chosen them, Allah has chosen them. So when we keep this in mind that Allah has handpicked these
		

			individuals to be in your life, and there is wisdom, and there is mercy in it. And so we have to
embrace all these people in our life, the difficult ones, and realize that there is definitely some
wisdom in the fact that they are a part of your life and to keep those bonds of kinship. Never ever
break the bonds of kinship. Always be the one who initiates even if you have family members who cut
you off, they may say I will never talk to you again. I'm never going to talk to you. But you go
ahead and you initiate you call you get the gifts you be kind because you don't want that on your
record that you have been the one who has cut the bonds of kinship. Stay tuned and I will talk to
		

			you about the last and final relationship to establish in order to attain happiness. And that is the
relationship with your community.
		

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			Don't satellite channel. Welcome back. We finished talking about how to have a good relationship
with others. And I mentioned what some of the
		

			The most important things is having a positive outlook, maintaining your trust, being forgiving,
lowering your expectations, making excuses for others, doing things for the sake of a law, and also
resolving your conflicts with grace and wisdom. Now we're going to talk about the relationship with
the community. in establishing a relationship with your community, you need to ask, How can I add
value to my community? And how can I positively contribute to Islam. So I'm going to give you some
suggestions in ways you can contribute. The way you can contribute Firstly, is by giving of your
time giving of your time and this, anyone can do it. It doesn't matter how old you are, whether
		

			you're young or you're old, you can give of yourself by giving your time and it doesn't cost
anything. So even with children, they can have a positive impact on the community. By giving up
their time, you could go and visit hospitals, you can go to the elderly home and visit them because
there's so many old individuals who don't have their family visiting and they would love to have
someone visit them and to for them to share their stories. You can visit the orphanages and give
your give of your time and your love. I remember when I was in college, I would visit the orphanage
It was a place in Houston called Casa Esperanza is a house of hope. And it was a place for abused
		

			children, I would spend my Sundays going and spending time with these children who were abused and
trying to give them the love that they were missing in their in their life. You can also establish
nonprofit organizations. Now I have a very inspiring story to share with you. There is an individual
named Jennifer staple Clark, and she was she was attending Yale University and she became aware that
many people are becoming blind because they don't have the money to pay for cataract surgery, which
is a, which is a surgery that costs basically $50. But they didn't have the money. So she started a
nonprofit organization from her dorm room. And now she is 29. And she has helped over 1 million
		

			people have cataract surgery for free. And this is amazing. This is what one individual can do. So
each one of us can start or contribute to nonprofit organization. And it's amazing what comes out of
it, she was even given the Nobel Prize for public service. So how amazing is that, to take an idea
to take some sympathy that you have for other people and take action on it. And because the pity is
never enough, we have to take action. And in certain Maya is 32. Allah says, If anyone kills one
human being, it is as though he has killed all of mankind. And if he saves one person, it says if he
has saved all mankind, so this gives us motivation that even by helping one person, maybe you're not
		

			able to reach out and affect them change a lot of people. But if you're able to save one person,
it's like saving all of humanity. Another way to contribute is by giving of your money. Many times
people who have money do not have the time so they cannot give up themselves or give up their time.
But they can give up their money. And if you give up your money, you can help pay off people's
debts, help people get married, help them with their school expenses, the inserts of Allah and Ron I
92. Allah says you will not attain righteousness, to spend in charity of the things you love. And
what do we love most we love to have money and if we can give that that we love that this is true
		

			righteousness.
		

			With the money that you have, you can help feed the poor. There's actually a very inspiring story of
a man who was a was a bus driver. And this was on CNN Heroes. They choose individuals who are
ordinary people like you and me, who are making a huge impact on their community. This man who is a
bus driver who is not very wealthy, but he gets on his bus and he cooks every single night. him and
his wife prepare meals and take it and give it out to the hungry people in his neighborhood. And
this he does every single day of the year Can you imagine that so we can with our money we can help
feed the for
		

			the Prophet sallallahu Sallam said that do not turn away a poor person, a poor man, even if you can
give him half a date. So even if you don't have a lot of money, but you can give him even a half a
day, then this is this is admirable. With that money you can help build schools and youth
		

			provide for the needy look in the community and see what is needed, whether it's in your own
community, or in the communities of countries far off. There's a very inspiring story of a young boy
named Ryan, who was a six year old. And he learned that people in Africa did not have clean water.
And he was so moved by this, that he took it on to raise money to build a water well, in in Africa,
he thought it was about $70. So he started working, doing chores around the house, vacuuming,
ironing and getting all his allowances, saving it up and trying to build this. Now he found out that
instead of $70, it is $2,000. He didn't give up. He went and he started asking his friends, his
		

			family going to different schools, raising money in order to get that first well, and he got the
wealth and Africa. He is establish a Ryan's well Foundation, which has raised over $1 million has
put 300 wells in Africa. And this has affected almost 500,000 people. Can you imagine that? Here's a
six year old who saw a problem, a very huge problem. But he took action, he took action. And he
worked hard. And he motivated, inspired others to raise money. And now he has affected the lives of
so many people. So these are examples that we need to look at. And each one of us is capable of
doing something very similar. Another thing we can contribute is our talent and our gifts. See what
		

			is it that we do good naturally, some people cook some people may paint some people are good
writers. So we need to use our gifts and try to contribute it to the community. A person who's a
good writer could write articles for an Islamic website or for for magazines, another person could
paint beautiful characters, you could cook and prepare food for others. So we need to use our
talents for the sake of the community. And for the sake of Islam. Another way that you can
contribute is by sharing your knowledge. So if there is a particular thing that you have studied,
you can use that you can use your degree, you can use the knowledge that you have sought to commit
		

			to enhance your community and to enhance Islam. You can use that knowledge to give lectures, you can
use it to write books and to teach other individuals. Another inspiring story is of a man named
Soriano from Colombia who is 39 years old. And he decided to take the challenge of teaching children
in Colombia who are in the villages. So how does he do this? This is amazing. He has what is called
a biblio Bora, which is like a library and mobile library. And how does he carry all this stuff? He
carries 120 books on a donkey and goes into the villages of Columbia, teaching children because he
doesn't want the children in his community to be illiterate. Can you imagine this? And when this man
		

			first set out to do this, people thought he was crazy. It's like, what are you doing riding a donkey
and carrying all these books with you? And when they saw that hundreds of children were learning to
read, they were amazed and impressed. So we need to look within our community. See, is there
something that we can teach if we can teach someone how to read how great of a gift would that be?
The Prophet salallahu alaihe salam said that when an individual dies, all his deeds come to an end,
and the book is closed except for three things. And that is the southern Nigeria, which is ongoing
South Africa. And this is a three things one, if you have raised a righteous child, and they are
		

			continuously making it to offer you, this goes in your records. If you have built something, or
maybe like a mosque, or a hospital or a school, this will continue to go in your record. And the
third thing is if you teach someone if you teach someone something useful, then you continuously get
rewarded for it. The next thing to keep in mind is to be a strong link in this Muslim chain that we
have each one of us is a link and we need to make sure that we are a strong link because if one of
us misses fudger prayer, if one of us is not seeking Islamic knowledge, this is not just affecting
us, but it's affecting the entire ummah. Allah says in the Quran and certain rod that he will not
		

			change the condition of the people until they change themselves. So each one of us needs to take
this on and change ourselves individually and then holistically we're going to be affected and then
Allah will change the status of the online song Love. The last point I'd like to make about being a
strong link in the oma is Be the change that you want to see in the world.
		

			So this is something that I love to live by is that instead of just seeing that, Oh, this is wrong,
and people are not as helpful, and people are not as honest and, and seeing all the criticism that
is out there, you take the challenge of being the change that you want to see in the world. The last
thing that I'd like to mention regarding the relationship with the community is to be helpful. And
you can help people by networking by helping people get jobs, if you know anyone who is looking for
a job, you can help them, you can help people get married. And these are the ways we have to be
aware of the needs of our community to be able to to help them. And also, it's very important if
		

			you're living in a non Muslim country, or to volunteer for non Muslim organizations in order to be
an ambassador of Islam to show that as Muslims, we are very dedicated to help the community it's not
just about helping the Muslims because everyone is our brother and sister in humanity. And if we
reach out if we get involved with these different organizations, and we are there as Muslims,
helping, contributing, making the city better, making the city cleaner, being more environmentally
aware, then we leave such a positive impression of Islam and we show what Islam is really about, and
we can teach others through our actions what Islam is. So thank you so much for joining me. And join
		

			me next time when we talk about making a change is like Allaha salam, aleikum.
		

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