Living a Life of Compassion

shaytani r rajim Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim in that Hamlet in the Nakamoto, who when a stain over when I stopped when I was at the learning in shootie on putting out women say it at Marina manggahan level followme within Lula woman uitvlugt Salah ha de la pasado en ilaha illAllah Muhammad and after what I'm about, I wanted to start off by telling you a story about the first time I did a home run, it was a very emotional experience. It was about 10 years ago. And when I went, I think hit Like many of you, I was very focused on making draw for myself, for my family for my kids. And it was all very egocentric. It was about achievement, and it was about health and earning Jenna, then the next

year upon a lie went for Oprah for the second time, and this was with my kids. And it was a totally different experience. Instead of just focusing on myself or my kids or my parents, it all became almost Central. It was all about the online I think there was such luck.

I think that it was so moving all the stories I had heard all the different therapy sessions I've had hearing about the struggles that people are going through whether it's with their kids with their marriages, with families falling apart, and things that were happening around the world, it really made me focus on that and become oma centric, the way you know shift Sophie's the way he was talking really resonated with me, it really made my heart move in the sense of feeling the responsibility and wanting to do something about it. And so my philosophy in my logo became to live and love with a higher purpose to live in love with a higher purpose. How do we live with a higher

purpose that's when you use your life as a way to serve the oma and trying to make a difference. So how do I demonstrate this I'll give you a story. I was in Malaysia and hamdulillah had the good fortune of being there and being me Malaysia amazing conference, Mashallah. And there I was there with two broken toes and two broken toes and after a trip, after an 18 hour trip, I came back and upon a love the ceiling of our kitchen had collapsed. It had collapsed I was ready to crash from a long trip but we had to we had to get up we had to move to a hotel. We stayed there for almost five months with three kids in two rooms. So you can imagine five months this my world had turned upside

down and then I had to find out how to move middle of the school year. Now why am I telling you all this that my life was going through so much and yet each time that they had the being the conference this is my fourth being a conference and have the line the past nine months there have been a lot and it's a such a pleasure and an honor to do it. And I think that you know there are no excuses no matter what's going on in your life because we will have those tests we will have

the highs and lows and the challenges but we need to make it a priority. Right We need to make it a priority and really live in so living with a higher purpose. So it is like the verse in the Quran and sort of an arm I am number 162 the diamond shape honor I changed the Mona Ryan or the in Asana one no Sookie one mafia. Yeah, one moment. He rubbed it on any, indeed my prayer, my rights of sacrifice, my living and my dying are for a law, the Lord of the world who defy that. Now what does it mean to love for the sake of Allah loving for the sake of Allah has illustrate that through a story about a couple who came in to see me. This couple prior to them coming. I had a call from a

psychiatrist, a psychiatrist that we would refer clients to, and he basically called me and said,

This couple is coming, just help them through their divorce. Help them through a divorce. I haven't even talked to them yet. Like this whole but this is pointless. They I've seen him for a year. They've had a really tough marriage. And okay, I took that in and then I got a follow up call from her mother saying, please help my daughter get visible she needs to get out of this. So prior to even starting, everyone was telling me it's over. It's done with right. So I need the couple. They had been married for 10 years and they were absolutely fed up with each other very fed up. And so I started hearing to each side of the story. The wife was complaining she said, You know, my husband,

he doesn't help around the house. He doesn't get involved with

Children, he makes a mess everywhere. And he's always late. I'm sure you've never heard this about anyone, right? No, right? Nobody's like that. And then so I asked the brother, I'm like, Okay, brother, what are your complaints? What are your concerns? He's like, Well, my wife is just she's so demanding. And she's so bossy. Nothing is ever good enough. You know, she just expects so much from me. And she's a neat freak. And so, okay, so we heard both sides, and they definitely had issues and definitely had problems to work with. And the way they handled the problems. How did they? How did they deal with this? They were keeping tabs on each other. Okay, do you know of people who do that?

It's like, Okay, if you're nice to me, I'm nice to you. If you do this for me, I'm going to do this for you. If you do the chores, and I do the chores, what does that sound like? It's funny, right? Sounds like a kindergartner, right? It is absolutely a childish game that they were playing. And unfortunately, many people play this game, right? It's like, it's all has to do with if you are nice to me, I'm nice, too. And so what I had to do is try to teach them this loving for a higher purpose. So I told them, you know, it's not about your relation, your horizontal relationship, horizontal relationship, or the relationships you have with other people. Okay, I said you need to focus so

that horizontal relationship, it could be your spouse, your kids, your parents, your in laws, right? I said, you need to start focusing on that vertical relationship, your relationship with a law. Okay? So don't ask, What did my spouse do for me, but you need to ask is What can I do for my spouse, so that I will, I will raise and rank with a law, hey, what a paradigm shift, right? That made such an impact on them. It took them time, it took them time to digest it, right? Because I know it takes digestion we're too used to that, you know, give and take, give and take. But when you start looking at it, that I want to live my life in a way not only do I want to dedicate my life,

but if I love anyone, I'm going to love them for the sake of Allah. And this is the way to do it. And living and loving for hire. And I have the love. This is part of the things that I teach in this marriage program, which is the five number five pillars of marriage calm, and inshallah we'll be sharing a lot more information. And now I'm going to share with you like the seven ways to be compassionate, seven ways to be compassionate First, if you were here for the panel discussion, remember when I talked about the pyramid? Right? There's a pyramid? What do we put on top?

No.

I love I love on top. Okay, don't go around saying sister Holly told me to put myself on the top of the pyramid.

So if we have a pyramid, Allah is on top. And then where are you?

Right after There you go. You're tuning in? Mashallah. So right after you need to be yourself. Now. Some of the Auntie's may be looking at me, sister, what is this putting yourself number two, first the family then the husband and the kids. But I'm telling you that if you want to be psychologically healthy, if you want to be balanced, if you want to feel contentment, and you don't want to run yourself down, and then later on in life, be resentful. You've got to take care of yourself, okay? Because I do therapy with those individuals who sacrificed their whole life. But guess what, a lot of them have a built up resentment. And then when the kids leave, and they have no other purpose,

they feel very frustrated. So I always say simultaneously, as you're taking care of your family, you need to take care of yourself, okay? And the way that you can be kind to yourself is

basically, to the compassion comes from the inside out. So if you don't love yourself, how can you love others? If you don't have compassion for yourself? How can you show that compassion? And that means that you need to stop beating yourself up, you know, with that self talk, we talk, how many words a minute, do you think we talk for ourselves?

Any guesses? 600 words a minute. Okay. And what are you saying in that? Some people are like, I'm gonna talk to myself.

You do. I guarantee you talk to yourself and 85% of what we're saying is negative. Right? And you're saying things like, Oh, I'm not good enough. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not smart enough. Or you say things about your spouse. What kind of self talk do you have about yourself?

I deserve much better than this. Right? I am worth so much more.

What do you think about your kids? They're they're driving me crazy. I don't know what's

With these kids, right? What are we saying about our parents, right? We like to all this negative self talk really affects us. It really, really affects our moods. It affects our mentality, it affects the kind of wife We are the kind of parent we are. So we need to stop the negative self talk.

And we need to also be able to forgive ourselves. All of us have made mistakes, that we're not proud of all of us, right. And we have to realize that when these mistakes are made, that we repent, and we move on, maybe some sister at one point was lonely and started chatting with someone online. Maybe they exchanged some, you know, pictures, and maybe something else developed from that, you know, you cannot go on beating yourself up, you'd need to repent, the door of repentance is always open, and then you move on. I hear a lot of stories like this. Unfortunately, I have young sisters who are so caught up in the guilt. so caught up in the shaytaan attacks them and makes them feel

like you know, you've just done this, how could you get up and pray? How could you? How could you even think about like volunteering or wearing the hijab because of the things you do? And it's a way of dragging down the need to realize that if you just repent and you start, you can start fresh, you could have a whole new fresh start. And Allah says, Allah Emraan Iowan, 30 501 levena is a

shout out

to newbie him.

Well, and you said ruana

and those who when they commit and in morality or wrong themselves, because we really wronged ourselves, right? When we do these things, when we have to produce when we transgress, we are harming our own soul, we feel it. That's why we get that guilty feeling because we've done those before. remember Allah seek forgiveness for their sins, and forgive sins except on law. Okay, and moving on, and what they have done. So it's a matter of recognizing what you've done wrong, asking for forgiveness and not repeating it. Okay? Now, we are in a very egocentric world, right? We are what I call we are in a selfie syndrome, right? How many people do you know who to you know, spend

their time taking selfies, they get in the car, they take a selfie?

And then they post? I understand taking a selfie if you're in a landmark, or something's going on a party gathering some but not in the car, you know, everybody looks at me. So we're in this selfie syndrome, right? And what is the remedy for selfie syndrome? Any guesses? What do you think?

It's too good. To get okay. If you're focused on others, then you're not so you're not as egocentric. Right? And so Allah says in Surah Baqarah I 254 Yeah, Latina

Rosa Pena

Moya

to Manila Bay County. He wanna wanna

wanna shefa while the person who never move on and move to St. Oh, you Oh, you who have believed then from which we have provided for you. So now, what do we think of when we, when we think of the word is what comes to mind?

RNA wealth, mining, right? But it's so much broader than that. Right? We're always thinking wealth, so give up your wealth. But it's really broader. What else does entail

but isn't

high energy?

What is this?

Knowledge like? It's I felt like it's a game of charades. I'm like, Okay, well, okay. Knowledge, friendship, right.

Sometimes everything could be a form of risk. So we need to use what Allah has given us and he thinks that we have provided you before. There comes a day for us what we've given you before a day comes when there is no exchange, it's over. You cannot bargain you have no more chances, right? And no friendship and no intercession. So this really resonates with what Dr. Sophy inshallah was saying that you know, this

Is your chance here it is you have your life, we're gonna be ending up in that break that picture just really it sent chills in me right? Just knowing that this is it. So whatever Allah has given you, whether that is the knowledge, whether that is the time, you may say I gave all my money to Brother I love today, so what more can I get? But you can get up all those things that were saying about this, right? So one of them

is giving up your time and talent. Time is so precious. And I think that it's so easy sometimes you know, those checks are wonderful to write and it helps organizations like this to thrive. However, putting your time like these volunteers are giving Mashallah This here is where the volunteers are being made.

masala really, I mean, they spend a year tech.

Alright, someone was saying, why don't we pay tech fee? Why don't the sister say tech here? So we're gonna say tech year from now on. Okay. So it is here, they spent a year of their life planning for this conference. So all of us can have this beautiful experience. So if any one of you can give of yourself of your knowledge, that I think it's amazing. There are a lot of stories that I've read in the CNN Heroes Have any of you followed that? CNN Heroes, these are ordinary people doing extraordinary things. So I want to share some of these, these extraordinary things that they're doing. There's something called Sunday surgeries, work. few doctors, and they're all brothers.

They're giving free surgeries for the people who can afford a copy of this stuff. You know, they could be hanging out relaxing, making more money, but they're giving their time for the poor. And another thing you can do sometimes, maybe you don't have the knowledge, you may not have the wealth, but you have the affection by visiting the nursery, you know, the nursing homes, these are people who have a lot of them have been forgotten. They have been stuck in a place. No one goes to visit them, maybe the orphanages. I couldn't believe how many orphans there are. I remember visiting a lot of orphanages while I was in Egypt, and it's just it's so it's heartwarming, and it changes your

life. And actually, when I have clients who come in, and they're dealing with depression, and they're suicidal, and they have anxiety disorder, you know what I tell them to do? I'm like, you go out there and help people. Anything like I am so depressed, how can I go out and help people I'm like, that's exactly why, because you're too consumed with yourself, you're too you see your problems. humungous when in reality, when you go out and you see what people are suffering with, when you go to the cancer hospitals, when you go, and you see the kind of lives people have done it, you look within and you say 100 in love, I have so much right. And so it really changes your heart

when you start giving. And there was one CNN Hero, who would just go to the ICU, and basically just cradle the babies, the babies who were premature, who needed that touch, they needed the hugging column.

And yet so effective.

And you need to anticipate the needs of others, anticipate the needs of the others and see within your own family within your friends. What do people need, and try to be there for them be that angel in their love? Be that angel? Okay, so number one, what did we say? As far as the acts of how to how to have compassion? You remember, be kind to yourself, right? Number two,

give gifts to others, then number three is having a purpose, you have to have a purpose in life, right? And when you have a purpose, and this is again was like Dr. choisy was saying about, you've got to have something that you're passionate about something that you're doing something that gets you up in the morning, and something that keeps you up at night because you believe in it. It's a cause you believe in. And the role of being a mother and a wife are extraordinary. And I think that we definitely need to honor these roles. And we need to give it its half. In addition to those roles, we need to see what is it what more can we contribute? What can I give of myself that would

make a difference in the home.

And when you do this, just like I was telling you about those clients who have depression and anxiety and they have these issues, as soon as they find a purpose and generally what I have find what they all have in common when they have that severe depression and they're having these issues is that they don't have a purpose. As soon as they find a purpose. It's magical. It is truly magical. They

can go from being suicidal to having a whole new goal in life, right? So I want you to each find, what is it the God given gift that Allah has given you and use that as a way of having a purpose. And it doesn't matter how old you are, let me tell you a story about a six year old, six year old named Ryan. He was in social studies class, and they were talking about how in Africa, they didn't have clean water. And he saw the water, they have to drink that it was brown, and it was terrible. And so he felt such a sense of responsibility. And he's like, I want to do something about this. So he started saving his money. The teacher had said that $200 you could build a wealth, they started

saving his money, and he started doing chores, and he's vacuuming and he's washing cars. He's doing all these things. After I don't know how many months he earned enough, like $200, he went to the teacher teacher said, I made a mistake. It's not 200 is $2,000 didn't give up. Some people say, forget it.

How much ironing can I do? Oh, man, how much can I back it? He went, and he got other people involved. We went to schools and started presenting, he started telling people that can you drink this water? Can you believe that we just all we do is we turn on a faucet and we have it. And yet they have to walk for like six miles to get this dirty water. So he started doing this in socata law, he built a water wealth. And not only one he has now been seen, I think hundreds of water wells in his name, can you imagine?

So this is a six year old, as a six year old who made this huge difference. So each and every one of us can be inspired, each of us can make a huge difference. So number one, we said Be kind to yourself, right? Number two.

And that's the remedy for the selfie syndrome, right? And number three, find a purpose. Right find a purpose in your life. And number four is to forgive both big and small offenses forgive because when you don't forgive you hold all that all that grudge. All that wasted energy. I've worked with so many individuals who have had some really difficult lives granted, they have been maybe abused physically, sexually, maybe they've been abandoned. There, it is not easy. I understand that. And they hold this grudge that really weighs them locked, it weighs them down like an anchor by so anytime they want to gasp for air, all of this just kind of drains them down. Right? It brings them

down. So really the first step to any kind of you know, having emotional well being is to be able to forgive if you can forgive those who have wronged you, because I'm sure everyone in this room has been wronged in one way or another right. And we just let go is that actually you know what the theme song for therapy is? For which is let it go. That's right there they need they deserve a prize for getting all the right answers. Good job. It's the end of the day. They're sitting here listening and Michelle like it for you. Alright, so yeah, let it go. Right. So you have all these that you're holding on to the garages, you're upset or frustrated, but you need to be able to let it go. And so

forgive all that all those people and you know that what the prophet sallallahu Sallam said, when a man walked in, all of you have heard this right? That the man walked in, he's like, This man is going to join us. So they're like, Oh, my God, who is this person? What is he doing? I gotta be with him. So once I have asked to be with him, and he spent time he saw he doesn't pray extra records. He doesn't do extra fasting. He doesn't get extra. like God is like, dude, he's normal. What are you doing after urgenda? Right? And he's like, Whoa, you know, there's just this one thing I do before I sleep before I put my head down. Yeah.

Paper Yes. Good job. Like that. Day, the heat the heat forgive everyone before you sleep. So how easy is that? It doesn't take effort in the sense of you don't have to exert energy. It doesn't take money. It doesn't take anything. All it takes is a state of your heart. You don't even have to tell the person right.

It's so powerful and it's so liberating. So I have seen individuals that come into therapy angry angry at their parents angry at their spouse, angry. I don't know their in laws, and when they're able to forgive, they are a new person. So inshallah maybe right now, right this moment, close your eyes for a second.

Imagine the edge of this Oh I like it a close your eyes I see you close your eyes forgive that person who is wrong and all it takes is a state of the heart by forgive them that's all it takes all right, Mashallah Are you can open up your eyes and how do you feel? Amazing, right. Great.

So what is the last day instead of Heidi I am number 21

off of Illumina cheap honor it in America mother Rahim sub ypu EDA, Mira, mira ficoll y Gen?

y Gen nothing Naruto Hakata. This summer, he was horrible. Okay, so what is Allah saying here is saying Sabir Who? Great, great when you're racing, what are you focused on? If you're in a race? What are you focused on?

Winning, right? You're thinking about, Okay, I'm ready. I'm gonna beat them. Right? And what are you focused on? So you want to win? And why? Why do you want to win?

Get to the finish line for what?

To win a prize, right? You want the prize? So the thing is, this person, you're right, you're racing against this could be your spouse, you just had a fight. And you instead of saying, Well, I'm not going to be nice. If I'm going to be nice. I'm not going to be good. If you happen to be right. Instead of doing that, why not say oh, I'm gonna beat up. I'm gonna be the one who forgets. If it's your mother in law, I'm gonna be the one who's gonna be super nice. I'm gonna be the one right? And so you put yourself you raise, and you think about what's your prize?

The prize is Jenna. And who is rewarding you? Allah. Right? We do so much, just to get like a gold medal. Right? What about earning genda? And just like, you know, Dr. Children was saying gender is not cheap. We expected for nothing. Can you imagine going and looking at a Ferrari and saying, I really love this car.

Give me 200 bucks for it. Okay, get out of here.

Like this guy's psycho, right? can you offer like the per five carat diamond? Can you just give us a couple? $100?

Right? How can we expect to earn genda without really earning? Right? How can we earn it without doing the hard work? Right?

So number four, we've had forgive, right? Number five is be non judgmental. Okay, be non judgmental. And I think this goes along with what sister Jamila was saying about, you know, the whole the racism and, and judging one another, we really have to be cognizant of this. And we need to get rid of that checklist that we judge are their sisters, right? We need to get you know what I'm talking about. Y'all have one go into now, if you know that check once you go through and you're like, Okay, about you know,

no.

All

right, this one, okay, we write off. And then it works the other way too. Right. The other one would be like, Oh my god, like, why are we wearing this? Like, loose baggy stuff, right? How could she be wearing like, you know, socks with sandals. That's just a tacky, buy, and then again.

So basically, you cancel everyone else, until you find the person that's just like, maybe like you, you're great. You're my close.

Right? How many people are going to love the love?

Right? So what we need to do is rip up that check right now right now it just close your eyes again. This is all therapeutic guys. Okay.

Close your eyes. I want you to rip up that checklist. rip it up. Come on. So the next time you see that sister that you're usually like, Oh my God, why is she wearing that? Did y'all rip it off? Yeah. Okay. So the next time instead of saying instead of being judgmental, why didn't she have a job? Why is her job like this? Why you know all these why why why, why Why? You just rip it up and say I'm gonna be accepting. It's hard. It really is hard, but it can be done.

Alright,

so we're gonna be non judgmental, and we have to realize that judgment is for Allah. We're not here to say this person is good because they're dressed like this. This person is bad because they're not because honestly

You have no idea what's going on in the heart, you have no idea. So we need to just just be accepting and tolerant inshallah, and you know what's happening it's a very strange phenomenon where a lot of the youth are becoming more religious than their parents. And Have y'all seen this? Okay, so I have this in therapy all the time mother daughter, daughter super religious, you know, very practicing dress and then the mom, nosy, right? Or maybe very little. And so what happens is that the kids become, you know, they start feeling very responsible. I had someone even come up to me today, they're like, the way she was talking to me was like, a mother's like, she's just, you know,

to each so many bad habits. She's, you know, hanging out with the wrong crowd. And it just it touched my heart that it was like she felt responsible for her mother. But what we have to be careful about is that, as a daughter, we cannot go around criticizing, you can't criticize our parents, no matter how far away they are. Right? Because that's not going to be effective. As a therapist, I'm telling you, that's not the way to win the heart. I've had

over 5060 convert friends

that had their parents convert and there were Christians. How did they do it? Because they became exceptional kids. They became exceptional daughters, they became loving sons, they became helpful and they straighten their act up. So when they did this, they were like, wow, what is it about this Dean that is so amazing, that has transformed my daughter who has transformed my son. That's the way that's the way that I have a cheering kid.

Guys, so that is the way to affect your parents not by criticizing them not by saying this is what you do wrong cut on how to um how this is not gonna be effective and you're just gonna push him away. We need to be as parents careful about doing that because sometimes we become so adamant about we become so adamant about getting our kids to be practicing that what we do we're suffocating. You give them space, give them space, give them room to grow inshallah and the prophets Allah they shun them. He was told by a lot that is, so by the mercy from Allah.

Oh, hammer Kalani salon, you were lenient with them. And if you had been rude and speech and harsh and hard, they would have disappeared they would have run away from you by so this is the holiday sell. And we earlier we talked about even inside a salon, he was told to use gentleness when dealing with the worst transgressor. So what about our parents? What about our kids? How much compassion and love should we have? And number seven is about making every relationship in your life of course of okay. I remember when I was first learning Arabic. My friends told me two phrases. If you tell any Arab sister, they will talk for hours, okay?

And they go live. And he promises which means do you have how many kids do you have? or Do you have kids? And how's your mother in law?

What is that?

Oh, number seven? Sure. Number six. Number six. Sure. So number Oh, number six. You're right. I skipped it, because I love that. All right, guys. I got the signal today.

Okay, so number six very quickly, is conflict resolution.

You know, in working with a lot of people, I have come to the realization that is almost non existent. Okay, that's, that's my theory. That is non existent, because people are either yelling and screaming, or they're ignoring one another. So what we need to do first is to assume the best. So if your husband is late, if he's late from work, don't just assume Oh, I know he's got someone else I know he's getting wife. Number two. Don't assume that don't jump the gun. Right? Give him the benefit of the doubt. If your friend doesn't call you, oh,

my God, what is wrong with her? You know, don't give them the benefit of the doubt, right? And show find this in your interaction, right? This is so important because if you have what's called personas done that you assume the best of the people in your life, your relationships will blossom. They really really well when you think that that and it doesn't choose when you think that that's the first it relieves you because what happens when you start assuming your husband is looking for wife number two

chaotic right, you're ready to move. Okay, so if you start inflicting,

you're torturing yourself, right? And then number two is that it creates tension in the relationship. How many excuses is the proper call let's say to make for your brother or sister in Islam?

Seven T, how many do we make for our spouses?

Usually, it's not made right. So now number six, we got conflict resolution. Number seven is make every relationship a source of pleasure. Okay? what I like to call is that you know, that person was difficult in your life. You know who that is the one you're always like Jada, please give me patients. Right kidney patients are the that's the one you need to see as you're as you're making machine. Okay? I'm gonna milk you for all you've got right? You're the the meaner they are, the nastier they are, the more accurate is in it for you. Okay, so whether that's the mother in law's sister love spouse, difficult job. Look at every difficult relationship as a test. And the way to

pass the test is to have patience, is to be loving and to use it as a way of pleasing Allah. Okay, so inshallah, that we can use all of this to live a life with compassion. And you can follow me on Facebook, harlot de Nani, h a l, EH, last name is de Nani like bandanna. Okay, but with an eye at the end. They love the Da na and I okay. And then I'm also doing the five pillars of marriage, the number five pillars of marriage one word.com. So I will be very happy to have you give me feedback. I'd love to hear from God the last half. We're seeing such an awesome audience.