Hosai Mojaddidi – Islamic Parenting Raising Resilient Children & Brother Ali Bishop
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AI: Transcript ©
So for those who may not know me, I am a licensed clinical
therapist, and I am positioned at Newark High School. And so I'm
there full time. And so I'm working with our students at that
high school, Monday through Friday, sometimes longer days like
today,
with a lot of different emotions, that they're going through
different kind of life obstacles that they're trying to manage,
anywhere from anxiety, which we'll probably delve into a little bit,
depression, grief and loss, we're looking at relationship issues,
and they could be peer family, or otherwise, one of the models that
I use one of the modalities that I use, I try not to use too many
clinical words, one of the evidence based practices that I
use is cognitive behavioral therapy, which the author of The
coddling of the American mind, the two authors, they do a really good
job as far as using that and extracting some of that
information and trying to help the reader understand where the
feelings are coming from how to navigate those. But it really kind
of comes through the thoughts that we think are the thoughts that our
children think, and and I actually teach this quite a bit with a lot
of my students. So I just wanted to if it's okay, I'd like they
have some takeaways, I want to give you some my takeaways and
just by a show of hands, and there's not putting anyone on the
spot, but who hasn't had who has had a chance to either glean
through or read thoroughly through the book itself, just so I can get
an idea of those who might. Okay, so I might go into a little bit
deeper detail of what the authors are presenting. And so hopefully,
that'll kind of help you along when you actually get through the
book or just get to the book.
It's a very straightforward book. So it's not
beyond that, really the high school reading equivalent. So it's
not very hard, it's a very easy read. And the author is do a
really good job of storytelling, as long as as well as putting
forth things that you can actually take away. And hopefully, use, you
know, as you're raising your children. So I wanted to just kind
of read and then I'll put my own thoughts it can i Yeah, would it
be okay, if I can have the floor for just?
All right, very good. So I'm going to read a little verbatim directly
from the text. And then I'll give my, my own little thoughts on
that. So
basically, the two authors are really kind of looking at high
school children below. So any anything under that was actually
the beginning of the study, they actually went into the college
setting, so the university setting, and so what they were
finding is, it was a situation where there was a program that was
put on, it was a a kind of a heavier debate, where
feelings were kind of like, kind of out of control because of the
speakers that were being presented and the topic that was being
presented. And I'll say that as a surprise, if you guys dove into
the book, it's in the first chapter so and they were they made
a quote unquote, safe room for parents or students or staff even
that might have been triggered by the discussion, right. And so the
authors actually saw this, and they were just kind of very
curious, like, wow, how fragile some of our adults are, right? Not
necessarily children, but it's kind of like looking at the
adults.
And I, you know, it's very weird, because in the clinical therapy,
part of it, I, we talk about safe rooms and things like that, but I
think he was showing the extreme of it. Right. And so, he that's
where it kind of starts, and it just kind of starts where, where
thoughts and feelings begin. So
he said many university students are learning to think distorted in
distorted ways. And so that's where it starts. And so I find
that oftentimes with my students, and even a staff I work with my
teachers.
And it's, it's their thoughts and how they think about the
situations in the environment that they're put in or placed in and,
and how they think. And then and then all of a sudden, those
thoughts, there's behavior behind it. So
that's kind of where the authors are going. And then it continues
on that there's a culture of what they call safe. DISM. Right. And
so
it has produced institutional practices that have overreached
the goals of protecting children from harm and undermine our
ability to solve important social problems. So as I'm looking
through my notes, I wanted to just talk about my high school
students. And one of the things that I'm preaching to my mighty
Teachers, like I have a lot of students that come out of the
classroom because they have anxiety. And so I'll give you an
example of test anxiety. So that's, that's a big one, right?
So I'll get a teacher, they'll call me up and they'll say, Well,
their student is just out of control, they have all this
anxiety, and they just need to see someone, right. And so that's kind
of that escapism. So they run to my office, and they're just
breaking down, they're in tears, they're shaking. And I'm trying to
figure out what's kind of going on, I thought maybe there's a,
there's an argument with the parent, or there's an argument
with a peer or, or maybe there's some kind of other thing going on.
But it's just a, it's just a test. It's just a quiz. Or it's just
something like that, it's kind of going on. And all of a sudden, I
start kind of breaking down where the where the student is. And so
one particular student, and I'm like, Okay, what's happening?
What's going on? Well, I did it. So they'll say that I didn't
prepare enough for the test. I said, Okay. And then we'll say,
Okay, well, what else? You didn't prepare enough for the test? So
you're going to take the test anyway? I can't? Well, why not?
Well, I'm going to fail the test. Okay. Failure is part of learning,
right? And what happens if you fail the test, and all sudden they
escalate, they escalate the negative thoughts. So the negative
starts start rushing through, and their thoughts of, I'm gonna fail
the test, I'm going to fail the class. And now I'm going to fail,
I'm gonna fail school. And then they frame it as I am a failure.
And so my job is a as a therapist is to back them down or lack or
walk down the walk down the staircase, because now they've
escalated to the point where now physically, they're reacting to
their thoughts and feelings. We're now we're seeing physical symptoms
of shaking and crying and all of this kind of getting out of
control. So we walk them down. I say, well, first of all, let's,
let's look at the test. What is the test on? So it's on chapter
24? Okay, how long is the test? Well, it's 25 questions. If you
fail the test, hypothetically, you failed the test.
What's your grade? Currently, I have a B. I said, Okay. So logical
is, is F on this particular test, going to give you an F and the
overall grade? Then they start to start to think and reason and
understand and like, No, it's not going to bring my B down to F.
Okay, great. Okay. Now, if it's not going to bring your B down to
an F, it might impact your grade a little bit. So now, so we start to
problem solve, so that that is kind of like the core of it, we
have to get their fears and anxieties kind of calmed down, so
we can start thinking rationally. And so that's where the kind of
the book is kind of going. And so
I'll continue on, they talk about the three untruths early in the
book. So the two authors, they come up with three untruths. So
untruth, number one, the truth of fragility. So they use this motto,
not not necessarily fond of it. But their their words, is it? What
does it make you mean, what doesn't kill you makes you weaker.
Now, I don't know if you've all heard, what doesn't kill you makes
you stronger. Right. But that's the premise that they want you to
take. But I guess they're saying that you've heard this one. But
really, it's, I have an example. And I see this a lot, I lost a
friend, therefore, I will never find enough.
And I will no longer be a good friend. So
I had this one particular instance, where two friends junior
high, they come in high school, and they had a falling out. And
then all of a sudden this
argument happens and all of a sudden they catastrophize it,
that's what we call it, you know, just making something small out of
this huge thing, right? And now all of a sudden, they're no longer
friends. And now I'll never make another friend ever. And so I have
to we talk about logical and illogical, right? So I have to
break it down, I have to kind of bring them back down the ladder
again. Because their thoughts are now turning into beliefs and, and
I'll get into where the the author's kind of think, are
actually describe how thoughts become beliefs and cognitive
behavioral therapy, talk about this. So if you think something,
therefore you will start to believe it. And then therefore
you'll see the action or result behind your beliefs, right? So the
second one is the untruth of emotional reasoning. And so they
said to always trust your feelings. So that's, that's the
untruth you shouldn't shouldn't always trust your your gut feeling
that and you'll hear this a lot with adults. We might say, Well, I
feel it in my gut and I know that that's what I should do and and we
go down this what they call gut instinct, right? And with this,
this could be false. It's gonna be not not necessary.
rarely, a good thing to actually do or even teach your children you
know, should should react on your, your gut instinct, because it
might be a false thing to do. So that was that's the second
untruth. And then the third, untruth is the ground truth of us
versus them. And this is this one hit home with me a lot. And so
it's basically separation of groups. And we find this in
politics, especially in the political environment that we've
been placed in over the last, say, 10 years, right, we want to
shelter and we want to contain our children from from feeling bad or
feeling, you know, upset and we want to care for them, we want to
put them in a kind of a plastic bubble, kind of say, and we don't
want them to experience pain, right? So we want to rescue them.
So the authors say, and I also say this with my parents, as I work
with my parents and my students, it's gonna be okay.
When you learn, you're going to fail, you're going to have many
failures. Matter of fact, one of the things that I do in my office,
I love chess, chess is one of my favorite of all times, there's a
lot of lessons that can be extrapolated from chess ends the
game of kings.
When you start learning, you will lose. It's a complicated game in
the very beginning. And I often teach and I have friends from all
over the states, I'll teach over the phone. But the first time I'll
teach them, I'll say, you're going to lose, that's the first thing
until you're going to lose, and you're going to lose a lot.
Do you still want to play? Sure, let's teach me how to play. So I
have a I have a guy from Alabama that I have been playing chess
with over the phone for
about a year now.
23 losses in a row. And I said, How's your resilience? So I'm
gonna I'm gonna beat you. I said, that's, that's the attitude I'm
looking for. And he did, he finally finally won a game. And he
I'm telling you, that made his whole life just beating me one
game. And then after that, I crushed him five more times.
And this is something that I learned in play therapy. So very
early on in my education, I was I was trained in play therapy. And
my clinical psychologist who trained me in play therapy, she
set me up in elementary school. And
she, she taught me different kinds of ideas about play therapy. And I
didn't know this particular idea. And one of my little guys wanted
to play board games, as all he wants to do is play board games.
And I would just let him win. And I didn't think twice about it, we
play and, and then I would just find a way to lose or just let him
be happy, because he took a lot of joy. So I'm going to pause just
for a second as the event goes, the smaller. So just to kind of
pick up where I was at. So play therapy, I'm working with this
little guy, he loves playing board games. And so I would, I would
just find ways to lose to make them happy. So I thought that that
was, that was a good thing. And so part of my clinical training is I
have to review each and every student that I'm working with. And
so my clinical supervisor sits down and we go over each of the
children that I'm working with. And so I get to tell her about my
little guy, he only wants to play board games and, and that's okay.
And this is what we call structured play. So we have
structure play in free play. Free Play is quite different. But
structure plays more with the rules, right? And so she was
asking me about, does he abide by the rules? Does he cheat? You
know, they hide things or try to make you know, he's doing all good
there? And she said, How often does he lose? Then I'm like, he
never loses. And I'm like, she's like, he never loses. They Wow,
he's really good at these kind of games. And as well, I purposely
let them win. And she said, Well, why is that as well because it
makes them happy. And he gets a lot of joy out of this. And she
goes, Well, I want to talk to you. But like, that's not necessarily a
good thing. And so she wanted to let me know that. There's life
lessons that has to be used and in play and play therapy. And part of
that is is losing and learning how to deal with the emotions of
losing. And so I said, okay, so she, she, she made assignments,
she said next time, I want you to play and I want you to do your
best to win. And of course, you know, next time we played, and she
wanted to know how he reacted, how he responded. And sure enough, the
next time we play I think it was chutes and ladders or something
weird. And so sure enough, he went he loses. And he had a fit. He
just had he was He's eight years old just he took the board he kind
of threw it off the table all the pieces flying. He got up and he's
I don't want to play anymore. He went off into cherry powder for a
while. And I was like wow. Alright, so now I need to process
with them. So that's the key, right? So it needed to learn and
work on so anyway, with that being said I
Talk to my clinical supervisor. And she said, You need to help him
through those emotions. Because now we need to extract what does
he think of himself? Right? Because it's all about thoughts
versus feelings. And that's, that's kind of where the authors
are going with this. So, long story short, I had to continue to
play with him this way. And and I found some rigidity with his
willingness to want to play these type of games anymore. And now I
would have to encourage them, no, come on, come on. And then it's
about teaching as well. So there's a teaching aspect of learning. And
so whenever you're finding a child, your child who's having
difficulties or struggling or getting angry or upset, those are
the feelings, right, and they're turning into action. I'll get into
that in a little bit. But the teaching aspect is probably one of
the most keys. Because the authors are saying that, in order for a
child to grow and develop in a healthy way, and an independent
way, they have to learn, adapt and grow. And they kind of go into the
brain and the consciousness, and how the brain is still growing.
And it will be growing into the early 20s, you know, but at the
tender age of eight, 910, and 11. There's cognitive processes that
are developing, the neurology is a little bit deep, but in all
reality, it all comes down to teaching learning so they can grow
and adapt. So that's another part of the book that I really found.
And I'll be honest, I haven't read the entire book, but I can't I
can't put it down. So I will I will not finish the book. So thank
you, Omar for for even bringing this book to my attention because
I was I was not in the know. So
I don't want to over wonderful Are you? Are we good? Okay, okay, so I
wanted to get into something I'm passionate about. It's the
modality, it's the clinical practice that they're looking at.
It's the cognitive behavioral therapy. And so the basic
definition, it's an intervention that focuses on challenging and
changing unhelpful thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes and
behavior, improving emotional regulation, this, this is very
key, I'll stop there, there. The emotional regulation is where my
high school students are struggling. So I am actually I
give sugar to Allah that I'm in a high school situation where I'm
dealing with students from the ages of 14 to 18. And I've been
mashallah, I've been there for now, seven years. And I'm finding
that my young adults are not being young adults. And so a lot of the
work is helping them understand and adapt to being a young adult,
because that that very critical age of four years from 14 to 18,
in all sense at all, you know, kind of sense of the things here
in the United States, a teenager considered an adult.
And the parental rights are now waived. So, now adult, now the
parents are like, well, you're 18, you need to get out and you need
to take care of things yourself. And we're finding that our 18 year
olds are not prepared for this. And, and so I noticed this, and I
try to find my freshmen. I get them early, as soon as I can get
them and I'll ask them, Who wakes you up?
When you meet mom always meal?
Oh, you're 14 years old, and you don't get up on your own? Oh, my
mom gets me. And I will say more than more than most of my
students. Parents are doing this. So that safety is right. I don't
want to make sure you're not late honey. So I'm going to wake you
up, I'll get you up and I'll cook you breakfast. And I'll take care
of this and I'll get your books together. And I dissect I'll ask
questions, right. It's about what I want to talk to my parents about
is we got to get them to become adults. And how do we do that we
have to teach. So when they're on their own when they're in college,
and I assume I'll just take a poll real quick. For all those in the
audience who have children that they hope and shot love will go to
university.
Okay, the majority of hands if not all the hands went up. And that's
that's fantastic, Mashallah.
The chances of your child living at home
might be slim to none. There's some universities that require on
campus dormitory state for freshmen, not all so
and so then if your child goes to like UC Santa Barbara UC Davis or
Sacramento State where my dear my bachelor's degree
they're not close enough. So they have to be on campus. They have to
be on dorm. So if they're on dorm and they're 18 No, they have to be
a come adults. It have to be there.
Have to get themselves up on time, they have to make sure they're
doing their homework, they have to make sure they can cook, or at
least, you know rudimentary kind of cooking, you know, just basic
things, they have to make sure they're showering in their
dressing, and they're using deodorant, and the hygiene is
correct. And they're brushing their teeth, and all of these
things, but if our parents have created this safe DISM, where
we're doing everything for them,
and now they're away from Mom and Dad, for the first three months,
it's going to be very hard for them to adapt from parents,
keeping everything safe. And all, too now I have to do everything
myself, and how do I manage that I'm frustrated, I'm angry, I'm
upset. And then again, we get back to the thoughts, and then how they
feel about them, how the how they feel about themselves, I can't
cook for myself, I can't eat, therefore, I'm a failure, I can't
do this. And then we get into this failure Ristic kind of mindset. So
as my parents as I sit in front of you,
one of the things that I really request is you start training
your, your, your children, to kind of be independent, teach them how
to cook, give them an alarm, not their cell phone,
give them an alarm, that they could get up on their own. If
they're getting up in the 12 1314 year old, it's time for them to
kind of stand up. So when frustrations handle or happen, or
they're confronted with some obstacles, now they're there to
have a little bit more that that inner strength and that, hey, I
can do this. I don't need mom there. I don't need that there. I
can I can manage it, it starts very small. And with my students,
it starts with just getting up. And then it starts about going to
bed on time, you know, do you have to be told about of it? Or do you
know what time your bedtime is? Right? And so it's just these
little things. So going back to the cognitive behavioral aspect of
it.
So
what, what cognitive behavioral therapy really kind of gets into
his automatic thoughts. So when something happens, you will have a
thought about it?
If an earthquake happens, what's your first thought? What's that
automatic thought? Am I going to die? Is it am I going to go
through fall through the Earth? Allah forbid? Or is my child safe?
Am I safe? Is my home safe? Am I under fault? Where did it happen?
You know, so all of these automatic thoughts start rushing
it. And some people have these automatic thoughts that are
pretty gruesome. I know somebody who, who feels that they are going
to die in every earthquake that happens. Right? So these automatic
thoughts is the ground starts to shake, I'm going to die. So now we
have this false belief that's now growing, right? So if you've ever
experienced a car accident, I had a sister that experienced a car
accident, and it's pretty major. And I was young at the time, and
she had to go to therapy for it, because she couldn't get into a
car. And her automatic thought was, every time I'm in the car,
something bad will happen. So therefore, I won't get in the car,
therefore I will not drive. And so all of these automatic thoughts
turned into feelings, which turned into resistance. So cognitive
behavioral therapy is about learning how to dissect the
automatic thoughts. And then it goes into how do you look at that
thought that came up. And so just for the sake of it, I'm going to
talk about optimism and pessimism, okay.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy always wants to look at the near
the positive side of things. So being an optimist is the best way.
So if we're looking at the negative, sometimes we have to,
but one of the things that I do train my students as much as
possible. Oftentimes, I'll put a bottle of water on half a bottle
of water on the table. And I'll say, your opinion, is this half
empty or half full? Almost every time, I kind of already know the
answer I'm gonna get depending on the student I'm working with. If I
have an optimistic student, most likely they're going to say it's
helpful. And if I have a pessimistic student, they're gonna
say it's almost empty, it's halfway and so they're gonna look
at the negative what's been taken out of it. So this is one thing
about cognitive behavioral therapy. They want you to look at
the positive, because what happens is the negative thoughts creep in.
Negative thoughts creep in, negative feelings follow. So it
goes back to thoughts and feelings. So if a if a dog bites
you, that's a negative. That's a negative
action. Now the negative thought is the automatic thought all dogs
bite
and it's a sweeping thing and all of the dogs out there, all dogs
bite my
There is a truth behind all that Dubai. But not all dogs are
aggressive. So there's a way to kind of break this apart and
understand that not all dogs will hurt you. And so that's what
cognitive behavioral therapy is about is kind of breaking away
these these, these thoughts, these automatic negative thoughts. And
what happens is negative thoughts build up into negative reaction,
negative feelings, and then it turns into a negative reaction.
And I actually want to get into that, I'm going to sum that up,
I'm gonna give you an example. And I'll give you an acronym for those
who might be taking notes. But to sum up cognitive behavioral
therapy, I'll sum it up in two sentences, what we think and what
we've started, what we think and what we do effect how we feel.
Negative thoughts lead to negative feelings. That's, that's if you
want to take the whole science of CBT. Put it all into two
sentences. Those are my two sentences right there. So how does
that apply? And how is that applicable to the real world? If
you think of a FBR
as the action,
F is the feeling,
B is the behavior. And four is the results. I had to look at my
notes. I do this all the time, but
it's getting late for me. Alright. So the example is the action.
There's an argument with a friend and the friendship, and that's the
action, that's what happens, the physical thing that takes place,
the feeling, I will never have friends again. That's that
distorted, abstract, negative feeling
the behavior, I'm going to isolate and not make friends, so I'm safe
from getting my heart broken.
The result?
loneliness, isolation, depression.
Now, as a therapist, I'd go right from the beginning, I have to kind
of unpack it all. And I start with the action. What happened? We got
into an argument. They said it never want to talk to me again,
there was upset with me, and then we have to stop it at the feeling.
So the feeling is, I'll never have friends again.
And so I have to there's a disbelief. There's a there's an
automatic thought that now has to be deconstructed. And oftentimes,
I'll say, Well, do you have any friends? Oh, yeah, I do have
friends. Okay, who are your friends, and we just want to take
that as a false belief and dissect it. And so they can disprove that.
And this is where the critical thinking part of what we need to
do with our children, so that their thoughts don't turn into
their negative thoughts. Because we all have negative things happen
to us, where we don't want those to become negative thoughts, then
all of a sudden, their negative feelings, and then we'll have a
negative behavior attached to it. And that is CBT, in a nutshell.
And the resilience aspect of it all, is that the and that's this
is this really kind of the author's solution to the
resilience factor is kind of to see things as thoughts and
feelings and behaviors. And what I would like to do is leave you with
really this is the ending of my aspect of this talk,
is understand that your children are going to make mistakes,
understand that they're going to have these negative feelings
attached to those mistakes. And it's your job as a parent, your
job as an educator, you're so if you're a teacher out there, and
you're teaching students, it's your job to debunk the belief, the
false belief that they start attributing to themselves, and
you'll see, you'll hear it oftentimes is I will never, this
will always all these forever, kind of infinity words, you know,
once you hear those key words, you have to stop them. And you have to
kind of deconstruct that with them. And once you do that, we can
start removing the negative feeling, but also to teaching to
our children, that failure is part of learning. And failure is okay.
As long as we attempt as long as we try failures, okay. And so I
actually spoke with a student today, and his heart was just on
getting into USC. And so he's been he's a senior now and he put in
his early application and the US USC has an early admissions and he
thought he nailed it. And I was trying to get them prepared for
the what if scenario, what if right, he was he was shutting me
down. I'm not going to talk about that. So I get an email from him
today.
And he says, you know, Mr. Bishop, can I? Can I meet with you? Now my
husband's probably about the UCF or the USC application. Sure, no
problem. I have an opening such such time come by my office. And
he comes in my office. And he's just wearing basically an
emotional wet towel. Right? And he is devastated. Already know what
happened, right? Just you can just tell and he's walks in. He slumped
in the chair.
I was looking for those infinitive words, it was negative infinitive
words. So I'm saying, Okay, what brings you to see me? What? Why
did you shoot me the email? He says, Well, I didn't get it. I
said, Okay.
How you feel about that? Well, you know what happened when you get
the letter and, you know, I just feel like a loser. I'm never gonna
get it any of the universities as a whole I'm in. So I had to
deconstruct this. Because now we've got this never I'm never
going to send now is resiliency is now he has, he has no resilience.
Now, he's just going to drop out of school, and he's just going to
become a nobody, right?
I have to build off of this.
So I said, Okay, how many other universities did you apply to?
seven others? All right, let's listen. What's your number two
school? You didn't get into number one school? What's your number two
school? UC Santa Barbara. All right. Next one, UC Irvine. All
these other UCs? He throws out? I said, Okay, before you call
yourself a failure, and you're never going to university? How are
you going to say that you're never going to do something if you don't
know what the other side is doing?
Part of this is getting him some hope. So this is what I asked you
to do is for your children, you give them hope. Right? You give
them praise for their attempt. But also to that hope is that that
optimism, right? We want to give them this could possibly happen.
And in reality, I had to show him facts. So another thing as a
parent, and as a teacher, I want you to lawyer up. All right. I'm
gonna tell you about lawyers, a good lawyer is not going to bring
the emotion to the court, the judge is not going to have any
part of the emotion. And if a lawyer gets a little emotional
with it, because he's trying to influence the jury, the judge will
shut him down. Anyone here has ever been in jury duty? Okay, so
when you go, you'll see this play out. So the minute that the lawyer
tries to use a motion to sway the jury, the judges? No, no, no, no,
you stop that? No.
And so the lawyer has to bring facts in so once you have a child,
that's us, you know, that has these thoughts and feelings that
are all in the negative. And you know, these are false thoughts.
This year, it's your job to bring the facts to debunk those
thoughts. So with that student in our in now, I told him, I said,
What's your GPA? That was the first thing as 4.2 4.2 GPA and
you're telling me you will not get into university. I said, I
challenge you to come back after your seventh give you letters in
the mail, that you did not get it.
And so that's our that's our deal as he left my office. So anyway,
thank you, thank you for just give me the floor there for a minute.
Okay, beautiful. Thank you so much.
I want to come mashallah, I want to first and foremost, thank
brother Ali, for your presentation. So relevant, so
powerful, a lot of food for thought that you left us with. And
as you're speaking, many things were coming to my mind. But I
wanted to just first mentioned two things that really tie in with,
you know, the, the portion that I'm going to be presenting, which
is the Islamic perspective, what you mentioned about how you spoon
introduced the game of chess to your friend, and you basically set
him up for the realistic expectation, right, which is that
he will fail. And I think that you know, as a concept is something
that we need to first and foremost understand, because in Islam, I
was just mentioning earlier, I had a class. And I was mentioning that
one of the my, I mean, there's many things, obviously a company
that we love about our dean, but one of the things that I love
about Islam and I think we should really take great pride in is the
fact that our deen is so transparent, you know, Allah
subhanho data has really just laid it all out for us. You know, you
read the Quran, you read the Sierra, you get the picture. It's
all there. There's no secrets. There's no, you know, agendas,
there's no hidden plots and twists. And you know, it's all
there. Dunya is difficult. Dunya is hard. You're gonna be tested.
We're gonna test you with your children with your spouse's with
your wealth. So all of that is, you know, it sets you up for the
right expectation in life, right, which is why what I was saying
before is so important that faith grounds you in
In setting yourself up or with the expectation that will align with
the reality you're going to have, but when you don't have a faith
perspective, and then you create a false utopian concept of what life
is, right, because people who don't have faith, they really do
see this place as it right like, this is it, I'm gonna make the
most of it. And so you set your expectation that everything should
go my way. And then we have, obviously, in our, you know, in
the West, here, we have a problem with entitlement, we have a
problem with a lot of messaging that gets ingrained into the minds
and starts to shape a person's expectations and reality, all of
it, which is not set in reality, that's the, you know, ironic
thing, right? That, that we're actually falsely portraying,
you know, life by foot, you know, by through media, for example, I
mean, think about how much of our expectations are shaped, through
film, through television through music, right? When you're growing
up on a diet of messaging that's distorted. That's utopian, that's
not set in actual life, real experience, but stories, you know,
then you start to think that way. And I've seen this when I work
with couples. I mean, this is one of the main points I talk about,
when we talk about marriage, for example. And I say, if you came to
marriage, thinking that the Bollywood movies that you've been
watching, right, or Hollywood, rom coms are like what your
expectation is, you know, like your or, you know, your even
before that, like your selection of a spouse is informed on the
archetypes that you've seen growing up watching all of this
television and film, you are setting yourself up to fail, and
you're setting your marriage up to fail, because that is fiction,
it's not reality. Reality is, yeah, you might have that little
honeymoon phase, but all of a sudden, have problems, right? And
we're taught to, to, to basically, you know, be very mindful of what
affects, you know, what we let in, right? And, you know, when you
when you ask, you know, how do we protect ourselves? How do we
protect our children, we have to go back to the basics and the
basics are, what is the Quranic worldview, right? What is the,
what is the worldview that almost father wants us to have and
ascribe to? And how are we implementing that in our own
families in our own lives? As parents as educators? What are we
teaching our children? Is it in line with the Quranic worldview,
which says, that, for example, you know, as I mentioned, you will be
tested, right? That this life is a, you know, an, or the dunya is a
low place where, where you should expect sorrow, anxiety,
depression, grief, like if that's not what your the world that
you're preparing yourself for, let alone your children, that
obviously, you're going to fall into everything that they're
describing in this book, which is a false expectation based on, you
know, whatever, whether it's your, your entitlement, your false ideas
around, you know, the, the narratives that you've envisioned,
but it's not true. And so as you were speaking, I love that,
because that is part of the solution, that we actually start
off our journey as individuals, obviously, our own selves, that's
where you, we start with you, if you're not grounded in reality,
which is, you know, I have to expect and anticipate that I will
have problems that I will have challenges. But I also have
recourse, right. So it's not like I'm just left to suffer through
suffering through hardships, we have a we have a worldview that is
actually quite empowering, right. And the perfect proof of that is
to look at the lives of the prophets. So if you're actually
studying, you know, the, the highest of human beings and the
ones that are exemplars, all of the prophets, but specifically the
prophesy setup, and you see that from the onset of his life, he had
challenge that he had to, you know, overcome after challenge
after challenge after challenge, but what have what's the totality
of his of his life is that he was the most perfect human being so
those challenges did not in any way take away from him. They
actually are part of why he is so incredibly, you know who he is
it's because of those challenges. So you know, going back to the
book and those three untruths I think if we go through every
single one of them, you will find a slam has a perfect answer to all
of them. The first one as I mentioned, what doesn't kill you,
makes you weaker. Of course it's alive because I just you know, we
just stated that if all this man is telling you are telling us that
this life is difficult and and hard and you will go through
challenges, however, you know, those who are the most patient
those who are the most resilient those who have stubborn Jimmy and
they practice you know that beautiful patients will come out
successful, then obviously a debug
because that lie right away that actually hardships right make you
stronger. And again, the proof of that is evident in all of the
great prophets, the saints, the teachers that our deen encourages
us to know and learn about their histories, it's to infuse in us
this concept and really get it that actually, yes, you can go
through a lot of suffering in life, but you can succeed and then
come out on top. So not to look at suffering as something that you
should fear, necessarily or suffering, that is something that
automatically means that you are disadvantaged, that's actually not
true. As we're taught, I was found that a test those he loves the
most, right. So this is where as rarely mentioned, using whether
it's CBT, which is, you know, a modality that therapists use, or
what Muslims would use is actually, again, deferring to, to
the source that informs us of how to interpret things, right,
because you if you if we let if we're left to our own devices,
it's very dangerous. The mind is, you know, in our in Islam, we have
the concept, for example, that our thoughts are shaped by four
sources, okay. So we call these collective or whatever, right? So
there are four. However, there are four sources of inspiration or
thoughts that will that all of our thoughts can fall under. The first
is Hatha Rabbani. Okay, which is that it is an inspiration that is
directly from Allah subhanaw taala. The second is Hotham, Allah
Kenny, so from the angelic angelic realm, right there positive
thoughts. The third is hot enough. 70, which comes from the neffs.
And then the last is hot there. shaytani. Right. So all the
thoughts that we have, and I think I mean, I've read studies that say
anywhere between 6000 thoughts a day to even 70,000 thoughts a day,
right, can be understood in this, you know, in this structure, that
they fall under one of these four sources right. Now, again, this is
all from our dean. So when we're taught that, that you need to pay
attention to your stream of consciousness, make sure that it's
passing the truth check, you know, is there is this real rational
thought? Is this a thought that that is provable? Is it
falsifiable? Is there something that can counter that thought,
because it is irrational or it's based on emotion? So that is a
process that we can develop internally, with ourselves? How do
we do that? Again, you look to the dean, by process of maraca right
by process of Maha Sabha. We're supposed to think, right, we're
supposed to be thinking we are our apple, which is, you know, again,
going back to how rich our dean is, because all these questions
that I think a lot of people are grappling with in terms of the you
know, the thinking versus feeling our answer, just looking at the
way that our Dean has provided so much context to to our creation,
right like Imam Al Ghazali. I mean, one of my favorite, he has
many, many wonderful teachings, but one of my favorite is also
something that is found in in the, according to the ancients, and in
the Aristotelian model in the pre even Socratic model, there was a
they had a very holistic understanding of the human being
as being multifaceted right. So the whole mind, body, heart, you
know, connection, but what the moment of Azadi introduced and he
really helped to explain is that we have three aspects to us we
have the He called these coolers, right so portal or clear the
intellect, Kotler the beer, the emotions and codes and Shania the
appetites. So when you understand your, your, your self, in this
triune nature, and then you realize, you know, what our deen,
you know, instructs us, which is that all of us found that created
the apple at the top of our being right, because this should govern
everything that we do. Our upper should be in charge, right? So you
should be rationalizing. That's why we're differentiated from all
of his other creation. The animals are not their instinctual, they're
not rationalizing anything they feel, animals certainly feel but
they're instinctual. Whereas we're rational beings, right? So the
mind is at the top of the crown of our entire structure, then we have
the emotions which reside in the heart. And the the analogy that he
uses is that emotions, you have to understand them as having a
functionality similar to
a hunting dog, right? If you have a dog that you are, you know,
training because you're a hunter or you know, you're out your
survival, you're surviving, you need to know how to train the dog,
and then dispatch it to retrieve what you need and it comes back.
So emotions that's what they should
Do emotions have a function, there's a time to be angry,
there's a time to be happy, there's a time to be sad. But it
should have a function. And once the function of it is over, like
it would be wholly inappropriate, if this was a, you know, a
funeral, and we're laughing, right, so we need to know that
that is not acceptable socially. And that we are, you know, created
with an ability to be empathic to have sympathy to grieve. And so
that's the emotion that should come forward in that, you know,
time and place, but this is a rational process, right?
Understanding this. So the emotions are centered in the
heart, you train it, you and this is where regulation comes from. So
when, brother when you were talking about, you know, CBT, and,
and all of the distortions, right, the cognitive distortions that a
lot of us are susceptible to catastrophizing, you know, or even
the opposite of that. minimalizing. Right. There's a lot
of things that we do as human beings, it's because we're not
rationalizing, that's the bottom line. It's an emotional drive that
leads to those conclusions. But the moment you activate the
intellect, which is what our dean is constantly telling us, right,
that you are intellectuals, you're you're created. With appeal, you
should be thinking reasoning, weighing the pros and cons
weighing the veracity, you know, there's a DA that the policy sort
of taught us to make, which is, you know, all law show me truth is
truth and falsehood as falsehood because we're susceptible to our
own distortions and also being manipulated by other people. But
the point is, is our apple has to be in charge at all times. So the
emotions are based in the heart, you treat them like you would a
hunting dog, you train them, you regulate them, and you dispatch
them according to the appropriate time and context. The shot Hawa
the appetites, are likened to a pig, you have to not fall into
enslavement of them, right? So we're now many of our teachers,
like show Hamza, he says he's mentioned this before, but it's
true, that if you look around, you find a lot of what he calls dog
people. And pig people. They're driven by emotions, which is what
we're talking about, right? Everybody's triggered, everybody's
sensitive. Everybody's fragile, everybody's falling apart. Or
they're just giving in to their base desires. They just want
something their shot, what leads them. Where are the people that
are reasoning, that's supposed to be us. Right? The Muslims are put
in the position of the Holy Father or the the representatives of all
US partners, Dean, because we're supposed to be reasoning. And if
you really look at historically, this was true, right? Our golden
age was, was the age of what the dark ages for the Europeans
because we were on the rise. And many of these, even these, you
know, conveniences that we have today are sourced to the fact that
Muslims contributed so much there's of science and medicine
and all these things. So we are absolutely the Vanguard's in the
trip, you know, we were leading the charge for so long, because we
were doing what we were supposed to be doing. But now we've come
here, right and what's happened. And this is I mean, I've seen it
in my lifetime, where as soon as we come to the land of choice and
opportunity, what takes hold, right? How many people do we know
who've immigrated here from Muslim lands, they had mashallah
structure order, they were praying five times a day, they come here
and it's like, well, yeah, it's party time, right? Let me just
tell you, like, let me just, you know, throw all of that knowledge,
all of that out the door, because the dunya and this is, you know, a
microcosm of, of what the dunya represents, right? America or the
West, with all of its opportunity with all of its choices, is like
a, you know, a buffet of a shower of desire. And if you're not in
control of yourself, and you don't have the right understanding of
your purpose, then you're susceptible to falling prey to all
of the distractions and all of the things that we're seeing so many
people around us fall prey to. And this is why when we go back to
parenting or educating our children, we've got to remind them
of their essence you are a spiritual being. You're that's
that's in a physical body. You are not a physical weak to the flesh,
right body that has no spirit. And that's the demonic worldview that
they are being indoctrinated in everywhere else in this in this
country or in this world, which is you're just a physical body, your
feelings are all you know, everything your whole reality
should be shaped around your feelings or your desires. And so
the spirit is completely gone. And children are not really being
taught that anywhere else unless they come to an Islamic school
unless they have parents who are really grounded in their deen and
remind them you are a spiritual being you have a high MACOM with
Allah, you have the ability to rise above the angels, like I
mean, just think about how powerful that message is for a
child that regardless of your human frailty, regardless of the
skin color that you have, that you're insecure about that all
these you know things, the all the accidentals that this society
tells you to focus on. It's immaterial, it's irrelevant
because you're by virtue of your character by virtue of
If you're good deeds, you can achieve higher than the angelic
realm. If we could teach our children to see themselves in that
way, then what happens is when they're faced with difficulty with
challenges, they will have a, you know, resilience, right? Because
they're there, they, they're there, they're informed on the
truth of their reality. Whereas nowadays, again, which is really
the big issue, and unfortunately, it is affecting our Muslim
children and inshallah not with families at peace tears, but I've
certainly seen it in the community because, you know, their children,
they're sending their children to public schools, where they're not
getting any spiritual input or at all, ever. And then, you know,
there's no time but because you come home, there's homework,
there's sports, there's all these other things. So where's where are
our children supposed to get this, you know, solid fortification that
really reminds them, that you have to be strong that this world is
temporal, that there's much more to life and that yes, you're gonna
go through things. But guess what, all of the best of people have
gone through things. And we've survived and the only like our
teachers remind us to, that the only reason why we even exist
today and this is where, you know, a perspective that's really
important to for us to have to is to look at the generational
resilience that resulted in us being alive today. It was because
our ancestors went through famine, went through war went through
horrific marriages, abusive relationships, but maintain their
faith identity maintained their you know, their they had Estacada
they stood they didn't fall apart because they have this that or the
other happened to them that we are standing here today as Muslims,
especially those of us who were born into Muslim family so we have
to really appreciate that stoicism resilience all these themes that
our deen teaches us are part and parcel of being a Muslim in in and
that's why we're It's haram to fall into despair. It's haram to
let you know your your own machinations, your own false
interpretations. cast doubt in your Lord, which is what happens
to people when feelings just start going sideways. And you know,
we're all over the place with our feelings. So regulation of emotion
is so important. And I think the other point I wanted to mention
which I'm so glad you you talked about the game that you were
playing with your pain or with the student that you were working
with, it's so funny, because just the other day, I had this
discussion with my husband. So how many of you watched Jeopardy in
your household? Okay, so we never I never had regular television.
But with the World Cup, my husband bought YouTube premium or
whatever, for three months. And so I was like, we're only we watched
the World Cup, and I'm not a TV person, but I was like, I love
Jeopardy. I'll watch Jeopardy. So Jeopardy and wheel of fortune,
right, those are the two we watch them. And that's it. That's our TV
for the day. But I am very competitive. So if you know me,
you know, I will win. And I will. And I am Yes, I'm a showboat, I'm
a braggart because I'm like, it's all about competition. You got to
trash talk, you know, if you could do it on the court and basketball,
then why not sitting at the house, and I'm rubbing it in your face
that I want. So anyway, I like to do that. But my husband was
getting, he was in the kitchen. And he was like, You shouldn't do
that. Because my youngest one was getting like a little sad. You
know, he was like, pouting, because I kept getting the
answers, right. And so I had this debate with him. And I'm so happy
that you shared this, I'm gonna go and talk about it confirms that
what I because I knew I was like the same exact thing. I said, No,
I want him to be tested on me. He was telling me to let me let him
lose or lose, let him win, stop answering the questions. I was
like, No, I'm not gonna do that. I will, I will win. And I even if
I'm playing chess, if I'm playing any game, I never take the
approach of like, let me you know, stop. No, I'm gonna beat you and
teach you my ways. And that's the other thing I do that I'm, I'm
generous in that way I will.
But I want them to win. So I actually, you know, defended that
position. And then I had to have that same processing conversation
with my Angus what I said, Listen, the reason why I'm like doing all
that is because I want you to feel confident and also to spark that
competitive driving you where it's like, okay, it might not be about
mommy, it's just about I want to do better next time. I don't want
to just sit here and pout and feel like, you know, I'm a sore loser.
So you know, infusing these types of ideas, even in these
transactions that we have with our children every day. They're so
important because it will counter this fragility that they're seeing
everywhere else in society, right? If we believe in them, if we
bolster them if we remind them that with Allah subhanaw taala
everything can happen. I've had even my son over the years with
different situations, I remind him of Da the power of Da Da is the
weapon of the believer. I mean, that's such an important integral
Hadeeth for us, if we're teaching our children then guess what when
they feel like okay, like I had my son he was preparing for my oldest
one was praying for a big basketball.
Competition was like a tournament. And he was really stressed out
because he was playing the best team and his team was like, okay,
but he was like, so I kept telling him just make dua almost found out
is with you, if you just make it all work hard, obviously practice,
do all that, but just my thought. So when hamdulillah they played
and he won, and it was a biggest shock, because nobody thought that
their team could beat this other great team. He was like, he came
to me with the full confidence. He said, Mommy, I made a lot of doll
at Fajr time. And right before the game, I did Fatiha. And I in he
was like, I know, that's why I want and I said that's exactly
that's, you know, when you've had that parenting like, yes, so
Hamdulillah you know, you got it. And I you know, we but it's that's
the kind of messaging that our children need to hear not, oh,
you're sad, you're triggered, let me Caudalie you let me protect you
safety ism, all these things that brother Lee was talking about,
which actually end up doing far more harm. And I actually, you
know, I remember, just FYI, I mean, it's kind of a little
footnote. But I remember when I first had my, my, my first my
eldest son, and I was reading about all the parenting
philosophies, right. There's the attachment parenting style, and
there's a cried out method, right? If you look at the research of
those two, and you'll find camps. I mean, in my own family, I had
people were like, cry it out, put them in the room and close the
door, right?
That was not me, I'm too much of an empath. If I hear like a little
bit of a, I'm like, cool, you know? So I was like, No, I'm gonna
do the attachment parenting, right. But when I started doing
the research, what did they say? They said that actually, you think
that by leaving them in the room and to cry it out that you're
going to build these strong kids, we're just going to, you know,
basically Sue themselves. Whereas the research shows that they end
up actually having more stressful later in life versus attachment,
children. So it's, again, challenging these ideas that we
have with with fact, right, like brother only said you can't, your
your interpretation, your understanding, may seem logical,
but is it really in line with first and foremost, for us, our
criteria isn't just science, but compassion, like to have a baby
crying, and you're just like, I'm going to sit and eat my ice cream,
like what you know, that infant is, is our gave them that ability,
because it has a need, maybe it's in pain. But for some parents,
they've been so conditioned to think that they're going to do
better by their children by abandoning them and leaving them
to cry it out like that. Because it's like, yeah, I want to have
these resilient kids. But the research doesn't prove that it's
the opposite. They actually because why you're getting them
accustomed to this high cortisol, like stress response. So they end
up actually having far more stressful experiences as adults,
because they don't feel safe. So here's like a perfect example of
how these kinds of ideas that are perpetuated. And usually because
there's, you know, I, for me, I'm just at a point where everything
has to be questioned in the society, money drives so much of
what is marketed to us and so much of it is sold to us. And they're
very convincing, they're very good at trying to use these, you know,
like these, these, you know, whatever, you know, propaganda to
convince us, but we have a higher criteria and our criteria is
truth. It's up and if it doesn't align with our deen, it should
immediately be abandoned. I don't care how many people are pushing
it because if it directly is in opposition, to, you know, a core
value of our deen, then inherently it's flawed. And this example of
like, you know, as I mentioned, lacking compassion toward it or
toward an infant. I mean, I'm talking newborns are left to cry.
Like I just don't understand how any Muslim could adapt that adopt
that if they were reading the Hadith if they were reading the
messages of having compassion towards children, right? This
doesn't make sense. Right. And, you know, we talked about the
three untruths, right, which is the what doesn't kill you makes
you weaker. That's obviously a lie in our deen. The second was always
trust your feelings, what I was saying earlier about the thoughts
right and understanding the sources of thoughts. Our knifes is
really, you know, it's like a record playing constantly in our
minds, right? And that, and it is the greatest of the evils, right,
there's four sources of evil in the world, shaitan knifes Hawa and
dunya dunya, the material world, but the neffs is the greatest
evil. So we actually have to be very suspicious of our thoughts
and very suspect of our feelings and make sure that you are
literally questioning your feelings, questioning presumptions
questioning your like, for example, has an advantage, the
concept of you know, if you if you if someone for example, didn't
invite you so but you have to your it's on you to make excuses for
that person, as a rational exercise to get you out of victim
mentality. So the victim mindset is not acceptable in Islam. You
You have to be willing to do that. Like what are the rational
explanations of why you weren't invited? Do you have to conclude
that they don't like you? Or is that maybe an irrational thought?
That's give feeding into your own inner weak
This or whatever. So rationally do the thought of like, oh, maybe
they didn't have my email, right. And you do that up to 70 Excuses
we're challenged to do. That's how much we should suspect the suspect
our thoughts. And then the third, as you mentioned, life is a battle
between good and evil. We, I mean, yes. And from from the, from our
causal, cosmological understanding of the world, there's good and
evil. But as Homer said, we have to be very humbled to not presume
we know who's good and who's evil, right? Like, who are we to make a
claim? We don't know if we're on the right of any situation. I
mean, Imam Shafi said he never met anyone, without thinking that they
were better than him. That they were that they had more truth to
the debate than he did. And he actually wanted that. So if we're
going to create these polarized worldviews where everybody is in,
like you said, you know, whether it's identity politics, or whether
it's gender, or whatever the issue is, and we fall into these camps
of us versus them. That's a supremacy and supremacy is Jaha.
Lea, it's ignorance. It's shaytani. Whereas the prophesies
said I'm the best of creation, never treated people as though he
was the best of creation. So he's our model. So all of these points
are in line with you know, our dean in terms of, you know, what,
what we have to infuse in our children, so I'm sorry, I just
wanted to kind of full circle that