Hosai Mojaddidi – Raising Resilient Muslim Children
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AI: Transcript ©
In the name of God, the Most Gracious,
the Most Merciful.
Peace and blessings be upon the most honored
of the prophets and messengers, our Master, our
Master, our Beloved Muhammad, peace and blessings be
upon him, and upon his companions, peace and
blessings be upon them all.
Peace and blessings be upon you.
Peace and blessings be upon you.
Thank you so much, Maira, John, and everyone
at Peacetaris for extending the invitation on this
very, very important topic.
I also want to thank you for getting
me to finally get this book.
I've heard so much about this book over,
I don't know how, ever since it was
probably released, from a lot of different people
who had mentioned that it's just for every
parent, every educator, they need to read this
because it really unearths what's happening with our
society, with our world.
And if you recall the last Ad Fontes
that I did here with Sister Heba, we
addressed the issue of post-modernity, and it's
very much tied to this topic.
So I did as much as I could
in the time I had, a deep dive.
I'll be honest, I haven't read the whole
book, but what I read from it was
just hitting all the marks for me because
it was connecting the dots in many ways,
this long debate of nurture versus nature.
What is really the impact on a human
being?
Is it environmental?
Is it something that we're just kind of
born and raised with?
All these discussions that often occur around the
topic of children, child-rearing, faith, I think
are addressed at least in terms of what
we're witnessing in our society and folding with
our children because I've done so many parenting
sessions, and this topic comes up all the
time, like what happened?
What's going on?
Why am I having such a difficult time?
I didn't have these issues growing up.
And so we have to first and foremost
accept that, yes, the world has really transformed
a lot, and it's because there are ideas
that are divorced from faith and tradition, which
there's been a longstanding history of really trying
to infuse or imbibe certain principles in children
or in members of society about being stoic,
being resilient, not falling apart at the first
sight of hardships and difficulties and challenges, but
when you're rooted and you have a faith
that anchors you and a belief system that
helps to answer or at least give you
some consolation with regards to challenges and difficulties,
it's a lot easier to move forward and
find that strength.
But when you take faith out of the
equation entirely, which is what we've seen in
the past how many decades, they've really tried
very hard, and they are in many ways
succeeding, to erase the concept of, for example,
something that is inherent in our faith, which
is part of the six articles of faith,
that we believe in qada, in qadr.
We believe that there is divine will and
that there are certain things that you can't
really necessarily change, but there's wisdom in them.
So we have this concept that answers a
lot of these unknowns where, as when you
deal with people who have no faith or
no faith that again grounds them or gives
them those answers, then they try to seek
meaning in their own limited ways.
And so that's what we've seen is that
this direction of our world and our society
away from God, away from meaning, away from
interpreting events that are unfolding with a metaphysical
lens, with a lens that is beyond the
world.
Because the worldly lens is limited.
We don't have all the answers to everything,
but when you can say that there is
a divine purpose, there is divine will, there
is more to life than just this material
world, and at some point, inshallah, we will
have answers, that in and of itself provides
clarity, provides calm, provides a lot of just
tranquility in the individual.
But again, our society is moving in a
direction away from that.
So what happens is you've got to have
something to, I guess, fill that void.
And what's happened is feelings have taken over,
right?
The conversation around feelings versus intellectual rationalization that
makes sense is why this book is so
relevant.
Because nowadays, we're not rationalizing.
We're not seeking meaning.
We're just reacting.
We're in a reactive state.
Life happens.
Things are happening.
And so everybody is now in a state
of just feeling and then processing whatever is
happening with feeling.
And that is at every level of our
society, we're seeing that, right?
That's why this book is highlighting things that
are really important for us to understand, like
when it's talking about the untruths, but also
what we're seeing, for example, in academia, right?
We're seeing discourse shut down.
Mashallah, Brother Ali is here.
We're seeing, you know, debate shut down.
We're seeing, you know, even the intellectuals of
our society have fallen prey to this mindset
that if something, if I don't feel right
about something or something doesn't align with my
feelings, then I have the right to prioritize
my feelings as opposed to what is in
the common, you know, or in the interest
of the collective.
So there's this entitlement.
There's a lot of just really, again, unfortunately,
very harmful, you know, patterns that have emerged
because of these ideologies and these ideas that
are, again, from our faith perspective, completely divorced
from faith.
So there's so much to say, and I
know I didn't exactly answer your question, because
I do have a lot to say about
Islam and Islam's position on resilience and what
our deen teaches us.
But Mashallah, now that we have Brother Ali
here, I think it would be wonderful, because
we were initially going to start off the
discussion trying to just, again, introduce the concepts
in the book.
And because Mashallah, Brother Ali has more experience
in the space of his, as a therapist
and in the schools, and really works a
lot with youth, he was going to begin
our discussion and just share, you know, some
of the observations you've had.
And then we'll get into the Islamic perspective
on these topics and how Islam addresses, you
know, really infusing in children that fortification that
they need to be able to manage and
regulate themselves and handle the bombardment of challenges
in this world, which is 100% rooted
in faith, but is an intellectual process.
It's something that, it's not rooted in emotions,
it's rooted in understanding, right?
And so it's a reasoning that we approach
these things with reasoning, whereas we're in the
world of feelings right now.
So now I will, Bismillah, welcome you, Brother
Ali, how are you?
Very good, Mashallah.
Assalamualaikum.
Please forgive me for my tardiness.
If anyone knows me, or anyone knows my
wife, one thing that I do not like
is being late.
So it's a long day at work today.
So go into feelings.
I have to ground myself with my feelings.
So yeah, so I, well, first of all,
SubhanAllah, there's so many familiar faces of parents
that I see out there.
And I just want to thank you all
for taking the time out, away from your
families and just away from your children, actually.
So I have to commend you to kind
of give yourself that space.
And that's one thing that as a clinical
therapist, what I do is I often talk
to my parents about what do you do
outside of your children?
And what does your lives look like?
And for all of you to be here,
that's just actually really amazing to see.
And I expected a good turnout, but I
didn't think we would have such a good
turnout, so Mashallah.
I actually, the book is right up my
alley.
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 or the thoughts that
our children think.
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 to have some takeaways.
I want to give you some of my
takeaways.
And just by a show of hands, and
there's not putting anyone on the spot, but
who has had a chance to either gleam
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 will kind of help
you along when you actually get through the
book or get to the book.
It's a very straightforward book.
So it's not beyond really the high school
reading equivalent.
So it's not very hard.
It's a very easy read.
And the authors do a really good job
of storytelling as well as putting forth things
that you can actually take away and hopefully
use as you're raising your children.
So I wanted to just kind of read,
and then I'll put my own thoughts.
Would it be okay if I can have
the floor for just a few minutes?
All right, very good.
So I'm going to read a little verbatim
directly from the text, and then I'll give
my own little thoughts on that.
So basically the two authors are really kind
of looking at high school children below.
So anything under that.
But actually at 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 kind of a heavier debate where
feelings were kind of out of control because
of the speakers that were being presented and
the topic that was being presented.
And I'll save that as a surprise if
you guys delve into the book.
It's in the first chapter or so.
And they made a, quote, unquote, safe room
for parents or students or staff even that
might have been triggered by the discussion.
And so the authors actually saw this, and
they were just kind of very curious, like,
wow, how fragile some of our adults are.
Not necessarily the children, but it was kind
of like looking at the adults.
And it's very weird because in the clinical
therapy part of it, we talk about safe
rooms and things like that, but I think
he was showing the extreme of it, right?
And so that's where it kind of starts,
and it just kind of starts where thoughts
and feelings begin.
So he said many university students are learning
to think distorted ways, and so that's where
it starts.
And so I find that oftentimes with my
students and even my staff.
I work with my teachers, and it's their
thoughts and how they think about the situations
and the environment that they're put in or
placed in and how they think, and then
all of a sudden those thoughts, there's behavior
behind it.
So that's kind of where the authors were
going, and then it continues on that there's
a culture of what they call safetism, 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 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 a big one, right?
So I'll get a teacher.
They'll call me up, and they'll say, well,
the 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 an argument with the
parent, or there's an argument with a peer,
or maybe there's some kind of other thing
going on, but it's just a test.
It's just a quiz, or it's just something
like that that's kind of going on.
And all of a sudden, I start kind
of breaking down where the student is.
And so one particular student, I'm like, okay,
what's happening?
What's going on?
Well, I didn't, 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 well, what happens if you fail the
test?
And all of a sudden, they escalate.
They escalate the negative thoughts, so the negative
thoughts start rushing through, and their thoughts of
I'm going to fail the test, I'm going
to fail the class, and now I'm going
to fail school.
And then they frame it as I am
a failure.
And so my job as a therapist is
to back them down or what I call
walk down the staircase because now they've escalated
to the point where now physically they're reacting
to their thoughts and feelings where now we're
seeing physical symptoms of shaking and crying and
all of this kind of getting out of
control, so I walk them down.
I say, well, first of all, let's look
at the test.
What is the test on?
It's on Chapter 24.
Okay.
How long is the test?
Well, it's 25 questions.
If you fail the test, hypothetically you fail
the test, what's your grade currently?
I have a B.
I said, okay, so logical.
Is an F on this particular test going
to give you an F in the overall
grade?
And then they start to think and reason
and understand, and like, no, it's not going
to bring my B down to an 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 we
start to problem solve.
So 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 untruth of fragility.
So they use this model.
I'm not necessarily fond of it, but their
words is, 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
they've heard this one.
But really, I have an example, and I
see this a lot.
I lost a friend, therefore I will never
find another.
And I will no longer be a good
friend.
So I had this one particular instance where
two friends, junior high, they come into 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 I'll get into where the authors kind
of think, or actually describe how thoughts become
beliefs, and cognitive behavioral therapy talk about this.
So if you think something, therefore you'll 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.
And so that's the untruth.
You shouldn't always trust your gut feeling.
And you'll hear this a lot with adults.
We might say, well, I feel it in
my gut, and I know it, that's what
I should do.
And we go on this what they call
gut instinct, right?
But this could be false.
This could be not necessarily a good thing
to actually do, or even teach your children.
You should react on your gut instinct, because
it might be a false thing to do.
So that's the second untruth.
And then the third untruth is the untruth
of us versus them.
And 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 feeling bad or feeling
upset.
And we want to care for them.
We want to put them in kind of
a plastic bubble, kind of saying.
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 going to
be okay.
When you learn, you're going to fail.
You're going to have many failures.
As a matter of fact, one of the
things that I do in my office, and
I love chess.
Chess is one of my favorite of all
times.
There's a lot of lessons that are going
to be extrapolated from chess.
And 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 I tell them.
You're going to lose, and you're going to
lose a lot.
Do you still want to play?
Sure.
Teach me how to play.
So 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?
He said, I'm going to beat you.
I said, that's the attitude I'm looking for.
And he did.
He finally won a game.
And I'm telling you, that made his whole
life just beating me one game.
And then after that, I crushed him five
more times, I think.
And this is something that I learned in
play therapy.
So very early on in my education, 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 taught me different kind of ideas
about play therapy.
And I didn't know this particular idea.
And one of my little guys wanted to
play board games.
That's all he wanted to do was play
board games.
And I would just let him win.
And I didn't think twice about it.
We play, and then I would just find
a way to lose or just let him
be happy.
Because he took a lot of joy in
it.
So I'm going to pause just for a
second as the event goes.
Bismillah.
So just to kind of pick up where
I was at.
So play therapy, I'm working with this little
guy.
And he loves playing board games.
And so I would just find ways to
lose to make him happy.
So I thought that 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 telling her about
my little guy.
He only wants to play board games, and
that's okay.
And this is what we call structured play.
So we have structured play and free play.
Free play is quite different, but structured play
is more with the rules, right?
And so she was asking me about, does
he abide by the rules?
Does he cheat?
You know, does he hide things or try
to make you?
And I go, no, no, he's doing all
good there.
And she said, how often does he lose?
And I'm like, he never loses.
And she's like, he never loses.
I said, wow, he's pretty good at these
kind of games.
And I said, well, I purposely let him
win.
And she said, well, why is that?
And I said, well, because it makes him
happy.
And he gets a lot of joy out
of this.
And she goes, well, I want to talk
to you, but 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 in play, in play therapy.
And part of that is losing and learning
how to deal with the emotions of losing.
And so I said, okay.
So she gave me 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 played,
I think it was chutes and ladders or
something weird.
And so sure enough, he loses.
And he had a fit.
He's eight years old.
He took the board.
He kind of threw it off the table,
all the pieces flying.
He got up and he said, I don't
want to play anymore.
And he went off in a chair and
pouted for a while.
And I was like, wow.
So now I need to process with him.
So that's the key, right?
So I needed to work with him.
So anyway, with that being said, I talked
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 kind of where the authors are
going with this.
So long story short, I had to continue
to play with him this way.
And I found some rigidity with his willingness
to want to play these type of games
anymore.
And I would have to encourage him, 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, in 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.
But at tender age of 8, 9, 10,
and 11, there's cognitive processes that are developing.
And 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 put it down.
So I will now finish the book.
So thank you, Hamayra, for even bringing this
book to my attention because I was not
in the know.
So I don't want to over – are
we good?
Okay, okay.
So I want 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 is very key.
I have to stop there.
The emotional regulation is where my high school
students are struggling.
So I'm actually – I give sugar to
a law 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 very critical age of
four years from 14 to 18, in all
sense – in all kind of sense of
the things here in the United States, 18,
you're considered an adult.
And the parental rights are now waived.
So 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 so I noticed this, and I try
to find my freshmen.
And I get them early.
As soon as I can get them, and
I'll ask them, who wakes you up?
What do you mean?
Mama wakes me up.
Oh, you're 14 years old, and you don't
get up on your own?
No, my mom gets me up.
And I will say more than most of
my students, parents are doing this.
So that safetyism, right?
I 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, and I'll ask questions, right?
It's about what I want to talk to
my parents about, is we've 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 shall love will
go to university.
Okay.
The majority of the hands, if not all
the hands went up.
And 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
stay for a freshman.
Not all, some.
And so then if your child goes to
UC Santa Barbara, or UC Davis, or Sacramento
State, where I did 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
now, they have to become adults.
They 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 rudimentally kind of cook, and,
you know, just basic things.
They have to make sure they're showering, and
they're dressing, and they're using deodorant, and their
hygiene is correct, and they're brushing their teeth,
and all of these things.
But if our parents have created this safetism,
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 to 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 go back to the
thoughts, and then how they feel about them,
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 failureistic 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
children to kind of be independent.
Teach them how to cook.
Get them an alarm, not their cell phone.
Get them an alarm that they can get
up on their own if they're getting up
in the 12, 13, 14-year-old.
It's time for them to kind of stand
up.
So when frustrations happen or they're confronted with
some obstacles, now they have a little bit
more of that inner strength in them that,
hey, I can do this.
I don't need mom there.
I don't need dad there.
I can manage.
And it starts very small.
And with my students, it starts with just
getting up.
And then it starts about going to bed
on time.
Do you have to be told to go
to bed, or do you know what time
your bedtime is?
And so it's just these little things.
So going back to the cognitive behavioral aspect
of it, so what cognitive behavioral therapy really
kind of gets into is 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?
Am I going to fall through the earth,
Allah forbid?
Or is my child safe?
Am I safe?
Is my home safe?
Am I on the fault?
Where did it happen?
So all of these automatic thoughts start rushing
in.
And some people have these automatic thoughts that
are pretty gruesome.
I know somebody who feels that they are
going to die in every earthquake that happens.
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.
So if you've ever experienced a car accident.
I had a sister that experienced a car
accident and it was 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 a 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.
Cognitive behavioral therapy always wants to look at
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 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 going to get depending on
the student I'm working with.
If I have an optimistic student, most likely
they're going to say it's half full.
And if I have a pessimistic student, they're
going to say it's almost empty, it's halfway
empty.
So they're going to 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 dog bites you, that's a
negative action.
Now the negative thought is the automatic thought,
all dogs bite.
And it's a sweeping thing and all the
dogs out there, all dogs bite.
Now there is a truth behind all dogs
do bite, 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.
It's kind of breaking away 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 going
to 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 do affect
how we feel.
Negative thoughts lead to negative feelings.
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 AFBR, A is the
action, F is the feeling, B is the
behavior, and 4 is the results.
I had to look at my notes, I
do this all the time, but it's getting
late for me.
So the example is the action, there's an
argument with a friend and the friendship ends.
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 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 they
never want to talk to me again, they
were 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 an automatic thought that now has to
be deconstructed.
And oftentimes I'll say, well, do you have
any friends?
Well, 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, but we don't want those
to become negative thoughts, then all of a
sudden they're 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,
and this is really kind of the author's
solution to the resilience factor, is kind 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, 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 it, you'll hear it oftentimes,
I will never, this will always, all these
forever kind of infinity words.
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 too, teaching to our children that
failure is part of learning, and failure is
okay.
As long as we attempt, as long as
we try, failure is okay.
And so I actually spoke with a student
today, and his heart was just on getting
into USC.
And so he's a senior now, and he
put in his early application, and USC has
an early admissions, and he thought he nailed
it.
And I was trying to get him prepared
for the what if scenario, what if, right?
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 meet with you?
And I'm like, all right, it's probably about
the USC application.
Sure, no problem, I have an opening in
such and 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 just devastated.
I already knew what happened, right?
You can just tell, and he walks in,
he slumps in the chair.
I was looking for those infinitive words, those
negative infinitive words.
So I said, okay, what brings you to
see me?
Why did you shoot me the email?
He says, well, I didn't get in.
I said, okay.
How are you feeling about that?
What happened, when did you get the letter?
I just feel like a loser.
I'm never going to get in any of
the universities.
I said, hold on a minute.
So I had to deconstruct this.
Because now we've got this never, I'm never
going to.
So now his resiliency is now, he has
no resiliency.
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 list them.
What's your number two school?
You didn't get any 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
never get in a 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 ask you to
do for your children.
You give them hope, right?
You give them praise for their attempt, but
also, too, that hope is 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 going to 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 on jury duty?
Okay, so when you go, you'll see this
play out.
So the minute that the lawyer tries to
use emotion to sway the jury, the judge
says, no, no, no, you stop that now.
And so the lawyer has to bring facts.
And so once you have a child that
has these thoughts and feelings that are all
in the negative, and you know these are
false thoughts, it's your job to bring the
facts, to debunk those thoughts.
So with that student, and now I told
him, I said, what's your GPA?
That was the first thing I asked, 4
.2. 4.2 GPA, and you're telling me
you will not get in a university.
I said, I challenge you to come back
after you're seven, give you letters in the
mail that you did not get in.
And so that's our deal as he left
my office.
So anyway, thank you for just giving me
the floor there for a minute.
That was so beautiful.
Thank you so much.
Assalamualaikum.
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 were speaking, many things were
coming to my mind, but I wanted to
just first mention two things that really tie
in with, you know, the portion that I'm
going to be presenting, which is the Islamic
perspective.
What you mentioned about how you 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 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 my, I mean,
there's many things, obviously, Alhamdulillah, that we love
about our deen.
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 Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A
'la has really just laid it all out
for us.
You know, you read the Qur'an, you
read the seerah, 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, you know, it's all there.
Dunya is difficult, dunya is hard, you're going
to be tested, we're going to test you
with your children, with your spouses, 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 setting yourself up 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 going to 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 we're actually falsely portraying, you know, life
by, you know, 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, or,
you know, 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 you're
going to have problems, right?
And we're taught to basically, you know, be
very mindful of what affects, you know, what
we let in, right?
And, you know, 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 Qur
'anic worldview, right?
What is the worldview that Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala 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 Qur'anic
worldview which says that, for example, you know,
as I mentioned, you will be tested, right?
That this life is, you know, or the
dunya is a low place where you should
expect sorrow, anxiety, depression, grief.
Like if that's not what you're, the world
that you're preparing yourself for, let alone your
children, then 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 entitlement, your false ideas
around, you know, 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,
you know, individuals, obviously, our own selves, that's
where, you know, we start with.
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 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
highest of human beings and the ones that
are exemplars, all of the prophets, but specifically
the prophets, 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's the totality 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 going back to the book and those
three untruths, I think if we go through
every single one of them, you will find
Islam 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 a lie because I just,
you know, we just stated that, that if
Allah is telling you or telling us that
this life is difficult 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 sabr and jameel, those who practice,
you know, that beautiful patience, will come out
successful, then obviously it debunks 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 dean encourages us to
know of 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.
It's actually not true.
As we're taught, Allah SWT tests those He
loves the most, right?
So this is where, as brother Ali 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 the
source that informs us of how to interpret
things, right?
Because if we're left to our own devices,
it's very dangerous.
The mind is, you know, in Islam, we
have the concept, for example, that our thoughts
are shaped by four sources, okay?
So we call these khawater or khater, right?
So there are four khawater, there are four
sources of inspiration or thoughts that all of
our thoughts can fall under.
The first is khater Rabbani, okay?
Which is that it is an inspiration that
is directly from Allah SWT.
The second is khater Malakani, so from the
angelic realm, right?
They're positive thoughts.
The third is khater Nafsani, which comes from
the nafs.
And then the last is khater Shaytani, right?
So all the thoughts that we have, and
I think, I mean, I've read studies that
say anywhere between 6,000 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 deen,
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 a rational
thought?
Is this a thought 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 deen by process
of muraqabah, right?
By process of muhasabah.
We're supposed to think, right?
We're supposed to be thinking.
Our aql, which is, you know, again, going
back to how rich our deen 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, are
answered just looking at the way that our
deen has provided so much context 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 the, according to the
ancients, in the Aristotelian model, in the pre
-even Socratic model, 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 Imam al-Ghazali introduced, and he
really helped to explain, is that we have
three aspects to us.
We have the, he called these quwas, right?
So quwat al-aqliya, the intellect, quwat al
-ghadabiya, the emotions, and quwat al-shahwaniya, the
appetites.
So when you understand yourself in this triune
nature, and then you realize, you know, what
our deen instructs us, which is that Allah
SWT created the aql at the top of
our being, right?
Because this should govern everything that we do.
Our aql 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, they're 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
our, the crown of our entire structure.
Then we have the emotions, which reside in
the heart.
And 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, you know, you're out, you're 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 funeral and we're laughing, right?
So we need to know that that is
not acceptable socially and that we are created
with an ability to be empathic, to have
sympathy, to grieve.
And so that's the emotion that should come
forward in that time and place.
It's 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 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 deen is constantly telling us,
right?
That you are intellectuals.
You're created with aql.
You should be thinking, reasoning, weighing the pros
and cons, weighing the veracity.
You know, there's the dua that the Prophet
ﷺ taught us to make, which is, you
know, Allah show me truth is truth and
falsehood is falsehood because we're susceptible to our
own distortions and also being manipulated by other
people.
But the point is, is our aql 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 shahwa, 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
Shahamzah, 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 shahwa 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 khulafa or the representatives of Allah's ﷺ
deen because we're supposed to be reasoning.
And if you really look at historically, this
was true, right?
Our golden age was the age of the
dark ages for the Europeans because we were
on the rise.
And many of these, even these conveniences that
we have today are sourced to the fact
that Muslims contributed so much to the areas
of science and medicine and all these things.
So we are absolutely the vanguards.
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, whoo, yeah,
it's party time, right?
Let me just, you know, throw all of
that knowledge, all of that out the door
because the dunya, and this is a microcosm
of what the dunya represents, right?
America or the West, with all of its
opportunity, with all of its choices, is like
a buffet of shahwa, 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 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 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 maqam 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, 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 your 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, you know, resilience, right?
Because 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 of peace
terrorists, but I've certainly seen it in the
community because, you know, they're sending their children
to public schools where they're not getting any
spiritual input at all, ever.
And then, you know, there's no time.
Because you come home, there's homework, there's sports,
there's all these other things.
So 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 going to
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
too, that the only reason why we even
exist today, and this is where, you know,
a perspective that's really important for us to
have too, 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 maintained their faith identity, maintained their,
you know, they had istiqamah, they stood.
They didn't fall apart because they had this,
that, or the other happen to them.
That we are standing here today as Muslims,
those of us who were born into Muslim
families.
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, and that's why we're, it's haram to
fall into despair.
It's haram to let, you know, 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 talked about,
the game that you were playing with your,
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 watch Jeopardy in
your households?
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
watch 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 gotta trash talk, you know?
If you can do it on the court
in basketball, then why not sitting at the
house, and I'm rubbing it in your face
that I won.
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, and he was
like pouting, because I kept getting the answers,
right?
And so I had this debate with him,
and now I'm so happy that you shared
this.
I'm gonna go and tell brother Ali, confirmed
that what I, because I knew, I was
like the same exact thing, he was telling
me to let him lose, or let him
win, stop answering the questions.
I was like, no, I'm not gonna do
that.
I will win, and 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
I'm gonna teach you my ways, and that's
the other thing.
I do that, I'm generous in that way,
I will, I'll teach you my ways, 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 youngest one.
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 drive in you, where it's like, okay,
it might not be about mommy, it's just
about, I wanna do better next time.
I don't wanna 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
subhanahu wa ta'ala, everything can happen.
I've had even my son over the years
with different situations, I remind him of du
'a, the power of du'a.
Du'a is the weapon of the believer.
I mean, that's such an important, integral hadith
for us.
If we're teaching our children that, then guess
what, when they feel like, okay, like I
had my son, he was preparing for, my
oldest one was preparing for a big basketball
competition, it 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 du'a,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is with you.
If you just make du'a, work hard,
obviously practice, do all that, but just make
du'a.
So when, alhamdulillah, they played and he won
and it was the biggest shock because nobody
thought that their team could beat this other
great team.
So I did a lot of du'a
at Fajr time and right before the game,
I did Fatiha and he was like, I
know that's why I won.
And I said, that's exactly, that's when you've
had that parenting, like yes, alhamdulillah, you got
it.
But that's the kind of messaging that our
children need to hear, not, oh, you're sad,
you're triggered, let me cuddle you, let me
protect you, safetyism, all these things that brother
Ali 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 first, my eldest son and I
was reading about all the parenting philosophies, right?
There's the attachment parenting style, then there's a
cry it 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 who were
like, cry it out, put them in the
room and close the door, 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 who are just going to, you
know, basically soothe themselves, whereas the research shows
that they end up actually having more stress
later in life versus attachment children.
So it's, again, challenging these ideas that we
have with, with fact, right?
It 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, Allah gave them
that ability because it has a need.
Maybe it's in pain, but for some parents,
they've been so in condition for these resilient
kids, but the research doesn't prove that.
It's the opposite.
They actually, because why you're, 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, for me,
so much of what is marketed to us
and so much of what is sold to
us.
And they're very convincing.
They're very good at trying to use these,
you know, like these, you know, whatever, you
know, propaganda to convince us.
But we have a higher criteria and our
criteria is truth.
And if it doesn't align with our Dean,
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
Dean, then inherently it's flawed.
And this example of like, you know, as
I mentioned, lacking compassion toward an infant.
I mean, I'm talking newborns are left to
cry.
I just don't understand how any Muslim could
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?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I think that's one of the
things in terms of going back.
That's why I actually named this forum Ad
Frontes because it's going back to the source
and going back to the sources of truth
and those initial things.
Two things I wanted to say and then
I think we need to put it up
for question and answer.
One is the elementary teachers and I had
a meeting today and they were asking me
about this and how to actually instill this
concept of thinking versus feeling.
And so one of the things that I
said, when a student says, I feel this,
tell them to repeat their statement with saying,
I think this because.
So instead of saying, I feel scared, to
say, I think I'm scared because.
Because when they're rationalizing it, then you can
work with them on that irrational thought, right?
So when it's a feeling and they're feeling
triggered by a thought from it, they're not
going to necessarily do that.
So it's just a little trick maybe you
guys can also use with the kids that
when they come to you with anxiety and
they're pouring out their feelings to help them
to rationalize it.
No, I wanted to piggyback and I just,
I so appreciate you bringing that out because
it is something that we work with in
my office quite a bit and I use
the cause and effect model, right?
And so if anything, there's a lot of
people, one of them is behavioral psychology and
behavioral psychology tells us that there's a cause
and effect, right?
So whenever there's an emotion, right?
So if your anger goes up, there's a
cause of why, why that one, it might
be obvious, it may not be, but there's
a reason.
So I feel angry because, and so this
is a very clinical way of helping your
child go through and explain why they feel
that way.
Thank you so much.
The other thing that I wanted to say
was the concept of us versus them.
One of the things that's really dangerous and
kind of permeated our society is this concept
of the females versus males and then versus
women.
So we're constantly perpetuating this and have kind
of ingrained it that if it's coming from
my husband, I'm surely not going to take
it.
If it's coming from the male in my
family, this whole concept of us being two,
you know, beings that are constantly at odds
with each other and seeing everything through that
lens is a very dangerous lens versus, you
know, the muata and the partnership and the
love and reverence that all of a sudden
tells us to have towards each other, the
option to have towards each other.
So I just wanted to point out that
when we put ourselves into camps, and sometimes
those are ideological, political, or whatever, but we
also put ourselves into these male-female camps.
And it's a very dangerous kind of place
to be in when you're raising a family
because you're not, you're consciously not being a
one unit and you become kind of these
utilitarian kind of practitioners of, you know, your
point of view versus how do we create
a cohesive point of view within our household,
within our relationship, within our household, and then
perpetuating those differences with our children as well.
So I just wanted to make sure that
that's a point that we kind of keep
in mind that subconsciously or consciously, we're always
in that.
Can I just quickly add something?
Yeah.
Because I wanted to just quickly mention, 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 dean.
The second was always trust your feelings.
What I was saying earlier about the thoughts,
right, and understanding the sources of thoughts.
Our nafs 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, nafs, hawa, and dunya.
Dunya, the material world.
But the nafs 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, the concept of, you know, if
someone, for example, didn't invite you, but you
have to, 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 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
feeding into your own inner weakness 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 our thoughts.
And then the third, as you mentioned, life
is a battle between good and evil.
We, I mean, yes, from our cosmological understanding
of the world, there's good and evil.
But as Homayoun said, we have to be
very humble 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.
Imam Shafi said he never met anyone without
thinking that they were better than him, that
they had more truth to the debate than
he did.
And he actually wanted that.
So this is where everybody is in, like
you said, you know, whether it's identity politics
or whether it's gender, whatever the issue is,
and we fall into these camps of us
versus them.
That's a supremacy.
And supremacy is Jahiliyyah.
It's ignorance.
It's Shaitani.
Whereas the Prophet ﷺ, 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 deen in terms of,
you know, what we have to infuse in
our children.
So I'm sorry, I just wanted to kind
of full circle that.