Khalid Latif – Essentials of Ramadan #3
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of the herd mentality and the need for people to be mindful of their behavior. They emphasize the importance of consistency, accountability, and seeking help from others, as well as the importance of consciousness and rethinking behavior. The speakers stress the importance of staying disciplined, investing in long term benefits, and acting on what you know, as well as preparing for events and setting goals. They also mention upcoming events and opportunities for learning in black-romantic communities.
AI: Summary ©
Like Mario.
Okay. Should we get started?
So
last week, we talked about intentions,
and this week we're gonna get a little
bit more in specifics
and how we can structure some of, like,
our Ramadan
strategy,
consciously around,
habit formation,
and
kind of goal setting in that regard as
well.
And so we wanna build off of this
idea
of why we do the things that we
do,
so that we can get to a place
where we're building intentionality
into this and rendering
kinda wakefulness and consciousness
in these decisions and choices. And this is
a big part of
Ramadan prep and the whole point of what
it is that we're engaging in when we're
fasting.
So I wanna share, like, a couple of
different reasons as to why we might do
some of the things that we do
that aren't necessarily
being
consciously performed.
But, nonetheless,
there are things that
we end up kinda going along with.
So one of the things right off the
bat
is a herd mentality
becomes something. And when we talk about these
things, we don't wanna talk about them in
the prism of just something being good or
bad
only
with absolutes. Because what you're gonna find is
that most things are just things.
And they can have benefits. They can have
detriments.
Some of it can be utilized to
create positivity, some of it could be utilized
to create negativity.
So even this thing of the herd mentality,
if I told you somebody follows the herd
and they're making of decisions,
one could probably assume, well, that's just a
bad thing. Right? Like, why would you want
to do that? But it's not necessarily the
case. In our tradition,
there's some examples
that some of this is a problem.
Right? So
within
Quranic,
experience,
there is a set of revelations in the
beginning of Revelation
that essentially now bring the prophet Muhammad, peace
be upon him, to
kind of preach Islam publicly.
Right? The initial phase of revelation,
he's just talking to his close friends and
family members. Now he starts to tell people
out loud.
So the prophet,
peace be upon him, he starts to preach
Islam
out loud
to people publicly,
and
if you're not familiar,
the prophet is known as just a trustworthy
individual.
He's somebody who has good character.
He's known as being the trustworthy one, Al
Amin.
They only know him through his honesty and
integrity.
So in one of the narrations, he stands
now
on a cliff essentially, a mountain,
and he says to people who have gathered,
he's brought them to him kind of in
the midst of the day
and says, would you believe me if I
told you there was an army
waiting behind this mountain to attack you? And
they say, yes, of course. They only know
him to be the trustworthy
individual.
Right? He doesn't lie. It's remarkable.
He's a very honest human being.
And so he says to them,
then know this, I'm the messenger of God.
If you were to follow what it is
that I say, they'll be good for you
in this world and the next. If you
don't, then
that's for, like, God, for Allah to decide
between you and him.
And people are listening.
They're now reflecting. Right? The society has no
sense of accountability
because their theology
isn't rooted in an afterlife.
They believe it's just this world and nothing
else. So if theologically,
you believe that there's nothing after this world,
why would you care what you do in
this world?
Right? Why wouldn't you just do whatever you
feel like? Do you know? Because if it's
just this,
and then there's nothing after this,
then I might as well get mine. Like,
why do I care about you getting yours?
What's the advantage
to me being kind and compassionate, etcetera,
when it's just in terms of my worldly
existence and there's nothing that comes after? In
Islam,
the whole idea with the theology and one
God, but also an afterlife, is that what
you do here is gonna impact where you're
at when you
are in, like, eternal existence now. Right?
Make us all people of his paradise, his
heaven, his Jannah.
So here, the prophet is telling them something
that they've never heard before.
They've not rooted in a society
that has modes of governance like this. Right?
There's no mayor of Mecca the way there's
a mayor of New York City.
It's a tribalistic society
that is governed through, like, tribal norms and
customs. It's highly stratified
challenges around gender, race, class.
They permeate the society.
And so he's saying to them, not only
should we all come together,
but we should have this
structure of authority
that we listen to God
and there's a prophet of God and I
happen to be that prophet.
Right? There's a lot going on in this.
People are hearing what he has to say.
Communication
is not just about the words you use.
Statistically,
7% of impact comes from the words.
93%
is from nonverbalized
aspects of communication.
Your body language, your tone, the marketing, the
packaging of something. So they know this person
to just be a man of integrity and
honesty. They're gonna listen to what he's saying.
And as they're listening,
they don't know what to do, like, nobody's
doing anything.
Then there's a person who
is known as Abu Lahab.
As the prophet has people's attention,
Abu Lahab is like an elite
member of this Meccan society, this tribalistic society.
He's an elder. He's known for his tribe,
his lineage.
So he says to
the prophet, peace be upon him, when he
puts forth this,
his responses to him,
then may you be perished.
This is why you gathered us together.
This is the middle of the day. He
wants to go back to his, like,
merchant hood, making money. Why are you distracting
me with this kind of stuff?
And then he says this and he walks
away.
And everybody else
follows him.
This is what, like, herd mentality is.
Right? We do this constantly.
You walk through New York City. In New
York City,
you can statistically
eat at a different restaurant
every day for your whole life and never
eat at the same restaurant twice.
That's just the thing in New York that's
not anywhere else.
There's sometimes when some of you walk down
the street,
and you see 2 places that you're trying
to decide from, and you don't know, like,
what it is that one serves or the
other, but because there's a bunch of people
eating at 1 and nobody eating at the
other, you'll eat at the one that has
a lot of people
even though it'll take you longer to get
your food.
Right? People do this constantly. I went to
the doctor,
and
I was sitting there
with
I think one of my kids. Maybe I
was alone. But I'm in, like, an urgent
care.
And this is during COVID, there's social distancing.
And,
you know, I sat down. And then after
a while, somebody said something to me, so
I stood up. So when I stood up,
like, the next person that walked in, they
didn't sit down.
They were just standing also in front of
a chair.
And then another person came in. And then
I sat down, and they sat down. And
then some lady came and said something to
me. And then in my head, I was
like, let's see what happens. So I stood
up, and then the other 2 people stood
up also.
Right? And then the next person that came
in also stood.
But they were just doing what somebody else
was doing. Do do you get what I
mean?
This is one of the reasons why you
do things.
There's another instance
in the prophetic
biography
that revolves around a treaty that takes place
known as the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah. You don't
have to remember the names of things. Just
understand the concept.
So this is after people have left from
Mecca where they lived for years, and they
go to Medina cause they were deeply persecuted
in Mecca.
In Medina, they establish clout and power. They're
coming now to perform a pilgrimage
back to Mecca.
And the people of Mecca, who are not
Muslim,
sit down and they negotiate this treaty, this
treaty of Hudaybiyyah.
Part of the terms of this agreement is
that they go back to Medina without performing
pilgrimage.
These are people many of whom left their
entire lives, their belongings, their home, where they
were born. They're not only excited to perform
pilgrimage,
they're excited to go back home.
And the prophet says to them, like,
you know, slaughter your animals, remove your eharam,
we're going back. Nobody listens.
People are pretty upset.
Umar Radhiallahu An,
he says to the Prophet
that
are we not Muslims and are they not
like why are we making deals with these
people? Right? They treated them like garbage.
He says the same thing to Abu Bakr.
Abu Bakr says, don't you think the prophet
knows what he's doing?
Right?
And so the prophet goes now into his
tent, and he speaks to his wife,
Salamah, and says, like, nobody's listening to me.
You know?
And she says, you go and do it.
And if they see you do it, they'll
do it also.
So he does what he instructed them to
do. Right? Remove the ham, slaughter the animal,
and then everybody starts to do it. Do
you get what I
mean? But there's a catalyst that comes in
kind of going along with the crowd.
Another reason as to why we do things
results from, like, emotional triggers.
Right? And we wanna be able to think
about what catalyzes behaviors
sometimes.
There's an experiment that takes place
with 3 dogs.
The first dog is put into a box.
Right? And there's an electric current
that is going through the box.
He's in a place where
he has to just
push a button, pull a lever of some
kind that enables him to now exit
into a second box,
or rather, he just has to jump over
a wall. It's a 2 kind of sided
box, right? There's a part where the current
is and a part where there's no current.
So he gets shocked
and he is hit by the current. He
looks for a way out. He jumps over
the wall into the other part of the
box where there's no current.
The second dog gets wrapped up in a
blanket
and that's injected with current.
This dog has to push like a button,
pull a lever to get out of the
blanket. He's then in the
box now that has the same voltage, the
same current.
Because he learned that when there's this kind
of pain, there's a way out. He jumps
out similar to the first dog after he
looks for the way out and then he's
safe. There's no pain.
The third dog is wrapped up and injected
with current,
but it's given no way out. It's just
forced to deal with this.
Then it's put into the first part of
the box where the current is.
It has the same ability to jump over
the wall the way the first two dogs
did,
but because it learned when it feels this
kind of pain, there's no way out of
it,
it just lays at the base of the
box whimpering until somebody comes to help it.
Does that make sense?
So some of what we respond to is
just learned helplessness.
We get to a place where the emotionality
of it creates these triggers that has us
now respond in this way.
Right? I smell something and it creates memory
of someone I used to know from a
long time ago. Right? There's places I frequent
and it evokes memory that now brings up,
like, positive or even, like, negative feelings.
You get to a place where the emotions
start to rise, you lose control,
but the behavior still is rooted in action
that's coming
from us without
consciousness necessarily,
but it still results in something. Do you
know? How many times have you ever gotten
into an argument
and then later on, you say, like, I'm
sorry. I wasn't myself, like, when I was
saying this thing to you. Right? How many
times have people said this to you? I
was just in a bad mood, like I
shouldn't have said what I said. Or even
a bunch of people who don't even apologize
after, right? But you just fundamentally know that
the emotions are rising.
There's an instance between 2 companions of the
prophet, a man by the name of Abu
Dhar,
from the Ghafar tribe and Bilal ibn Rabah.
And Bilal ibn Rabah is the first, like,
Muazin
of Islam. He was the one who made
the call to prayer, And they're arguing back
and forth, back and forth. Emotions are escalating.
And then Abu Dhar calls Bilal the son
of a black woman, but in a derogatory
way. And what makes it
that much more crazy is that Abu Dhar
himself is black, but he's a black Arab.
So he's calling Bilal like the son of
an African
as if this is something that's a problem.
But once he says this,
they both become quiet
because both of them hear what Abu Dhar
said.
And Abu Dhar is very apologetic.
He's, like, telling Bilal,
you know, to do something back to him,
to put his faith foot on his face,
like, these kinds of things. When the prophet
hears this, he gets
angry. And there's certain things
that are done that are haram that when
the prophet sees them, he doesn't have anger.
Right? Someone struggling with alcohol, someone, you know,
struggling
with, like, fornication,
I kissed someone I wasn't supposed to, I
committed, you know, these kinds of things. But
there's things when the prophet sees them that
are haram that happened, he gets definitively
angry.
Racism,
oppression,
abuse,
there's no words minced. Right? Anger is apparent
on his face. So he says,
in this, like, state of upsettingness,
all of us are the children of a
black woman, referring to Hajar, the wife of
Abraham, peace be upon them both. But for
the context of what we're talking about here,
the emotions escalate
and bring you to a place where you
now say something or do something
that you are still the one doing it,
but it's being informed by a different part
of you. Does that make sense?
This happens in another instance where a woman
is
grieving
at a grave,
And the prophet sees her and goes to
offer consolation.
And when he goes to offer her some
support, she gets upset and kinda
in her upsetness says to him that you
don't know what it is that I'm going
through. And he just simply takes a step
away. And then later, another companion comes and
says to her, do you know who you
just got mad at? That was the messenger
of God. And now she's gathered herself, and
she goes and speaks to the prophet. And
the prophet says to her simply, true patience
comes at the first sign of calamity.
Right? He doesn't say, how dare you yell
at me? Like, what's wrong with you? I'm
the prophet.
He also can recognize through emotional intelligence, this
woman is grieving her husband. Do you know?
It's a very real experience.
The wisdom of this phrase is not just
to the other, that when you're riled up,
like, your saber, your patience,
comes when, like, calamity hits. There's also a
mode of self talk, right? Because your emotions
can now transfer to me, and I can
rise with your, like, rising emotional scale.
So here, the prophet,
like, engages in his own centeredness as well.
He's not responding
to her emotions.
Like, when you are in a place where
emotional triggers remove consciousness
and you then come at somebody, it's really
easy for them to also lose consciousness.
But if one of you is, like, emotionally
heavy
and the other person is still centered,
it creates now a different mode of engagement.
I can carry your pain as opposed
to, like, being burdened by it. Do you
get what I mean? Right?
And you see, like, in very remarkable ways
and even the most kinda difficult circumstances
that these were people who did this. Right?
There's Ali
who
is
the cousin of the prophet, peace be upon
him, and they're lined up at a battle
called the battle of conduct.
And the way battles took place
back in the day weren't the way that
we see, like, you know, kinda through the
glorified systems
of
war and military industrial complexes
and people making money off of death. Right?
Like, these people were in battle, and you've
probably seen, like, movies that are like this.
So in one instance,
they're now lined up, and they send forth,
like, their best warriors.
And there's a man by the name of
Abdul Wood who comes from the opposition,
who's like a giant of a man
that they say has never been brought down
to his, like, knees, let alone defeated in
battle in 1 on 1 combat.
And he is a friend of Ali's
father, Abu Talib. So they have a relationship.
And people start to mock because no one's
being sent forth from the Muslim army to
fight him. Right? And where is the man
who claims to be a messenger of God?
Where are those who claim if they fall
in this battle, like, they're from the martyrs
who go to paradise, etcetera.
And Ali
says to the prophet,
like, let me go. And the prophet says,
no. This is Abdul Wood. Right? Like, you
can't beat him. He comes back a second
and a third time. And then the third
time, he sees something in Ali Radiallahuan's
face. And so he sends him forth, like,
takes his turban from his head, puts it
on Ali Radiallahuan's
head, and then he goes forth. And Ali
says to this man, Abu Wood,
that
I have heard that if one
proposes 2 options to you, you take 1
or the other. And Abdul Wood says, yes.
And he says, then leave us alone,
and you'll be free from harm. Like, don't
do any more kind of harm or damage
to us and our people.
And he says, I can't do this. And
then he says, then be ready to fight
me. And he says, oh son of my
brother, I have no desire to fight you.
And Ali says, but I have a desire
to fight you. And they start to go
back and forth. This man is towering over
Ali,
and he's astonished that there's, like, dodging
and kind of moving here and there where
he's not struck. And then at one point,
they say
throws, like, his shield and stuff to the
side, and he propels himself with his 2
feet forward, striking up the wood in the
chest and knocking him down on the ground.
Abdul
Woud is now
kinda straddled by Ali,
and he has, like, a blade against Abu'lood's
neck. And he says, just leave us alone,
and you'll have your life.
This isn't a battle. Right?
Abu'lood now has to decide. If I was
to give in in this moment, everyone would
know that I lost.
I would lose, like, my status
as not being beaten.
But if I don't give in, then I'll
still have that honor and dignity in that
way.
And so his response is he, like, gathers
all the spit in his mouth, and he
spits in Ali's face.
And then he clenches waiting for a fatal
blow. And to his astonishment,
Ali gets up and walks away.
And Abdul Wood says, what are you doing?
And he says, if I was to do
anything to you right now, it would be
from my own ego
and not for the sake of god.
Is capacity
to keep in that state, like, a sense
of balance and conviction.
That's like the idea.
You get elevated
in this emotional stress
as a means to recognize,
like,
I am the one feeling my feelings.
So I'm bigger than the feelings.
Thoughts can be pervasive, but somebody's gotta be
thinking the thoughts.
Right? Who's doing that?
And so here, we wanna think about it
in terms of habits.
Because habits are things that we do automatically
and repeatedly,
and we do it quite often without conscious
awareness.
Sometimes this can be useful, but quite often,
that's not necessarily the case.
They can be positive habits, but also negative
habits. You can have physical habits. You can
have emotional habits.
They usually come at the expense of long
term consequences
because they're giving you short term kind of
complacency
and good feelings. Do you know what I
mean? Right?
And why we wanna talk about this is
this is what, like,
Ramadan's
fasting,
reading of Quran, etcetera,
is meant to inculcate. If you can open
up on your phones,
the second chapter of the Quran,
it's 183rd
verse.
So Quran,
the second chapter Surah Baqarah, is 183rd
verse. You're gonna hear this verse a lot
in relation to Ramadan.
You wanna know where it is in the
Quran and to learn it and memorize it.
Right? Does anybody have it in front of
them? 2183.
For which chapter?
Surah Baqarah
chapter 2 verse 183. Yeah. What does it
say?
Oh, believers, fasting is prescribed for you as
it was for those before you. So perhaps
you will become mindful or loved. Yeah. Right?
And the word here is taqwa.
That, oh, you who believe,
fasting was written for you as it was
written for those who came before you so
that perhaps you might attain
this thing of taqwa,
mindfulness,
consciousness rooted in a divine imperative,
That you know why you're doing what you're
doing. You're not habituated.
You're not just running on instinct. It's not
just automated.
There's presence to this, Right? We're gonna talk
about this in a little bit. But I
wanna read to you a couple of definitions
around what this thing of taqwa is.
So there's a man who comes in the
generation after the companions.
His name is Talak ibn Habib,
Ramallah.
He says, if an ordeal appears
amongst you,
extinguish it with taqwa.
And when asked what is taqwa,
he said,
taqwa is that you act in obedience to
Allah
and hope in his mercy
upon a light from him. And Taqwa is
leaving acts of disobedience
to Allah out of fear of him upon
a light from him.
Hassan al Basri
was a well known scholar of our tradition.
He says the ones who have
taqwa protect themselves from what Allah has prohibited,
and act upon what he has commanded.
Taqwa remains with them until they forsake many
halal things,
fearing that they could be haram.
Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, radiAllahu an, who's a companion
of the prophet known for his connection to
the Quran, was one of the first people
to convert to Islam,
who is also not from an elite background.
He is a black companion
described as having braids and dark skin by
his students.
He was the first one to recite Quran
publicly
ever in Mecca, and he gets persecuted
and beaten heavily as a result of this.
He comments on this verse that says about
taqwa,
oh you who believe, have taqwa of Allah
as you should have of him and do
not die except in the state of submission.
Right?
He says it means that God is meant
to be obeyed and not disobeyed,
remembered at all times and not forgotten, and
to be thanked, and we are not ungrateful
to him. And then Abu Harayra, Radi Allahu
An, who's a companion,
was asked about Taqwa, so he asked the
questioner whether he had trodden a thorn infested
path.
The man said that he did, and Abu
Harira asked him how he walked on it.
The man said, when I saw a thorn,
I kept away from it because I might
be pricked by it. And Abu Herrera
said, that is exactly what taqwa means,
to take actions
to avoid, like, these things that cause you
harm. Right? You have awareness. You have consciousness.
Like, you know what it is that's going
on
around you.
You know why you're doing what you're doing.
And this is the whole point of this
thing of fasting. It's not like done in
a vacuum.
It's not meant to just, like, create hunger
and thirst. Right? But you
recognize it's never been about empty stomachs. It's
about full hearts. Right? You're nourishing yourself now
and parts of yourself that quite often
get left behind because everything is just instinctive
and automated.
You know? Think about habits that you have.
Do you know what I mean? How many
of you wake up, and the first thing
you do is look for your phone?
Most of us can think that that's something
that we do instinctively.
It's not a good or a bad, but
just think about it. Right? And the consumer
driven society that you live in, like, look
at how different all of you are in
this room. Do you know what I mean?
Like, just by the look of us, we're
all very different from each other.
Most of us in this room
wake up, and the first thing that we
do is look at our phones.
Do you get what I'm saying?
The whole idea is to create now, like,
mass produced
habit.
You get to a place where you think
the thoughts you think are your own thoughts,
but in reality, the thoughts that you think
are being compelled to be the thoughts that
someone else wants you to think.
Do you get what I mean?
You go into, like, frenzies
based off of some of this stuff. Do
you know?
And so we have, like, a common denominator
that is purposely created
for us to be influenced in our behavior.
What we wanna be able to do is
reclaim it. Right? I don't wanna be the
guy that is sitting in the bathroom,
and I don't know how to be still
for a minute that I gotta pull out
a phone and start looking at it. Do
you know what I mean? Why would you
wanna do that? Right? Just think about it.
It's gross.
You know? If you inspect your phone
for just, like, the elements
of urine and fecal matter that are on
your phone from looking at your phone while
you sit on the toilet. Right?
But I use this as an example because
all of you can relate to it. Do
you know? Either you know someone or you
yourself do this.
That's how deeply entrenched an habit can be,
that if I was to say to you,
would you want to be touching something
every
day that has pee and poop on it,
and put it in your pocket and up
against your face and all this kind of
stuff?
But that's what the habit does. It removes
consciousness.
There's no sense of, like, my mind or
my heart being present in this.
And last time when we talked about intention,
one of the things we said is that
he
says that the place of intention
is not on your tongue, but it's in
your mind and in your heart.
So we wanna get to be in a
place where consciousness
is what really deeply impacts us. Do you
get what I mean? What I like for
you to do is just take a few
minutes.
Notebook out, like, pull out a phone. Right?
Weather's got pee, poop on it or not.
Do you know? It's gross. Right? Yeah. You
know what I mean?
You know?
Make a list
of what are, like, habits that you have.
But don't think about it just in terms
of negatives.
Think about it also
in terms of positives.
The good and bad habits,
the things that you used to do and
you don't do anymore,
because we are essentially creatures of habits.
And if we can influence our behavior
to the construction
of positive,
like, social habit transformations,
these are good things. But I gotta know
what I'm starting with as, like, a foundation.
You know? So physical,
emotional, mental habits.
Like, what are the places I go that
just throw me off? Who are people that
I talk to that it just becomes, like,
habituated?
Do you know? And the knowing of the
self becomes really important in the knowing of
the divine.
Right? So, like, what is it that kinda
gets me going in certain ways? Do you
know what I mean? Like and how do
I start to build this? Well, first, I
just wanna have a working list as we
kinda go through some of this stuff, but
go ahead.
You're just writing to yourself, like, individual reflection.
You don't have to tell anybody. Right? It's
just between you and you. But you wanna,
like, visualize it. So you can say, like,
yeah. Like, you know, I have a habit
of, like,
picking my nose. Do you know what I
mean? Right? I don't pick my nose. Yeah.
But, you know,
you said you do?
Me? Yeah. I mean, you know, everybody does
once in a while.
Okay.
So
here, this is, like, a list you wanna
keep working on, but there's 3 different things
I wanna talk about in relation to this.
It's gonna help us get to a place
where growth is gradual.
Do you know? And to be able to
take advantage of certain things,
the interjection of, like, micro habits to break
up habits,
behaviors that we know we just are falling
into again and again and again,
and how it is that we can start
to
take advantage
of, like, the brains and the hearts that
god has endowed us with to reach certain
goals and objectives. Do you know what I
mean?
What permeates a lot of our
challenge is when there's an act that we
want to kind of
deal with. You know, I sleep through Fudger.
I can't wake up for suhoor, the meal
before
Fudger, before you start fasting.
Right? Like, so in the structure of the
day, there's a recommendation that the prophet says
even if you're to drink a sip of
water, like, for your suhoor before fajr, you
should do it. There's badukkah in it. But
I'm having challenges
getting to a place where I can, like,
get out of bed, you know, let alone
to pray fudger on time. Like, it's hard
enough
to do that than to get up
to,
like, have, like, a meal at this point
in the morning. Do you know what I
mean? I wanna read more Quran, I want
to, like, leave behind certain things.
A habit has, like, parts to it.
You have the action in and of itself,
the thing that you're doing. You know, I
bite my nails. Right? I watch too much
TV. I shop a lot. These kinds of
things.
But prior to you have the thing that
catalyzes and triggers this,
and you also have something that's being satisfied,
like, through this, a reward, a craving.
What most people focus on is just this,
like, the act,
and that becomes hard to, at times, kind
of engage.
But if you can figure out what it
is that's putting the act in play
or what it is that is being satisfied
through the performance of the act, it's easier
than to find different things to yield that
satisfaction
or to control what it is that triggers
this. Do you get what I mean? Does
that make sense?
There's a person in our community
who came to see me many years ago,
and she was having challenges because the relationship
didn't work out. And this was somebody
that she had built, like, a physically intimate
relationship
with. Do you know? And so she had
experienced this. And when the relationship stopped, she
was in a place where
she had now started to engage
in
kind of,
physical acts of intimacy just with herself.
Right? For lack of better words. And she
felt very disgusted by it. Do you know
what I mean?
And so as we're talking, she's like, what
kind of Muslim woman am I? Like, who
does this? Like, there's something wrong with me.
And she's like, I can't get myself to
stop.
So I said to her, like, well, let's
think about it this way. Right? One, there's
nothing wrong with you. You know, you're a
human being. Humans have needs. Right? And you
experienced this relationship with someone,
But the challenge is you're assuming
why you do what you do
without really thinking about other reasons as to
why. And so as we delved into it,
like, this was a
person who doesn't really have that many deep
relationships to begin with.
Family life is not the best.
And when she felt like love and safe
and secure
was when she was with this boy.
And now she was in a place where
she was trying as best as she could
to replicate
the experience,
so that for a moment, she could feel
safe and secure again.
Because her mind had now associated that with,
like, a comfort, a security,
a sense of just kinda belonging. Do you
get what I mean?
Why this is relevant to what we have
written here is because we're prone to a
negative cognitive bias.
Right now, there's, like, millions of stimuli, like,
being thrown at you. You could be focused
on my voice. You could be looking at
this. You could be looking at this. You
could be looking out the window. You could
hear the noises that are coming from there.
You could be listening to the person next
to you. You could be engaged in all
kinds of different things that in this moment,
your mind is being exposed
consciously and unconsciously
to like so much different information
and you're trying to be as focused as
you possibly could,
you
think
like any human being, 12,000 to 70,000
thoughts in a day.
Statistically,
4 out of 5 thoughts, 80% of thoughts
are negative thoughts.
96%
of thoughts
are repeat thoughts, so they're compounded. Right? I'm
stupid. I'm so stupid. I'm so stupid. What
a stupid guy. He's so stupid. They're all
stupid. Right? And then maybe in the midst
of it, it's like,
oh, like, the weather is nice today. And
then you go back again and again and
again. If 96%
are repeat, they're automated,
that means 4%
of the thoughts that you think in a
day are done consciously.
That's crazy
from a number standpoint.
Right?
So think about this poor person who's sitting
there now in the aftermath
of what her mind is bringing her to,
and what she's telling herself again and again
is you're the worst. You're the worst. You're
the worst.
Do you get what I mean? And what
makes you you is not like just this
inside of you. You have what I've said,
and we'll repeat it again and again, because
you want to experience Ramadan
as a whole being,
not just like as a physical body,
or consequently,
just as the aftermath of hearing Quran, or
reciting it yourself, or like fasting if you
can fast, or giving in charity if you
have the money to without presence.
Right? It removes something if there's not presence
that's there. Do you know what I mean?
So for us to disrupt this,
she's gotta be able to think a little
bit bigger than the act and think about
why she's performing the act to begin with.
And that's where consciousness comes in.
How many of you have ever fasted in
your life before? Just by a show of
hands.
Great. And when you're in a place where,
like, if you fasted in Ramadan,
how many of you have felt weird
eating
food on the day of Eid right after
Ramadan?
Anybody?
Like, should I be eating right now? Right?
Like, the sun is up.
Somebody bought me these donuts. You know what
I mean? Right?
That's consciousness.
For a minute, you have mindfulness in your
eating.
Right? It's the idea to
step away from simply seeing and perceiving.
You're not just hearing, you're listening.
Right? You're not just, like, actually eating, you're
tasting something. Do you hear what I mean?
That's what consciousness
is. That's what gets diluted
by being in a place where the physicality
of it is what you're focused on. And
if you can harness that consciousness,
it's gonna be easier to do something like
this because you don't give in to these
things that are beating you down
from your nafs, from shaitan's whispers
that are meant to, like, keep you stuck
and paralyzed. Do you get what I mean?
So when we're talking about it
and we're breaking it down in this scenario,
she just gets sad.
Right?
Allah make it easy for her. Do you
know what I mean? And then in her
head, she's got all this rhetoric,
like, read online,
you can Google whatever you want to. You
know, you're going to *. This is going
to *. What a like, the right? So
she's now
engaged in it, and she's her self talk
becomes automated.
You're ugly. You're disgusting.
What kind of Muslim woman would do this?
Do you know what I mean? And then
the temporary,
like, reward that she gets
for remembering
what it felt like to be with someone
when she felt safe,
it starts to, like, just diminish in its
impact.
So the complacency isn't even there. Right? And
this is why I said,
habits,
typically,
short term, like, yields
at the expense of long term consequences.
So every time she's giving herself a burst
of feeling safe,
she's also, like, layering herself
with a avalanche
of just self deprecation.
Do you get what I
mean? Ramadan can break you out of that
mold. Right? Because that's his point.
So that you can perhaps attain
this consciousness
rooted in the divine.
God is with you no matter where you
are, so you don't have to be alone.
God that's, like, watching over you, that loves
you. Do you get what I mean?
So you start to think about some of
these things in this way, and this could
be anything. I use the example that I
use so that it stays with you. Right?
The permission of people. Do you know what
I mean? Right? Like, it stays with you
so you can think about it. And now
we wanna think out how do we then
resolve some of this. You know? That's why,
like, when you see people doing haram sometimes,
most people don't do haram because they're bad
people. Most people do haram because there's an
absence of community supports.
Right? They're, like, struggling because, like, nobody's really
checking in on them. They're, like, making space
for them or asking them to do certain
things. Right?
If you know that
to be something
that should be done for others, that means
it should be done for you as well.
Do you get what I mean? You don't
want to just have complacency.
You want to have, like, a sense of
contentment.
Right? So how do we start to resolve
this? Right? Say I put on £20
between now and Ramadan.
Do you know?
And
I'm thinking about how it is that I
suddenly
weigh this much, and I start to think
about my eating behaviors. Right? Because that's where
my mind is gonna normally go. I put
on weight because I'm, like, eating stuff. So
I
found that in the middle of the day,
I eat, like, 5 chocolate chip cookies
every day consistently.
The problem with assuming
what most people would assume is that
I could be wrong
in thinking
not that the cookies are the issue
but that I'm eating the cookies because of
the cookies.
Do you get what I mean? Does that
make sense?
I could be getting up in the middle
of the day, every day at 2 or
3 o'clock
just because I need a break from a
computer.
And then consequently,
I'm in a place where I just grab
some cookies from the table that I end
up near. I might be feeling like I
need to have a conversation. So the person's
office that the cookies are in, I feel
great just talking to them. And so, consequently,
I'm eating the cookies. Maybe it has to
do with food, and I just cut out
the food. And when I get hungry, it's
like, okay, I need a snack at 2
or 3. But we could go through, like,
15, 20 reasons
why I'm eating the cookies
for nothing that has to do with eating
the cookies themselves. Do you get what I
mean?
And so you start to focus on some
of these things and reflect upon it, contemplate.
Like, what is it that's actually coming up?
Does that make sense? Right? And you can
disrupt some of these things
by first acknowledging that they're there.
What are, like, the thought patterns that I
have that are habituated?
The things that I say to myself because
I've heard other people say this to me
again and again and again. What is, like,
words that just come out of my mouth
instinctively,
like, when I'm talking to certain people, I'm
not fully present in these things.
The goal isn't necessarily
to say, like, I will start to calculate
every single day what was a conscious thought
and an unconscious thought. That's ridiculous. Don't do
that. You're gonna go crazy. Right? We don't
we don't wanna be crazy. Right? But you're
just aware that this is a thing. You
know that that's something. Right? The same way
you know it's gonna snow tomorrow.
So what are you gonna do with an
awareness that it's gonna snow tomorrow? Are you
gonna walk outside in a pair of shorts?
No. Like, that doesn't make any sense. You
know that the snow is there. You're going
to act accordingly
in relation to its presence.
So all you gotta know is that this
is a thing.
Right?
This is a lot of thoughts to think
in a day.
Do you know what I mean?
Right?
So you wanna get to a place where
you can understand the negative cognitive bias that
exists,
and how do I start to just say
the thought is there, but I don't have
to do anything in relation to it?
And then later, when I'm feeling replenished, I
can say, okay. Where did that come from?
How do I address it? Do you know
what I mean?
And it can come with other habits as
well. Right? What is it that I'm trying
to gain from this?
When people walk into my office, I don't
wanna drink anymore. Right? I don't wanna watch
* anymore. I don't wanna backbite anymore. I
don't wanna gossip anymore.
I wanna stop smoking weed. I wanna stop
being so mean and angry all the time.
I wanna stop being this. Right? They've named
certain things through some of this,
and they're not necessarily thinking about it in
these ways. Do does this make sense?
Right?
Okay.
So what you wanna do is first have,
like, a sense of observation.
You know? What is just some of these
things that are happening habitually with regularity?
What's getting in the way?
And then you get to a place where
there's a sense of reinforcement
that gets rooted now in, like, rewards as
well as punishments
that are not, like, crazy terrible. Do you
know what I mean? But still are understanding
and recognizing behaviors in certain ways. So last
time we were here, I talked about a
woman who is struggling with alcohol in our
community,
and when she had gone sober for 6
months, I took her out for dinner.
Right? We didn't have to tell everybody we
went out to, why we were taking her
out for dinner, but it was more to
celebrate
the overcoming
of something she struggled with. Do you know?
So you can celebrate
certain things that you have difficulty around
and you want to see, like, some days
will be easy, some days won't be. But
what are the things that are catalyzing it?
I'm observing not just the performance of the
act, but who am I around when I
do some of this stuff?
Who am I around when I do other
things? What's the environment? How much did I
sleep,
like, on the nights that I was more
prone to, like, yelling at someone or believing
the worst about myself
versus how much rest was I getting on
the days that, like, that wasn't, like, a
problem or an issue. Do you get what
I mean? And there's a mechanism
of kinda a sense of how do I
reinforce
through positivity
as well as, like, set for myself
some mechanism of accountability
that says, if this happens, then I'm not
gonna, like, do this thing anymore. Does that
make sense?
Okay. I know I've been talking a lot.
Before we go into a couple other things
on this, I'd love for you to just
turn to the persons next to you. What
are you taking away so far? What's coming
up for you in this conversation? And then
we'll come back and discuss a little bit
more. But go ahead.
Okay. So what are some of the things
that are coming up for people? What are
we taking away so far?
What are we talking about?
Yeah. We were talking about, like, how how
we, as humans, we have this, like, focus
vision when we just, like, look to the
act
and start to judge ourselves and others that
this could exist, which is not like that.
They actually need to see any habit that
we don't like as a manifestation of something
deeper.
And we need to like, when we do
quality improvement project or something, we need to
do, like,
cause analysis, and you need to know what
is causing this, why I'm I'm doing this,
why so we can do
And then,
like, adapt like,
a a model would have to fix it
and, like, try.
And even if it doesn't work, you go
back and you try something
with your
energy and.
And that at least you're trying. You're struggling.
You're trying.
Maybe you're gonna
this will be you need more time to
just, like,
try different things and know what actually works
for you. And what actually works for you
would be something that triggers,
like, inhibit your cravings, which is different for
between different people.
So just to have this in your mind
and to know that your journey is very
integral
Yeah. Great. Other thoughts? What comes up? What
do we discuss?
Do you see a connection to Ramadan here?
Can you see that connection?
Or is anybody like, this is it makes
no sense.
You can tell me. It's okay. I'm tough.
Right? You're inculcating
consciousness.
You experience it,
and you wanna be aware of your ability
to be aware of things. Do you know?
And how you start to build some of
this in now at a time when you're
regulating
because you're bringing presence in. The other thing
that happens here is that the shayateen are
chained in our tradition.
So was was,
like, becomes limited in a certain way. It's
just you taking on your
for a lack of, like, better words.
Right? So I am now confronted a little
bit more with my ability to say, like,
hey. What are some of the things that
I can work on as I'm regulating
and reclaiming self control?
How do I apply that now to this
coming Ramadan? That isn't like a complete overhaul.
Right? You are like a good, beautiful person.
You don't have to think about yourself in
some other way. Like, iftar in our tradition
is not just like a feast of food.
You know? Because, like, the fundamental feast
at the end of the night is really
like a feast of Quran.
That's what you're nourishing yourself off of when
you're standing in Taraweeh.
Right? This is called, like, the banquet in
and of itself, like through our texts. They're
talking about, like, the recitations
that your heart is now being nourished on,
You know? And it's inculcating
consciousness because this is what it says in
Surah Baqarah.
Like, this is a book in it. There's
no doubt. A guidance for the people of
Taqwa. Do you know? The whole month is
about, like, let me go back to what
actually makes me human.
Let me go back to, like, what it
was I was intended
to be. Do you get what I mean?
So we wanna think about it in a
couple of other ways.
Right? 1, like this aspect of mercy is
something that's really important to understand.
Ramadan is the month of mercy. So there's
a companion by the name of Abu Saeed
al Khudri
He reports a hadith that I'll read in
its entirety. It's really long.
That speaks about a man who killed the
99 people. Many of you are probably familiar
with this hadith, some not so much. But
think about in terms of habits
and mercy.
Right? He killed 99 people. That's not like
a one off thing. This is something he's
doing with regularity.
There's a man from among a nation before
you who killed 90 9 people and then
made an inquiry about the most learned person
on the earth. He was directed to a
monk. He came to him and told him
that he had killed 99 people and asked
him if there was any chance for his
repentance and to be accepted.
He replied in the negative. This man said,
no. You cannot be forgiven.
So
the man killed him also completing a 100.
Right? I did 99 times. I can't get
forgiven for it. Why should that stop? Let
me just kill another person.
Suck for love. He then asked about the
most learned man in the earth. He was
directed to a scholar. He told him that
he had killed 100 people and asked him
if there was any chance for his repentance
to be accepted.
He replied in the affirmative
and asked, who stands between you and repentance?
Go to such and such land.
There you will find people devoted to prayer
and worship of Allah.
Join them in worship and do not come
back to your land because it is an
evil place.
So he went away and hardly had he
covered
half the distance when death overtook him.
There was a dispute between the angels of
mercy and the angels of torment.
The angels of mercy pleaded, this man has
come with a repenting heart to Allah And
the angels of punishment argued,
he never did a virtuous deed in his
life. Then there appeared another angel in the
form of a human being, and the contending
angels agreed to make him arbiter between them.
He said, measure the distance between the two
lands. He will be considered belonging to the
land to which he is near. They measured
and found him closer to the land of
piety where he intended to go, and so
the angels of mercy collected his soul.
In another version, it said he was found
to be near to the locality of the
pious
by a cubit and was thus included amongst
them. And then another version says, Allah commanded
the land which he wanted to leave to
move away and commanded the other land, his
destination to draw nearer. And then he said,
now measure the distance between them. And it
was found that he was nearer to his
goal by a hand span and was thus
forgiven,
meaning he was closer to the land
that should take him to chastisement,
but Allah made it appear that he was
closer to the land
where he would gain his repentance.
Right?
Meaning, like,
you just gotta try.
Allah is looking for a reason
to
accept, not push away.
Right? This is like a rule he sets
for himself
in Hadith Qudsi
that he's, like, mandated his mercy
over his wrath. Do you know?
So that aspect of mercy
is there.
It's also narrated that he drew closer
simply by a slight movement of his chest.
Do you know what I mean?
So when you're in this place, you wanna
think, what are my actual habits? And this
has to be through a prism of honest
self criticism,
not in a place where you are self
deprecating.
Who cares what people think about you? What
you think about you is important. This is
what self esteem is.
Self esteem
is how you perceive yourself primarily.
Self esteem is how you perceive yourself. And
then second, how you treat yourself through that
perception.
Does that make sense? And if you got
this much negativity running through you, you're gonna
beat yourself up sometimes.
Right? So that productive reflection has to be
something that's done in a moment when you're
ready to admit, like, you know what?
I actually do,
like, yell at my kids all the time.
I actually am in a place where I
gossip a lot.
I do have this habit.
But first step is recognizing
with honest self criticism.
The second, you get to a place where
you build like an accountability
mechanism.
You are in a place where you seek
help if you need help. Right?
Why is it a problem if you can't
wake up for Fudger on your own that
you ask somebody to help you wake up
for Fudger?
What are you gonna prove to anybody if
you do it by yourself? And then you
just don't do it.
Who cares?
Like, what aspect of your ego are you
trying to adorn that you gotta be the
one to do it? Do you know what
I mean? I sit down with people constantly,
and they're like, I gotta make sure, like,
this person understands this. This person understands. So
I'll say to them, do you have to
be the one that gets your mom and
dad to understand why they should let you
marry this person? Or, like, is the goal
just to have somebody get them to understand
it?
Or, like, is the goal just to have
somebody get them to understand it?
Right? They've never thought about it like that
before.
The ego interjects itself sometimes subtly and sometimes
overtly.
Right? I don't have to be the one
that always tells people things.
Sometimes it's just about strategizing
what's gonna be the best course of action.
Don't tell the world your business. Do you
know what I mean?
But if you got a buddy who can
be helpful,
this woman who I told you about last
week who struggled with alcoholism.
Right? If you weren't here last week, she
didn't wanna drink anymore. And so she said,
can we work on this? And then
she was
anxious because she was going to visit her
family on Thanksgiving, and she said, everybody drinks.
If I don't drink, they're gonna think that
it's strange.
And so then when I saw her sometime
later, I'd given her my cell phone and
said, give me a call if there's a
problem. I didn't hear from her. When I
saw her sometime,
I said, how'd it go? And she said,
it was amazing. They were all so drunk.
They didn't know I wasn't drinking. And I
said, oh, okay.
Great.
And then she, like, got into it.
Some days were heavy, some days were light,
but then she got to that place where
went 6 months without drinking this stuff. Do
you know? And I said, let's go out
to eat.
I didn't do anything for her,
but she had to overcome within herself the
idea
that reaching out for help
somehow meant that there was inadequacy in something.
Do you get what I mean?
You have to also be someone
that can help someone in their time of
need.
You don't know, like, what people are going
through. Right?
So say salaams to the people that you're
praying with. Like, actually talk and learn people's
names. Do you know?
And be in a place where you don't
have to know what to do. That's not
the point.
But you can at least be in a
place where if someone's there, you're the first
aspect of, like, getting them the help and
accountability that they need. It's not always just
about, like, deep struggles. Right? Like, do you
exercise more if you have a friend with
you? Then why don't you get a friend
to go exercise with you? Right? Are you
gonna go to a halukkah more if you
know somebody that's there? Then don't wait. Call
up somebody and say, let's go do this
together. Right? Why? Why would you just do
it alone? Do you know what I mean?
Don't do it alone. Get somebody to help
you. The third part to it, remember this
hadith
and thousands of hadith that are like this.
Allah's mercy is real.
So you just trying
to overcome it is gonna be helpful.
Some of the things that we wanna talk
about in relation to this, it's not about,
like, doing 50 things all at once, but
find a couple that you stick with.
Consistency is gonna be important.
The prophet had Abdullah ibn Amr ibn Al
As come and ask him for advice. Right?
Alsini,
And
the prophet
gives him advice. He says,
That, oh, Abdullah,
don't be like so and so and such
and such.
They used to habitually
stand in the night. And
then they abandoned
the standing of the night. Right? Meaning the
night prayer. Do you know?
So
make for yourself an indication.
If you're gonna read the Quran inside out
during Ramadan,
why would you stop engaging it after Ramadan?
Right? And you have to speak kindly to
yourself, and sometimes the kindest thing you can
say is when it actually makes sense to
tell yourself, this is dumb.
It's nonsensical.
The things that you tell yourself that are
dumb are not the things you should tell
yourself that you're dumb for. But some of
these things, they just lack, like, wisdom and
insight.
If you have the capacity to fast and
you can fast like,
the 1st day daylight savings times it, and
it's gonna be a long day of fasting,
like, why would you not fast in the
rest of the day when it's shorter?
What's, like, fundamentally
keeping you from doing this? Do you know?
So
consistency.
This is a big part to developing
sound faith and spiritual excellence. It's not like
the
quantifiable
aspect with the qualifying aspect that comes from
doing it repetitively. It's a spiritual exercise.
Do you know in the same way with
habits? Right? You wanna build a habit? Just
read a verse every day. Read a couple
every week. Go at a pace that makes
sense so you're building strength around it.
You wanna be in a place where you
have self awareness.
So,
Abu Salamay bin Abdul Rahman reported from Abdul
Abdullah ibn Amal that the prophet, alayhis salam,
said, I have been informed that you stay
up in prayer during the night and fast
during the day. Abdullah answered, yes, o Messenger
of Allah. The prophet said fast and do
not fast. Pray and sleep for your body,
your wife, your guests have a right upon
you. It is sufficient for you to fast
3 days a month. Abdullah said, I wanted
to be stricter on myself. And I said,
oh Messenger of Allah, I have the strength
to do more. The prophet said, then fast
3 days a week. Abdullah said, I have
the strength to do more. And the prophet
said, fast the fast of the prophet David,
and do not do more than that. Abdullah
inquired, what was the fast of David? The
prophet replied, he would fast one day and
then not fast the next.
So he goes now from 3 days a
month to 3 days a week to half
of the
month. It's not a quantified aspect, it's a
qualified aspect. In other narrations, this companion is
recorded saying, I wish I had taken the
advice of the prophet and done one of
the lesser fasts. Meaning, he stayed consistent with
it throughout his life. Is
part of the goal. You wanna be
consistent, but
why is he trying to do more
rather than doing what makes sense for him?
You're not in competition with anybody else. Do
you know what I mean?
You gotta work at a pace that makes
sense for you, but you have to have
self awareness that makes sense. Right? You can
sit on the toilet and look at your
phone for an extra 10 minutes, then you
got some time in the day to open
up the and read one verse of the
Quran.
Do you know what I mean? You can
be real with yourself.
Right?
It is something that you can see as
you engage in the course of your routine,
But that self awareness
is important. What I like you to do
now is just take out your notebooks,
and we're gonna start to build structure over
the course of these weeks to how we
engage the day. Right? Because a big part
of understanding time management
is that time management is essentially management of
the self.
So take a few minutes.
What is your day like?
Map out your day
from
what you do as soon as you wake
up. You're going to work, you're going to
school, till the time you go to sleep.
Right? And you want to start to build
this type of relationship
with your actual
schedule and routine
to be able to see where there's things
that are just habituated. Because when I sit
down with people who are in a place
where they don't know how to make decisions,
their world is heavy. They have 0 outlets
or mechanisms
of self care. I say to them before,
they're like, just tell me what to do.
I'm like, I'm not I can't tell you
what to do. It's not my right to
make your decision. I can help you get
to a place where you can make decisions.
Tell me what your day is like, your
week is like. They've never thought about it.
There's no presence in why they go to
bed at the time that they do, like,
they don't realize how little food that they're
actually eating, or when they eat, they're just
eating, like, the fastest thing you can get
because everything is just, like, hectic. I gotta
get to class. I gotta do homework. I
gotta be at work. Like, all is rooted
in no sense of presence, and it's just
like on autopilot.
Do you know? So for us to bring
certain things into our routines, you gotta know
what your routine is. If it varies day
to day because of the phase of life
that you're in or the nature of your
work. Right? There's doctors who work 14 days
and then don't work 14 days, and then
they work 14 days. Right? That's the schedule.
You have, like, a sense of adaptation.
In these days, I'm like this. In these
days, I'm like this. Some people work Monday
through Friday. Some people work on Saturdays Sundays.
Some people work a few days a week.
Some people don't work any days. That sometimes
is even harder because when I'm sitting and
I have nothing that structures my routine, the
self deprecating thoughts can be that much heavier.
Right? Everybody's got a job but me. I
got nothing to do. I got no friends.
There's no one to hang out with. Do
you know? But if we know the routine,
we can problem solve to be able to
start thinking, when do the pervasive thoughts actually
surface the most? When are they not present?
When do the habits kick in the most?
When are they not present? How come it's
easier for me to pray like Fajr, but
really hard to pray Isha on time? Right?
Why is it like that I can, like,
do certain things on these days that I'm
praying my sunnahs for
and versus, like, the days I miss it
just feel very different. Do do you get
what I mean?
So step 1 is you live your day
every day. Do you know? What's going on
in the course of your day? And if
there's
segmentation that the weekends are different than the
weekdays,
like, we'll talk about this as we go
through this over the next few weeks. But
you wanna have, like, a structure to this
so you can understand how that time is
being utilized. Does that make sense? K. So
let's do that for 2 minutes, and we'll
come back and do something really quick, and
we'll wrap up.
Just like what's your day look like from
when you wake up till you go to
bed? How are you spending your time? Do
you know? Like and as detailed as you
can is ideal. So I go to work
is not the same as I wake up
at 6 o'clock in the morning.
I'm, like, you know, eating breakfast.
I'm doing these things, or, like, I wish
I woke up at 6, but I'm actually
waking up late every day and, like, running
to something and doing this and doing that.
Do you know what I mean? Because it
makes a difference. Right? If you start your
day with anxiety, you're already chasing after something
versus, like, your day started with calm and
ease. Do you know?
Okay. So you want to continue to do
this over the course of the next week,
meet again,
and start to then think, like, in terms
of objectives, goals,
habits,
how much of that is spent on some
of this stuff,
and where can I build good ones and
break down bad ones? Do you know? How
do I, like, start to change behaviors?
Right?
I
used to exercise 3 times a day when
I was in high school. I was supposed
to play sports in college. I got injured
in my senior year of college of high
school, and then
everything stopped.
I went to NYU as an undergrad,
where I, like, just know, like, you know,
especially back then, like, sports nonexistent.
Do you know what I mean? It's a
d three school. And then I started to,
like, practice Islam more, like, consequently, which is
great.
Probably wouldn't you know, Allah knows best been,
like,
Muslim if I went down, like, an athletic
road.
But,
then I started interacting with, like, Muslims more,
and they didn't really exercise. Do you know?
So I would go to the gym, but
it now became, like, different.
And then when I, like, made some decisions
around my studies and other things
and then started working here,
I had no,
like, self care strategy and no work life
balance at all. I was getting sick all
the time. My weight would fluctuate a lot.
I was very lonely, had no deep relationships,
let alone friendships.
The The irony of it, I was surrounded
by more people than ever been, but I
felt more by myself than I'd ever been
also.
And it was really hard.
But when people used to ask me about
my exercising,
I would always tell them what I used
to do. It wasn't a deflection,
but that was just the nature of the
conversation.
So someone would be like, do you go
to the gym? And I would tell them
how much I could bench press or how
much I fast I could run a 40
in when I was, like, at this age
in my life. And people were shocked because
they were like, who you know, that's, like,
not normal.
And it was just kinda appeasing the conversation
until I got to a place where I
was, like, broken inside and out. You know,
my wellness was nonexistent.
So then then I got to a
place where I had to figure out, like,
how to
start getting myself to exercise.
Do you know? I looked at my routine.
I was like, well, when can I do
this thing? So I started working out more
so in the evenings
and different times.
Then I got
married, and, you know,
I was at the tail end of, like,
poor self care. And my wife, she's amazing
person, had no hesitation in telling me where
I wasn't taking care of myself. Right? Month
into our wedding or after our wedding, she's
like, you don't have any friends. And I
was like, what are you talking about? Do
you know what I mean? We had 2,000
people at our wedding ceremony. It was like
a open invite.
They had 6 jamaz
for Assur at the 96th Street Masjid that
day because how many people came to our
wedding. Like, the Masjid filled over 6 times.
Right? So 2,000's conservative estimate. Now she's telling
me in my face, you don't have friends.
I'm like, what are you talking about? Look
at how many people so, like, you don't
have any friends. Like, you have no deep
relationships. You don't invest time in it. And
she said physical wellness, nonexistent.
You know? So I was like, great. Right?
So I tried to, like, figure out some
of it, got back into it, and then
COVID hit. COVID was a big mess. A
lot of trauma we were carrying.
If you were here, you saw, like, our
community's response,
micro cash grants to people in need, food
insecurity programs. We're seen as a major house
of worship in New York, and a lot
of people turned to us.
I was, like,
dealing with a lot, sitting sedentary now in
our home.
My
neck got messed up. I herniated 2 discs.
I, like, was lot of random
physical health issues,
and there was no place to exercise.
Now, like, I had to go to physical
therapy,
get back into it again. So it's like
a third time I'm trying to figure out
how to rebuild a relationship
with this thing of physical wellness.
Right?
And it was tough. Like, I tried to
get, like, on a machine to, like, run,
and I couldn't run for longer than 6
minutes.
Do you know? I would go to my
physical therapist for my neck injury.
And in COVID, I got physical therapy just
because of connections in our community, because you
could only go to certain places if you
were in the most, like, need. Right? So
it was me in this physical therapist office,
and all the other participants
were, like, 85 year old white ladies,
you know, who had, like, severe illness
ailments and needed this.
And they couldn't lift more weight than I
could because I'd injured my neck. This whole
part of my neck was swollen up to
here, and I had to reteach myself how
to use my left hand. Right? So I
was holding, like, weights that were 2 pound
weights
that I don't know why they make them,
like, neon pink so they stick out in
your hands. I'm holding these things. This is,
like, old lady next to me, and she,
like, grabs, like, a 5 pound weight. She's
definitely looking at me like I'm a miserable
person.
My physical therapist said to me, do you
wanna go to, like, a private room? You
know? Right? It's like old ladies are being
mean as anything.
I was like, no. Like, I'm not embarrassed.
Just because I'm at a place doesn't mean
this is where I will be,
and I'm not in competition with that old
woman. You know what I mean? Right?
But I had to, like, recognize certain things.
So now I have children,
and I'm married. It's very different than when
I'm single. There has to be adaptability
in my routine.
Right? So I shifted from the evenings to,
like, the mornings to work out, and then
my intention became important.
I had to recognize that, like, exercising for
vanity
didn't work for me.
But when I rooted it in wellness,
it was now something that I wouldn't leave
behind. I went to Michigan with my son
this weekend. I think I said it in
this class, if not the one before it.
And
on Saturday, we woke up. I told him,
like, I'll take you wherever you want, but
you're gonna go to the gym with me
on Saturday morning. And we went to the
gym, and we exercised
because
I know I'm not the same when I
when I do it is when I don't
do it. Right? And it's about just, like,
the mental clarity and wellness that it takes.
To get to that place, I had to
recognize my habits. I'd wake up for fudger.
Self care is nonexistent.
My prayer was, like, nonexistent.
You know, I was doing it, but what
was the impact? But I just jumped back
into bed. Do you know? So I had
to figure out, how do I break this
cycle? Right? So
I, like, would, like, take a shower
instead of making will do for fudger. Do
you know? I go to sleep in my
gym clothes. Do you know what I mean?
Like, all kinds of things to create micro
habits
to now influence the habit that was getting
me back
into bed. Do you get what I'm saying?
I'm still not, like, a fit human being.
Definitely not the way that I was before.
Right? But I know, like, where my healthiness
becomes a priority,
and then my routine reflects it. Right? But
I first have to gauge in my structure
what's going on, what are things that are
not adaptable,
and what are the things that are, and
how do I start to bring in something?
I don't have to work out 3 times
a day. That doesn't make any sense,
but I can do things consistently on a
daily basis
that add to the healthiness of it. So
for you, what you wanna think out, if
you're overcoming a bad habit, 1, you wanna
become, like, a step number 1,
conscious of what you're doing
and why you're doing it.
Recognizing, like, these, like, points.
What am I doing, and why am I
doing it?
2,
you wanna become a long term thinker
rather than a short term doer.
So invest in the long term benefits of
something rather than quick fixes.
Do you get what I'm saying? Does that
make sense? You can come in. Yeah.
You want to become a long term thinker
rather than a short term doer.
You don't want complacency, you want contentment.
Right? I have to think I'm 41 years
old.
I love my kids. I love my wife.
I love the community I serve. I don't
wanna be a miserable,
like, 60, 70 year old person. Do you
know what I mean?
That has short term, like, thoughts that say,
well, this doesn't hurt at this time or
this, like, seemingly still works. I said to
my wife the other day when we're sitting
on the couch, I'm ready
for the reality that my left hand is
just not gonna work properly for the rest
of my life. And when I get older,
it's gonna probably be tougher because the neck
injury I sustained. Do you know? But, like,
right? Like, what what can I do? Do
you know what I mean?
But my 70 year old self, if they
have to deal with that, if I live
that long, I don't want that 70 year
old self to also hate who I am
now because I wasn't thinking about getting to
that place in my life. Right? So be
a long term thinker rather than a short
term, like, doer. Right? It might be easier
to just sit on your butt and not
go to the gym after Fajr Khalid.
But, like, think about the long term benefits,
do you know, that you're gonna gain?
Enlist the help and support
of
friends, family, and community.
None of us is able to
kick bad habits
and start the formation of good habits
just through, like, ourselves alone. You don't have
to do that. You can try. It's gonna
take a lot of energy. Do you know
what I mean? But when you're willing to,
like, overcome the ego and recognize, like, you're
good.
Right? You don't have to, like, be embarrassed.
Don't, like, you know, tell the world your
business. Right? But lean to people who you
trust, and you have confidence that they'll carry
it with you, and they'll create those accountability
mechanisms.
And then if you have a more entrenched
habit that's an addiction,
you wanna seek help for that. So So
if you're struggling with substance abuse, *,
spending issues,
you wanna recognize it and then ask for
help and support. We have people in our
community who help with this. Right? Some of
the best emails I get are every, like,
year on certain days. Members of our community
write me an email, and they'll say, I'm
15 years sober today.
Do you know? And then they'll say,
tell all the people in this community
I couldn't have gotten here without them.
You don't even have to know who it
is,
But just know when you show up at
Jumah and they see you smiling and giving
salaams,
when you're, like, in spaces, every one of
you, it makes people happier
to be around people. How much would it
suck if you showed up at Jummah and
it was me and you only? That's it.
Right? You know, what am I doing here?
It's not even enough people to pray, Jumah.
Right? You know?
Versus you walk into a room,
and we're eating together, we're praying together, it
makes a difference.
There's a chance that you're using things
to try to fill a void, these bad
habits.
And it's easier, but easier doesn't mean better.
So when you have support,
it can help you to figure out what's
going on and then realign it. That's like
fighting a bad habit. Making a good habit,
and then we'll end with this. You want
to set a specific goal as step number
1. Right? So say I'm trying to get
better sleep, if you don't have specificity,
you're gonna get to a place where it's
ambiguous.
So there's a difference between saying I want
to sleep more versus saying I want to
have 7 hours of sleep a night,
Right?
2, plan ahead. That's where that routine is.
How do I shift what I need to
in order to achieve this thing? 7 hours
of sleep a night.
3, again,
like, make yourself accountable. Get someone to help
you, and you make your intention explicit by
verbalizing it. Then 4, you implement the behavior.
It's not enough just to talk about it.
I wanna fast on Mondays Thursday. Then do
it. Like, get yourself to do it.
Step number 5, stay disciplined.
That if you slip, you just get up
and try again because you're changing habits. It's
not gonna be, like, from tonight, you're gonna
suddenly sleep 7 hours if you're more accustomed
to sleeping, like, 5 hours or 4, but
you have to get, like, adapted and accustomed
to the behavior.
6, seek support from others. And then 7,
you wanna reward yourself with something healthy when
you're successful. Do you get what I mean?
When I came back from Umrah,
with our group in January,
I'd gone to Egypt and then come back,
and then to Toronto and came back, and
then went to South Africa and came back,
and then went for Umrah and came back.
And on these trips, I'm out of my
routine. You know? My exercise is off. My
eating habits are off. I came back, like,
heavier than I've ever been in my life.
So I told my wife, like, when I
lose, like, a good chunk of this weight,
I'm gonna reward myself with something. Right? And
she said, isn't that, like, kinda defeating the
point that you're gonna lose this and then
you're gonna eat, like, this mess of stuff?
I was like, no. I'm gonna do it
to just reward myself.
But I have it as,
like, an expectation,
as an outcome
that, like, I'm not denying myself,
but I'm rewarding myself, like, something I'm looking
forward to. Right?
And you can say, does these things work?
Yeah. A 100% these things work. When people
say to me, how do you get so
much done in your day and your week?
I went out to dinner with a bunch
of people the other night, undergrad kids.
20 of them, some grad students.
Most of whom I haven't had a chance
to spend meaningful time with, a lot of
1st years because of a lot of the
things that we've been dealing with in the
last months. Right? Allah make things easy for
all those who are going through difficulty.
This kid said to me, how do you
remember all of our names?
Do you know? And then they tested me
on the train, and I said all of
their names. They're like, woah. Like, how do
you know this? Right?
There's when
you have structure.
There's when you're around good people.
Right? I spend my day every day of
the week with people like you. Do you
know? How can I not have, like, some
blessing in my day? Do you get what
I mean? I come down here. I pray
with you all, like, 4 of my 5
prayers. And at Fajr time, I'm praying with
my wife and my kids.
Right? So I can tell you when you
ask, like, how is it possible doing this
and doing that and whatever else? Because these
are things that it's not enough to just
know them, you have to act on what
you know, and give yourself, like, a pace
to do it. So if I'm working on
getting my wellness in check and overcoming certain
habits, then, like, I'm probably not working on
something else simultaneously,
you know, at the same time. Does that
make sense?
Right? So you gotta actually, like, do it.
Do you know?
Okay. We're gonna wrap up here.
And next Monday,
this building is gonna be closed.
So we're gonna meet,
the NYU Gramercy Green Building where my family
and I live. We're gonna have, like, the
hadith class before
and iftar before.
It's Presidents' Day, so you have the day
off. Like, come and break fast with us.
Like, just be with us in community.
Probably be a little bit more of, like,
a social type engagement,
as well as, like, doing some of this
stuff around
Ramadan prep in the class before. And bring
people with you who typically might not be
able to come because, you know, they don't
have Mondays off, but now they will. I'm
in the same vein. Right? Like, you don't
know if you bring someone with you. It'll
be like a thing that changes stuff up
for them, where they're like, man, like, I
gotta come to stuff like this because I
just wanna be around people
after work. Also, I'll make those steps. Do
do you get what I mean? Does that
make sense?
2 other quick things. The building tomorrow is
gonna be closed because there's a storm coming.
So
keep us safe,
and everyone safe. And make special Dua. Right?
Like, I don't know what everyone in this
room does during the course of their day,
but there's a lot of people, whether it's
blizzarding or not, they still have to leave
their homes. Do you know? And many of
those people provide services
that we then benefit from, whether we're conscious
of it or not. So just think, like,
tonight, how do you prep for tomorrow? And
if you order some food delivered to your
home, make sure you're, like, tipping the guy
a little bit more, because he's not making
a lot of money. It's a lot of
undocumented
people
who are getting paid in cash, like, lower
than what minimum wage is, and they're gonna
plow through the snow to bring you that
sandwich. Don't write a bad review or be
upset that it's cold. It's going to be
snowing. That's why it's cold. Do you know
what I mean? Right? Like, use these opportunities
to overcome
habituated
acts of the ego. Right? And think with
compassion. Do you get what I mean?
But prep for it, and then use some
of these nights to make dua for, like,
our migrant sisters and brothers who are gonna
be sleeping on the street during this thing,
like people who have no shelter, people who
are gonna have to wake up at 2
in the morning to come still, like, clean
these buildings because they're considered essential,
like, workers.
Do you know? Like, if it's not us
who are thinking about them, Who else is
gonna be thinking about them? Do you know
what I mean? And Allah protects them and
gives them good in this world and in
the next for everything they're doing. But the
building will be closed tomorrow.
And then on Saturday,
we're doing a film screening
and a dinner,
through our Latino Muslim
community group.
You don't have to be Latino or Muslim
to come,
but the documentary
is gonna look at the development and establishment
of
a Muslim community in Chiapas, Mexico.
It's a really powerful,
like, piece. The director is gonna have a
talk back with us. There'll be dinner and
dessert.
And it'd be a good way for us
to also just support this segment of our
community. Most Muslim communities are very homogenous and
ethnocentric.
Right? If you look at yourselves right now,
like, there's not a majority of any one,
like, racial cultural group in this room right
now. As much as your mind might think,
like, where I'm seated, you're all very different
from each other. That's not how a lot
of Muslim spaces function.
The advantage of our space is then you
can learn, like, through our black Muslim lecture
series about black Muslim experience,
understand the immense, like, contributions
that black Islam has had to Islam on
a whole, the rich scholarship that comes. Right?
And you know how most communities,
like, intra
are challenged on racial issues.
It's our benefit to learn about,
like, narratives,
experiences, etcetera.
There's that many less spaces that cater to
Latino Muslim experience.
Right? There's not, like, established
that are just, like, Latino run and kind
of functioning. Do you know? So you think
about, like, brown people who then get assumed
to just be, like, brown other than what
their actual brown identity is. It can be
very kinda isolating. Do you know? So I
wanna show up in, like, good numbers,
learn about the experiences
because we have something to learn. Right? How
many of you know about the Muslim experience
in Chiapas, Mexico? Right? And why would you
not want to know about that? Do you
know what I mean? It's not just because
I'm not Mexican,
you know, so why is it relevant to
me? You're Muslim. You should know about it.
So think, like, for Saturday,
5 o'clock, it's gonna be in the 4th
floor auditorium
of the building next door. It connects from
our floor as well,
and there'll be dinner as well. So show
up and, like, let people know also.
There should be no reason why that room
isn't packed. Do you know what I mean?
Right?
Other than we're just not thinking about it
the right way. Does that make sense? Okay.
So we'll send out emails with, like, addresses
for next Monday,
but we'll see everybody next week then. Alright.