Maryam Amir – If you hate yourself in Ramadan

If you hate yourself more than usual, right now, you're not

alone. Ramadan is often a time where your feelings of self

loathing are magnified because you are constantly reminded how you

are not hitting the level that you should be. And you might have made

Ramadan goals yourself. Maybe you have had had a plan of where you

should have been by now, and you've done really so little of

it, and you take that as a reflection on how you are not that

committed in your worship. And so you start blaming yourself, and

oftentimes cast that conversation up onto who Allah is, assuming

that the way that you see yourself is how Allah is witnessing you a

reminder that that's not true, because you are not Allah, and so

however you talk to yourself, is you talking to you, not Allah,

commenting on you? But I want you to remember that if you are

someone who has other responsibilities, whether they are

your own mental health responsibilities, taking care of

yourself so that you don't

spiral, whether it's responsibilities of taking care of

kids or working or supporting your parents in some way or literally

studying whatever it is that is worship in and of itself, when you

make the intention that it's for the sake of Allah, also the

emotional toll of obviously, the privilege of safety, of not being

in a genocide, But witnessing a genocide, feeling helpless for not

being able to support stop a genocide, a rage, your emotion,

your inability to feel emotion because you're so numb, all of

that is going to affect your capability of worship if you

haven't felt the sweetness of Ramadan at this point, I Want to

remind you that there is nowhere in Islam where Allah's panawata,

Allah requires you to feel a sweet, emotional experience in

Ramadan. In fact, Allah tells us that the way that we come closer

to him is through doing the obligation and then doing the

extra. So if you're doing the obligation, and that's all you're

doing while, of course, Ramadan is the time to do as much as we can.

You're doing enough if you are struggling with the obligation,

but you wish you could, you want to. You're trying acknowledge that

maybe last year you didn't care, but this year, you do that is

incredible progress for your faith, and if you're comparing

yourself to who you were years ago, when you used to spend so

much time worshiping in Ramadan, and you feel like you've

completely lost that aspect of your identity because you are in a

very different place. Then I want you to know that if you were in

front of the Kaaba, if you were in Medina, your Ramadan would

probably look a little bit different. You would be the exact

same person, but you would probably have a different type of

Ramadan, because your environment is different, your

responsibilities are not there the way they normally are, and Allah

knows how terrible you feel and how much you wish you could do

better. So how do you think Allah sees you while you're hating

yourself for not being good enough? Perhaps Allah is recording

you as someone who has done the utmost worship, because that is

what your capacity is in this particular Ramadan. Remember Allah

is as you think he is. Have hope in Him. He wants you to win a.