Dealing with Difficulty #20 Personal Insecurities

Some people do not like the way they

look.

And some people

look so much into the mirror that they

begin to find fault with everything

and anything.

So remember,

Allah Almighty

has not created us on earth in a

perfect way because

he's kept perfection for the hereafter.

On earth, he's made us human beings.

Humans are actually flawed.

The thinking is limited. The capacity is limited.

We only have 5 senses.

Whereas in the hereafter, we can have unlimited

senses.

We would be able to hear and see

things that we cannot hear and see with

the limited senses we have right now. There

are frequencies in the air, and there are

things that are flying around that we cannot

see. We would either need microscopes or so

many other apparatuses,

but

what is definitely clear is even with all

of that,

there are things that we still are unable

to see. So imagine

Allah Almighty

wants us to just look at ourselves

and love ourselves the way he made us.

He chose our skin tone. He chose the

type of hair we're going to have. In

fact, the race, the ethnicity chosen by Allah

and each race or ethnicity is known

in a certain way. Allah says,

all people.

We created you from a male and a

female, Adam and Eve.

And We made you into different peoples

and tribes in order for you to know

one another, to recognize one another. You can

recognize a person coming from this continent or

that race or this ethnicity because that's how

Allah made them. You have to love yourself

if your eyes are a certain way. Alhamdulillah,

if your hair or your height or your

complexion is a certain way.

Praise Allah.

The world is temporary.

70 years,

60 years, 80 years.

Not really much more than that.

In fact, in many cases, much less than

that.

And in this short time, we begin

to dislike ourselves to the degree that we

don't realize this body

is something temporary that was given to us

to go through a phase of our existence

known as life on earth, which is a

few decades, perhaps, on average.

And after that, we're going to separate the

soul soul and the body is going to

be separated.

That body is going to go back into

the earth,

And the soul

goes back to its maker and is dealt

with

preparation for the day of judgement and thereafter

going in, insha'Allah,

into paradise by the will of Allah Subhanahu

Wa Ta'ala.

Nonetheless,

we should realize that in the process,

when people forget that they

have this temporary body that doesn't actually belong

to them permanently,

When people forget that

they begin to do things to it that

really

will bother them long term.

So you don't like your lips. You're gonna

put huge fillers. It's not going to look

normal. You're going you don't like, for example,

your nose. You're going to change it and

shape it. And many people have been depressed

as a result of it. In fact, I

know of people who've committed suicide as a

result of what's called a nose job that

went wrong and many of them do go

wrong.

Yes. If there is a necessity,

then you should do it. If it is

something abnormal, you have an option of doing

it and correcting it or bringing it back

to normal.

But playing with something that is generally normal

is not part

of your connection with Allah.

It does not depict a proper connection with

your maker. You haven't understood why Allah has

created us on Earth. There is no perfection.

You will find flaws in every single thing.

Because

your eyes, if you look every day into

the mirror, nobody's ever noticed what you noticed.

Because you're looking too much. You're looking too

hard. Perhaps you're not saying the prayer, oh,

Allah, I thank you for what you've given

me. Oh, Allah, in the same way you've

beautified me externally, beautify me internally.

That's the dua of the prophet Muhammad, peace

be upon him.

So your hair,

thank Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.

Your teeth.

If yes, there is something wrong, you want

to straighten them by all means.

But if there's nothing wrong with them and

you just want to tamper with it, you

may end up regretting more than anything else.

So it's not a good sign to become

obsessed

with the way you look like

in a way that you now cannot even

appear or come out because you don't like

yourself.

You dislike yourself. You don't like your appearance.

One of the most powerful teachings of this

deen is that identity is given by Allah.

Allah

Allah put you together in whatever

shape he decided to put you together for

a reason as a test for you and

as a test for those who gave birth

to you and a test for those around

you who are going to interact with you.

If someone

is challenged, what we would say disabled in

one way or another, or,

maybe having some

physical or mental challenges. It's a test for

those who gave birth to them. Are they

going to bear patience? Are they going to

love their child still?

Unconditionally

given what may, meaning come what may.

And those who interact with them later on,

are they going to treat them fairly in

an appropriate,

proper, befitting manner?

Or are they going to laugh and scoff

at them? If they're going to laugh and

scoff, then obviously you're losing the plot. If

you see someone who's

abnormal, or should I say challenged or disabled,

there are so many ways of actually,

referring to them.

Whatever it may be, if you see someone

of that nature,

it's the sunnah to say

All praise is due to Allah who has

given me virtue over those whom he has

created on different levels of virtue. So Allah

has blessed them in a different way and

Allah has blessed you in a different way

and he has raised you in a certain

way. So and Allah may have raised them

in another way. So this dua is thanking

Allah for what he has bestowed upon you,

but don't belittle and don't laugh at them

because Allah can actually test you or someone

close to you with something like that or

worse.

So always go out of your way

to to look out for those who might

be tested and challenged

in a different way. But

don't pick on yourself and think I'm not

normal. This is not normal. That's not normal.

People don't notice these things.

You need to liberate yourself by loving yourself

the way you are made by the will

of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.

People are different sizes. People are different shapes.

People have different skin tones, different

textures, whatever it may be. For as long

as it was not caused by you and

your own hands doing,

you'd always

love yourself. If you did it yourself,

then you may share or you have to

share

part of or most of that particular blame.

Allah disallows us to mutilate our bodies.

Allah disallows us to cause any harm to

our bodies because ultimately they're not our bodies.

They are Allah.

They belong to Allah. These bodies. He's temporarily

loaned them to us. He says, take this

few years time when I separate the soul

again, we'll take this back. And we're gonna

just see how you use it. Don't pierce

it. Don't meaning there's certain things you don't

do with it. Don't do these permanent tattoos

and so on. All this is part of

Islamic teaching.

So we shouldn't do to our bodies what

we're not allowed to do. Keep it clean.

Keep it pure. Keep it well looked after

because Allah is going to take it back.

May Allah Almighty make it easy for us.

Obviously, I haven't gone into the details of

the rulings of piercings and tattoos, but you

can find that out, inshallah.

What I'm more interested in today is dealing

with the difficulty of

not even

appreciating

what Allah has blessed you with.

He's blessed you. If people don't like you

because of what you look like, trust me,

they're not worthy of being your friends or

interacting with.

Necessity.

They are uneducated.

They don't have a connection with Allah. No

one's taught them. And this is why I

always say, let us not treat others a

different manner. Just because this person happens to

have a certain tone of skin, we treat

them in a different way. People do that.

And sometimes without thinking, they do that. We

want to become conscious of it. Go out

of your way to be kind to everyone,

and Allah will bless you. But my brothers

and sisters,

just love the way Allah made you.

That's when you will be liberated. You don't

have to plaster yourself with a ton of

makeup before you love what you look like

original you. May Allah bless you.

original you. May Allah bless you.