Naima B. Robert – CEO Self Care Guidance for Entrepreneurs and Professionals Zahra Z. AbdulKareem
AI: Summary ©
The speakers emphasize the importance of breaking the cycle of boom and bust, pace and pace oneself, and acknowledging one's potential. They stress the need to reallocate behavior and prioritize one's values, and to hone in on one's energy and release it in a sustainable and healthy way. They also advise setting boundaries, creating daily activities, and spending time with children. The speaker encourages others to take time out of busy schedules and prioritize their work, inviting them to participate in Facebook groups, and emphasizes the importance of prioritizing one's decisions.
AI: Summary ©
Welcome to,
day 2 of the Muslimah Self Care Conference.
And kicking us off early this morning is
sister Zahra
Zeb Abdukareem,
who is
here to talk to all our high flying,
ambitious, protesting
visitors, whether they're entrepreneurs or professionals.
And your talk is going to be about
breaking the boom and bust cycle. Is that
right, sister Zarr? Yes. It is. That's what
I'm Okay, girl. Then I'll let you take
it away. I'm not gonna talk too much.
The only thing I'm gonna say, y'all hold
on a second. Only thing I'm gonna say
is I know it's early for some of
us, but let's get that chat popping. Okay?
Let's see some salaams in the group, where
you are calling from, where you are watching
from, and whether you're a professional or an
entrepreneur
as all that good stuff. If this is
not your first time,
you know, this is not your first session,
let us know. I've been here for the
whole conference. If it's your first session, then
let us know. Yeah. This is my first
one and I'm looking forward to it. Like
I wanna see that chat lighting up before
we start Sister Zahra. Okay don't start until
these ladies get their fingers moving Insha'Allah.
Good good I love that I love that
alhamdulillah. So salaam alaikum everybody.
As Sister Naima said let us see the
chat popping.
Insha'Allah
Let's see where where's everybody dialing from?
So
I'm looking down because I have my,
I have the chat down here.
I'll be looking at it.
Oh, from Denmark.
So I would really like to know the
demographic that we have here. Who here is
an entrepreneur?
Who is a professional, who is both, who's
a professional and also running a side business?
I would love to know, I would love
to know that as well so if you
let us know what you, what you consider
yourself to be.
Wa Alaikum Salam Sister Rahima.
So are you an entrepreneur? Are you a
professional? Are you both a professional running a
side hustle as well?
So one person has said they're an entrepreneur
as well.
Yeah.
Okay. This man now. Alright. So we're gonna
get started.
Was a GP from Shushman, now looking to
be an entrepreneur, insha'Allah, for making that transition.
Alhamdulillah.
Brilliant.
So I'm really, really, really excited to
be running this workshop today,
particularly because of the topic. And this is
a topic that
is very very close
to my heart because
I consider myself to be
a recovering adrenaline
junkie.
And for me, what it means to be
an adrenaline junkie is somebody who literally
thrives
off of the buzz,
thrives off of the buzz. That that dopamine
hit you get from
you know, it's like doing something so huge.
You're afraid. You're excited.
And you're like there's no going back. You're
just pushing, pushing, pushing. And you're literally living
off of that high, that buzz.
And
that may seem to be a good thing
because
you can, you know, you're fearless in those
moments. You can do amazing things. You do
fantastic projects. You, you know, you deliver.
But the downside
that I experience of being an adrenaline junkie
is the crush
that comes after
the boom and that's why this session is
that boom and bust
cycle.
How to break that cycle
because what then happens is you spend months
on a project booming you do something amazing
once you have reached your goal once you've
hit and achieved that thing that you want
to deliver
you just crash.
And it's so difficult to get back up,
You have high highs or low lows and
that's a very hard place to pick up.
To get out of a low is very
difficult. If anybody here has experienced burnout
you know what I mean when I say
that it's difficult to get yourself back up
when you have burnt out.
And so this decade when I, well my
last
big
bust, my last big burnout was in 2017
And, you know, that I would say was
the bust that changed it all.
Because
when I was recovering from that burnout episode,
I tried
to go back to my usual self, my
buzzing self, my this, my that but my
body. I don't know whether it's old age
or what my body had just had enough
and
even
trying to think,
even trying to think would make me exhausted.
That is
how burnt out I was, that is how
low I had, I had, I had gone.
And so it was very hard for me
to get back up. The things that I
would usually do to get myself pumped
my body was just not was having none
of it, was having absolutely none of it.
I could not force myself. I couldn't force
myself
to perform
anymore.
I couldn't force myself to perform anymore. And
so I really had to
take a step back and allow my body
to heal.
So many of us
put our bodies through so much
for such a long prolonged period of time,
but it will get to
a it will get to a point when
our bodies will say no more and it
will collect its hack. It will collect
that. It will collect its rights
from us.
It will collect
its right from us. And for me it
took me 2 years
that this is no joke sisters.
It took me 2 years
to recover from that burnout episode.
Fully.
It took me 2 years to recover from
that burnout episode fully
and when I
got back to work in 2019
I made a commitment to myself,
I made a promise to myself
that as I reenter this world
of entrepreneurship,
of trying to rebuild my business,
I need to make sure I am looking
after this vessel.
I am looking after this body.
I am working in a way that doesn't
harm
myself.
And so that's where for me
my real self care journey,
my conscious self care journey when it comes
to being an entrepreneur,
being a mother, being someone that has multiple
passions, being a serial entrepreneur
really kicked in for me because it wasn't,
it wasn't a thing of this is like
a nice to have.
It wasn't my self care was not a
nice to have,
It was necessary.
It was absolutely
vital
to my well-being. It was absolutely vital to
the success of my business.
And so, you know, I really I really
wanted to to hammer on that point because
so many of us, we have so many
balls in the air
all the time. We're juggling
everything
all the time. We're hardly sleeping. We're not
looking after ourselves. We're doing doing doing doing
doing.
Particularly people who even have day jobs who
are trying to run their businesses. Maybe the
business is still young
and so maybe it's not making enough for
you to really live off of it. So
you're literally feeding that business from another source
of income and so you're you're spread
thin.
You're spread thin. And I think that at
in 2,000 and you know, that period between
2017, 2019
when I was really trying to refine myself,
one of the things that I realized and
I really had to come to terms with
was
you can have it all
but not at the same time.
You can have it all
but not at the same time. And so
something has got to give.
Something has got to give. You need to
pace yourself.
And I shared this last week in my
social Friday letter when I was reflecting on
what is the biggest lesson in self care
that I have learned
over the past 10 years
plus of running a business or another and
it's really to pace myself.
No one is chasing
you. Stop rushing,
stop rushing, stop, stop rushing.
No one is chasing you.
Nobody is chasing you. And so I wanted
to really just reiterate that that yes, you
can have it all but not at the
same time something has got to heal. And
we will examine
this a little bit later on
insha'Allah but before we jump into that the
first thing that I wanted us
to
talk about is
what does a boom look like to you
and what does a boss look and feel
like to you?
And I
and I'm curious to know from our audience
is there anybody who
would consider themselves to be
not necessarily an adrenaline junkie or somebody who
thrives off of
adrenaline or the pressure or or being in
a high pressured environment. Because the other thing,
yes
I wanna know what that looks like to
you and then I can share a bit
more about some of the detrimental aspects of
being in a boom and a bust cycle
as opposed to what I would call a
blooming cycle where you're you know you're in
a good ebb and flow. So is there
anybody here who feels like yep they are
like that as well, they thrive off of
the pressure, off of adrenaline,
I'm interested to know. If you're not one
of those people please also share
in in the chat section.
Sisters,
if you are somebody who thrives off of
the adrenaline or if you're not somebody, if
you're somebody who you're that chill in life
you don't stress,
You used to sister Naima, interesting.
Yep.
So I'm really interested sister Naima, when you
say you used
to, what changed?
Shut. I couldn't do it anymore.
See? It caught your it caught up with
you. Yeah. I think I think there are
a few things as I think age,
I think,
changing life circumstances as well because, you know,
when it you know what it's like when
you're in that sort of boom,
typically, there are things around you that are
supporting you to keep going and going and
going and going. Whether that is home health
or your kids are a particular age or,
you know, your husband's really supportive or, you
know, like, whatever it is, the situation
outside
is low pressure.
But let one of your kids fall ill,
for example, with the. You
know? Let your home help not be able
to come anymore. You know? Let the children
come home for homeschooling, you know, because they
can't go to school.
And all of those factors mean that
it's you what you were doing before is
no longer sustainable
and you have to look and see there's
actually only one of me.
Yeah. How am I going to share this
out between everyone? I think that basically
rising demands
from those around me meant that I had
to re, reconfigure. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. I I totally I totally agree. I
totally agree. And and also what I said
earlier is that it will get to a
point when you physically,
mentally,
emotionally
cannot sustain it. It is not sustainable.
It is not
adrenaline is not a sustainable fuel
to to fuel your body. Isn't
a sustainable source of energy to fuel your
body?
So you can only do it for a
short period of time,
but it will get to a point when
you cannot
do it anymore.
I thought taking it calmly and cool. What's
that? I've been taking it calmly and cool
as part of growing up for me. I
love that. I love that. So I, you
know, a bit of a bit of background
for for you all. I was born and
bred in
in the UK,
but we moved back to Nigeria when I
was
9 and I lived here for about 5
years.
And Nigeria,
I loved Nigeria
as a kid because I have a natural
competitive
spirit and it said that from a young
age because you have like positions in school
and this and that,
you're graded you know before you can get
you can move on to the next grade,
you pass exams and I topped my class
throughout the time I was here
but that was only because I found,
it tapped into that competitive
spirit for me and so I loved that
pressure of you know trying to achieve that
position for example.
And so that and also my parents as
well and I share this story all the
time that you know when you come home
and you have 90% on the test my
dad isn't going to pat you on the
back, he's not going to be like wow
well done fantastic, you're a staff you know.
It is, he's going to be like what
happened to the remaining 10%?
If you know have you done your corrections?
If you do that exam again would you
get 100 percent? At that point we're like
trying to escape from the room but it
fed this
this this this this behavioral trait of not
being never being satisfied with my achievements.
Never being satisfied
with anything that I have done because I
always look at the 10% or the 5%
that didn't go well, and I beat myself
up for that. And I'm constantly focusing and
obsessing over that 5%.
So that's another thing that I would say
is like a precursor
because what I would like us to do
is kind of examine some of the things
that have been ingrained and coded into us
that drive us to keep driving ourselves into
the ground.
Yeah. And so that's what I would like
us to
look at now.
What are those
ingrained beliefs?
What are those things from our past that
is forcing
us to operate in a cycle that is
not beneficial for us?
What are those ingrained things that is forcing
us
to operate in a cycle
that is not beneficial
for us? So one of the questions that
I would like to know if there are
people in this room, I can see there's
one chilling sister, but if there are people
in this room that tend to drive themselves
to a point of burnout, that constantly type,
constantly start pushing pushing pushing.
Why do you push yourself to a point
of burnout? Why do you feel it's necessary?
Why do you feel it's necessary?
You know, sister Zahra, you know, when you
said about what happened to the other 10%,
I can so identify with that because I
think I was like you. I also grew
up in in Africa, in Zimbabwe,
and, you know, thrived off the competition element
of school,
and did very well with it, you know,
really brought out the best in me. And
I do remember
having a 98%
on a test, and my dad was like,
what happened to the other 2%?
So I think for me, one of the
things that continues that that underlying belief is
that
if you don't push yourself, you will not
achieve your potential,
and your potential is much more than what
you are doing now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sister Naima, you have literally
just copied and pasted
some notes from my therapy class.
Oh wow.
Literally that.
That exactly that. Yeah?
What scares me
and one of the things that I've written
down here,
number 2,
not living up to my immense potential.
Woah. Number 2. Wow. Number 2, not living
number 1 is burning out again. So the
thing when I when I when I really
deep dig, dug deep to do some of
this stonework for Sierra, I had to really,
really address this issue. What was the number
one thing that was scaring me? Burning out
again. Because it's a horrible experience.
It's a horrible experience because you literally feel
paralyzed.
And exactly what you've said about you know
what you can do, you know your potential,
you know that you know you've got this
you know. And I would say that I
had mourn the Zara of my past, I
had to really mourn the Zara and let
go and just realize that I will never
again
be able to do the type of things
that I did then.
Not because
not not because I'm physically capable because even
if I, when I try to do it
it's so painful
because it's just not how the, your body
and so it's not how your soul is
meant to work. I don't know if that
makes sense. You're not supposed to be putting
yourself under that kind of immense pressure.
It's just not sustainable and not healthy.
And so I really had to let go
of that image of Zara who could juggle
10
different things at a time and do it
well around everywhere.
Like, I remember my friends were literally caught
like, mister Azara, your energy energy mama, you
know and my and my coach was even
saying that oh my god Zara you're like
sprites she was saying it that you're like
sprite that's gonna fizz up
Like, the energy is so much, but once
the fizz has gone, you're just flat
because you've literally just
exploded all your energy away. And you need
to learn how to hone in.
You need to learn. And this is where
this, you know, this whole breaking that boom
and bust, fizz, buzz cycle. You need to
learn how to hone in your energy and
release it in a sustainable,
healthy,
balanced
way with grace.
And that's one thing that I would like
us to talk talk about in this in
this workshop. How can we get to the
point as professionals
and as entrepreneurs, as moms, as wives, as
women who thrive
where
we're not thriving on
an
on negative type of energy, on a stress
based energy.
It's not stress and pressure that's pushing us,
but it's this sense of balance and calm.
You're you're you're you're getting your energy from
a piece of knowing who you are,
of honoring yourself,
of deep commitment, of deep connection, of being
aligned with your values. This ebb, this flow,
this flow state.
That is where I would like us to
get to but we need to be conscious
that that exists
because so many of us don't even realize
that that exists. So many of us don't
even realize that we don't need to be
doing everything.
We don't need to be doing everything.
And this idea of, you know, oh, I'm
not gonna be living up to 5 potential
or something that I said on Friday about
missing out on opportunity,
missing out an opportunity.
And so we continue to push and overextend
ourselves because we feel like we're gonna miss
out. That is actually a scarcity mentality, and
we need to move to a place of
knowing that you you you are going to
commit yourself to the best.
You have
you only have the capacity
to do a few things well. You can
do loads of things at the same time,
but how many things can you really do
and commit to and do well?
Not a 100 things at a time. So,
okay, let me have a look at the
chat section and see if anybody has replied
my comments.
Okay.
Okay. So nobody here yet has shared
whether they push themselves to burnout
and what
causes that burnout.
Do we have any
is it only to send
Alright, ladies. Y'all know how it goes. Okay?
We're not here to just listen to be
lectured to or talked at.
This is a workshop,
which means y'all has to do some work.
Okay? So
please, insha Allah,
if you are currently multitasking,
stop.
If you're currently on other tabs listening to
the talk,
shut them off.
And In sha Allah, engage so that you
can take something from today's talk that you
will actually be able to put into action
afterwards. Because you know what it's like guys,
if we just listen, often it goes in
one ear, out of the other. You kinda
feel good because, yay, you know, I signed
up for a workshop. I was there. But
if you don't sit and commit and do
the work
and actually engage with what the the the
workshop leader is is is presenting, is is
asking you.
The truth of the matter is you are
not going to get the benefit, and I
want everyone who's here to get the benefit.
You know why you came here.
Allah knows why you came here.
So if you can be engaged,
you're going to get what you need from
this session.
If you're not that engaged, then you're not
gonna get what you need from this session.
So,
I wanna give everybody
just to ask them the question again, please,
sister Zakhra. So that, everybody can kind of,
yeah, catch themselves up again. So the question
that I that I had was, you know,
has anybody here
experienced burnout or does anybody here
feel that need to continue to push themselves?
And so why, why is that, why do
you feel that that need to continue to
push yourself until you you're burnt out onto
your you're literally
in the ground?
Why? What is it? What is it that
makes you feel like oh I need to
keep pushing, I need to keep you know
activity, I can't take a break,
what is it? You know one of the
sisters has shared that you know wife to
your brother, 3 kids, washa'Allah
you know and she's experienced everything that I've
spoken about. Sister Rahima seems to be on
this on this journey has
has this journey unlocked,
because she's not only said that she feels
that
I feel taken it calmly and cool is
part of growing up that's fantastic but she
doesn't allow herself to take to burn out
she takes time out weekly and monthly.
And I guess the question that I have
there is that is that something that you've
always done,
sister Raima or is it I don't know
what's going on my chat's not loading here.
Is it something that you've always done or
is it is that something that came out
of something? Was that born out of something?
May I just say sister Rahima is the
queen of self care.
I've known her for several years. We've worked
together and
she she is the queen of self care.
She has been for a while
When did you start, sister Rahima?
Sister,
sister Naima please can you make my second
phone a panelist? I'm not seeing the,
the messages are going to just panelists.
Of course. Yeah that's a big problem. Guys
when you're making your comments
please make sure that you,
say to panelists and attendees.
That's for one reason it's a bit annoying
because Zoom
doesn't doesn't it's not clear that sometimes you'll
be making comment and it's actually only being
It's only going. Yeah. Later.
So thank you, sis. I think that's that's
happening as well. It's popping up but it's
not I'm not seeing it.
Because I wanna read, I'm seeing some nice
comments coming in.
So the fact that I work far from
home gives me a physical stress, yeah, and
I thought I'm not
always being available for my kids as much
as I want gives me mental and emotional
stress of hand in love. Yeah.
I started when I realized I can't continue
to say yes to almost everything. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So that that's it remember what
our sister shared
I think the fair failure drives me to
burnout yeah. I think what our sister said
last week about you know no is a
full is a full sentence it's so important
because I remember
I used to apologize every time, all the
time
and I think it was sometime this year
or last year, I said, you know, I'm
gonna stop apologizing.
Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, sorry. I didn't see
a message. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. So always
apologizing.
And, literally, I will get to a point
where I'll write why I why I couldn't
reply or why something happened, and I and
I would already be typing that I'm sorry,
and I'll just remove it. I'm sorry. I'm
just like, I'll just bitch, I would have
already typed it, and I'll just remove it.
You know? And that's part of owning
your choices.
Owning your choices and saying I'm going to
I'm sorry I can't make this. No. You
know? I'm sorry. I cannot make it. I
don't have the capacity to. I can't speak
at this thing. I don't have the capacity
to.
You know, I'm really owning your decisions
and not guilting yourself for making decisions that
for making decisions that serve you
and help you to stay grounded.
Yeah? Okay. I'm seeing some more comments coming
in. This is what I like.
Alright. I used to burn out myself in
pleasing others, cooking and cleaning, putting myself last.
I'm still pushing myself in cooking and cleaning
because it become it's become just kind
kind of just
it's become kind just what
to get over and done with it. Okay
that's Tayo Ba.
I just read something about something too much.
Sorry. Yeah. Yeah.
Yep. Yep.
What
what I'm doing
or cooking. Yeah. Make it easier.
Yeah.
Perfect. So what I've started doing when it
comes to food because food really stresses me
out, I literally bulk order.
I bulk bulk order my soups and all
that so that I don't have to be
stressing about what to cook for dinner.
Sister Zahara, if you don't mind reading the
comments fully
so that the people in Facebook can hear
them. And also when people get the replay,
they won't see the comments. So if you
can read full comments, that would be really
helpful. Okay. Okay.
So I've seen, I think I read this
one out loud. So Latifa said, I think
the fact that I work away from home
gives me a physical stress and the thought
of not being always available for my kids
as much as I want to give me
mental and emotional stress.
So we will definitely have to to speak
about that insha'Allah.
Somebody has said that I started
so sister Rahim has started her self care
you know journey process
when she realized that she can't continue to
say yes to almost everything.
So, Serena, has said that I think the
fear of failure
drives me to burnout. Yes. That's a huge
one, and I've also written that down as
well. The fear of failure, that's actually a
limiting belief,
drive will drive you to to be pushing
yourself,
because you're afraid of of failing.
And the funniest thing about that fear of
failure, sisters, is that one thing that I
realized
from,
you know, being an adrenaline junkie and pushing
myself too much was that when you end
up busting,
when you end up burning out, that sense
of failure
can consume you to the point of
it skewing everything.
Because you
when you burn out, you physically cannot act.
You don't have the ability, the energy, the
capacity, anything to act. And so literally
pushing yourself,
burning out
drives this fear of failure because there are
literally periods of time when you're incapable of
doing the things that you need to do.
And the other thing that I found with
with with thriving off of adrenaline is that
when that when you don't have
something
extremely
exciting
to push you and drive you, you can't
act.
And what that means is like you you
don't know how to do the mundane things.
I say mundane but you don't know how
to do those little consistent things
that is
necessary and essential for you to grow your
business because it's not exciting enough. And so
a lot of time if you're an adrenaline
junkie there's a lack of follow through there
where you start a project,
you do the exciting part of the project
and then you would just be like, oh,
it's not working anymore. You know, that you've
lost the buzz. It's not exciting.
And so you want to quit.
And that also drives that,
you know, oh you know I'm gonna fail
if I quit and the back and the
forth when really you just need a break.
Really don't you just need a break but
you're unable,
you're unable
to
to continue
putting in the work. You can't put in
that work consistently.
You're not following through. You start and stop
projects. You you don't see, you know, things
to the end and it drives that sense
of oh, failure. I'm not living up to
my potential. Oh, there's this product I started.
It should
be, you know,
Amazon by now. There's this other one, the
idea. Ah, look at this person. We started
at the same time. Look at how they've
taken their business to and look at where
mine is.
Off you're not
putting the necessary and required energy into it.
Your hair, your jump, you're all over the
place trying to do too much, not following
through. And that also feeds,
into this, into all those
limiting limiting beliefs and all those psyches and
all those things that are going on. So
trust me, sisters,
by you not taking the time out,
by you not pacing yourself,
by you not
incorporating
this calm energy, this rest into your work,
by you not being consistent and consist,
committed and consistent in your work
that actually feeds
into that narrative of you know it's not
working it's not successful I'm not living up
to my potential etcetera. I'm seeing some comments
coming in. I love I'm loving it. Let
me get it here. Can I just say,
sister Daha, can you stop reading us,
please? Can you stop reading us?
Oh my god. Stop me out.
I was just telling you what I what
I do with literally
This is like my own personal therapy, guys.
I'm just like, oh my gosh. She's reading
me. Did we have a session? Did I
tell her anything? What's going on? Because she's
speaking to me right now, and Laika knows.
That's why she's laughing.
Oh,
Oh, Subhadallah. Subhadallah. I'm so happy that So
get to those comments. Get to those comments.
There's lots A lot of a lot of
women who see themselves as, you know, high
performing, thriving women. We all do this thing.
We all do it. We all do it.
SubhanAllah.
Okay. So I'm seeing some more. I used
to burn myself out including others, cooking, cleaning,
putting myself last. I'm still pushing myself to
cook and clean because it's it's just necessary
and you have to get it done.
And what you, what Sisorema started doing is,
you know, doing the bulk, the bulk thing.
So Sisarimah has kind of reiterated what I
said about feeling guilty when you can't keep
up.
Rahima has also said whilst I do not
thrive on adrenaline
I still get stressed and burnt out.
Working till 3 am, 2 hours of sleep,
kids school, home, subhanAllah, it could feel like
an endless cycle. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes. And that's about sleep. I'm gonna talk
about it.
About knowing your triggers, SubhanAllah.
We have to get to that Insha'Allah.
Yay, Sister Lainka, say word.
That's so true. I've never grown out really.
In business I only do what I can.
At the office I apply for my leave
as soon as I start feeling too tired.
I don't like stress. Yeah, you don't like
that stress life. Absolutely true. People are resonating
with what I shared just now Alhamdulillah.
This Naiva is telling me to stop reading
you.
The fear of failure got me early this
year.
Literally had to go speak to a professional.
In my mind I was letting everyone down
and I was disappoint and I was a
disappointment because I was failing in my mind.
It is horrible. So true. So what Sussera
Rahima had said here is where I was
in 2017,
after my burnout episode. And my burnout episode
led to depression.
My burnout episode led to depression, and it
was this sense of failure
that consumed me the most.
The sense that I had put in all
of this energy for a project.
I had put my 100 into that project,
and I felt that it failed
to the standard that I wanted. Everyone else
around me was like it was amazing blah
blah blah blah blah blah. But with every
person who told me it was amazing.
I further went into the pressure because I
was like, you guys should just leave me
alone. It was not amazing. This happened, that
happened exactly what I shared earlier about focusing
on the 10, 5 to 10% that didn't
go well. And I had
literally blown it up and it took over
everything.
It took over everything. This sense
of failure,
low self worth,
everything. It was just like, it was horrible.
And I went through my season of healing
and really realizing that. And that's why I
told you guys, it took 2 years really
realizing that I needed to fundamentally
change
how I approached my business. Because I had
my sense of self
was directly
linked to my business.
And so if anything went wrong in my
business I felt that it was a
personal
attack on myself.
If anybody gave me feedback that was not
necessarily positive I felt that they were attacking
me and my character. And I had to
detach
my sense of self
from my business's success or failure thereabouts. And
I had to do so so much so
many other things in that process,
that we can't necessarily go into here. But
I wanted us to really examine this question
of why is it that we push ourselves
to fail?
Then the other question about what is it
that we are afraid of?
What is it that we are afraid of?
Because a lot of people are saying here,
resonate in fear of failure.
What is it that you're afraid of? Is
it just is it failure?
What is it? Not living up to your
potential?
And I had shared so sit I will
share some of the stuff that I had
written out, And it was a long list
of things,
when I when I did my sole work
at the start of the year because I
really needed to shift. So I've written here,
burning out again,
not living up to my immense potential,
not fully utilizing the blessings Allah has given
me,
Putting in so much
effort into my work and not reaping its
rewards.
Not getting it right as a parent.
Choosing the wrong path. So this happens for
people who are serial entrepreneurs, people who have
so many things that they could be doing,
who are multi
potentialites or multi talented,
whereby you're like, but I don't know which
one to do and so we do everything.
So sometimes there's that fear of, okay, I
know I need to commit but what if
I pick the wrong thing? So choosing the
wrong path. Wasting time, money and effort pursuing
the wrong thing.
So you choose the wrong path and then
you waste time, energy, effort, money, everything pursuing
the wrong thing.
Not being able
to afford the simple luxuries in life,
being a financial burden on my husband,
missing opportunities
and being a has been because
because of lack of, because of fear and
lack of follow through. So those are some
of the things that were driving
my
that was that was driving my
need
to be trying to do it all. And
so I would really advise everybody after this
workshop to take some time out to do
that self analysis
and really ask yourself
what is driving
what is driving this need
to be superwoman?
What is driving
this need to do everything?
What is it that I'm afraid of? Put
it down on paper. What am I afraid
of? And then you'll be able to start
to see
and uncover those limiting beliefs that are holding
you back.
And for me,
for me to be able to transition
away from this boom,
this boom energy
to what I'm calling a bloom,
blooming energy. This effort. Let's say when I
think about blooming I think about the way
a, you know, a flower
blossoms
effortlessly.
So moving from boom where you're like brute
force you're like a boxer,
to being a flower. You're just there, effortless,
blooming.
I had to address
those limiting beliefs that were driving me to
keep driving myself into the ground.
And I've already shared them here with you,
but the biggest one for me
the biggest one for me was that
it was fear that was holding me back.
Yeah. So I wrote down here, I realized
this week that one of my one of
the biggest fears holding me back was rooted
in the limiting belief that my coaching and
personal development business cannot be financially successful.
I realized,
through this exercise
that that was the first speaking 100%.
And the reason why I shared this with
you is because we're gonna get into this
space now where we need to figure out
one of the biggest okay. I'll just I'll
say it now so I can then come
back to it again.
The biggest
tool, and this is what I shared self
care is to me.
The biggest tool
I have been able to use
to remain grounded
to remain grounded
and aligned
is
by listening
to my mind,
my body, and my spirit.
And I shared that self care to me
where is it? Where's my, let me let
me get the quote out properly so I
don't misquote myself,
so I don't misquote myself subhanAllah.
Where is it? I shared it I shared
it yesterday.
I wanna make sure that come here on,
I wanna read it word word for word.
Sorry guys.
Just a second.
Sorry.
Okay. It's been lunch.
Okay. So I shared yesterday self care to
me
is being in tune
with my mind, my body, and my spirit.
It's asking myself what do I need to
feel grounded in this moment and honoring myself
by acting on the answer.
And honoring myself by acting on the answer.
And so the a lot of the work
that I have been doing this year is
about
being in alignment,
being in alignment
with my mind, my body, and my spirit.
And at the start of the year
my soul was drawing me towards
this work that I'm doing right now but
I was resisting.
I was resisting with everything I had. I
was resisting and the reason why I was
resisting was that this was the work that
I was doing in 2017 when I burnt
out
And so I had literally
coded into my brain
that if I immerse myself into this work,
I will burn out. I won't be appreciated.
I will be under rewarded because there isn't
I'm not going to be able to
sustain myself financially with this work. And so
many other things.
So many other things that I was telling
myself.
So many other things that I was telling
myself. And so I was then doing a
bit of it on the side and then
doing other things
that wasn't necessarily soul work. That wasn't necessarily
my it wasn't my I wasn't living in
alignment with my calling, if that if I'm
if I'm to put that right.
And so I really had to
realize
number 1 to surrender to Allah
and number 2, to realize and I shared
this earlier in the year that the effort
comes from me
but the results come from Allah.
The effort comes from me but the results
come from Allah.
And being somebody who
was an adrenaline junkie, thrives over the pressure,
that you forget that it is Allah.
You work in such a way you forget
that the risk, the barakah comes from Allah.
And for me that barakah is you put
this amount of energy
and Allah
multiplies it.
Multiplies it.
By, you know, in multitudes of manifolds.
And so we need to stop
working as though it's the energy that we
are putting in that is going to be
direct that's directly going to translate into the
results.
Does everybody understand what I mean by that?
Yeah?
Does everybody understand what I mean by that?
Because that in and of itself
drives us to keep driving ourselves into the
ground.
And instead
for instead of us to realize that, do
you know
what? This risk is coming from Allah.
So let me just do this. This is
enough. This is sufficient for me.
And Allah, the barakah will come from him.
The the everything that I want by putting
in this, it will come from him.
So I so sister Rahima is saying that
I used to focus on the results.
So yeah, Rahima.
Results such as outcome, I know better now
though.
Okay so I can see some comments coming
in before,
oh my gosh,
all right
okay. All right so let me go back
a bit because I've messed up with the
cover. So I took 6 months a 6
month break and hamdulillah I am sorry guys
I'm having a bit of a cold.
I took a 6 month break and Alhamdulillah
I am at a better place now. Taking
a break, so I say this all the
time, sometimes we have to take a step
back to move forward.
Sometimes we have to take a step back
to move forward. And another one that my
coach always says to me is that, you
know, when,
what is it? When you press stop something
about when you press stop on a machine,
it stops. When you press stop on a
human being, you start working. I don't know
if that makes sense. Like, but basically stopping
stopping
yourself,
it really does help you to get started
again. And so we have to take step
backs to to move forward. So I tend
to leave things unfinished
unfinished due to the fear of failure. Yep?
Yep. And that and it further drives it.
So the more you leave things unfinished, the
more you don't follow through, the more you
don't see the results that you want, the
more you kind of, like, you
you
you justify
your behavior.
You justify your behavior. So we don't allow
ourselves to take breaks. So BSS says that
I push myself so much because if I
didn't do things no one would do it.
I already feel the burnout and I have
decided after this conference I have to block
time for myself.
For my self care, enough is enough.
Yes, sis, you have literally
just said something that again is what a
lot of us do
which is
thinking that if we don't do it no
one else can.
And that often is not true.
If and I do it, also being a
perfectionist
also is something that isn't necessarily a good
trait that we that that one can, you
know, get into the space where no one
can do it like I can.
No one can do it like I can.
And so if I can't do it and
so you push yourself, even with stuff, learning
how to delegate, not using your stuff, not
and it's not
always true.
And also sometimes you have to realize that
you have to train people, you have to
teach people and you have to remove your
eye. As your right people will say,
you have to remove your eye.
Sometimes yes, it's not going to be exactly
how you want it to be
but stop being OCD. It doesn't have to
be. Your way is not the only way.
If you are not there, people will eat.
If you are not there, things will happen.
If you are not there, do you understand
what I mean? It will get done. It
may not get done the way you want
it but you need to try and start
to discipline yourself to just let it go
and just be like, it's okay. Trust me
this is something that I'm still learning this
particular one. And I went away with, some
of my girlfriends 2 weeks ago
and I was like oh my god my
OCD was like 100. Well I was literally
going and like arranging the fridge and all
that I was like 'Darn what are you
doing?
What are you doing? He's like, no, all
of the drinks need to be on the
door. Why is it all over the place?
You know, you just have to learn how
to let go. It will be fine. People
will eat. Things will happen. It doesn't have
to go the way you want it to
go because you need to give yourself
a break as well. So thank you for
sharing that.
Oh, this is a deep one. I didn't
believe I was worth a break.
That's a big one as well. That is
a big one as well where we don't
give ourselves permission.
We feel like we need to
have achieved x y x y x y
x y z before we are allowed to
rest. And again, that's a limiting belief that
we need to break.
The mental load we carry as women slash
mothers is phenomenal.
I'm feeling triggered SubhanAllah
Yeah, we take on a lot and I
think that
we don't even realize how much we take
on.
We don't even realize how much,
we take on until it's too late because
we're so used to being able to cope.
We're so used to coping and coping and
coping
that we don't even realize how much of
a burden that we're putting on ourselves.
So wasting time and effort pursuing the wrong
thing, even though I know no knowledge is
useless, but it's so annoying.
And for me,
this is where
living in alignment
with your higher purpose is so important.
Living in alignment with the things you value
the most is so important.
Because
when you do that
when you do that, you
never feel as though you're wasting time
or you're doing the wrong thing.
I'll repeat that. When you're living in alignment
with the things that are most important to
you,
Pursuing the wrong thing won't happen
because you won't so for example,
there's a project that I've been doing
that I know I've outgrown.
Yeah? So this is also part of saying
no, guys. Realizing when you've outgrown a project,
Realizing when either it's time to take a
break,
you've outgrown it and you wanna leave it
behind, or you need to pivot and evolve.
And you can only do that when you
take time
to just center yourself
and and really get
I don't know how to, I don't know
how to explain this properly.
With aside from just doing it like literally
sitting sitting down, breathing,
assessing all the things that you do, and
asking yourself what is what is the most
important thing for me in this season that
I'm in?
And which of these things align with it
and which of these things don't?
And letting go of things that you have
outgrown
is different from
not following through with something you should be
doing.
So make the distinction.
This is something I want to do but
I need to put certain amount of energy
into it to follow through to see it
through to the end. This is something that
I no longer want to do and so
I need to let go of it.
And a lot of the time, do you
know what we do instead?
The thing that we should be doing
the thing that we should be doing and
working on consistently,
we don't do it. We procrastinate
and we instead fill our days with things
that we don't even want to be doing.
But because somebody, oh, what would they say?
Oh, I don't wanna let this person down.
You leave the work that is for yourself.
You leave the work
that you want to be doing,
where you should be putting your energy into
and instead you pour your energy into this
thing that you have outgrown, that you no
longer want to be doing, that you're doing
out of a sense of obligation.
And so your energies are mismatched.
And you we need to get back to
a place where we are
living in alignment
with
our
higher purpose and calling.
And so we need to sit down and
do the work to realize
what is it that I really want.
And I did this at the start of
2020.
What do I want to dedicate my life
and my time to?
And the answer kept coming up
and I kept saying, oh this is not
the answer that I want.
I don't know if you guys have ever
done this before.
Where you're searching for something but
that's not necessarily the one you want but
that's the one that keeps coming.
Listen to yourself
and say okay,
it's not the one that I necessarily want
but it seems as though this is the
thing that I need to be
immersing myself into. So this other thing that
my brain wants what my heart doesn't want
let me put it on pause or let
me see how I can wind back my
obligations in it. So that this other thing
that scares me a bit
that I don't know how it's gonna that
I need to rely on Allah for. I
can commit myself to this work and put
in that work that is needed to be
able to get
the results
that I seek.
Yeah?
So I would like everybody to take a
second
to think about
what does blooming look like to you?
What does blooming look like to you?
What does it look like to
not be driven off of
pressure,
stress,
adrenaline,
frantic energy.
What does it look like to
wake up,
be excited about your day,
things to be in sync, things to be
in a state of flow,
things are working,
what does that look and feel like to
you?
What does that look and feel like to
you? You You know, one of the things
that I've always said is that I I
want to be able to work from anywhere.
I wanna be able to wake up after
faju, go back to bed, I wanna be
able to start my day at 10 AM.
That's
something I've said this from when I was
my early twenties. I've said that, you know,
my ideal time to start my day is
10 AM. And so if I need if
I have to be doing anything that requires
me to be up at up and about
by 7 o'clock,
I just feel so, like, weighed down weighed
down.
I feel so weighed down.
I would love to even though I still
try sometimes, oh, you know, it'd be good
to be an early riser, go for a
walk, this, that, whatever. But I find that
I'm most happy when I can start my
day at 10,
for example.
But there's a certain
lifestyle you need to be living to be
able to start your day at 10 o'clock.
Not everybody has the luxury to do that.
I wanna be able to work from anywhere.
If I want to come and live in
London for 3 months and be in Nigeria
and then go to Singapore, I want to
be mobile. I want to be able to
do all my work from my phone.
So these are like what does Bloomy look
like to you? I want to be able
to say oh this quarter you know what
I'm just gonna go spend
2 weeks in Morocco.
That flexibility,
that ownership of my own time and my
space,
What does blooming,
what does blooming look like to you?
Let me have a look at some of
the comments. Here. Just, Yes.
Jamaine, as you're talking about blooming and being
in flow and
and just being,
I I just I'm not pushing. We've we've
talked a lot about, you know, just being
pulled rather than pushing and and, you know,
and I completely get it. And it reminds
me of how different
the the the conversations usually are for entrepreneurs,
especially
with masculine energy.
Because I'm hearing a lot of feminine energy
coming through here, and I'm thinking, oh, Grant
Cardone would not approve of this. Gary Vaynerchuk
would not approve of this because it's it's
so kind of opposite to what we especially
especially when men talk about entrepreneurship,
and and getting it, you know, like get
the bag and like get it and you
know like push yourself and like no sleep
and you know that that push push push
push energy
which kind of has dominated the entrepreneurial space
for a long time.
I feel like as you're speaking, I'm thinking
of people like Amy Porterfield, people like Sunny
Lenarduzzi, who herself had a breakdown,
and ended up in hospital.
And so many women
finding that that particular
way of push push push testosterone
fueled,
you know, kind of like going for success
and going for it and going for it,
it doesn't actually work for us. I don't
know whether it works for men, but for
us as women,
it doesn't work for us. And
this kind of flow energy and this blooming
that you're talking about, which I absolutely love
that phrase,
it seems to be more in alignment
with, you know, sort of who we are
as women. Would you would you suggest that
the case?
100%.
So, you know, this idea of feminine energy
is something that my coach,
you know, brought to my attention,
in in actually my business coach. And then
she realized that, do you know what? This
my business coaching sessions went beyond that. It
went to a place where she started talking
about
energy, feminine energy, tapping into my feminine energy.
So it says here, move to a place
of blossom.
Move to a place of blossom like you
need to Yeah, 100% to cinema. And I
think that for so long,
I've been in my masculine energy.
I've been in my masculine energy. That was
how I have thrived up up until this
point. And you remember when I said that
when I burnt out in 2017
all all the things that I used to
do
to be able to get myself out of
a rock, to push myself, it wasn't working
and that was literally it. I didn't realize
it and I didn't have the language for
it then. It's just this year that I'm
really getting myself into understanding, you know, what
it means to be to get into your
feminine energy, to get into a flow state.
But that was it. I was trying, I
was, I was coming again with that brute
force.
So I'll share some examples of masculine and
feminine energy here. I was coming with that
brute force that, you know, deadlines,
this, that. I'm like, no. And that wasn't
what my soul needed.
I needed to tap into a place of
grace,
of flow,
of calm. And I will read, I will
read
a letter that I shared earlier in this
in in I think it was sometime in
June. But let me,
I'm trying to find
I'm trying to find room in energies. Okay.
Do you know what? I think that it's
gonna be better because I'm not prepared for
it. It's gonna be better to
okay. So we have here masculine energy.
So we have logical thoughts, mind,
decisive action, risk taking, achieving, controlling,
competitive, intellectual, giving, feminine energy,
intuitive feeling, senses,
creativity,
nurturing,
experiencing,
being,
collaborating,
expressing,
receiving.
So those are those are some,
some of like the distinctions
between the 2. Let me have a look
at some of the comments coming in because
I'm seeing some amazing comments coming in.
Blooming is doing what I love daily and
living in serenity knowing that I put in
my pot for the day. Blooming to have
help with my baby and my house chores
so that I can sit in my study
and get work done. We are women, we
are not meant to be acting as men,
blooming, not feeling like I'm always chasing my
tail, yep I'm feeling relaxed.
Men have less mental load,
men male privilege,
I'm not sure about that one Sister Salawa.
I think that they have a different type
of mental
of load and I will always say that
I would take my load over over my
husband's load any day because I see him
grinding
day in, day out, and I'm like, I
cannot do what you do. But he says
the same thing to me. He can't do
what I do. And he just makes me
feel like Allah Allah is just perfect because
he has he has created each person
according to and giving us our rights and
our roles and our obligations
according to how he has created us and
what is suited for us because I can't
I can't do what? Paying school fees rent?
This is Nigeria.
It's not been, subhanAllah.
Okay.
Living and doing everything in obedience to our
creator is blooming, fantastic.
Blooming, making a difference
as opposed to just doing mundane work. I
love that. Seeing that I am planting seeds
and watching them grow beautifully.
Love it. Salwa,
this is about energy more than about men
and women, which is different. Yeah. So, exactly,
Sisneema. So it's about it's about the energy
you bring to things. So instead of,
so it's saying that the giving energy or
receiving energy. So giving that giving energy is
is is you tapping into your masking energy.
But can we tap into our feminine energy
and receive?
And receive, don't feel like you need to
give all the time. Can you step into
a place where you're receiving?
People are giving to you. So that's, that's
like an example of the, the energies. And
also you have to realize that
everyone has both, like you can also, you
also have masculine energy, men have feminine energy.
So it's just about that balance and the
and the alignment.
So blooming for me is keeping my intentions
in alignment with my purpose to serve Allah.
I love that sister Jaimila and not my
nafs. This masculine energy combo reminds me of
serving the self more ego based.
Yeah.
So thank you so much, Shastalaima,
for for
for
mentioning,
the the energies.
And it's definitely, as I said, it's a
new area for me, it's something something that
I'm very excited about exploring,
and it's something that has also led me
to, you know, my
my gardening,
that's me trying to tap into a more
feminine energy,
nurturing energy
because even me as a mum I know
for sure
that I am I
am more of a go go go kind
of person. I don't know how to explain
it to the point where I feel like
once my kids stop breastfeeding
I'm not as,
I have to really work at being
nurturing,
I don't know if that makes sense, I
have to really work at being nurturing subhanAllah.
So I wanted to read a little passage
for you all from the,
SOWFUL, so I send out SOWFUL letters
to my, to my SOWFUL community
every Friday
and there's this one that I shared
in June called
trials,
breakthroughs and new beginnings,
yeah? And I'm just going to read out
some parts to you because I think it
really explains,
it really
it
really sums up the experience I've been in
so far and Insha'Allah I can then go
on to share some of the practical tools
and steps that I have been doing to
break my boom and bust cycle and re
step into this blooming
energy and cycle that you know Alhamdulillah I've
really been living in alignment with this year
and I've been seeing the results in such
a different way.
Alhamdulillah.
Okay.
So let me say
so this week for me has been about
trying to align my energy
with this new phase of life that I
found myself in, blooming.
I feel like for the longest time I've
been in a place where I was buried
and fighting every day to break through the
soil in search of light,
to find myself, my direction and my purpose
in life.
I love using analogies for nature.
After all,
our Lord has told us numerous times in
the Quran that
in his creation are signs for those who
reflect.
And so I embraced this struggle
and surrendered to my season of being planted.
I visualize myself as a lonely seed in
the depths of the dark soil
struggling to germinate and break through to the
light.
I embraced the struggle.
I did all I could to survive and
break through.
Alhamdulillah
now I feel I'm past that stage.
My stems are strong,
my roots are firmly planted
and I know what I want.
I've weathered the storms
and thrived
despite the weeds
which threatened to stifle my growth.
I shed my old leaves and I have
grown back new stronger
and more vibrant leaves.
My flowers have budded and I feel it
is time, it is my time to shine,
my time to blossom.
But guess what?
I've become so used to the struggle
fighting off weeds and thriving in hard conditions
that I don't know how to embrace
the subtle
beauty and art
of blossoming
effortlessly
with grace and poise.
This week it hit me hard.
It's not the same energy
a seed
uses to germinate,
that a flower
uses to bloom.
And so I've had to take a huge
step back and realize that the grunt work
has been done.
The sweat and tears and the heartache
have come and gone.
I paid my dues in that respect for
now,
may Allah grant us ease and goodness because
those trials come.
But for now I've paid my dues.
That this new phase in my life will
require a different type of commitment,
a different type of energy.
It will require a gentle approach.
It will require stillness
and vulnerability.
It will require soul work and connection.
It will require grace and poise.
It will require a peaceful
ebb and flow.
It will require tapping into my feminine energy.
It would require silence
to tune into the signs and directions of
my lord.
It will require intuition
and self belief.
It will require meaningful
relationships
and deep bonds.
It will require getting comfortable
digging deep and being satisfied
with less
quantity
for richer quality.
I'm going to read that again.
It will require
getting comfortable
digging
deep and being satisfied with less quantity
for richer quality.
It will require me to go to a
place within myself
that only shows up in special moments.
Moments when I'm most when I'm
my most authentic self
living in full alignment with my purpose
and in servitude to my lord
and him alone.
That is why this week I started shedding
the baggage
and ensuring that everything and everyone I give
my energy to is deserving of it.
Ensuring that I was operating from a place
of awe and wonder
and not from a place of fear and
stress.
And just embracing the feeling of being here
in this moment
creating,
writing,
cultivating,
and investing in myself.
So I can add value to the lives
of those I hold dear and create moments
like this right here
directly
from
my
soul.
So that was a long read.
But if you're if you are on my
mailing list you would have received this and
I resent this out again
last Friday
when I was reflecting and preparing for the
session.
Insha'Allah I will share actually
the link to
sign up to the mailing list inshallah,
and we will send this out again
next week. But
I think that this is is this is
this it? Soulful list? I can't even remember.
Yeah. Sis, I think the best thing Insha'Allah
is to put the link in the Facebook
group and Ah, okay.
So that oh, are you a Bitly user?
Yes. Oh, Bitly. All the way. I
think I think that's the thing. But, yeah,
I'll definitely put it. I'll put the link
to the to this particular email as well,
as to how you can sign up because
for me I think that this
was the turning point for me.
So after
you do the work
but it takes it takes a while to
really
get it and connect all the dots.
It takes a while to get to that
place where you're sure that, you know what?
This is on purpose. Allah has put me
here on purpose. Like all this that I'm
I'm experiencing is on purpose
and
really leaning into that. I'm seeking to understand
that, you know, I say, I say that
you know being in awe
and wonder, curiosity
is such a beautiful
it's such a beautiful,
what what do we call it? Is it
like a state?
It's such a beautiful state to be in.
It's such a beautiful state to be in
because you open yourself up
in a way that you're not judgmental,
You're not judging yourself.
You're seeking to understand
and to learn and to evolve and to
grow
and to really
I keep saying this thing about living in
alignment
and to really live in alignment with where
you are
now,
where Allah wants you to be,
and to be literally be taking those steps
in the right direction because you're listening to
Allah,
you're listening, you're watching your signs and you're
doing those, you're making those sacrifices,
because it's not always easy, you know, a
lot of the time you're you're making certain
sacrifices and doing things differently, you're moving away
from your comfort zone.
But in doing those things, in surrendering,
in surrendering to Allah,
in really
imbibing this
this tawako
into your life and into into your journey,
you live such a more wholesome life
where and exactly what I said, the quantity
might be less, but the quality
is so much richer.
And so
I had to let go
of a lot
to get to that point where I'm like,
okay. This is what my blooming is. And
for me to really get to into my
blooming state,
I need to shed all of this baggage,
all of this baggage
in terms of what I've committed by what
sorry, I've literally like have a block there,
sorry guys.
I had to shed the baggage
and that's the same thing again that I
want you to do so there's a couple
of things tasks guys. I'm gonna inshallah, I
will do a summary in the in the
Facebook group Insha'Allah.
Firstly, trying to realize and examine
what is it that you're afraid of? What
is it that's holding you back
from really stepping into this space
of blooming that you ideally want to be
in?
Number 2, what does your blooming look like
in this season? Because we have to realize
that
blooming will look different for you depending on
what season in life you're in. So really
ask yourself, what does blooming look like for
you in this season? And what do I
need to let go of? What do I
need to shed? Enable in order for me
to really live in alignment
with this space that I'm striving to be.
And the last part of what I would
really like to share with you is some
of the practical
steps
to get from that point a to point
b.
Firstly,
disclaimer, it takes time.
So please don't try and rush. Don't try
and rush your healing journey. Yeah. I'll I'll
post in the Facebook group inshallah.
Don't rush your healing journey.
Don't try and rush
the process
because tapping into this energy, let's call it
the feminine energy.
It's intuition.
Yeah?
You have to be expressive. You're not you're
not rushing. You're not you're not trying to
get to some destination.
You're literally living in the now, in the
process, in the journey and enjoying
the different
the ebbs and the flows as it's happening.
You're not don't don't
be goal oriented. It's not about where you're
trying to go per se. But it's
it's living
that journey and enjoying the process
of creating,
of
of of getting to where you're going. You
know, you need to enjoy the journey. Don't
just be focused on where you're going.
How can you
how can you move to a place where
you're enjoying the process of getting to where
you wanna go to?
And so one of the first things that
I I have shared here to really be
able to get to that place is being
in tune with yourself, but also identifying your
triggers.
Being in tune with yourself, but also identifying
your triggers because when you're when you're trying
to shift
from
a that personality trait that has been so
ingrained that you've been so used to,
you will fall back into old habits and
when things start getting tough, you will fall
back into the habits that you were used
to, that you've always been in. So you
need to realize what your triggers are. You
need to realize what are those habits and
traits that when you start doing them, you're
falling back. And so you need to be
able to then auto correct.
And for instance, one of the things for
me, the biggest things for me and this
happened to me during Ramadan.
This happened to me during Ramadan because I
took on
a mega project during Ramadan.
And I literally, I burnt myself out to
the point where I was already like manic.
Like literally, I had like hypomania.
That was how because my my burnout comes
be what comes before my burnout is a
highly
manic
adrenaline driven state where I feel invincible
Because whatever it is I'm doing, I'm like
I'm like superwoman. I thought I can jump
off a building at that point in time
to plan a lot. And before that
and so immediately after that it comes with
a sort of crash and that happened during
Ramadan to the point where I wrote I
wrote it here like I told my husband
I'm like an industrial machine.
Like once you switch me on you can't
just put me off. Like industrial machines you
can't just be switching it on and off.
Like once it's on, you literally need to
like wind it down like gradually.
It was crazy because I was, I was
sleeping, So not sleeping is like a big
one for me. So you have to realize
what are those signs
that you're getting back into a state where
it's not healthy for you and the big
one for me is not sleeping, forgetting to
eat. When people say they forget to eat
guys that's a thing,
that's actually a thing, you can't actually forget
to eat and that was something that was
also happening to me. And I literally had
to write down, I'm picking it up,
so I literally had to write down my
steps
to recover from my burnout. And one of
the big ones, the first thing on my
list was deleting WhatsApp
temporarily. And when I went, had my retreat
last weekend as well, I was off WhatsApp
for like 5 and a half days like
I deactivated it because WhatsApp is a huge
stress trigger for me and your trigger could
be Twitter, it could be it could be
Instagram. It could be your phone in general.
You just wanna throw your phone into a
drawer somewhere for a week. But for me,
deleting WhatsApp,
I had to literally write down. Switching my
phone off for a minimum of 12 hours
every day,
creating a 2 hour window in a day
where I can then deal with urgent tasks,
you know. And I literally had to write
down
the things, the steps that I needed to
take
to be able to
get back into alignment.
Okay. So I'm gonna step back a bit
because I've said like 3 things all in
one. Yeah? Some of the practical steps for
you to if you are trying to recover
from a burnout state.
Yeah?
Is make sure that you always stay in
tune with yourself.
Always stay in tune with yourself and always
try and get a sense of what is
causing you stress and anxiety
in this moment.
And sometimes it is literally,
it can be something as little as
oh, like for instance this happens with me
on the weekends like I have, I have
my Quran classes on the weekend
And, really, all I need to just do
is get up and do my homework, and
that anxiety is gone.
So that's like an example. But I had
to tune in and realize that that was
what was happening and so in order for
me to not be stressing out the whole
of my Saturday because I haven't revised my
Quran and I haven't done my HIFs and
I haven't done this and that and whatever
and I'm thinking, oh, should I cancel my
class?
Carve out an hour to just get that
done.
So make sure that you are
listening to yourself and listening to your needs.
Sometimes it's oh you know I'm in bed
all day and the kids want to play,
they've been knocking at the door, they want
to do something with me and I'm like
I'm feeling guilty that I'm not doing anything
with them and this and that instead of
just sitting in that guilt
stop procrastinating
and just say you know what I'm just
going to go out and play with the
kids. So a lot of the times the
tensions and stresses that we feel come from
a place of us putting things off that
we find that
that is value. So for instance, either
it comes from a place of filling our
time with the things that we don't value
and we're filling our time with it or
the things that we do value we're not
given enough attention
to it. Is everyone still there, I'm not
seeing any comments?
Does everyone understand what I'm saying?
So that's why we have to try and
yes. Awesome. That's why
whenever you're feeling off,
try
and tune step back and just get
in tune with yourself.
And think about, okay, what is it that
is important to me that I'm not doing
that I'm putting off and so it's causing
me stress? Or what is it that I'm
doing that is not important to me and
I'm like you know when you're doing something
that you're like, this thing, I don't wanna
be doing it.
Then then let go.
Yeah? So undervalue overvalue, making sure you're in
sync with those things.
Number 2
or number 3. I don't know if you
know what number I'm on anymore. Identifying
the triggers.
What are the things that are triggering you?
For me, it's WhatsApp. And so when I
start getting overwhelmed,
I know WhatsApp needs to be deactivated
or I need some time away from my
phone. Identify your triggers.
Autocorrect.
How do you autocorrect?
You set boundaries.
And I love to do these boundary circles.
Yeah?
So I've literally written here
self care boundary circle.
So what are the things that you will
be doing?
So inside your inside your circle, you write
out the things that
you're allowed to do, the things that help
you stay grounded,
that will fill you up, that will help
you to feel replenished.
And outside outside the circle, you write the
things that
outside the circle, you write the things that
you're not allowed to do. The things that
are depleting your energy, that are draining you,
and you try and make sure that you're
living in alignment with that as well. So
set your boundaries. Extremely important. I know I'm
rushing through it, but I wanted to make
sure that I that I say that. Boundary
setting is so
it's so important when it comes to self
care
because a lot of the time
the tension we feel comes from us
exerting energy
into things that we don't wanna be doing.
Exerting energy into areas of our life that
are not important to us. And then we
feel resentment
and we feel the stress and we feel
all sorts of emotions
because of that.
So making sure that we're setting boundaries and
owning our boundaries
and not being apologetic
about those boundaries because they are vital to
your well-being.
And the third thing that I've written down
here is establishing healthy self care routines.
So what are your pick me up activities?
What are your pick me up activities?
And put a time frame to it. I
love sister Rahima said she does things on
a weekly basis, on a monthly basis.
What are those activities that you can do
daily,
weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually?
So write a list of pick me up.
So just write pick me up activities.
And I have daily pick me up activities.
So whenever I'm feeling in a rot
and I've literally written that here, have morning
routine here
and I have evening
bedtime routine here. And they're just a list
of different things that if I literally just
come, if I'm feeling in a rut, I
just come and I'm like, you know what
let me just start from number 1.
And once I've done 2 or 3 things
on the list I'm already feeling better.
So things like starting your day on time
with with with fajr,
doing your morning adkar,
oil pulling,
so like oil opening, tongue scraping,
and brushing my teeth in the morning,
silence, just being in silence listening to, like,
these sounds of, like, maybe the waves, the
ocean.
Journaling,
reading,
doing my visualizations,
doing my affirmations,
doing some exercise, maybe going for a walk,
having a shower,
drinking water, drinking a cup of green tea.
These are like activities that
they seem so mundane.
They seem so mundane.
But if we start our day doing them
or if we do that when we start
feeling down, they pick you up and make
you feel better
and make you feel better. So what are
the things that you might wanna do on
a weekly basis? What are the things that
you might want to do on a monthly
basis, on a quarterly basis? And create a
list
of activities
because trust me when you're in it you
forget, I don't know what happened just like
you forget how to look after yourself subhanAllah.
When you're in it
And you're just there, like, you're just in
bed, you're just Netflixing.
Literally, that's all you can think to do.
But there are other things that are more
that are healthier
that will actually fill you up.
Spending time with the kids, taking the kids
swimming,
taking them out to the park. You know
write them down
and whenever you're feeling low, whenever you're feeling
stressed go to your list and do you
know what and say do you know what
guys even if it's your family you said
you know what mommy's having 30 minutes or
mommy's having an hour and you lock yourself
up in your room or you go out
for your walk and you just do those
things. Trust me you will feel so much
better
and be able to then
give. So you know again what you know
something that I learned from Friday session is
serving from your overflow.
Fill yourself up first
and then you will see that
the giving is not even you're not resenting
it anymore because you've taken the time that
you need for yourself. And so you don't
feel so bogged down by having to cook
or having to clean or having to make
dinner. You can start to enjoy those things
because you have given yourself
what you need.
So
that is a bit of a summary, sisters,
of
how
SubhanAllah I have been able to
start
to step away, I wouldn't say start to
step but to step away from
that boom and bust cycle into a more
blooming
cycle and
state of being. It's
sometimes we forget, as I said Ramadan came
and Ramadan was like my test
because
I went back to that place of
drawing from adrenaline,
drawing from adrenaline and alhamdulillah within a week
I was able to autocorrect even though the
damage was done,
and I remember having to write down, you
know, what are the
signs, what are the things that I can
do
to get back to that state. So Alhamdulillah,
so what I would say is that by
being conscious of this of this phenomenon, by
being conscious that you know I don't do
well just driving off of adrenaline. I was
able to identify when it happened. Whereas in
the past, I would have keep I would
have kept
driving myself
until the end of Ramadan and then I
would have been right now, I wouldn't be
seeing you guys. It would because it would
take minimum
minimum 6 months
fully offline.
Because I'll be that I'll be that drained.
Middle of 6 months.
But, I was able to identify
it and slam on the brakes
and set the boundaries and take the action
steps I needed to get back into a
healthy state of being
and get back into a healthy state of
being. So by doing this work sisters,
you will find that
gradually, gradually, gradually, you're adding to your toolbox
to be able to deal with those blur
bits. I'm so sorry,
guys. I'm a really bad blocked nose.
To be able to deal with those
moments when they come.
But be conscious
be conscious of the fact that you don't
have to draw from frantic energy.
You don't have to draw
from frantic
energy.
You don't have to
come from a place of stress and pressure.
You can
start to step into a space where
you're calmer,
you're in control.
I remember my my
mantra
for 2018, 2019 was my life is filled
with peace and tranquility.
That was my mantra.
My life is filled with peace and tranquility
because I really needed to code into my
brain
that
that salaam,
that sakina
is all that I needed. That was enough
for me.
So do the work to to to really
not only
realize what you want and what is enough
for you ultimately,
but to then commit to it,
to commit to it.
What is it that you truly really want?
Commit to it and live in alignment with
that. And whenever things come that are not
in alignment with it, have the courage to
say, I would love to do it. I
would love to do it, but
it does not it doesn't align with where
I am right now. This isn't for me
right now.
And give yourself that power to be able
to make those choices for yourself.
And you will see subhanAllah
that
gradually you're no longer,
you're no longer just like
living for other people,
You're no longer being driven by what society
says you should be doing,
but you're living so much more wholesomely.
And you may not have
as much as the people seem to have
around you, but you're happy with that and
you're content
because you know
why you are choosing to do
what you're doing. You're you know why you
are choosing to make the sacrifices that you're
making and why you're choosing to run your
business in a certain way that you're running
it or take on a certain career path
that you're taking on. Because you're like, yes,
I could be trying to, you know, work
for a big four, work for one of
the magic sticks or whatever they're called, law
firms, you know, work to be a partner,
but that's not what we that's not what
my soul wants. And so I'm gonna choose
to do this, which may seem like a
step down to people around me, but I'm
so much more fulfilled in this space that
I'm in.
So I think that I'm gonna I'm gonna
leave it then, inshallah. There's so much more
that, you know, we can still share with
you all.
But if you, would like to
continue this work with me, I already I
see some of my for rehab preemies in
the room. Shout out to you, subhanAllah.
And so it's amazing to see you here.
But if you would like to continue doing
this work with me and my community,
this is this is what I'm committing myself
to.
And it's taken a while to get to
this point where I'm like okay this is
what I want to do but I'm taking
that leap. And I'm like, this is where
I want to commit myself to, helping women
to
rewire their personal potential
through
their connection with the deen, with Allah, you
know living in that state of tawako where
you're trusting Allah, where you're relying on Him
for for all that you all that you
do and we have our tawako service inshallah
coming up
on Tuesday.
And we also have our membership, premium membership
community that's open and we're doing this work
And we're doing this work, helping our members
to
figure out what are the things that they
value the most, and how can they live
in alignment with their values and their ultimate
purpose.
Of their ultimate purpose of being an abd
of Allah
and being in servitude to Allah through the
work that they do and live in a
state of an abundance mentality
where by you you you realize and you
accept and you truly live by that ethos
that the effort comes from me, but the
result comes from Allah and that risk has
been written and that
that comes from Allah And you can put
in this amount of effort and Allah will
multiply it more than if you put in
all this effort and you're like, where's the
results coming?
Allah will give you that result that you're
looking for. But making make sure that you
are also committing
to the things that you should be committing
to and living in a way that's pleasing
to our love. So I'm gonna leave it
there. Just send that email over to you.
Thank you so much for inviting me onto
this platform
and giving me an opportunity to do what
I love to do best
and to serve the women of your community.
May everything that I've shared be a benefit
to you all. This is just the beginning
sisters. It's just a tip of the iceberg.
It is a continual journey as I said.
I burnt out 2017
and it took me 2 years to really
recover and this year has really been me
living all of the lessons that I've learned,
so I'm excited to work with you all
as well to be part of your journeys
to yourself and to Allah.
Thank you so much for
being here.
Oh, wow.
Guys, just
express your appreciation in the chat.
That was phenomenal.
For, you know, your time, for your effort,
for your heart, you know, for for, you
know, sharing so much with us and just
for dropping so many gems.
Guys,
you've been amazing. This has been a really
powerful session. Please please please do connect with,
sister Zahra in the, in the Facebook group.
You know, join her list. Join her programs.
You know, continue to learn from her
and make dua we make dua for you
and your family and, ask that Allah continues
to bless you to be able to do
this work. We are so blessed sisters, like,
oh my god. Wow.
That we get I'm so confident. Do this
work and that we get to to to
to to to be able to work with
each other in this way.
So I wanna just wrap it up there
now, ladies.
At 1 o'clock for, my session on if
you had 6 months to live, it will
be a short
short and powerful workshop, Insha'Allah. And then you'll
be able to go and pray and have
lunch and all of that inshallah. But sister
Zaha,
my dear.
It's amazing. We'll see you at the next
session, guys.
Bye, everyone.