Naima B. Robert – Patience Episode 05 Na’ima B. Robert A Sisters Ramadan

And welcome back to a sister's Ramadan. I

am your host, Naima b Robert, and I'm

so honored that you joined me today.

As you know, this show is all about

answering that one central question.

How can we as Muslim women

use this special time in Ramadan

to grow, to heal,

to replenish and renew our iman?

And, how can the rituals of Ramadan help

us to do that?

In this show, I've been sharing a set

of 5 skills that are essential for personal

growth and healing,

and how we can best practice them.

So Insha'Allah,

I pray it has offered you a perspective

that will be beneficial

long after this month has passed.

In this show,

our final show together, we will be looking

at the importance of tadabbur

and choosing your emotional home.

I'm sure it has not escaped anyone's notice

that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala created us as

human beings in a very, very special way.

And one of the characteristics

of being a human is that we have

emotions.

We are emotional beings.

Now a lot of people when they hear

the word emotional,

take it in a negative. There's some negative

connotation to being an emotional person. But emotional

just means that you feel, and emotions can

be positive or negative.

So let's have a bit of a game.

I will name an emotion and you can

tell me whether you think that's a negative

emotion or a positive emotion.

So let's start with something easy, sadness,

frustration,

panic.

What about joy?

What about

tranquility?

What about confidence?

As you can see, there are negative emotions

and positive emotions, and most of us will

experience

both sets throughout our lives. There's a huge

range of emotions that we as humans are

capable of.

The main thing I want to share with

you however,

is that our thoughts

are what effect our emotions.

Now a lot of people think that it's

events

that affect our emotions, but it's actually not

life events that cause us to have a

particular emotion.

It is our

perspective

on those events, the things that we think

about those events that affect the emotions that

we feel.

So

for a brief experiment,

I'm gonna invite you to cast your mind

back to a negative experience that you had

in the past few months.

Think of the event or the conversation or

the the experience that you had and try

to name the emotions that come up.

The deeper you think about that memory,

the more emotions will be conjured up.

Similarly, if I invite you to think of

a positive event and I'm thinking of positive

event and immediately smiling.

So I'm already feeling something as a result

of the thought that I'm having.

Which is an amazing thing because it shows

you the link between your thoughts and your

emotions.

And so,

negative thoughts produce negative emotions

and positive thoughts produce positive emotions.

I'd like you to understand the difference between

responding to things and reacting to things in

an emotional way and understanding that it's not

just the things that happen, but your thoughts

about those things that affect the way that

you feel.

The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said

that Allah the most high said,

I am as my servant thinks I am.

We are all familiar with this Hadith Qudsi,

SubhanAllah. But I want you to think of

it in the context of what we are

talking about.

How we think of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala

will affect how we feel about him, subhanahu

wa ta'ala. And in exactly the same way,

how we think of our present reality,

our lives, our families, even ourselves,

will affect the way we feel

about that reality.

How you think affects how you feel.

So choose your thoughts wisely.

Now the aspect of our Ramadan worship that

I would like to focus on in this

final episode is that of tadabbur.

Pondering over the words of Allah.

If we remember

that we were talking about

harnessing our thoughts in order to produce certain

emotions.

If we spent time thinking

about Allah, Spannad, Wa Ta'ala's words and His

message to us,

His mercy, His Parables, His lessons.

What kind of emotions would that produce for

us on a regular basis?

Now, tadabur is something that many people may

not do on a regular basis. Maybe they

recite Quran, maybe they're even memorizing.

But tadabur is not the same.

Tadabur is the practice of

sitting

with the Qur'an.

With Allah's words

and truly bringing their attention

to the meanings they're in.

I am sure that throughout this Ramadan,

your time with the Quran has increased. And

so, my invitation to you my sister is,

to incorporate

these aspects

into your practice. To elevate that relationship with

the Quran.

And the first is,

to develop and nurture a true love for

the Quran.

For it to be your go to. For

it to be your source, for it to

be your reminder.

Ponder on the verses that you've memorized.

Very often when we've memorized verses, they come

to mind much quicker and you can read

the translation to understand what it is you've

memorized.

Sit with that,

ponder the meanings.

Ponder on the Quran while you're in Salah,

when you're in that deep meditative state before

Allah Subhana Wa Ta'la.

Think about the words you're reciting,

their meanings, the sound of them, the fact

that this is the word of Allah that

was revealed and that has been perfectly preserved,

bring all of that to the forefront of

your mind.

Marvel at this miracle

that alhamdulillah,

you have,

you are privy to, you have access to.

SubhanAllah,

what a blessing it is to be able

to access the Quran in this way.

Another thing you can do is to take

care with your recitation.

Take your time with it. Practice your Tajweed,

beautify your voice.

All of this helps you to increase in

your love of the Quran itself

and your appreciation of the lessons.

And on that point,

look out for the personal lesson or message

in what it is that you're reading.

Read this with the intention

to take real benefit for yourself and InshaAllah,

if you're able to do that and incorporate

Tadabur

into your Quranic practice on a daily, weekly,

monthly level,

this is something that will take you further

in your relationship with the Qur'an than many

many other things bi'idnillah.

Now the personal skill

that I wish to share with you

is what I call another one of those

super powers. And that is

choosing your emotional

home.

What is an emotional home? At the top

of the session, we talked about emotions. We

talked about negative emotions and positive emotions.

And many of us have a default setting,

that emotion that we feel most commonly.

But what most of us don't do is

actively

choose

what that emotion is going to be.

Some of us are naturally fiery.

Some of us naturally apathetic. Some of us

naturally fall into

resignation,

or fear,

or anger or frustration or even just being

passive.

Many of us go into the default setting

without giving it much thought.

But what I'm inviting you to do is

to make an active choice.

Which emotions

do you want to experience the most often?

Right now,

you may be experiencing certain emotions

on a regular basis that may not be

helpful to you. They don't make you happy.

They don't increase you in iman. They don't

make you a more positive or active person.

And if that's the case,

think about the emotions you would like to

experience on a regular basis.

Choose an emotional home.

It could be gratitude,

it could be patience,

it could be joy, it could be love,

it could be confidence.

Whatever it is that you want to feel

most often,

choose that actively. And I already know that

I taught you about how your thoughts produce

your emotions, so you know already

how to get yourself to that emotional home.

You choose the thoughts that take you there.

Let's see, at the end of the day,

my dear sister, Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, does

not want us to dwell in negativity.

He does not want us to dwell in

despair,

and sadness,

and resignation, and resentment.

We have a Lord who is Ar Rahman

Al Raheem.

A Lord who invites us to trust Him,

to have Tawakkul.

That means, you get to be positive and

trust in Allah's plan.

Now, I know there will be some of

you who are asking simply,

how can I stop myself falling into negativity?

And what I would say is this,

the first step to breaking that cycle

is

the understanding

and acceptance that I am responsible.

Take ownership,

take responsibility for your emotional state and choose

the emotional home that you want to live

in.

I'm

so, so honored that you joined me for

this season of a sister's Ramadan.

I pray that Allah, punanahu ta'ala, accepts all

your deeds, and blesses your family, and forgives

us our sins.

And if you benefited from anything I shared,

alhamdulillah,

please share it with others.

As always, we end with the dua. SubhanakAllahumarabanaobihamdik

ashaduwalaalahaillahandwastaghruka

wana2woo ilaik.

May Allah bless you all and taqablaalahminna

waminkum.