Self Esteem And Self Image

I want to begin inshallah tada with a story, which is actually one of my favorite stories. And that is a story of a companion by the name of said.

Example, if you looked at our now they say about this companion that it wasn't like, the best looking guy, right? So not only was he just average you just like, he will be like no like, guy, he's not really good looking. However, the prophets I said that actually loved him very much. And he was one of my favorite people. I loved him because he used to joke with the processor, and the processor used to joke with him. So on one occasion, the process of season is out in the marketplace. And he walks up. And he goes from behind, and he grabs it gives him a hug, hold and tight. And zap is like, you know, Who is it? Who is it What's going on? And press setup says he

starts announcing who will buy this slave from right slavery still existed at that time to abolish slavery fully yet, so that his first things start saying about slavery. And scholars say what are some actually meant by this is the slave of the law right distributable. But Zohar starts or sorry,

starts freaking out a little bit until he turns around, and he sees that it's the profits of a lot of it. And when he realized it, it's the process that he actually instead of trying to break free from the embrace, he moves further back into the embracing person.

And then he says, He says, oh, listen, dribble, Bob says I think you will find that I'm unsellable. Right. It's basically what he's saying is like, I'm not looking guy, you know, nobody's gonna pay me money for me. So he says, You know, I think you will find it unsellable why I don't have much value. And then the profits of a lot of it centimeters deserve him. And he says, oza head, certainly when Allah subhanaw taala, you are extremely valuable. Certainly with the lowest credit to Allah, you are extremely valuable. And now what here what the prophets of why sentiment is telling you love that it is that you know what the way you look, or the way people perceive you, your looks and all that kind

of stuff, it doesn't matter. Because the most important thing is that with the laws of Canada, you are incredibly valuable.

And that is a challenge to Ottawa, I'm going to be talking about today, our self image how we view ourselves. First and foremost, I want to talk about our self body image, I think that is a topic, which are that is an issue that a lot of people are dealing with, especially like a lot of young people are dealing with the whole issue of your self body image, how they view themselves. Now, your self body image is basically how you view your body. So it can either be positive or negative. So basically, when someone stands in front of a mirror, you they say themselves, wow, that's a really good looking guy right there. For this day, listen, you're really ugly, like you need to lose

weight, or sister. On the other hand, same thing sister says, you know, if she turns to the mirror, she looks in the mirror, the first thing she says is, yeah, I can't lose weight from here, I mean, lose weight here. And you know, I need to start wearing makeup, like I need to fix this situation going on right here. Right. So that is a what we would call a negative of body image. So you look at yourself, you don't beat yourself have a positive, or a highlight a image which you view as being positive. Now, a positive body image, as opposed to a negative body image is when you look at yourself, and you feel comfortable about your physical appearance, you feel comfortable about your

body. And the other thing is that usually somebody who has a positive self body image, they, they tend to see themselves the way they are, right. So someone with a negative body image, they will look at themselves and they'll have a distorted view of themselves. And this is why you may know someone or it may happen to someone where they're perfectly like you know, they're not super in shape. But they're you know, they're slim and all that kind of stuff, they're not fat, that they look at themselves in the mirror and say, Oh, I'm so fat, I need to lose weight. Or they'll say something like, you know, five more pounds, and I'll be perfect or something like that. So and

positive body image like said you feel comfortable in your skin, if you're comfortable with who you are. And you understand somebody who has a positive or a healthy body image. This person understands that their value is not defined by their physical appearance, right? So they understand that their value is not defined by the way they look. And going back to when they looked at I was told by the prophets I said, he said this is a must collect data, you are incredibly valuable. Lastly, would say somebody who has a positive body image is someone who doesn't or someone who believes that he doesn't believe that perfection. I mean is they understand that it's impossible to be perfect and

it's impossible for a human being to achieve this perfect look, whatever it may be, they understand this and that's just unrealistic.

That's never going to happen. Now, some of the problems that are some of the reasons why a negative body image or an unhealthy body, right, the reason why it's become so prevalent now in our times, especially, is because of things like things like the media, and things like movies, and TV and magazines and things like that. And this is where basically, like, if you look at Hollywood, all that kind of stuff, what we're showing is we're showing the perfect image, right? So you open up like a woman's magazine, for example. And you see, this woman was like, in perfect shape. She's airbrushed and all that kind of stuff, you watch TV, you watch movies, and you see like these

absolutely beautiful women, or whatever it is. So this unrealistic picture of the way we're supposed to look, this is presented. So this is one of the reasons why especially young people, they are impressionable, and they feel that they have to look like that. Right. So they believe that Listen, this is the perfect image. This is how I need to look eventually. Now, the reality is that even people who are in the magazine, so like the celebrities and all that kind of stuff, the reality is that they themselves aren't even perfect. Like they don't actually look like that. And I know some of you are saying, Well, obviously we know that, unfortunately, there's a lot of people who don't

know that they will see someone on TV or in a movie or in a magazine, and they will believe they'll say themselves, like this is how this person looks. And I can obtain that, oh, I shouldn't be like that as well. Right? We understand that most people I would say, a lot of people understand that they are airbrushed. That's not how they look. And this is why sometimes not sometimes, but a lot of times, you'll find cowboys taking advantage of this. So the tabloid business is very doing really well because they basically walk around chasing celebrities. And when they see a celebrity out of their element out of their zone, they take pictures, and then they put them in a tabloid. And they

say, Oh my God, look at so and so she's so fat, right? Or she's so ugly, or something like that, when this is somebody who's a TV star, or a movie star, which we thought was absolutely perfect. The reality is that nobody looks perfect, right? Even the celebrities who have, we would say like, they have the money to look perfect, they really more than anyone else, they have the ability to look perfect, right? Because they have, they can hire all the personal trainers, they can, they can have their own stylist, they can spend however much money they want, on the way they look. However, even the celebrities get caught, they get caught without we're in a state where they're not perfect. And

that further goes to show us that really is actually very, it's it's a very unrealistic view that a lot of people have of celebrities. On the other hand, or along with that things like advertising. So if you look at the way the advertising industry works, basically, it's about what sells, right. And unfortunately, it seems that one of the things that sells a lot is sex and sexuality and

lewdness and things like that. So you look at a lot like look at a lot of hours and things like that. So you'll see compared to the ads we have today. So just take like the last Superbowl whatever it was, take the Superbowl how's it compared to like 10 years ago, and you'll find there's a lot more skin. There's a lot more like naked women and things like that even guys, but a lot more naked women. And that is how like, that's how companies are starting to sell their products. And what happens once again is to this young person, they want something like that they see something like that. They say How come I don't look like that? or What can I do to achieve that type of look. So

you know what I mentioned magazines, that same thing. And when it comes to like women's magazines, I think it's quite obvious. But a lot of times these magazines have articles that basically are like self help articles, like how to make yourself look better, how to find your problem areas, and they'll start pinpointing certain parts of like a woman's body, right? So they'll tell like, you know, the problem areas, like on her waist or something like that. And basically the woman now she becomes objectify. Right. And by the way, the same thing happens to guys, even though it may not be as extensive as it is with women. But now even like guys magazines,

like Men's Health, for example.

Men's Health, you'll see the same type of thing like how to look perfect, how to get your six pack abs, what ends up happening is that the person does objectify men or women who believe that there's just you know, we have to look absolutely perfect. And there are parts of my body that I need to fix. And this is one of the Hickman actually behind the hijab. So when when Muslim women when they cover themselves, one of the ideas is that you look at a woman and it's not about the way she looks. It's not about how beautiful she is. It's not about how slender or skinny or fit or whatever she is. There's more to her than them. So it's to not objectify them.

Right. So there's more to this than just the way she looks at a lot. This is why it's very sad. When you see Punjab bees doing this style. their jobs are like jabs objectifying each other. So even with like a job now you'll find certain sisters have like better jobs, they have like, more stylish hijab for designer, good job or whatever. And let's say the sister if you were to get a job.

So since you can't judge that part of her, what's what's left to judge?

What?

No, no, I'm saying, not the intellect, the intellect. So basically, like, if you look at a Muslim woman, she's wearing a good balance issues covered from here all the way down, and she's wearing a hijab, what's left?

Okay, so number one, the job itself, right, so the hijab is the issue. So with the quality of your job, how fashionable your hijab is, how have you tied your job, and then your job accessories, right? And then your accessories that are visible on your wrist, right? So your rings and the accessories you have on your hands, and also what's down there, your shoes, right? And this is why it's crazy how Muslim girls are really into their shoes, right? Because for them, it's like, that's one of the things they can really show and show off. And so it's about the shoes, like shoes, or how,

how expensive My shoes are. And then obviously, the other thing that we forgot his

hand, like handbags.

handbags now has become once again, something that we use assign value to ourselves. So it's not about what's inside. It's about like how fashionable I am on the outside. And that's what defines my self worth, or my image of how I actually am. So a sister who can afford like a really expensive bag, she may feel better about herself. Sister, for example, cannot afford to spend like $500 or $1,000 for 1500. Yes, there are bags that

price, but it's true.

or $1,000, or 15, or 2000 or 3000, or 4000 or five will lie. Is that true? Yeah, it's true, right.

So like I say, this is why it's very sad when you see this kind of stuff creep into, like the Muslim dress as well, right. So the whole idea of judging someone by the way they look or assigning value to them based off like how they dress, or how pretty they are, how beautiful they are, once again, what the point of the job is to really kind of take that away, right? Just really kind of say, listen, it's not about like how beautiful this sister is not really about how in shape she is, there's more to a woman, or just the way she looks. And so like for us now our sense of our even our sense of beauty has become skewed. And like Now a lot of times especially guys guys associate

nakedness with beauty, like they think it's the same thing. So the more skin a woman shows, like the more beautiful she is, right. And this is why you have someone like Miley Cyrus, for example. Nobody thought they never thought much about Miley Cyrus until she did what

took her clothes off, right until she got naked. And she took her clothes off. That's when it's like, okay, she got popularity, she got more well known whatever, whether it was a publicity stunt or not. that's besides the point. But the idea is that we start assuming that when we start our, our, our image or review of what beauty is starts to become messed up or starts to become skewed. Now I know a lot of you're thinking right now, does that mean we shouldn't care about how we look? Right? So even like sisters were a job and things like that? Are we basically saying here that it doesn't matter how you look, All that matters is what's on your inside? Right? That's not what I'm

saying. That's not what I'm saying? No, actually, it does matter how we look. And we do actually, even as Muslims, we have a responsibility to take care of ourselves and take care of our bodies. There's numerous had even the prophets have said that he mentions

the issue of like overeating and obesity and things like that. So islamically Yes, we're supposed to take care of our bodies. Yes, we're supposed to take care of the workbook, were actually supposed to look nice and all that kind of stuff. However, there is a very key difference in what I'm talking about. So what makes the difference like when you cross the line into getting into a territory, where you may start to have self body image issues, and one of the key issues there is the intention. Right, the intent so when somebody dresses up or they look good, or whatever, the question they should be asking themselves is why am I doing this? What is my intention behind this?

Right? So there are there are head out intentions and there are good intentions. For example, there's a statement

where he said he said, we're here to say you have a camera camera. He said I'd like to beautify myself for her just like she beautifies herself for me speaking that is why

Right. So he say I like to beautify like to look nice for my wife, just like she likes to look nice for me. So that's like a good intention to look nice for your spouse or something like that. That's a good intention if you work out or get in shape to take care of your body and to be healthy. Those are good intentions as well. Now the question may come up, is it okay to look nice just for the sake of looking nice? And once again, say

yes or no? Is that okay? Is it okay? Just for the sake of what is it okay to look nice?

Okay, I'll share with you a Hadith of the Prophet civili set of missionary by Mr. Gruden. The second was so inauthentic it annoys the profits of a loan, it was said that he said, anyone who has the weight of a mustard seed of arrogance kibow, he said he will not enter Paradise. And once again, I'll repeat what he said anyone who has even the mustard seed, mustard seeds wait worth of arrogance will not enter Paradise. And so one of the competitors sitting there he said, Okay. Okay investment of a lot. He said, How about somebody who takes the likes of book lice in their in their clothing and their shoes? Does that mean that we're like we're not supposed to have it? Did they ask the same

question to the profit center, and the profits of Alomar is and then he replied in the lodge, and he

said most certainly, the loss of the data is beautiful. And the loss of data likes beauty. And then he said a kibow both on will help warm up bluntness. He said kibow said the arrogance that I'm speaking about is to reject the truth, or reject the truth or to have contempt for people. And that is basically when you think so highly of yourself that even the truth comes to you and you're rejected, and contempt for people when you start looking down upon. So that is the line there when it goes too far. Right? It's okay to look nice. It's okay to dress nice and all that kind of stuff. As long as it doesn't lead to that type of kibble when you start to take pride and you start to say,

I am better than so on and so on right better than this person simply because of the way I look. Right? That is the that is the mind where you basically go too far. So like I said, intention plays a huge factor in difference between the positive type of looking nice and looking nice for the wrong reasons. Now, the other thing I want to speak about tonight, is the issue of self esteem. Because your self body image is actually like a smaller problem. And sometimes this smaller problem actually comes from a bigger problem. So somebody who has like a negative body image, it may be that that stems from it stems from a bigger issue of having low self esteem. Now what what self esteem

basically is how you view yourself, it's actually two things. Number one, how you compute yourself. And number two, how you view yourself compared to other people, right? So your own image or your own view of yourself how that is? Or secondly, how can I compare to other people how you view yourself and both of these, they can either be positive or negative, just like your body image and have a positive body image and a negative body image. Likewise with your self esteem, or we can call that like your self image, it's like more general than just your physical image, what you think about yourself. So this is, this is more of like a state of mind, and actually covers like a lot of your

life. So instead of just being like a physical thing, this is more about your life as a whole. It's a state of mind how what type of mindset, here and when it comes to yourself. Now,

some of the issues so somebody who has like low self esteem, they basically will feel like they'll feel unhappy, and they'll have feelings of being unworthy, right. So they don't feel themselves worthy. They feel a lack of honor and dignity. And that's why they always say like, most of them to have like low self esteem, they're not confident and they're just, they won't find that they will find they will feel that pride and that honor and duty. Right. So this is like the type of brother who obviously is behind that. But as work like everybody knows him as well, because he never tell somebody they haven't been because he doesn't feel confident in his name, right? Like, I don't want

people to know that. I'm like that. So they lack that confidence. Also a person when they have low self esteem, they don't believe in their own abilities to accomplish what they need to accomplish. So whatever life throws at them internally, they feel You know what, I'm not going to be able to handle this. So somebody for example, when they have a negative self image or they have low self esteem, they'll go into college, and they will think to themselves, I don't even know if I'll ever be able to graduate. Like all these people that are so successful, they become doctors and lawyers or whatever else and I don't think that all you would be able to graduate. How do I actually

remember when I was when I was at the University of Medina and Islamic University

Even at that place, there were certain brothers who even came into that mentality. Like, you know, there's just no way I'm ever going to be able to accomplish anything, there's no way I've ever been, you know, get close to being a scholar. And the problem is that that will make them just give up even before they have started. So some of the problems, some of the manifestations of have a negative self image or low self esteem, first of all might be said is not having confidence in yourself. Not really believing in yourself, having a very pessimistic, somebody has a very low self esteem, in black towards life as a whole, they'll be pessimistic, so not only are they pessimistic

about themselves, just like on the whole, so this is like someone who

always, always always looks at the worst of worst possibility, right? So whatever possibilities are, they'll say, in their mind, they don't have confidence in what's gonna happen, like, you know, what, just the worst is going to happen, right. So they're always expecting the worst, always, they're always anxious, they're always worried because they're never expecting anything to go, right. Also, someone who has low self esteem, they also constantly need to be reassured by other people. So in their own relationships, they'll have this thing where they need their close ones, whether it be like their spouse, or their friends, or their family, or whoever, they'll constantly need to be

reassured. And if they don't, if they're not reassured. So for example, example of a husband and a wife, if the husband has a really low self esteem, he always needs his wife to tap into that, you know, you're really nice, and you're doing a good job providing for me, and you're really good husband, and you're awesome, and you're amazing, which I'm not saying isn't a bad thing, you know, obviously, we should do that for our spouses. But if that doesn't happen, they don't believe in themselves. And they feel like, there's something wrong with me. So when they feel when they when they don't feel that, right, when they don't, when they don't get that they're not constantly being

praised. Like that, they immediately begin to doubt themselves, or they even may even begin to, for example, in a husband and wife relationship, they may even begin to doubt the relationship itself. And so somebody who has really low self esteem, they may be in a marriage, and if the wife hasn't, like, praised him or, or told him how much she loves him all the time, or whatever, he may start to feel like he may start to feel rejected. Right, he started getting worried about relations. And like I said, Guys, and girls work works. Same comes in both ways. The other, the other, the other manifestations of low self esteem is that someone who has low self esteem, will never want to talk

about their own problems, right. So when it comes to themselves, they'll always like, evading the question, they won't want to address some of their own shortcomings or their own issues. They're like a constant, repetitive state of denial. So if the conversation ever comes up, you may find this person get like, very upset, right? There's somebody who has low self esteem, you're like, you know, brother, I think you should, this is something that is wrong. I know, instead of like addressing the issue, or wanting to talk about the issue that actually turn around and get upset at you, and they'll say something like, you know, what kind of friend are you? Why are you always putting me

down and they'll get upset when it comes to that type of criticism. On the other hand, they're very quick to criticize other people. Right. So when it comes to others, they're quick to criticize, they're quick to find faults, and others are quick to look for efficiencies. And one of the issues really is it's really to make up for their own their own low self esteem, that they really feel like they need to bring other people down to their level, right? So they're like, Okay, I need to basically chop people down, because they don't feel good about themselves, they want to bring other people down as well. And even like I said, even like in the Muslim communities and stuff, we have,

like these problems, where, like, I personally call them like the peanut gallery, and I talked about this in my class as well. But the peanut gallery, and basically the brothers and sisters, who just sell, like, criticize everything, right? criticize the whole world, like there's no one out there who's doing anything good. So they're like, this organization is terrible. This person is terrible. This person sucks, like, Don't listen to this person, this or you know, so everything is just negative for them. Right. And like I said, once again, they're trying to bring people down to their own level. Also, a long critic criticizing people, they are quick to get jealous as well. And this

is this is a type of jealousy, where you may not experience the jealousy, you may experience the effects of the jealousy and the effects of jealousy be things like anger, so they get angry at you or they get angry people or another effect of the jealousy is, like I said, you may not see the jealousy, you may see their criticisms of other people. So because they're jealous because they have that low self esteem, they'll just, they'll just sit and criticize other people. Also,

you'll find someone who has low self esteem. They are usually very resentful.

So it's really hard for them to let go of things, right. So someone wrongs them or says something wrong, or something back to them. They're like, hold on to it's a little hold grudges for like a long period of time, right? They just won't let anything go. And once again, the reason behind that is a one of the reasons behind that is, as long as in their mind, this person did something wrong. Then they brought them down to their own level. So let's say for example, there was an argument between me and so here, right, and I have really low self esteem. And so here, he came up to me and said something and I was really mad. I was really mad to her, you know, person beers like that.

There's something funny about my shoes, for example. And I didn't like and I was really upset. And so even even though the hair he realized later, he's like, no, that's not cool. It's not cool. Make fun of people shoes no matter what color they are, right?

So he comes up to me, and he's like, you know, on their side, they are really sorry, I was just kidding around. And I'm like, I'm like, yeah, whatever, okay. But in my heart, I feel like there's something in my heart, I still feel something in my heart. And I'm really resent to hear for like, a long period of time. And what's happening here is that as long as I resent what he said, as long as I'm angry at him, as long as I haven't forgiven him, I continually Look at him or I view him as someone who is bad, who's not good, the moment I have forgiven him in my mind, and he's no longer a bad person, right, he's come up. So someone likes it, because I, for example, if I suffer from low

self esteem, I don't want people to be above me, and I feel bad about my salary, I feel negative by myself. So I want him to be like down on my level as well. And that's one of the reasons why people have low self esteem, they'll just they'll, they'll hold on to, they'll be angry with someone, and they're like unwilling to forgive them, or they'll be resentful and bitter for a long, long period of time. Now, the problem with low self esteem is that it can negative self worth, or low self esteem is that it can actually affect every single part of a person's life. So I mentioned like it can affect their relationships, what if somebody's married, you can have serious issues in their

marriage, you may find some power, like a couple who's having marital issues. And the root of those marital issues is that either one or both of the people in the marriage, they have very low self esteem. And this is why they criticize the other person a lot. This is why they get angry, this is why they get jealous, or this is why they're resentful, all those things that I just mentioned, all of that could be affecting their marriage. Likewise, with our parents, for example, we may have the same thing, right, we're resentful towards their parents, because of our own low self esteem. Or, for example, we haven't accomplished much in life, or we have, we don't believe we can accomplish

much. And we blame our parents for that, that can affect our relationship with our parents, with our siblings, with our friends, all of that the most dangerous relationship that most self esteem affects is our relationship with a loss. Right.

And this is why somebody who has low self esteem, they are very quickly duped and tricked by chef. So chef on will come up to somebody with low self esteem and say, listen, you're not worthy of the mercy of us. Right last night, that will never forgive you, when you're such a bad person. And a lot one of the this is one of the doors and one of the ways on enters on people is that gentleman will save your brother, for example, listen all the outside you like a good person, right? So but you've got a beard and you go to the machine. But listen, you're just a hypocrite, right? Because look at all the sins you commit that nobody sees. Right? And so now if the person has low self esteem,

they'll buy into that and they may actually leave, they may start, they may stop coming to question, they may stop doing whatever goodness they were doing to begin with. And this is why most office to be very, very detrimental to a person's personal relationship with

you basically feel like no one, I'm not worthy of the mercy of us. Or I'm not worthy to be considered a religious or a practicing Muslim. Or somebody may even like trim their beard or shave the beard, for example, because they're like, I don't want to I don't want to be a hypocrite, you know, people look at me, but since like before the hipster time where only some time period

but they they look at that and they're like, you know what, I don't want to do this just because I feel like a hypocrite have a bow and shape. So I wanted to leave you with some of the ways we can go about raising our self confidence or raising our self esteem. And by the way, the issue is, it's not like a black boy thing. It's not It's not an issue of the idea of high self esteem or low self esteem is almost never like that. Usually everyone is somewhere on it on the scale, right so some people have some people are closer towards low self esteem. Some people are closer towards high self esteem, and it's not constant as well. It's not like you're born low self esteem where you're born

with high self esteem there's nothing you can do to change it. We may very be on varying levels when it comes to our self esteem or self worth. Even when it comes to like our like I was saying the issue of our body image or

Your body, even that changes, right? So and I don't want anyone to think that, you know, not pointing and saying no, there are certain people have low self esteem and everyone else is cool. That's not how it is we all all of us. And when I say we, I, myself, everyone suffers can suffer from low self esteem, and everyone may be at a different level. So something like I said, some of you may be higher or lower, so we can all benefit from some of the stuff that I'm about to mention. Right. Now, also, the other thing I forgot to mention is that we may have low self esteem regarding certain issues in our life, right. So it doesn't have to be just completely general. So for some

people, it is the issue of their body, and how they look, then that's low self esteem, low self esteem regarding their body and their looks and their beauty. It may be that somebody has low self esteem, regarding their career, or their ability to learn or to make progress, everything else, they're fine, they have good they have high self esteem, but in that specific area, so why so once again, it's not a it doesn't have to be general. And I really don't, I don't want the people to come off this path thinking that there is no self esteem or high self esteem. It's not as simple as that, right. And no one is really immune, or having low self esteem, we can actually go up and down in our

self esteem. Now, the best way, or the most important way, that that we can raise our self esteem, and we can feel our self confidence go up is through the door of email. That is our faith in loss. So somebody who has strong email, someone who has strong faith, they understand in a comical magenta line at copper, that the most noble amongst you are those who have the most money. Good looks like this car swag. What is it?

The people who have the most template the most conscious of people who are closest to us, those are the people who are the most noble, most noble with Allison Peridot. Now the beauty of that is that tekoa are closest to allow be conscious of above, can be attained by everyone, whether you're a guy or a girl, whether you're young or old, whether you're rich or poor, it doesn't matter your self worth can immediately go up if you work towards increasing your tempo, right? So you stop defining yourself by the way you look, or what accomplishments you have, or things like that you define yourself and you check yourself and say, how is my relationship with the lesson? How do I and

there's a beautiful idea from the province of myself, this happens to be one of my favorite it. And this is like a deed in which the prophets I send them said that

when he loves someone, he calls out to Djibouti. And he tells me he says to him, Oh, God, I love so and so, so much. And then Jabri calls out to the rest of the angels, and says a lot of love so and so. So love this person. And then the angels make it that people on earth begin to love this person as well. And that is the beauty of defining our self worth by our relationship with God. Right.

So when it comes to, like I said, our relationship was pathetic, it really goes back to the issue of like what's going on in a person's heart. So if you want to like check yourself and say, you know, how do I raise my self esteem? How do I raise my self worth? Go back to like the matters of the heart. So for example, amongst the matters of the heart are things like your sincerity and your intentions. So check yourself and say, you know, what, how sincere am I, in my in what I do? Even like, let's say there's a brother who works out and wears white clothes and all that kind of stuff. He should ask, don't say, even though on the exterior, I would wear these nice clothes, the stuff on

the interior? How is my relationship with a boss? Like how sincere Am I in what am I doing amongst the mountains of our heart is relying on the boss. Right? So person wants to ask themselves, they go back and they check themselves in the office? And how much do I rely upon? Allah for myself worth? Right? So do I rely upon others? Do I really rely upon how many likes I got on my photo on Facebook? Or do I rely upon the West? For my self worth? Love?

Who do I love the most? Right? Just once again, it's a matter of the heart. Do I love that? That was kind of

my love that was more than the people meaning if I know that if I'm doing well in my relationship, that I'll be okay. Or will I just get really sad and depressed because the people don't like me or because the people don't think I'm hurting other people

or whatever. Right? Love,

thankfulness, gratefulness, all of these issues are at the heart and really the issue of self worth and the issue of self esteem. It goes back to the heart and

We're listening to loss of data has given us the keys and the tools to go in there and to really work on our self esteem and raise our self esteem. Also check your status your heart when it comes to the sicknesses of the heart, the other side of the coin. So one of the sicknesses or diseases of the heart is hypocrisy. Right? The opposite of sincerity. So once again, ask yourself, Am I being a hypocrite? Is it is it I don't really care about my relationship. I just care about what people think of me. Because that's like a, that's a that's a that's a path of failure. If you're always trying to please people, you're always trying to make sure everyone loves you. You're never ever

going to be happy with this, it's impossible that everyone will love you. Right? There's always going to be a hater out there. Like that's just the way things work. People will hate you no matter what, like it's gonna happen yet people may love you, but people will hate you as well. So like I said, checking yourself when it comes to that when it comes to sicknesses, or diseases of the heart, things like envy and jealousy. This is something that we need to check. Right? So go back and say, how did these other people how jealous I am I have someone who is better looking to me, or has more money than us or is more successful than me? Like what is the deal here? Right. And all of this all

of this comes under the issue of who has ever taken an account of oneself, which once again, is a matter of the heart where we sit down and we check our attention, we check the matters of the heart of the sicknesses, the heart and all of that, even things like arrogance, you know, ask yourself, Am I arrogant? Am I arguing the way I My heart feels when i when i look nice or dress nice and things like that. Some of the other ways. inshallah, tada, like I said, the most important way is checking your relationship with was productive, right, making sure your relationship with the last kind of data is on point, right, number two, that one of the other things we can do is

define success for yourself. And what I mean by this is, I think everyone kind of has in their mind, a view of what they believe is success, right? Ask yourself, what do I really view as success? If the answer is having a nice job making tons of money, having a beautiful house, marrying a Super Bowl and jabby, like, whatever, whatever it is, right? Like all of those, if that is your definition of success, then you may be headed to a place where you're gonna have low self esteem, right? Define your success and say my success is my relationship with a wasp. Right? So am I obsessed about what people think of me or are like really obsessed with my relationship with data. Also, define your

goals, right? So set goals, first, define your goals and set goals for yourself. So even like relationship that was kind of tied up, be like, you know what I want to be at a higher level when it comes to my relationship.

And here's how I will do that. And set goals for yourself that you can accomplish, you know, they say my goals is that goal should not should neither be too easy or too hard. So if it's if it's, if it's too easy, you're basically you're going to get bored of it, you're not going to be challenged, right? If it's too hard, you're going to give up. So a goal should be basically just challenging enough, but not so difficult that you can do it. So for example, let's say you're like, Okay, I'm gonna improve my relationship with my data, I want to start reading more on. So a realistic goal. And this is different for everyone. But let's say for Mohammed, a realistic goal is he says himself,

I want to read a page on every single day. Now, he knows that usually, if you read on, he usually read like half a page, he doesn't really read a page a day, right? So this is a goal. It's not too easy for him, right? So if he just thumbs up, obviously, one day, then it'd be too easy. And he just forget about it, like, Oh, I can do that, whatever. But if it's like one I used to tell him about like one page. It's I know, I don't do that right now. It's a little challenging, but it's something that I can do. Right. So a realistic goal, which is challenging as well. Also, start becoming conscious of your strengths, right? So somebody who has low self esteem, they tend to focus on their

weaknesses, they tend to focus on everything that is wrong with them, all the problems that they're having in every way that they're not successful, and all that kind of stuff. So turn, turn, like flip it on its head and ask yourself, what are my strengths? Right? Because it was pointed out and I assure you, whoever's listening, listening to this, I assure you that you have some strengths that someone else doesn't have, right, there is something about you, which is special, right? As like the talk that I was talking about earlier. last

component that we have, we have, most certainly, we have honored the children of God, right. So each and every one of us, we have something about us, which is special. Sometimes it's just an issue of us being conscious of it. So I would even say like, you know what, just sit down and be like, these are my strengths. I'm actually good at this right and then when you find out what your

writes our work on making sure you, you you give life to those strengths. So you may have somebody, for example, who enters like, they go to med school, but they're terrible at it, right? Because that's just not where their strength lies. And they come out with this with a feeling of low self esteem or low self worth. So we'll say something like, you know what, I'm just not smart enough. I'm not smart, like my friends who are going through med school, and they're doing perfectly fine. Or somebody who's studying programming or all that kind of stuff. Well, maybe that's just not your strength, right? It's a really an issue of finding your strengths and working on that.

Also, remind yourself, and this is also an important issue, remind yourself that perfection is unattainable. Right? No matter how hard you try, it is impossible to be perfect. Now, I want you to write as like a short exercise in your life right now. From the people, you know, and we've heard of think about one person who you would say, is completely successful and perfect in every way. Right? Someone who's alive, so let me know. So maybe like someone famous or something, your uncle or your dad's like that. Done? thought of a person like that.

anyone like that?

Have you thought of someone like that? Yeah, everyone, okay, that person is not perfect. No matter how much you think that person is perfect. That person has their weaknesses, they have their faults, they have their strengths and weaknesses. And that's just how much of our data created us, right? We're not expected we weren't created to be angels, right? That's a different creation, we will make mistakes, we will stumble, we have weaknesses and strengths, and so on and so forth. Right? So if you always tell yourself that I have to be perfect, you may be setting yourself up to fail, right?

Also, focus on what you have the power to change, right. So there are certain things about your life, that you cannot change, there's nothing you can do about it, no matter how hard you try, you simply cannot change those things about you. So for example, what's going to give you a personal example.

I have been short for most of my life ever since like the beginning of middle school. I've been like shorter than most of my peers. And for a while, like you're really used to bottom, you know, you're a young kid who would tease you and things like that. And for me, that used to be an issue. Until one day I sat down. And I said, You know what, there is nothing I can do to change health. All right. But there are other things about me, which made me special, there are things that I have that no one else has. It's a paradox since that day, what it doesn't have, like it isn't enough, my height has never bothered me. And all of us we have things about ourselves that we may not like, you

know what this is like, why do I have this? Forget about those are things that you cannot change about yourself? Somebody who's bald, for example, as far as I know, there's no technology out there that I could change the fact that you're no fault yet. Make it possible.

Right, but so far, your boss your boss only right on own you think own those things that you need to be your weaknesses, right, and then make them into things that are positive and focus on those things that you can actually change. Right? So like I said, There's things about every single person's like this, the things about every single individual, every single one of the children, right, no matter who you are, there's something about you that is special, that's something that makes you special, and there I guarantee it. There are things about you that are things that are weaknesses, or things that you think are weaknesses, and there's absolutely nothing that you can do

to change that. Lastly, and I'll close with this, I know I've gone a little bit over.

Lastly, always go back to your heart. So there's one thing you take away from this talk regarding like your self esteem and your image of yourself. Always go back to your heart. Check your status and your relationship with Allah subhanaw taala it's really a matter of your heart and how you feel on the inside. That will define that will affect the way you feel about how you are on the outside and

knows best kind of

stuff stuck around to the lake which is not good, long. Quiet.