Sarah Sultan – Living Inside My Head- Mastering Your Emotions, Ego, and Mental Health
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The speakers discuss the importance of treating mental health issues and creating safe spaces in relationships, including allowing one person to express themselves and avoiding mistakes. They emphasize the need for boundaries and rules of engagement, communication, and understanding each other's emotions. The course is designed to provide resources for the community, grounding oneself, avoiding negative behavior, and healthy social environments. The course is flexible and suited for student needs, allowing students to choose a time that suits their schedule. The course is designed to be flexible and suited to the student's schedule, allowing faculty and course leaders to be flexible in their approach to learning.
AI: Summary ©
It's live stream your emotions ego and mental health. Just to make sure that everyone can see me and hear me clearly please do drop a Salam in the chat. Let us know where you're coming in from. We want to make sure that you guys can all access the webinar as we begin and does that feel a fair for the first few people I see that we're jumping in and I have my little promising ding letting me know that you guys are joining us Alhamdulillah let us know where you're coming in from. We're very excited to kick off today's Mental Health Webinar and to see so many of you mashallah excited to join us as well. Welcome Mr. Namaha medulla, feel free to again introduce yourselves let us know
which corner of the world you're in and Hamdulillah we have speakers coming in from all corners as well our first speaker Shahid Rahim is coming in right before Fajr mashallah his time from Perth, Australia and I see all the systems does that go okay, Elsa, sorry Eisah Melville said Hillel Alia man mashallah amazing amazing to see have set from the UK and again let us know your locations I see a lot of sometimes just like lucky for that I achieve coming in from Pakistan I should coming in from Melbourne, Australia also staying up in the middle of the night mashallah to benefit from this experience. We're super excited to kick off and we have a jam packed experience for today but it's
going to be quick we have only a little bit of time with each speaker. So stick around if you can for the full hour and a half or so for this session inshallah. And of course the please share link your friends and your family in the stream and share this link on your WhatsApp. Send your Facebook messengers and all your social medias so that we can get as many people to benefit as humanly possible Inshallah, we're excited to be able to cover this topic and to have such respected professionals with us our own instructors like shaquiesha Southern Samia Zubair to innovate disease, and then mental health professionals like sister Sarah salon, and Chicama Hussain. So I'm going to
I'm not going to take too much time in Sharla you guys know the importance of mental health I October as mental health awareness month for many people in Canada and the United States and Subhanallah at least one to six, one out of six people in North America suffer from mental health illnesses, and I'm sure you guys have similar statistics where you're coming in from in all corners of the world and another institute. As an institution, we've been, you know, making sure that we increase the awareness of mental health issues in every capacity that we can, but this is the first opportunity that we have to dedicate a whole webinar and inshallah a whole course to this
experience. And with that being said, this, this webinar is actually sponsored by made possible by the inside out online learning experience with a Maghrib Institute. If you want to find out more, please do always check out the information that we have in our bio and save that link inshallah and another open tab I see mashallah many meet many new messages coming in. People coming in, from Somaliland, from Riyadh, from Bosnia mashallah, where I just was, Canada, Masha, Allah, India, Australia. Wow, a few Australians coming through. It's lovely to see. I know, we're live on a few of the pages of our instructors. So it's amazing to see our family connected from all around the world.
So without further ado, I want to invite to the stage and sha Allah, our respected instructors. Yeah, yeah, Ibrahim, Allah has experienced with the mental health in so many facets of the Muslim community, both by being a principal and an assignment school in Perth, Australia by counseling. Couples have had a lot over the years and of course by teaching so many courses with immigrant Institute's I'm excited to hear more from Sheikh Yeah, especially because he's covering one of my favorite topics, prophetic prescriptions, practical guides on improving mental health from the Sunnah. So as salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah Shia, yeah. How are you doing today? While ecommerce
seller more Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh Alhamdulillah I'm very well thank you for hosting me once again, Sister hubs on May Allah bless this wonderful webinar coming up in sha Allah. I mean, yeah, Rob, I mean, so I'm curious because I know you have so much experience in decades of work within the community and I'm sure mental health like with everything that kind of intersects with the deen comes up quite often in your you know, in your interactions with the community. So can you speak to a little bit why you think, you know, the, how well it interfaces with the, you know, the Sunnah as well as the topic of today's webinar.
Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah, salam, Allahu Allah, you are certainly more bad. There is no human being who at any point in time, has not had a moment where their mental health is affected either within themselves or by those who are external to them. And that's just a reality. In fact of life, there will always be the need for us to build resilience within ourselves within our children within our families. There are things that happen abroad from us or near us, there are things within us that all put stresses on the balloon of our life that can make it susceptible to pop and it becomes important for us to always maintain the right pressure, the right well being
mechanisms to release some of the tension and issues that may arise so that we find ourselves healthy and well and can and are able to assist us
others in finding that wellness balance and harmony within themselves and society.
So those are really important issues for us to kind of consider and they wanted insha Allah with the prophetic prescriptions to kind of make it something that goes beyond the vicar of Allah or the DUA that we are invited to make by the prophets I send them which he did teach us. And those are things that I know I would do brother or mother Hussein inshallah we'll address and those are things that I think would be a major part of any of the discussions that relate to mental health. But I wanted to take a quick journey through the seerah of the prophets, I send them over the next five and 10 minutes in sha Allah, to show you how the prophets I send them build resilient, formidable strong,
cyber patient, courageous individuals who were able to see the test of time. How could somebody like Alia Radi Allahu Anhu and Billa Radi Allahu Anhu? How can somebody like Hammad apne acid? How could somebody like Ramadan or kebab? How can all these wonderful people who we look at in our Cyril as being icons of righteousness, not have had the experiences of difficulty to kind of make them these Hallmark figures? How could they be representatives of true life for you and I so many years later, unless we were able to see in the mirror image of them and us that there was a struggle that they overcame? So let's look at how the prophets I send them, you know, consolidated and prescribed
elements of life that made people better on the other side of whatever it is that afflicted them. One of the things that you constancy in the Sunnah in the seat of the prophets I said to him, is that he taught that Mentally strong people and the word mentally strong are words that you know, you can translate as people who have sub who have a spiritual wasabi to the last verse of surah. Elia Imran, the third chapter of the Quran, Allah says, oh, ye who believed, be courageous, be patient, be virtuous, while saw beautiful and maintain that and continue to live a life of virtue and maintaining that endeavor. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam frames that courageousness by
saying, and teaching, Mentally strong people are the ones who are able to replace self pity, sadness, with gratitude and chakra to Allah. So some of the most traumatic experiences that a human being can experience the Prophet juxtaposes it and adds an element of chakra to Allah in it, such as the Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, where he reminds a couple who have lost a child. He said that those who have lost a child before their departure, that the angels are astounded by their behavior when they remain thankful to Allah, and they say Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah in all of our circumstances, I liquidly Han and Allah asked the angels What did these
creation of mine What did these beloved servants of mine say? When I took the fruit of their union and their love, they said hammer the KR Rob, they are a turn to you in praising you Oh Allah, not in lamenting not in complaint about you or even to you Oh Allah, rather they were thankful to you and to ensure gratitude for all that you have given E nonetheless an even though this downturn has occurred to them. And then Allah orders the angels February let him bait and fin Jana was a Mohabbatein hand label a house and a mansion in Jeddah to be built and ready for them, and give it the name the abode of thankfulness to Allah. Another element that the prophets I seldom would teach,
he would teach that Mentally strong people are to hold on to their power and be able to forgive others who have wronged them. Now, what does that mean? Subhanallah we always speak about forgiveness, right? We always speak about being a person who is able when you have strength, to be forgiving the word man and Rama, that one of the greatest attributes of Allah that when it's used on its own in the Quran, it's the only name of Allah that on its own is used. All the other names of Allah are using combination and how you are human but a Rahman, the Ever Merciful, the Lord of Merciful, the Compassionate, the gracious. All these different words in English cannot sum up that
word out ramen, but in that word is this powerful, powerful statement.
which is it's described that Allah's Mercy is unchanging, because his power is so complete, he does not react to our misbehavior or our sinfulness. He remains merciful all throughout, because his capacity to show mercy is not based on a reaction to his creation. And then Allah invites us to demonstrate Rama or Rahim, Monet or Hammam Rahman, those who are capable, those who endeavor to show mercy are those who the Ever Merciful will grant them His mercy Subhana Allah to Allah, and therefore it's like for you and I, to try our best that when somebody has offended somebody has wrong that within our power to extract vengeance and and show our strength at that moment that we
have the self control and the graciousness to be able to look past the previous insult and build a brighter future to come. Such was Mohamed Salah Salem, as he entered Mecca, a conqueror and a victor by the order and Command of Allah. That he said it Habu fitting Nicola ago, I emancipate you seeking Allah and finally and there are many other moments in the Sierra, that Mentally strong people raised by the prophets are SLM upon the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam don't get distracted by the things that happen and are able to maintain their control and composure because they understand that ultimately, and nelco Wetterling Allah He well could not tell him that he Jamia
that all power Almight all authority belongs to Allah, they ultimately understand that whatever power we have is fleeting, and it's not unto ourselves that we have it, but that it is what is given to us in a moment of time by Allah, and the one who gives is the one who is capable of removing and that it is Allah Subhana Allah to Allah, who is the source of our strength. So they've learned from that statement, that hola whatever Quwata illa villa, there is no mind no power, no turning right or left, no ability to stand or sit, there's no strength or a or
evilness except that which is bestowed by Allah. And as that settles within your soul, within your mind, and within the strength of your body, as taught to us by the prophets, I sell them, you begin to understand that whatever externally happens, and whatever feelings I have inside me, that my job is to seek harmony and peace with all that surrounds me, and so that I can be able to provide it for others, having
these, you know, moments in the Sierra of the prophets, I seldom where you see him turned away from Mecca. And he looks back and he said, had they not removed me I would not have left, seeing the prophets, I saw them being one who is a refugee in an Madina, Munawwara protected by Allah and loved by his new new people, and soon to be nation, you see that this is the hallmark of mental strength, and fortitude. And that it is only by building resilience, and learning, assertiveness and maintaining our composure, and putting within us that tools of life that allow us to see through the tempest in the storm that is brewing, that that is where we find our greatest ability to come closer
to Allah in this life to be nurturers of other people's happiness, which ultimately gives us happiness and balance in life. May Allah subhanho wa Taala grant success to all of those who are listening with us today, those who enter into the wonderful webinar that is being advertised. I don't know if you know, but the webinar is actually
it's a cost free initiative. There's no upfront cost. And it's pay as you might as you feel, you know, the aim of it is to bring people together and to collect us together and have us build a spirit of generosity within each other. And we just want as many people as possible to join in so that the more people that join in, the more people that join in, the more we can do wonderful things and we know that the generosity you will be providing is greater than whatever amount is going to be labeled. So may Allah subhanaw taala allow you to click on you know the enrollment button in sha Allah, share it with your family and friends and come together as communities. And if there is
nothing that you benefit from it that doesn't require you to compensate and to to give your thankfulness in that sense. Hi, you're on whenever it's in sha Allah. May Allah subhanaw taala brighten your day as our February here is beginning in Peru.
to Western Australia, me as the sun be rising or setting wherever you are made the light of Allah enter into your homes and hearts and into our families and our very well being and they leave you with the drought of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Allahumma Januvia honeybee Nora where fever sorry Nora where he seminary Nora why Yemeni Nora why you're sorry Nora woman filthy Nora woman tatty Nora, Allah who lovingly Nora Yeah, or hammer Rahim in May Allah fill all of our life with light and his guidance of light Allahumma Amin was Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.
Want to let her read it. So does Kamala hair for this check? Yeah. Just before you go, I just wanted to ask you really quickly because I've noticed much all over the years, you've been a huge advocate for mental health. You search your name and mental health and like a million articles show up mental health and Ramadan, mental health stigma, etc, mental health and Muslim community. Why do you think it's important for the few lucky ones who don't suffer from any mental illness, for them to also educate themselves and to be part of this initiative? Because I know there's a lot of awareness coming up over the past few years, but there's still a long ways to go. So why is it important for
people who don't struggle with it?
I think I think it's naive to actually think that they don't actually struggle with it. Sometimes people assume that they're not affected by it. But the reality is just the stress that some of our children have on a bad day of school, mental health, we have to separate it from
seeming as mental illness or that it's a permanent thing, or it's a stigmatized thing, in all of that language is that I guess Muslims speak, there's that one word, which is mid Junoon. You know, I'm not measuring you and I'm not you know, I'm not crazy. Don't look at me like that, or don't don't say these kinds of words to me, or, you know, you're making it out that I'm I'm saying or doing the wrong thing.
I'm able to make the right judgments and so on. And because there's a self stigmatization, then there is also a stigmatization, where we look out, and we don't want to see it with people who are important to us, sometimes Subhan, Allah, some of the issues that are leading towards divorce need never have been there had a person actually just been assessed well, and had a clinician who sat with them. And that, you know, they weren't just told to Subhanallah SubhanAllah. And you'll feel better and the vicar of Allah cures everything. You know, sometimes there's this naivete, that we're not actually as vulnerable as we are. And of the greatest category of those who are most vulnerable
are really our young, young children. We assume that the acting out of our children out there just out of Allah, why is this kid acting like a shaytaan? Today, I wouldn't realize it's got to be the gene, or, you know, read it to the courtesy and everything will be fine. But perhaps there's bullying in school, or perhaps there's a feeling of lessening self worth, perhaps it's a social media that they're consuming, you know, all of these kinds of things are newer factors for some of our older generations, where they just assume that it's just a way of life, what's wrong with you all, you'll get better, don't worry about it, just sleep it off, or walk it off, or eat it off, or
whatever it may be. So, you know, our mental well being affects ourselves, but affects everybody around us. And the well being of others affects us, even if it's not first instance. So it could be that your children's teacher is suffering a moment of difficulty. So as they become more difficult with your child in school, and because they're more difficult with their child in school, your child is finding it difficult to settle with their friends, the friends are finding it difficult, all of a sudden, your child a child is getting in trouble in school, getting in trouble at home, not fulfilling the obligations that you've set for them. And all of a sudden you become stressed and and
affect your work. And then you're and this concentric circle and ripple effect is real. And we need to look past what happened to why it's happening and to ask those questions. And I think that this webinar, is a place for us to receive the tools for us to begin to think about our mental well being and I'm a strong, strong advocate for the D stigmatization for the legitimization for the open discussions that relate to mental health issues. And hamdulillah here in Australia, we're blessed that we have, you know, wonderful academics, Muslim academics, who clinical psychologists who, you know, push really hard towards that. And they're the center of wellness and so on that are wonderful
initiatives taking place. And then now I'll measure that mashallah as an international entity as a resource for those who are near and far
AR is beginning, once again to take the initiative in this space and to bring something that is missing. It's a complete vacuum for us as a community and I pray that this will be the start of a wonderful, wonderful, great experience for many people were suffering in silence and don't know where to turn to don't know how to begin to find help. And may Allah Subhana Allah Allah allow us to find comfort in that I just wanted to end by saying, My word should not ever give the assumption that we're under estimating the vicar of Allah, that will always be a prescription. But part of the vicar of Allah is taking the means to making the vicar of Allah permeate and effective in our normal
spheres of life. So the vicar of Allah has the three stages of an internal connection to God of reliance upon him, an utterance and then a demonstration that what I have said, I will bring into reality by demonstrating it and getting up and doing it. So the vicar of Allah of, you know, saying Alhamdulillah requires that I don't just sit there but I get up and show that I'm thankful for what I have been given. What Mr. Binney? I'm at zero because I had this. So let your mention of God and your praise of him show and let it be declared wide. With Others may Allah subhanaw taala make it easy for all of us Allahumma me? I mean, you have deserved my fair share here as always a huge
pleasure to have you on with us. I feel like I wish we could bottle up your speech and take that inshallah as a source of relief as well. But just like a love affair, it's been a pleasure to have you on and may Allah continue to facilitate your role within the community and you're empowering of this of this message. Inshallah, we'll catch you soon. It's all online in all corners of the internet and we look forward to keeping up with you for now take care, enjoy your budget time and a cinema aleikum wa rahmatullah. Wa alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh
I'll radiant Desikan laughter I hope that you guys mashallah so many more of you have joined us I hope that you continue to please link and share this stream and continue to benefit those Inshallah, in your life as shaquiesha was mentioning, very, very aptly that there's nobody who's not affected by mental health, whether it's it's if you're not being you know, you're not suffering from it directly, someone in your family, someone in your life, a spouse, a friend, a child, any kind of relation is affected by our society, unfortunately, you know, is affected or Hamdulillah that we're moving towards positive, a positive direction in the past few years and hamdullah Milgram has been a
part of it but now we officially have an experience that has been completely dedicated to you know, connecting the professional world and mental health support and education and the Islamic lens as well. So for those who have not yet heard, we have created an entire course in partnership with our new instructorship Omer Hussain, sister Sarah Sultan, a registered therapist and of course she Omar cinnamon as well mashallah who have partnered together to create the inside out outside in mental health wellness course with a Maghrib Institute, the course is pay what you can because mental health knowledge should not be you know, restricted it needs to be accessible to every Muslim across
the world. So please check out the link that you see in your description or on my screen right now. I'm Welcome to online slash inside out. It's also tagged up on your chat as well please take advantage of it and share it with others. We want to make sure this is accessible to every Muslim in the online shot Allah and there's been so much work that's put into balancing and merging these two beautiful topics of mental health support and the Islamic lens as well. So I hope that inshallah it becomes of immense benefit, so please share it far and wide and gained the Azure. Now I want to jump into the next topic and the next speaker who of course, is one of my favorites, decided Tamia
Zubair, mashallah has been an advocate as well and especially because she has a primarily female audience. Michelle, I know there's a lot of men who take her courses with us and I'm awlgrip Institute's without Elda Institute and others as well. But there's a very unique experience that women have with mental health. That's not what she's covering today. Today, she is covering with us in Shaw, the intersection between mental health and depression of course, overcoming the experience of depression, there's no one cause for it. There can be layers of traumas and reasons why people get depressed and I think one in six people if I was not, if I'm not mistaken, I was mentioning
earlier have experienced it in North America alone. So I'm excited for setting it to cover this topic to shed some light on it and inshallah to give us some motivation before we jump in so Bismillah cinematic and Rahmatullah said to me Zubair How are you doing today? Already go sit down what I have to live up to 100 Allah I'm well how are you doing herself and hamdulillah I'm well now that you're here, so we're very excited. I don't want to have your time. So I'm gonna let you jump right into your topic of overcoming depression. This is actually located on vertical lofi are the bIllahi min ash shaytani R rajim Bismillah Al Rahman Al Rahim wa Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah hon
Karim rubbish Rocklea Saudi Wei a Siddeley Emery Warlock teta melissani of coho
poli Allahumma hated Kobe was so deadly Sonny was also hemato Kobe, I mean, you're but are the main.
So the topic of overcoming depression, I think it's a huge topic. And I, of course, I don't believe I can do justice to it in the 1520 minutes that I have with you, however, there are some thoughts that I do want to share with you, that I hope in sha Allah will help you navigate through life,
when mirrorless prints out to protect you, but any, every person experiences depressive Sis, you know, symptoms to some degree.
You know, there are times when we feel down times when we feel very sad. And, you know, it's it's important to recognize the signs, and it's important to know how to help yourself, in a situation like that sometimes Hamdulillah, you know, we're doing well, but the people around us may be experiencing depressive symptoms. So it's, it's necessary to acknowledge them to recognize them, and it's necessary to know how to help ourselves and help one another.
The first thing is that, you know, the term depression, the way that we use it so casually, you know, we're feeling sad, and we say, I think I'm depressed, I am depressed, She's depressed, he's depressed, you know, this is something serious, and,
you know, it's, it's, it's not something that that we can take lightly. Because,
you know, depression, clinical depression, which is a mood disorder is something that has very,
you know, serious effects on a person's well being on a person's day to day.
So, you know, be don't over generalize and don't exaggerate the condition you yourself, find yourself in or you find someone else in any it's not, it's not a blanket statement that we should be, you know, throwing around casually, this, this is a serious matter.
Secondly, we need to recognize that as human beings, we are multi dimensional, multi dimensional beings in the sense that, you know, there isn't just biological factors behind a certain condition that a person may be experiencing, you know, there can be biological factors, there can be social, behavioral, emotional, cognitive influences on us, basically, that can, in combination, be the cause of a mental disorder, such as depression. And when that is the case, that there is no singular cause, then this means that when it comes to a treatment plan, also, there cannot just be a singular approach. You know, for example, when it comes to depression, first of all, it's a mood disorder,
right, and mood disorders are heritable. And it's quite possible that a person's environment is perfectly fine. Their social upbringing is perfectly fine, but it is the fact that they have inherited certain genes that they are predisposed to, you know, to developing depression.
Likewise, there are some gender differences, as well, you know, women tend to have higher rates of depressive disorders.
You know, in men, environmental events play a larger role in in causing depression. So, you know, there are environmental factors, there are biological factors, there are social factors, there are cognitive factors, the way that we think the thinking patterns that we have developed over time. For some people loneliness is a is a major contributor to depression. The point I'm making over here is that
you know, it's, it's not that simple. All right. So when when depression itself is so complicated, that means that you need professional help, first of all, to figure out what is happening.
We think that based on some life experiences that we have, we can give someone a treatment plan. And we can tell them, Oh, you're depressed, have coffee everyday, you're depressed, go travel, you're depressed, read the Quran, you're you're depressed it's because you you know you're mean to your mother and and things like that. Any we we're not in a position, you know, as as average people, to give people a diagnosis and a treatment plan. This is a very complicated issue, which in order to solve
We need to, you know, seek out professional help. And that is what we must encourage one another to do as well. And when it comes to a treatment plan, you should be aware that just as there's no singular cause, behind depression, there cannot just be a simple one step, you know, treatment plan to treat depression. And in fact, this is the case with every mental disorder or every mental health issue, that that the solution is not simply a pill, the solution is not simply just draw it, all right? Because Allah subhanaw taala Himself tells us that yeah, you Alladhina amanu Cirino the Sabri was salah, in Allah hamara slavery, that all you who have believed, seek help, through patience and
through prayer. Indeed, Allah is with those who are patient. What does this mean? First of all, this means that seek help, right? Meaning,
don't Don't think, don't you know that you can handle all of this yourself, the human being is weak. And you need external help at times in order to bring yourself out of the difficulty that you find yourself in and seeking help. Of course, a yak and our Buddha a year can strain you alone, or Allah we, we worship and You alone, we ask for help. But remember that we're not prohibited from seeking help from people who are able to help us in the capacity that they can. So if there is a doctor, for example, who is able to prescribe a medication to you, you must take that medication, you must consult that doctor you must seek their help. It's it's not against, you know the teachings of the
Quran, because almost Panthera himself has commanded us to seek help, right? Is there enough as somebody was salah, and is there no means you seek help, meaning, don't just keep suffering. Because the thing with depression and many mental health issues, for example, even when we're not able to manage our stress, it doesn't just harm us, it harms the people around us. And it doesn't just harmless in one aspect of our lives, you know, it can affect us even spiritually, it can affect our relationship with Allah subhanaw taala. And you know that when you're not, when you're physically unwell, you're not able to pray as well as you could when you are physically well. Likewise, if
you're constantly irritable, if you're constantly feeling low and sad, and that is, you know,
causing a strain in your relationships, and people are suffering now, because of what we are experiencing, we are suffering, but those around us are also suffering. So is there a new meaning do something to to help yourself, don't don't just keep suffering, right. And we think Subhanallah that patients suffer is that you just keep suffering. You don't do anything to, to improve your condition to, to bring yourself out of the difficulty that you find yourself in. And that is different from what Allah subhanaw taala teaches us. So is there enough, somebody was solid, two things were taught that seek help through patience and through prayer. First of all, through patience, what exactly is
patience, we think patience is somebody is, you know, inaction. Right? Somebody is inaction that you just sit down with your pain, with your grief with your sadness, and you just let things happen. Right. And that is not Southern, Southern is to
bear difficulty, or bear the hardship and not give up. Why because there are certain times when you are striving towards a certain goal, you want to do something. And it's not as easy, right? For example, if you're fasting, right, you you have to make sure that you don't eat or drink until the time of sunset, right? So Saba is that you? Bear the hardship of hunger and thirst, right? That you do something to occupy yourself. So you're not constantly craving food, you're not constantly tempted, you know, tempted to break your fast. So somebody is being active, you know, actively doing something in order to endure in order to not quit, in order to keep going in order to keep pursuing
your goals in order to keep striving towards Allah subhanaw taala so is there a noble
Somebody and the beautiful thing is Allah's Panthera is telling us over here, seek help through patience, meaning when you will observe patients, things will get easier for you. You know, for some people going for therapy, for example, they need a lot of support, because going for therapy means that you have to face your demons, you have to address all of those issues that you have been burying inside you have been pretending like they don't exist. So, that requires a lot of suburbs, reaching out for help talking to someone paying for therapy, right, learning different ways of managing your depression or anxiety or or whatever that a person is dealing with. All of that
requires action and effort, intention, right. And that is what somebody is, you know, for example, we need somebody in worshiping Allah, we need somebody in praying, we need somebody in staying away from what Allah subhanaw taala has prohibited. So is there any no the silver and also seek help through Wasana through prayer, and this is something that is also very, very important because we have become very extreme in the way that or rather very black and white in in the way that we approach
treatment for mental disorders. You know, either we go towards just, you know, science, all right.
That, you know, you need medication, you need therapy, you need this, you need that, or we dismiss science, and we think that we just need to, you know, pray and read more Quran and seek forgiveness, et cetera. And the thing is, we need both, we need both because Allah subhanaw taala is telling us to do both is there no, but Sabri was on.
And when it comes to Salah
you know, like I mentioned at the beginning, that as human beings, we're, you know, we're not just physical bodies, right? There's biological influences. And there's cognitive, emotional, behavioral influences on us, right? And these can become triggers to developing disorders, you know, to developing certain disorders. So, this means that in order to treat them, we need not just medication, but we also need,
you know, some social changes, some changes in our behavioral patterns, some changes in the way that we think, right? And Salah is what Salah is your connection with Allah subhanho wa Taala Salah is,
is something that
you know, that that, that that that definitely brings relief to a person, and it brings a person out of difficulty. And we see this in the example of the righteous before us, we see for example, Surah, the wife of Ibrahim alayhis salam when she was captured by the king and the king intended to,
you know, physically harm her. Every time the king tried to approach her, she would begin to pray and the king was not able to harm her. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam his way was that whenever, you know something bothered him, something difficult came upon him, he would rush to prayer, right? We learned about him in our best little de la Horne who he was given the news of the death of his brother. And immediately he got up and he began praying. So somebody asked him, Why did you pray? And he said, Have you forgotten the statement of Allah? Yeah, you will live in a monastery, Nova savasana. So when you seek help through patience and through prayer, both of these
things, you get the help of ALLAH, ALLAH SubhanA. Allah says in Allah, ma slobbering, indeed Allah is with those who are patient, those who are trying those who are striving, those who are not quitting those who are turning to Him. Those who are trying to help improve their condition because in Allah Allah Allah euroma becoming Hattah you Roma be unfussy him, Allah does not change the condition of a people until they change what is within themselves. Now when it comes to prayer, of course Salah five times a day that is essential. But another thing is the remembrance of Allah subhanaw taala that that also needs to be a part of our treatment plan. You know, when it comes to
treating depression or mood disorders, medication is helpful. There are psychosocial treatments that are helpful, but what is most effective is combined treatments.
Of course, depending on what exactly a person is experiencing, and
you know, part of these treatments is either
And mindfulness and meditation,
you know, learning how to correct your thought patterns as well cognitive therapy. So the point is that, you know, just this shift, yeah, he mentioned earlier that Viktor is not just, you know, verbal mention of the Name of Allah, they could is with the heart and vicar is also manifested through one's behavior through one's actions. So when it comes to, you know, different ADKAR, for example, we say them very regularly in the morning in the evening, after Salah in Salah, but we just say them verbally, we don't necessarily think about them. And I would really encourage you, that you learn the meaning of these cards, because they could is the life of the heart, right?
When when a person makes they could they're no longer alone, right? Allah subhanaw taala remembers them. Last panel, Tara is with that person, for as long as a person is remembering Allah. So invest in this and learn the meaning of Salah learn the meaning of different Epcot. And as you say, these of car, make sure that you are thinking about them, make sure that you know what you're saying. You know, for example, in Surah falak, which we recite in the morning, in the evening, we're told to recite it, you know, after every salah, these are suitors for our protection, right? And in Salt River luck, we're asking Allah subhanaw taala to protect us from different types of dangers, dangers
that we can see dangers that we don't see. The Knights, magicians, you know, people who are jealous,
you know, whatever fears we have whatever dangers we think that, you know, we could potentially face. So the point is that, you know, we say these sewers, we say these are called, but we don't pay attention to them. So, you know, part of our treatment plan, and our protection against such conditions is to benefit from, you know, these acts of worship that we have been commanded to do. Because these acts of worship, not only bring us reward, but they're also like a protection for us, right like the like in a hadith we learned that the person who remembers Allah is like someone who is being pursued by an enemy. And then when this person enters a fortress, right, they are secure
inside of it, and then their enemy can no longer attack them can no longer harm them. So the vicar of Allah is your fortress, it is your protection. And it's necessary that we learn these means that the meanings of these are caught and we say them intentionally. In sha Allah.
I will conclude over here epsa
I believe my time is up. Yes, you're here. I would never want to stop you salah but that was a beautiful treatment plan. I know you had a limited time to share with us but does that come up here for that motivation and especially for emphasizing that you know, patience comes with action. Patience does not come with us waiting for something to happen to you is it comes with treat, you know treating yourself and the focus of this course specifically inside out is giving students Islamic solutions that are for mental, physical and spiritual well being such as that click here for touching on some of those solutions that hamdulillah with us and inshallah we look forward to
keeping up with you and as I click here for all the work that you do, especially advocating for mental health, especially within the Muslim community and for our sisters as well. Inshallah we'll catch you soon for now take care of cinema alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh Alright, go sit down with Allah who
already and every one that is listening to Zack mill here to everyone who's continuously joining us and who has been sharing the stream for today's webinar and living inside my head. As I mentioned earlier, this webinar is made possible by the amazing initiative that Mel Gibson Institute has put together the course is called Inside Out Islamic solutions for mental physical and spiritual well being. It's taught by three of our beloved instructors, Sheikh Omar Hussain, stir SAR, Sultan and Homer cinnamon and it is Pay What You Can we want to make sure that this knowledge is accessible to everyone across the globe. So before I bring on my next speaker, I want all of you are listening
here. Have you just so the misfits Salima hijab Masha a lot of sisters that I see brothers as well a mask, just mean? I mean, that's up please head over to a Maghrib dot online slash inside out, take a minute it is pay what you can you can pay as little as $10 as much as you can, if you want to help to continue forwarding the message in the dollar, but we use make that intention and that effort share it with everyone that you love because there's no one who cannot benefit from this experience and shut up. And I see so many of you guys sharing that you struggle with mental health that you struggle with depression.
I mean a lot you know, you make it easy for you and insha Allah May Allah facilitate some a source of healing and guidance inshallah through this course as well. I mean, so I'm very excited to bring on our next speaker we have with us shift navaid Aziz who mashallah has been working in the community in many ways that interact very heavily with, you know, intertwining with the need for mental health support and mental health improvement. He was the first Muslim chaplain for the Calgary police service, and his work included helping with the mitigation of criminal criminal Radek, ooo, big words criminal radicalization and implementing civic engagement opportunities for
youth. There's so much connection and intertwining of his work with what we're doing here today in sha Allah and I've heard so much from Chikungunya on the topic of mental health. So I'm excited for him to jump into his topic today Shunammite is going to be talking about close quarter conflict resolution. And I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with that in the past year and a half that you've spent at home in close quarters, resolving conflicts inshallah. So without further ado, I said I want like one with Alicia and David, how are you doing?
Perhaps I'm doing well. How about yourself? Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah. I'm super well and I'm excited for you to jump in. I'm sorry. We've been given you so little time, but inshallah we're excited to hear your topic and jump into your session. This sounds good. Bismillah Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah. While early he was talking to one another, how am I bad? But your brothers and sisters is Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh. Let's begin by posting a question. I want you to imagine that there's two couples, one couple that never ever, ever fights. They never get into an argument. They never quarrel and there's no suppose your problems
whatsoever. And then you have another couple that from time to time will fight well quarrel, we'll get into arguments. Which one of these two do you think is the healthier couple? In terms of the relationships? People often think that if there's no fights, and there's no correlate, that probably is the healthier couple. But in reality, when you look at couples counseling, when you look at marital counseling, having some sort of disagreement is actually healthy. Why is it healthy, because it shows that there is life still within the relationship, when people stop caring about one another. That is when there is a severe and major problem in the relationship when people do not
care about the relationship, then that is when there's a major problem. And that is when people won't even bother fighting for their own rights or for their own perspectives. So getting into closed quarter conflict resolution, I want to share with you five points. So we're gonna be going through five points today, easy to keep track of the vanilla hit Tada. Number one, it's imperative that couples are on the same page. And while we're emphasizing couples, because I'm assuming that's what a lot of couples really struggled with, these points can actually be implemented in any form of relationship that you're living at home with. It can be parent child, it can be siblings, it can be
couples, husband, wife, whatever it may be. So the first thing we want to make sure is that everyone is on the same page. If you look at you know, quote unquote, celebrity couples you had in the past, you know, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, recently you had Kanye and the Kardashian I can't remember his name right now. But they had these couple of names, you know, Brangelina and Kimia, and stuff like that. Putting their lives aside, let's ignore that completely. Those couple names, actually, you know, they bring up perception of something very powerful that the couple is on the same page that they are a team together. And it is imperative to understand that when people are living in
close quarters, everyone has to be on the same page. So what does that mean? Meaning that boundaries needs to be set, and those boundaries need to be explained. And those boundaries needs to be understood. Goals and objectives need to be explained and made clear, so that everyone is on the same page. So you and your spouse, you're not working against one another. But rather, you're meant to be a team working together. And upon until you have those difficult conversations, where you do talk about your goals and objectives. You totally do talk about your boundaries, you do talk about what you want, and you know, the things that you desire, up until then, you're not going to be on
the same page. So it's very good that from time to time, let's just say every three months, every six months, you have one of those deep conversations where you reassess the relationship, Hey, what are we doing well, so that we can improve on that? What are we not doing well, so that we can fix it and try to find a resolution to that problem. Number two, it is inevitable that people living together will get into some sort of argument. And it's also imperative that we have some sort of rules of engagement when people get angry, and this is what I want to share with you a fundamental rule that in a relationship when you are in close quarters, a fundamental rule is only one person
should be allowed to get angry at a time. So if the husband comes home, and he sees the wife angry and upset, the husband needs to keep his composure control himself and let the wife express herself. Let her express her anger, let her feel her anger and let her deescalate and when she do
escalates, then we will sit down and have a discussion. Same thing if the husband is angry, let him express his anger, let let's validate his anger. And then when he comes down, let us discuss the situation at hand. One of the problems that happens is that 1111 person is upset and angry, the other person naturally riles up and they naturally get overly, you know, engaged. And we don't want that to happen when one person is emotionally heightened. We don't want the other person to be emotionally heightened, as well. And you'll notice that if one person can control themselves, this will go a long way in keeping the discussion healthy. What have we ever resolved when we're shouting
over each other? What have we ever resolved when both people are angry? Nothing, you will never achieve a successful resolution when both parties are angry at one another and are emotionally heightened. So one person needs to bite the bullet for that time when the other de escalates. Okay, let's sit down. Let's sit down and discuss and talk. Now the person that is angry, they need to follow the Sunnah as well. So what do they need to do? Well, as soon as you start to feel angry, say I want to be let him the sheet on Origin, change your physiological state, if you're standing sit down, if you're sitting down, lay down, change the room that you are in. And that will actually help
you disassociate
the or anger from the room that you're in, go make will do, you'll notice that the will do will have a cooling effect on you. And these are different things that you can do to calm your anger down. These are different things that you can do to calm your anger down include the the zip code of Allah subhanaw taala in it. So as you're laying down as you're sitting down, continue making zip code to Allah subhanho wa Taala Subhanallah Al hamdu lillah Allahu Akbar and La Ilaha illa Allah and even though you may start off quickly, slow your pace down, slow your pace down. And that will naturally help calm down the emotions that are being riled up inside by our nerves. And by shaytaan, by our
nerves, and by shaytaan. Number three, the importance of communication. You know, people often think that others are able to read our minds, but in reality, they're not able to read
our minds, they're not able to read our minds. So you have to make sure that you actually clearly at all, express yourself at all times. And whatever you want. Whatever you desire, whatever you're experiencing, make sure that you express it, the person knows, no one is going to be able to figure out what is on your mind, unless you're clearly expressing it unless you're clearly expressing it. So make sure that you are communicating. So communicate your expectations, what you want from the other person, what you want from the other party, express what it is that you want in this relationship and what you want to get out of this relationship. Express your feelings. So if you're
feeling happy, express your happiness. If you're feeling angry, express your anger. And this is something that we should allow for our spouses. You know one of the beautiful Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam with Aisha Radi Allahu Allah, He expresses to her that he recognizes when she's happy and when she's angry. And one of the lessons that we learned, Allahu alayhi wa sallam did not try to limit her mo her emotions, he did not try to control her emotions, but allowed her to experience the full range of emotions, the full range of emotions that every human has, he allowed her to experience that. And that is what we want for our relationships. Now, what's
important to understand over here as well, is that you have to create safe spaces in the relationship, that safe space is that outside of anger, allow them to express themselves, because you're not going to be able to create a safe space when someone is angry, you're not going to be able to create a safe a safe space, when emotions are heightened. So that means
that safe space needs to be created conflict if and only where people feel safe and secure and what we mean by safe and secure and non judgmental approach to the relationship to express themselves. Number four, you know, Imam Muhammad Rahim Allah, he was asked about good character, and he was asked, Is it true that nine tenths of God is overlooking the faults of others and that I am Allah, He said, Rather, it is all of good character. So make sure that when you look at the faults of your spouse, and we're talking about human faults, someone choose to aloud maybe their nostrils flare as they're breathing, or they snore when they're when they when they are when they're asleep. Those
sorts of things that are not necessarily within the control of a human being, or they're just not
actually human habits. Those are not things that you want to fight or become argumentative about. So pick and choose the battles that you do want to have and overlook the faults of your spouse and part of this
Is that not only will they overlook your faults and all those faults, but this is also a beautiful relationship with Allah subhanaw taala for liat for what they are alleged to have done if you're Allahu Allah, that pardon and forgive, do you not love that Allah subhanaw taala should pardon and forgive you. So those minor mistakes that we make those human characteristics that we have overlook those and Allah subhanaw taala will overlook them for you as well. And you create a great precedent with your spouse of overlooking. So make sure that you're overlooking those things and pick and choose your battles. And then the last thing I wanted to mention is that make sure that sadaqa
always begins at home, make sure that sadaqa always begins at home the prophets of Allah who it was salam meticulously emphasized
that even putting a morsel of food in the eye of your spouse is an act of subtlety. The act of intimacy is an act of sadaqa, smiling at one another as an act of sadaqa. providing for your family is an act of sadaqa sadaqa always begins at home. And when people feel valued when people feel recognized when people feel loved, when people feel cherished, when relationships thrive, but if people are not feeling loved or they're not feeling appreciated, they're not feeling recognized, people will not thrive and thus, relationships will not thrive. So let's do a quick recap of everything that we've taken. Number one, make sure that everyone is on the same page and that you
are heading in the same direction working towards common goals together helping one another without unwanted buttery what Taqwa number two, understand anger management, make sure that only one person is angry at a time in the relationship. No two people should be angry at the same time. Wait till the other de escalates. Then sit down and talk about the issue at hand. Implement the Sunnah when you yourself are getting angry, say I will be letting the cheetah analogy change your physiological state make will do include the vicar of Allah subhanaw taala. Even if it starts off fast, slow down the pit and that will slow down the pace of your heart and your emotional heightened state as well.
Number three communication is imperative. create safe spaces with one another where you're free to express your emotions. Your emotions are validated, and you have a non judgmental approach. Express your expectations wants and feelings and express when you're not feeling love recognized or appreciated. People cannot read our minds, we have to express the way that we've and the other party is responsible for creating that safe space. Number four, overlook the mistakes of your spouse and also overlook the human faults. This is a part of our good character that Islam emphasizes. This is a part of earning forgiveness from Allah subhanaw taala as well. And number five, last but not least
setups at home. Don't look
for opportunities outside our budget at home.
yourself. So be extra charitable of your words. Show appreciation be the first to apologize be the first one to bring gifts and be the better person at home first, before you are the better person outside of your house. And with this vanilla heater Allah we will be able to mitigate conflict resolution within our homes by taking a proactive approach and also doing some troubleshooting. At the time when it requires everything has to come together. You can't just pick one and choose the one or two of these things, but try to implement all of them holistically. And then Bismillah heeta Allah we can have healthy relationships within close quarters regardless of how long this pandemic
goes on. But I pray to Allah that it soon and that he uplifts this pandemic healthy and safe rectifies our relationships protects our families and allows us to be from those
balls pulls from those families from those that enter into dinner with their families Allah whom I mean does that come lokalen for your attention Subhanallah we have the shadow lie Lila and stuff Hirokawa to Lake Salaam Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh when it was
just like Medicare for that amazing session chicken oven you forgot one of the the principles that you that you need to remember is to listen to as much innovate as you can on TV on on on online. That's a great prescription for a healthy relationship and a healthy mental health. So does that give a fair shake for being with us today and for for speeding through that topic? I know we didn't have a lot of time but inshallah we will have a lot of time to cover these issues in light of relationships, families, you know everything that comes into play when it comes to being in close quarters. So does that feel a fair share of work for introducing this topic to us and may Allah
bless you and everything that you do protect you and preserve you and your family me?
While he comes salaam or Kampala Hilbre cattle salmon I hope that you guys are grinning as wide as I am and Hamdulillah I love that last speaker and mashallah we're going to be actually close.
off in just about 30 minutes. So we're getting to the end of today's talk. As a quick reminder, please do make sure that you take an action step from today's session, head over to Mr. Gupta online slash inside out, we've made this course we put a lot of effort into making this course as in depth as thorough as possible. We haven't shied away from any of the taboos of the taboo of mental health to make sure that this is as beneficial as a resource as possible for the community and we made it pay what you can so that there's no one who's prevented from you have to take this experience, please head over to amalgam to online slash inside out to take full advantage of this. I'm super
excited for our next speaker, because she's actually one of our teachers in the course inside out. I was mentioning to you all earlier. This is a collaboration between three instructors, Sister Sarasota, Chef Omar Hussain, and Chef Omer, cinnamon and 100 Allah who have come together to make this possible to make sure that we do justice to the topic of you know, giving us Islamic solutions for mental, physical and spiritual well being. So I'm going to without further ado, I'm gonna bring SR SASL dawn on for those who are not familiar, though really quickly, I want to introduce you to her and her background because she could not be better suited to this topic. She's actually a
licensed professional counselor. She's got a master's degree in mental health counseling and she has been practicing therapy for well over 10 years now. Her specializations include the intersection of Islamic values with psychological and therapeutic principles, which is Masha Allah why we have her in this course and the impact of trauma on faith identity development and techniques to provide strength and healing in marriages and families with our commitment to this work, mashallah, it's it's no wonder that she's part of this experience and Alhamdulillah we're very blessed to have her with us. I said, I was making one of the lessons or sorry, how are you doing today? Why don't you go
sit down when I love it again, so and have the law so happy to be here with with all of you, I'm so glad I got to hear Schiff innovate and the wonderful tips that that he was giving, mashallah, it was it was wonderful to hear him speak and excited that this this course, you know, we worked on it for quite a while have the US is so excited that it's, it's going to be released really soon in JAMA and Hamdulillah. It's a year in the making it people don't realize how long these things take to actually get to fruition and all the work that comes to perfecting it and dividing it and covering all the topics that we possibly can. So does that feel fair for being patient through that process?
Because this is Michelle, your first official course with us, which is an honor to have you at hamdulillah and I'm excited for today because you're also covering a topic that I think there's a lot of confusion about, you're gonna be seeing today it's all about anxiety versus stress versus vert versus, versus worry. I know a lot of people get these topics confused and mixed up sometimes because the signals and the and the kind of symptoms can be similar. So I'm looking forward to clarifying further. And of course if you want to hear a lot more from sister Sarah, please make sure you head over to the course it's also linked on your screen. Alright, this message Sorry, I'm gonna
pass it over to you take it away. Just like love food. This smell salatu salam ala Rasulillah. While he was a happy woman wala, and my bad Santa Monica wanna flavor to get to everyone does everyone? Well, hi, I'm so happy to be here, with with all of you virtually, if not in person, and Hamdulillah. So, the topic that I was asked to just touch on for today was the differences and ways of coping with stress, worry and anxiety. And it's really interesting because these terms are often used interchangeably. And it makes sense that sometimes they are used interchangeably because they're very powerfully linked. So we're gonna go through, we're gonna go through them, we're gonna
go through some of the differences and we're gonna go through different approaches to be able to cope with them in healthy ways and trauma. So, you know, considering everything that's going on, and even without the pandemic and without all of the stressors associated with that, most of us experience worry stress and or anxiety, at least daily. And this is this is a pretty normal thing. And when we consider the fact that the Prophet Muhammad wa sallam used to in lengthier dot use the one of the parts of this.is, he used to ask Allah subhanaw taala, seeking refuge from worry and sadness. So we see how common it is, if this was a an integral part of the diet of the hillsides,
LM. But for a lot of people anxiety can really take over their lives, and it can wreak havoc on them emotionally, mentally, physically, and also spiritually because they can all be intertwined. And just from just from 2017 data, 40 million people in the United States suffer from an anxiety disorder and three out of four people in the US said that they feel stressed. And that was from 2017. So you imagine now in 2021, after everything that's been happening with the pandemic, people losing their jobs, people losing loved ones, and all of the stress that has come that has come into play recently. You can imagine that it's going to be probably probably even greater of a number and
that's how common it is. So if you are struggling with worries if you're struggling with managing stress
If you're struggling with anxiety, then realize that you're definitely not alone. This is something that is one of the most common types of issues that people face. And so sometimes it can help to realize that you're not alone in dealing with that. So let's jump into the differences between worry, stress and anxiety and how we deal with them. So the first worry. And when it comes to worry, one of the ways to differentiate it from the other two, is that worry occurs only in your mind. Worry is a mental phenomenon. It's when your mind dwells on negative thoughts, uncertainty, uncertain outcomes, or things that could go wrong in your life. That's what worry is. But
Subhanallah worry also can have a purpose. The purpose of worry, when you're worrying about the future is that it stimulates your brain, and it stimulates your behavior. So for example, if you're worried about the potential of failing an exam, it motivates you to study if you're worried about a health issue that you might have, right, like you start coughing, you automatically worry that you have COVID It motivates you to schedule a doctor's appointment to go get tested. Or if you have a different health issue, it might motivate you to start healthier habits in your life. And this is also really impactful for our spiritual health as well. When we worry about the possibility of the
Hellfire, we are motivated to change our actions and behaviors toward the path that is more pleasing to ALLAH SubhanA data. And it's amazing the wisdom of Allah's passata in knowing how human beings work in knowing how worry can stimulate our behaviors and can stimulate our minds. And so when we read the Quran, we see all of these aliens that that talk about the Hellfire that talk about the different behaviors that can lead there. And so they can serve as motivation for us to transform that worry into positive change. And so the main thing to remember when we're talking about worry is that it can be beneficial if it leads to positive change, but it can be harmful if it leads to
obsessing on the worries themselves. And so that's what we want to stop. So how do we stop if you find yourself kind of just going through this fear cycle of I'm worried what if this happens if this happens if this happens, right. And, you know, the the Prophet Mohammed Salim told us, you know, when when it comes to the word low, if right to avoid that, because it opens the door for shaitan. And we see how it can the we see how it can definitely impact our minds in such a negative way. Subhan Allah. So one of the things that we can do, if you find yourself spiraling a bit with your worries is start by writing them down. It is a very, it seems so simple, but it's a very powerful
mechanism to allow thoughts to lose their power, and to lose some of the fear that we attach to them. Because now they look more manageable when they're down on paper, rather than just taking up space in your head. And it also helps you to come up with a plan and redirect these thoughts into healthier ones. If you find yourself worrying throughout the day, one of the really helpful ways that you can manage that is by giving yourself a block of time where you say, Okay, this is going to be my worry time, this is going to be the time that I'm going to give myself to worry about this particular problem. And then when that time is up, you conscious you consciously choose to redirect
those thoughts into a more productive way.
Another thing that is really helpful and very spiritually helpful as well, is to shift your mindset to change the way that you're thinking about the situation. So our worldviews are partly due to our circumstances, right? We all have sometimes difficult circumstances in our lives, but even more, it's about how we perceive our circumstances. And that's a very, very powerful point to remember. So that even in situations that seem almost impossible, no matter what is happening, no matter how hard anything is for you, Allah subhanho data can make a way out of it. You know, when we think about, there's a beautiful, beautiful story of the Prophet Muhammad Salam and, and Abu Bakar. And when they
were in, when they were trying to escape persecution, and they escaped into a cave, right? What did they do in that in that circumstance? They, they did something with their worry, they did something with it, by escaping into a cave, and then they had faith and Allah has added that he would help them through it. And we look at also another profound example with a prophet Musa alayhis salam, when he and his people are confronted with an O
Ocean and behind them is surrounds army who's going to try to you know, to overtake them who's going to try to defeat them. And in front of them is this is the sea, the Red Sea. And they and they seem like they have no way out. Look at the difference between two groups where the people come face to face with the see and these are the companions of Musashi said um, and they said, We are overtaken for sure. And Mozart is that I'm reassures them. And he says, Absolutely not, my Lord is certainly with me, and He will guide me. So we see in this circumstance, both of them are faced with the same circumstance. They're both faced with the Red Sea. But one group says, you know, this is hopeless,
there's nothing that we can do. And most artists that um, has the same circumstance, but the way he perceives it is so different and look at the amazing way that Allah Subhana Allah has given him out of that situation by parting the sea for them. SubhanAllah. So sometimes, our circumstances are not the only thing, but even more powerfully how we interpret our circumstances. So if you're going through something difficult, and you find yourself being worried, one of the things you can remind yourself in order to achieve this mindset shift is you can also remind yourself of the reward associated with the circumstances that you're in, where the prophet Muhammad Salim reassures, as he
says that there's no fatigue, no disease, no sorrow, no sadness, no hurt, no distress, that befalls a Muslim, even if it were just the prick of a thorn, but that Allah's path that expiate some of his sins for that. And so when we change our perception of the situation, suddenly the worries dissipate. Right, so that's a very powerful way to consider it. Now, when it comes to stress, stress is different from from worry, because like I said, worry takes place in the mind, stress is in the body. Stress is something that we hold on to within our body, and it's connected to particular events or circumstances. So we all have a stressor. So it can include it for everybody, the
stressors will be different. So you know, for you, it might be a work deadline for another person, it might be, oh, I'm waiting for a COVID test result. For another person, it's an argument with a spouse for another person, it's their child, tantruming, and all of that, you know, being very overwhelming for them. So different people have different stressors, different things that stress them out. But stress, just like worry can have a positive purpose as well.
We are each given through the mercy of Allah subhana data, a fight flight or freeze response. And this is something that happens automatically in our brains. This is not something we think about this is not something we choose. This is when you're driving your car, and suddenly a car swerves and cuts you off and you break, what do you have to think about that it becomes an automatic bodily physical response. Because your brain is working the way it should. Where you get this rush of adrenaline you get this rush of cortisol, right, these these, this chemical reaction in your body, that once the threat is there, it kicks into gear, and you have an immediate response, you have an
immediate stress response. In normal circumstances, once this acute stress, this immediate stress goes away, the stress response also goes away. So you'll feel calmer. So for example, you get your you know, if the stressors a COVID test result, you get your result back and you found out that you're negative and humbler. If you have an argument with a spouse, you resolve the conflict with your spouse, if you have a work deadline, you submit the work on time, and again, the stress starts to go away. But with chronic stress, like a lot of people have been experiencing due to the pandemic, it can become more problematic because it's a long term issue when your body stays in this
fight flight freeze response long term. And so when this becomes becomes an issue, when when stress becomes more of a long term thing and you notice that your body is holding on to stress, you might notice it in the tightening of your shoulders, you might notice it in some stomach issues, right a lot of times stress can can manifest in physical ways. Some of the tips to consider to help to alleviate this are naturally going to be physical, right. So one is going to be to get exercise. Exercise is an excellent way when you think about the chemical reaction going on in your body with adrenaline and cortisol exercise helps to release some of that. So exercise can be very helpful. Any
type of movement, even if it's just a walk in nature can also be very powerful. Right? So that that can be that can be helpful, and then also being very clear on what is and is not within your control.
Stress often is a product of focusing on what is
impossible to control circuit certain circumstances in your life, what other people choose to do what other people think of you, their perception, all of these things are not within your control. And when we focus on the things that are not within our control, that can lead to a great deal of stress because we can't make a change. Instead, shifting our focus to that which is within our control is very helpful. So you remember the situation I was talking about, with regards to the Prophet Muhammad SAW Selim and Abu Bakr when they were driven out of Mecca, and they sought safety in the cave. Imagine how terrifying this circumstance is in being one step away from being caught,
right by those who want to take your life. But in that circumstance, the Prophet Muhammad wa sallam says, What can befall two that have Allah as the third one with them. So what is happening in that situation? There's two components, there's controlling what you can, they didn't just sit and wait for these people to come and kill them. They didn't just stay in, you know, and and say, you know, ALLAH SubhanA, Allah will protect us in the end, if they took control of what they could by escaping into a cave.
And then what did they do, they also took into account what they couldn't control. And they realized that in the end, that is absolutely in the hands of Allah subhana data, and what better place for our circumstances to be than in the hands of Allah span data. So take a moment to realize what you can and cannot control?
And remind yourself that you're not helpless. Remind yourself and ask yourself, what is in my power to change right now? What am I stressed out about? And what's one small step that I can take toward making a change in, in what I'm stressed about, and for situations that you can't control, and you're trying to deal with the uncertainty of it, accepting your reality reality, realizing that this is a test in submission, right, that we are submitting to a salaam, the one who provides peace and safety to us, that we're constantly that we're constantly needing to accept the things that we can't change. And, and that submitting to allow us path data is through accepting our circumstances
in the in the situations where there are certain things that we can't control. And this allows us to channel our energy in a positive direction, rather than using that energy to fight a reality that's not changeable.
And then, finally, with regards to anxiety, and anxiety is kind of the catch all that we that we talk about, you know, we're feeling anxious, I'm suffering from anxiety, right? We we often use this term. And it makes sense that we use it because in some ways, it is a catch all. Because worry involves the mind. It's mental stress involves the body, it's physical, and anxiety is both. Anxiety is both mental and physical. It involves both the mind and the body. And so that combines the worry and stress. So it makes sense that it's something that we often that we often talk about in general terms. So how does anxiety work? And I think it's very powerful when we have a little bit of an
understanding about how anxiety works, because it doesn't seem as threatening anymore. So remember, when I was talking about when a car cuts in front of you, and you naturally just, you push me you press on the brakes, and your adrenaline level goes up, your cortisol level goes up, your heart rate goes up, right? Because there's a legitimate threat in front of you. And you need to respond to it immediately. Anxiety does a very similar thing. But when there's actually no threat, so your your response, your stress response system is responding to a false alarm. So for example, you know, you are at school or at work, or with family or friends or whatever it is, and somebody seems a little
bit distant. They're acting in a way that seems a little bit standoffish. You're wondering, are they upset with me? What's going on, on what's going through their mind? What are they thinking? And things like that, right? So they seem a little bit distant from you, and your stress response gets over activated? Because your thoughts start to come up with the worst case scenario. So we see what ends up happening in the situation. It involves both your mind and your body. This situation happens and you start to think, hmm, maybe they're really upset with me, maybe they don't want. They don't want this friendship anymore. Maybe all of these different things. Maybe they're talking badly
behind my back, maybe somebody else spoke spoke badly behind my back, right? All of these different thoughts come up. And what do you notice in your body, you notice your butterflies start to hit your stomach. You notice yourself getting overheated. You notice your hands getting a little bit sweaty. Right so
All of these things start to combine. And that's what anxiety, that's what anxiety becomes, you know, you, you have some sort, you have a headache, and you decide to go and google symptoms on WebMD. And suddenly, suddenly, you're terrified about, you know what, you know what you could actually have, because now your thoughts are going haywire and your anxiety is, is increasing, your adrenaline is pumping, your body is ready for like fight flight or freeze. But it's actually a false alarm, there's not a danger around you, there is no threat in reality. And so how do we deal with anxiety and I'm going to keep this brief and just an end it here because dealing with anxiety could
definitely be a full course. And it's something that we cover in the course and have the lab but but there are just so many wonderful ways to be able to manage anxiety. So So realize that it is it can be manageable and Hamdulillah. So from a physical perspective, one of the things to to pay attention to is pay attention to the things that tend to bring your heart rate up. So things like caffeine, sugar, lack of sleep, you know, like, what do you notice makes your body feel a little bit on edge, and work on reducing that or addressing that. So that way some of the physical part of anxiety is is managed. Notice if particular situations or people tend to bring up this familiar feeling of anxiety
in your body, and consider different approaches that you can take so that you feel better prepared, so that it feels more manageable.
Also, one of the things that's very, very important when it comes to anxiety, is don't just push away the anxiety, don't just try to ignore it, because when we try to ignore it, when we try to push it away, and when we try to invalidate it, that's when it comes up at really inopportune times, because we're not dealing with it directly. And it teaches our brain that it's something to be feared. So instead, when you notice anxiety, try and use a physical approach to manage it better. And this is, and this is a really wonderful antidote to that stress mode that we talked about that fight flight or freeze response. And it's called grounding. Grounding is just a really simple way to
do this. So grounding is basically when worries and anxiety and stress all combined. What our brain does, it's thinks about all of the what ifs that could happen. And grounding makes your mind focus on what is and it relays to your brain that you know what I'm actually safe right now, I don't really have to worry right now and you can start to feel calmer. And we can see this actually in a hadith of the Rasul Salem, which I think is such a beautiful example and such a wonderful way to combine our deen with with the psychological approach, where the prophet Muhammad wa sallam saw prayer as a source of tranquility during difficult times. When he when he would tell Belen to Obi
Lal give us rest with it, to bring a sense of calmness and serenity and tranquility, to us, telling him to call the eye then to call to prayer, because that's going to bring us a sense of tranquility. And when you think about the act of Salah, especially sujood, and even an even just, you know, when you're when you're reciting Surah, Al Fatiha and you're standing there and standing up straight, but especially sujood. It is incredibly grounding, where your head, your hands, your feet are all touching the ground and are and you're focused in that moment in allowing your body to calm and solidify your connection and reliance to Allah subhanho data that can be incredibly calming. Other
ways that you can ground yourself if Salah is not possible at you know, at a given moment. For example, if you're in class, or, you know, working at your desk at work and you can't excuse yourself.
Another way that you can ground yourself is focusing in on your five senses. So you can make sure you have something in your hand that you can touch and focus on the feeling of it. Focus on like if you're wearing a ring like I am today, you can focus on the texture of it, you can spin it around your finger, you can notice the whether it feels cool, or whether it feels warm against your skin. So using that sense of touch, you can use your your sight as well to find five things that you notice in the space that you're in your sense of hearing, to hear to pay attention to what you you hear so any of your senses can be used to bring you back into the present moment and reassure your
your body and your brain that you are safe. Deep breathing is also very effective. How
hugging a loved one can also be very effective. So all of those are grounding techniques. And to end as a final note is when it comes to anxiety, remind yourself that despite the discomfort that you're feeling, anxiety is not dangerous. And so once you acknowledge that it can't hurt you and that it's going to pass, then anxiety loses some of its grasp on you, reassuring yourself that like almost tells us with hardship comes ease that that ease will come, inshallah So may Allah pass that a grant us all the ability to manage our worries, stress and anxiety, allow it to be a means of drawing closer to him. And may He alleviate the suffering of all of you who are listening in and bestow upon
all of you peace and healing alone, the enemy does that.
Does that come a law fair? We were just discussing actually in one of my groups that Subhanallah sorry, you do a really good job of dissecting that thought process and breaking it down and helping us to understand exactly where we need the healing. So just like America, that was a very beneficial session. And shall we get a chance to and of course, we will inshallah benefit more from you. There's several hours of content that's there. Sorry, covers in the course. Before you go. I have a quick little question. I want to just pose to you because I know, and hamdulillah there's a lot of people here who are benefiting. There's a lot of change that's happening within the Muslim community
when it comes to the topic of mental health. But what are the long term effects for those who do not treat mental health problems and for that for the community at large as well, if we do not take you know, active, an active stance and progress quickly when it comes to the issue of mental health?
Does that go off and on? Yeah, that's an excellent, excellent question. Michelle, Allah, you know, when it comes to mental health and mental wellness, I mean, this is included, you know, amongst the things that the program has SLM encouraged us that there's no greater gift than good health, right. And if we don't take care of that it is an Amana. It's a responsibility that Allah Subhana Allah has given to us that we have a right upon ourselves. And one of our own rights upon ourselves is to take care of our mental health. And if we don't, it affects every single aspect of our life. And I don't, I don't mean to say that in kind of just a blanket statement, and, and to just brush over it in that
way. But it is absolutely true. And anybody who suffers from any type of mental health struggle can definitely tell you know, tell you that in for through personal experience as well, that it affects people's relationships with their families, with their children, with their parents with their spouse, it affects people in terms of their physical health, we know that anxiety and stress and depression all Can Can, can manifest physically and can really affect people in in physical ways that can result in in long term health issues. And then it can also in a way that people don't actually
talk about quite as much it can really affect us spiritually as well. A lot of times trauma, especially if it goes untreated if anybody has traumatic circumstances or a buildup of different traumatic circumstances these impact the their view of the world in every single way including their view of illness path data. And so in taking care of our mental health we are also taking care of our connection to illness path data as well so it's very very powerful
beautiful could not have said that better design good luck here. So sorry for being part of this experience. I noticed I don't know if this was intentional but mashallah, we have almost almost five hours of content from you in the course I think you have the most amount of content there's so much to cover 29 lessons to go through. If you want to hear more from stress Arsal done Inshallah, please head over to inside out, you can see the link on the screen and in the bio, inshallah we'll catch you on the other side. I know we have a lot of questions for you. But we'll we'll have the opportunity to ask you in our live q&a sessions. For now take care does that click here for being
part of this experience and for for blessing us with your presence today and shall we'll catch you on the other side. So now maleic
when it goes down when I feel like it awesomesauce I'm super excited to take us to our final session sad and excited at the same time. For those who've been here from the beginning or those who've been joining us throughout the session. Just a quick reminder, this course is made possible by a mug Institute's or this webinar is made possible by our brand new course that is made in partnership with Mr. Saar Sultan, Chef Homer Hussain, who is coming up next in sha Allah and Homer Solomon. So if you have not yet registered for this experience, we've made it pay what you can so it's accessible for everyone who's listening. I know a lot of you are commenting, that you need support
that you need help that you're struggling with these things. This is exactly why we created this course there is a massive need in this community. Whether you're personally struggling with it, or you know, or you're related to or you love someone who is, please make sure that you take advantage of this amazing experience. This course has 55 lessons, hours and hours and hours of content. All of that is available for lifetime access. If you don't have time to go through right now. You can register in sha Allah and then take it at your own pace. And we wanted to make sure that it was pay what you can so anybody across the globe, no matter what region you're from, no matter what currency
you use, you're able to access it with
ease. So whether you want to pay $10, or you want to pay 3050, it does not matter. We want to make sure that you're able to benefit from this and you continue learning from these topics, because we're not just covering the top, you know, the surface, we're not just scraping the surface material, we've covered such depth topics, such as our salon alone, we covered trauma, grief, suicide, how to access help setting boundaries for men and women and so many other things in this course inside out. So please make sure you take that advantage of that opportunity. And you head over to that link. It's been linked everywhere. And it's, I think, pinned as well and headline in
the comments. So without further ado, unfortunately, we want to have we have to bring this experience to a close but who better to do it with than our brand new instructor with Al Maghrib Institute's shift shift doctor, it's confusing now hold Shift, Dr. Anwar Hussain, mashallah with his recent PhD, and just for those who are not familiar, the few of you who are not Dr. Schiff, Omar Hussain graduated from us her University with a degree in Islamic Studies and Arabic. He's also a licensed professional counselor, associate a licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor, and as a PhD in counselor education and supervision from the University of Texas in San Antonio, because knowledge
of the Islamic and social sciences makes him perfectly equipped to address contemporary challenges faced by the average Muslim and as you can tell, this is why we have him co teaching this course with us inside out, which is linked Of course, in the chat in the bio. Today, Dr. Amir Hussain is going to be covering the topic that has been, I think, linked to a lot of our struggles over the past couple of years, with the thing that shall not be named. The topic today is isolation and loneliness. So I'm very excited to bring shift doctor over to the stage. I said I was sick and when I moved to LA who I better get to, how are you doing to
handle Hamdulillah? You couldn't you didn't know what to say after all. After all that introduction. Hopefully you're doing well. We're super excited to delve into the topic. I know we're running a little bit behind schedule. So I'm going to pass it right to you in Sharla and we'll jump right into it. Bismillah
Okay, Zach, a lot of manual human hungry little bit. Alamitos salatu salam, ALA, Karim. Frobisher, actually somebody recently I'm rewatching, an Oculus and listening have gotten a pony robot.
So I'm going to talk about isolation and loneliness. But I'm going to separate them. Because sometimes when when they're when they're linked together, are they always necessarily negative, and a very important thing that I want us all to understand is mental health is not just when something is broken, and you're trying to fix it. You know, as they say, health is not the absence of disease, right? When you're healthy, it's not just your that you're absent from disease, you're thriving, you're growing, you are experiencing positive changes. So it's not that every single thing in mental health is just okay, there's this issue, that is certainly a part of it. But that should not be our
only focus. So let me explain that first with isolation.
Many times, if we take, just take a general example, if you're a Toronto Maple Leafs fan, you've been an isolation from winning for I think, 48 years now. That's a very, very long time to not know what it's like to win. And, you know, you may think that that's a negative thing. So certainly, in this particular example, it's not positive however,
isolation itself is sometimes incredibly powerful, and leads to long lasting change. Isolation is is very present in our deen
the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was isolated. When the revelation came unicyclists anata wa salam, which we discussed last time, in a seminar, that beautiful Lord came in isolation, it didn't come when he was with his people,
the Hadith of the seven who are shaded when there will be no shade, one that is we kind of mentioned it, but we don't really spend a lot of time on it. Or Julian Vacher, Allah Hollein father, Dinah, a person who mentioned Allah in seclusion in isolation, and then the, the eyes have tears come. So they're in isolation, what's in there in isolation from anything except Allah Subhana Allah, but also they are physically in isolation. So isolation, at times is very beneficial, even in this madness of the pandemic. Because you can take a walk in nature. And it is one of the most I mean, there's research after research, so how beneficial and how powerful it is to walk
in nature, just the outside. There's a trail by the house here that I take my son on on, it's beautiful. I mean, just just a few 100 yards away, there's traffic zooming, and there's all kinds of craziness going on. It's like you're in a different world. That is an eyesore.
relation, you wouldn't get that feeling if you had 1015 20 people around you. So there is a place for isolation, and it can bring some very positive and powerful change. So I just want to mention that. So when does it become a problem, it becomes a problem when isolation
leads to loneliness, when isolation leads to disconnect, and particularly when we are talking about in a mental health context, we could make the argument that virtually everything that Dr. SATA, or that sister sada and myself discuss and Dr are about in this in this course,
is, there's an element of,
of loneliness, because there wasn't support for the issue in the struggle that the person was having having. So, it in other words, a lack of having support from family members from community members, basically pushed the person further and further into isolation and loneliness.
And if only there, if you don't remember anything else, from this webinar, just remember that if if it is your son, if it's your daughter, if it's your brother, if it's your sister, if it's your spouse, and they come and they tell you, they're struggling with something, or you visibly see it.
And let's say it's something that they're not very proud of
getting upset. And you know, this is not who we are, this is not our beliefs, this is not how we raised you, what good is that going to do? Because I will tell you, almost always, with the clients, I see, they feel deeply, deeply troubled by what they've done.
They feel deeply troubled, they are not proud of it. They don't need me to give them a hot bath, in a session about how what they did was not right or appropriate, they don't need that they need the support. Otherwise it becomes loneliness. And you know what happens, you get pushed further and further and further into that addiction. Or further and further into that depression. Or further and further into that anxiety. And this is true anywhere, when you don't have a space in the masjid. For young people, they go somewhere else. When you don't have a space in the masjid for women.
They go somewhere else, when you don't have the space in the masjid for seniors, they feel they may still come. But they still they feel like they're not important or valued, right? So you go somewhere else, to not want to be no one wants to be isolated. But sometimes if they're pushed too deep, then they don't even have the ability to go anywhere else. So they turn to something else. So if nothing else is remembered, just remember that Inshallah, one thing that gives me great joy is when there's a young person who's coming for some counseling, and in the initial session, it's not just them their you know, who's there. The family is with them,
their families with them there. So
the family knows in the family is supporting and I will tell that to the family. Because there will also be the other case, where Why are you here because my mom wants me to be here. No offense to you. I don't really want to be here. I'm just here because my mom wants to be here. But when I see a family, when I see a couple,
well, one is struggling and the other one is just supporting that's a beautiful and that's a very positive first step. So it's very important for us to be aware of that and know that we absolutely can do something to insha Allah have an impact on that. So now we are social creatures. Why don't you know one of the beautiful things about Islam
is the emphasis on being alone. But also on the group.
Yes, ultimately we will be held responsible in front of Allah subhana wa Dawn, you may have felt a little here with me he will be universal. On that day, when you know you will flee from your brother the mother will leave their kids nobody is going to have your back.
We are ultimately accountable to Allah Subhana Allah Allah by ourselves, nobody is going to help us in the grave answer those questions. It's going to be our deeds. So there is that sense of being alone. But
a lot of of what's going to determine our ultimate fate is how we interacted with people. Because while you and I may be judged on how we were as a community leader or at
teacher or a father or a mother that's in relation to something else. So if you are an oppressive tyrant, then that is going to directly affect how you and I are held accountable May Allah subhanho wa Taala protect us, we certainly don't need any more
deviant tyrants in the world. But it's so it's always I always found it is a very beautiful balance. There's so much emphasis on the GEMA There's emphasis on you know, feeding a fasting person is that God has given to help the community. But then there's also this emphasis like okay, I'm gonna You prayed the follow up in Gemma. Now pray the Sunnah at home,
the emphasis on the night prayer, pray it by yourself. Right? So there's this beautiful connection between an event a very,
a nice balance of being alone and benefiting and being with the community because we need social connection. And we've seen that more and more. In the last year, I don't even know anymore how long the thing has been has been going on. But regardless of our circumstances, whether we're still in a situation where we can go to the masjid, we cannot go to the masjid. I'll just as you know, as the winter comes up, and it starts to get a little bit gloomy here, in most parts of the world.
What can we do to maintain social connection, so we don't feel a sense of loneliness.
There's tremendous, tremendous benefit to having social groups and social interactions. And we can do that in person, in person with a mask, or we can do that in other ways. And there's several benefits. And sometimes we don't talk about the benefit. We're just oh, just yeah, just just go, you know, being a group, it's gonna be really good. Okay, Hamdulillah. But what are some of the actual benefits? First of all, you're going to meet new people. Right? That's a wonderful benefit, just to be able to meet new people Hamdulillah.
In other benefit, let's say for example, you decide we're going to form a budget of crew,
a Fajr. Crew, which is, you know, so you have 20 people in the group, one person is going to message every day. Hey, it's budget time. Did you pray just a simple thing of Quran group? Hey, did you read one page today?
All of that is going to help because you're doing it together. Right? And that gives motivation that inspires people. That is the beauty of the social group. A lot of times, you know, we're talking about how do we protect ourselves from from the environment? And how do we, you know, we're worried about our kids and things like that. But when we put ourselves in a positive social group, and so positive social interaction, then the benefits are tremendous. So it inspires us motivates us, you know, what else joining some sort of a social group does, it gives us accountability. In my position as a, as a, as a faculty member, you know, they mentioned to us that early on, there's a tendency to
put off your writing, because you're so busy with so many other things, and it gets pushed and pushed and pushed. So they've done research to see what makes people successful. Because in academia, if you don't write, you're not going to go anywhere. So they said, there's three things. One, is 15 minutes a day, you're focusing on your research,
minimum 15 minutes. Two, is that you are keeping track of how long you are doing your research. Okay? Make sense? What's number three?
Number three is accountability. Can you believe that?
This is not talking to like young kids or something. It's talking to professional grown adults, accountability, just knowing that we will be accountable. And that is what a positive social interaction can do for us.
Maybe you're praying Fajr initially, not consistently, and you know, you know, I'm just kind of getting up because they keep texting me to get up. I say Alhamdulillah, at least you're up. Because eventually, that's going to change, and you're going to build momentum, and you're going to want to do it. There's so many opportunities to learn.
When you are in a social group versus interacting with others, there's there's basically two kinds of groups. There's one where you're going to hang out with people that look like you that speak like you that eat food, like you're hungry, like that's good. We all should have time to be comfortable. We should also join other things where we don't know everybody
as well, right, and that's one of the things in our local community, we can do that, well, look, everybody wants to pray Fudger everybody wants to read more Quran, everybody wants to improve their knowledge. And so there's no reason we can do that. And when you're in
a group with others, what you start to do is you develop different perspectives, you learn,
when you have some skills that others don't have, we can also teach.
And, you know, you're just open to new things. So I encourage all of us as this ongoing thing is happening. And as we're kind of, you know, the days are getting shorter, the nights are getting a little bit colder, to really think about actively making an effort to join some sort of a social group. And inshallah that will really help us to grow spiritually. And in many other ways.
There is it's funny, I was I was speaking to a sister regarding
she kind of runs like a study circle halacha circle. And she was mentioning that we've, this again, started when that thing was happening, like we've never actually met each other in person, but now we're like, so close, we're like, besties, we've never even met each other. That was the power of the social interaction, because they were coming together for the sake of Allah subhanho wa Taala to learn. So think about that, think about actively doing something started yourself, if no one else is doing it, and inshallah that will help us to not feel
that loneliness.
When, that when the winter months come and as as and in general, even even beyond that. And at the same time. Also remember that isolation has many benefits, and we just need a healthy balance between those two, we ask Allah subhana wa Taala to allow us to benefit ourselves and to benefit those we are around because I come along.
And mean yet I've just come authorship. That was an amazing, intense session, I have a couple of questions for you because we're just closing off our webinar here at Hamlin Illa. And of course, we have a whole kind of thick, heavy module with you. And a lot of what we discuss in your module shift is about
kind of the taboos now mental Honbu we're slowly breaking it down, this is one of the efforts inshallah to do so. But the taboo within the taboo is definitely substance abuse and addiction, this is something that the community is just not, does not appear to be ready for dealing with and I know, this comes, you know, you know, this is close to home for you. Because this is where you know, a lot of your professional experience, and your counseling kind of deals with as well. So, you know, what would you say is the main takeaway that you'd like to give to the community on the topic of substance abuse and addiction and why we're handling it wrong.
We are no less immune from substance use
and drug use than anyone else in society.
The quicker we realize that, the quicker we'll be on our way to insha Allah give help and provide solutions rather than just sticking our head in the sand. When there's a problem, we can do that or we can be proactive about it. There's it's just the problem it exists and exists in various communities. And you know, it just it's not something we can we can ignore. So I give certainly want to give credit to a Muslim and everyone involved hummed Allah may Allah accept to be able to openly discuss these sorts of topics. It's just, you know, that is if you see someone in your family struggling and it's pretty clear why and you found clear evidence. And you go to another family
member say hey, they're doing this you know, I found bottles and No, no, that's not you can't just stop there. You got it, you got to get them help, you got to do something. And just, you know, we can't just sweep it under the under the rug. It's just, it's it's caused too much devastation for too long. with too many cameras. She has a fair shake. And if you've ever made this is a bit more of a personal question, but I was very surprised the first time I heard I heard this, this is a common thing that's within the Muslim community. Because it's something that I think we're so much in denial about. I think we did a really good job of keeping this under under lock and key. But you
know, subhanAllah you're a licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor what made you as a Muslim you know, you mashallah have education Islamic field there shake as well. And then you took this professional route, what made you decide to do this and why do you think more Muslims should do this as well?
Sure.
Exactly. Hola. Hola. And I had a mentor, who was also an imam. And this was, you know, he was kind of ahead of his time because he was training
To be a professional counselor, and he had mentioned to me that, you know, people would come to him, and they would ask him things. And he said, I just at some point, like I just I couldn't help them anymore i intense domestic issues, addictions, severe depression, you know, it's like, I just, I don't, I don't know what to do. So he went and he studied and he became a professional counselor and kind of merged the spiritual with the secular even though I don't like that word. And in this, in this course, we talk about how mental health is very much a part of the Islamic tradition, we may not have been called mental health, but it absolutely was. And I'm very excited that that was a part
of the course. And so when I came back from my studies overseas, and I started working in the community, I saw the same thing. And so I enrolled in a master's program. And what I found was I was able to take what I was learning,
filter out what was not appropriate for our, you know, for our beliefs, and then give that message to the broader community. And if if it was just a mental health professional, perhaps they would not have been given that chance, which maybe isn't fair, but that's just the reality. But you know, to be able to address 1000 People at Jumeirah, or, you know, the MSA students, it just it opened up the topic. And so I also just absolutely loved it. And I just kept going until you could go no longer and now I have the life. I teach in a clinical mental health program. So I just enjoy it. And I'm always on on the search for how can we implement this in the community because these problems are
very real. And how can we go about finding solutions to some of these issues and prevention before it happens, which I'm also very big on. Exactly like her for taking this journey yourself shift and for allowing us to benefit from the fruits of your labors. May Allah reward you immensely. And we're super excited to see you on the other side to see you inside the course in sha Allah teaching us through those variety of modules that we mentioned. There's topics that are covered, that we haven't had a chance to address here of course, as you mentioned, domestic violence and abuse addictions mental health myths, one of my favorites history of mental health and Islam. So inshallah we're
looking forward to delve into that I'm sure we're gonna have any questions for you, but we'll save them inshallah for the course itself once again the course is linked on the screen and in your description box is a McGriff dot online slash inside out. For now, take care chef Omer Hussein, we will see you soon as salam Wa alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.
All righty. And before everyone else goes, just a quick reminder, I do want to give you guys because I see so many questions that popped up throughout the session that we could not address in this session. So I do want to share with you guys a little bit of what you will experience Inshallah, when you actually take the course and hopefully answer some of the questions that you have kind of weighing down your mind. Now as a reminder, this is a full amalgam online course. So this is hours and hours of contents, I think 10 to 12 hours in total with our three instructors, Dr. Mr. Hussain, sister Sarah Stilton, and ship armor, cinema and Masha Allah who have come together to balance out
their professional and their, you know, Islamic knowledge when it comes to this topic and to actually bet and give us a balanced perspective. And to really, really tackle the issues of mental health and specifically give you a practical response give you assigning solutions that tackle your mental, physical and spiritual well being, it is very hard. I think that the sistex statistics speak for this, it's very hard to maintain a healthy, balanced mental health in the modern world. And we tackle this in the course. And this is a reason why we've kind of created this is because it's so relevant across the board Subhanallah, you know, in the Islamic world. So I want to give you guys
just a little bit of a sneak peek into the course, and show you some of the topics that are covered here as well. So hopefully you can see my screen here. Let me know in the chat if you guys can see it in sha Allah. But you know, if you don't think this, this topic affects you, as we mentioned from the very beginning of this session, I think again, it affects one in six people and it affects through the you know, the domino effect the entire community, specifically the Muslim community, because we've just now been tackling the stigma bring it, of course, we were trying to tackle this taboo and we want to make sure that you guys can be heroes for yourselves and for others in this
process. There's so much that we covered in this course that we could not address today, domestic violence, substance abuse, bullying, depression, suicide, we do not hide away from the heavy topics because the community needs them. And it's very hard again, to be to be to be able to maintain a healthy mental state in these times, especially over the past year and a half. We've all been kind of learning how to do so in in a very, very strange world that we've been living in. And I'm glad that this topic is getting its time in the sun, but we want to make sure that we take it further than just one webinar one discussion, we have a full course available for this topic very
specifically for for this reason. So these are some of the topics that we cover major concept causes of mental trauma, differentiating between clinical mental health issues versus minor forms. As we mentioned, some of the
things today depression, anxiety, grief, domestic violence, gratitude, manifestations of domestic violence, how Islam is misused to justify extreme behaviors and dismiss issues. And so So, so, so much more. And Hamdulillah we made this course accessible for everyone by making it pay what you want, the course is for everyone. There's nobody who doesn't deal with someone who has a need for this course in this experience, and Charles, so I hope that you guys take advantage. When you take the course and you register, you will be taken into a private student portal with 55 lessons, hours of content with content from all three of our respected speakers in sha Allah. And we'll also have
live sessions so you can ask them questions. This is just a placeholder, you'll have four live sessions and all available to you and you will have a binder PDFs and extra resources available so that you can benefit completely from this journey. I hope that you guys take it to the moment to join us to head over to a McRib dot online slash inside out that you do not miss on this opportunity and that you share it. That's one responsibility that you have. Inshallah, if you benefited from this session, I asked you genuinely and sincerely shared this message, make sure that it becomes something that you share in your whatsapp that you share across your messenger apps and that you
make it accessible you are a reason for facilitating this message across for both this webinar and inshallah the course itself the course begins in just a few short weeks and we want to make sure that you guys are part of this experience. Just take a look here for just for today's webinar with a mugger Institute. We are so honored to host you and to have our respected speaker respected speakers with us tonight Alhamdulillah Inshallah, we look forward to hosting them again and of course to meeting sister Tsar Sultan and Jeff Ambrosini inside the course where you can ask them more questions as you're navigating your journey. And y'all. My name is Mr. Hafsa, and I'm from amalgam
Institute. I'm very grateful to have been with you this past couple of hours. And I look forward to seeing you in our course tonight. Samaniego,