Why Does Allah Hate Me – With Najwa Awad

Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah Shabbat. That was mine here from the inspiration podcast show, and welcome to episode 42. so wonderful to have you here. I hope you're all well and keeping safe and sha Allah during this COVID 19 pandemic. May Allah protect you and your family and keep you safe. So in this episode Subhanallah I'm really excited to have you watch or listen to this. We are joined by sisters Sada, Sorbonne and Najwa our word who mashallah are two licensed therapists who have a wealth of experience on a faith based approach to mental health, right and psychology. And in this episode, we go a little bit deeper into one of the segments that covered in a much longer in

comprehensive series on the European Institute for Islamic research, which was the trauma series called Your Lord has not forsaken you. And they use a very clever, unique approach, which is, as you'll find out, the solar and Doha approach, Allah subhanho wa Taala released are revealed solar at the heart to the Prophet it has Sudan after a time when he was feeling very anxious, and having his own self doubts as well. And in this episode, we cover a very deep, personal, distressing question, which is, why does Allah hate me? Alright, a question that a lot of us might actually ask us at least once in our life, if you are going through lots of laws, experiencing traumatic situations in

our lives, and in this episode to cover this in depth and to give us a deeper insight into why we go through this phase. We're going to cover topics such as negative thinking, emotional reasoning, low self esteem, trauma from the past, right and how that can affect our thoughts of Allah subhanho wa Taala dependency on other than Allah subhanho wa Taala and a whole other host of very important issues that if we connect them all together can contribute to negative thoughts of Allah subhanho wa Taala and negative perceptions of how we think Allah thinks of us, right? And Inshallah, also, if you listen, towards the end, you hear some very practical strategies. That system of sada and Najwa

are presented to us on how we can overcome this and go on a journey of healing and connecting with our faith, and increasing our levels of spirituality in a very healthy way, with healthy thought processes in sha Allah. This episode is in collaboration with the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic research, do go ahead and click the link in our description to find out more about the rest of the trauma series. And of course, if you enjoy this episode, give us a like, subscribe to our channel for more episodes like this. And of course, if you prefer to listen instead, you can subscribe to our podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, and more. Okay, in sha Allah, let's go ahead and

speak to assist of Syrah and Najwa. I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you do, let us know in the comments below. And let us know what your experiences were as though.

The most beautiful part of the Muslim community is how strongly we stand together to benefit humanity. Or at least, that's how it should be. Unfortunately, our community is in shambles. Our ideas and ethics are confused, and we are plagued by doubt. Our identity is lost. We need something that can tackle the root of the problem allowing our community to grow. We need a foundation of faith at europeen we focus on doing exactly that. All of our work is centered on three areas, dismantling doubts, to establish the firm roots of faith, nurturing conviction to strengthen existing faith and help it grow and inspiring contribution to empower our community to benefit all

of humanity.

All right, everyone. So without any further ado, let's bring on our guests for today. We have a sister Najwa award and sada Sultan from Yaqeen Institute hamdulillah and today, as we mentioned before, we are going to be talking about a very deep and crucial topic and concept of you know, the question why does Allah hate me? Or does Allah hate me? And in particular, diving a bit more deeper into the trauma series that Yaqeen had released recently in sha Allah Jota isla? Samurai leikam Rahmatullah to both of you. Why don't you go sit down what am I good?

How are both of you doing this?

are in crisis. So for those listening in the future, we are currently going through the freshest phase of the Coronavirus COVID 19 epidemic movement. And everyone's a bit confused, but Hamdulillah we are all trying our best to get through this. And actually, I think this topic of trauma and mental health is actually very apt at the moment because people are going through very dramatic changes. And this question of is this whole situation a punishment from Allah subhanho wa Taala sort of ties in right to today's episode? So how are both of you coping at the moment? How about Allah has a hamdulillah it's, it's definitely been interesting, filled with changes. I'm a I'm a mom as

well. And so that's probably been the biggest change in terms of the kids not being in school, and everything, but at Hamdulillah, you know, subhanAllah there, in in all of this, that's been going on. I think that there's a lot of room for reflection and for lessons and for a lot of growth in terms of the way that we deal with different situations and the tests that allow us path that ascends us so so I'm humbled that it's been you know, we've been fortunate in in this struggle a lot more fortunate that a lot of people have been handled by like we've been doing okay here as well. It's, it's been an adjustment. It's always like there's always news coming. There's always like

adjustments to be made. But like Sauron was saying that there are blessings in this, like just being able to stay home more and spend time with family, and not having so many commitments. Like I feel like we're always like running from place to place. So handled as a great opportunity to just sit to reflect and be at home and practice gratefulness for everything. hamdulillah before we get into the topic, can both of you in sha Allah, do a quick introduction? let our audience know who both of you are and what you do? And then after that, we'll dive into your pain and your work with the trauma series and show. Sure. So my name is Masha Allah, I am a psychotherapist in private practice. I see

people in my office and online as well. I specialize mostly seeing women and their families. I work a lot with depression, anxiety, trauma.

And I'm also one of the co authors of the acclaimed series. Your Lord has not forsaken you the impact of trauma on faith was sorta

Sadie Gump. My name is Sato salon, and I am also a therapist in private practice. I'm based in Houston, Texas. That's where I currently live. Although originally from New York, gotta bring a shout out over there.

And, and like I mentioned before, I'm also a mom of two. And I am an instructor with Mischka University where I teach a course on the intersection between

Islam psychology and counseling, and also one of the co authors with Najwa on the trauma series for European Institute, and Hamdulillah. Exactly the Highland speaking of New York, I was actually with Imam Siraj wahhaj The other week,

representing Brooklyn, masha Allah, I managed to catch him and he was talking about New York and we had a New York conversation and we're arguing over which winter season was the worst either here in Scotland or over there, and

so hamdulillah

Okay, great. So if we can, inshallah just give a brief overview, because I want the audience listening today to go back and visit this part of the Yaqeen website in sha Allah, the trauma series, give a little bit of insight about the series as a whole. And then in particular, the sections that both of you were working on together. And the reasoning behind why this came about. Okay. So originally, when this idea was presented to us, it was supposed to be a guidebook addressing a series of issues. And so the ones are and I got together, we had done projects before, we were thinking about how we would be able to put so many different issues together, like

addiction,

and abuse and trauma. And then we realized that trauma was like an underlying thing between a lot of the community issues out there. And so what we decided was to come up with a framework of how we can approach trauma from like a psycho spiritual perspective. And we talk about the inner introduction, which includes the Doha approach, and that's kind of the structure that we have throughout the series. And we base it on sort of Doha were also talking to prophesize in a time of distress, and we know the prophets had experienced many traumatic events throughout his life at orphanhood have been tagged, losing it

People that are close to him. And so when the sewer was revealed it was after a time where he had not received revelation for some time, and he was very anxious and distraught about it. And we thought, what better approach than taking what a loss pantile took to, to speak and address Homosassa in a way to comfort him. And so we kind of went through the sutra, and we deduced, you know, concrete, evidence based practices that we as Muslims can take and incorporate in how we treat trauma from Best perspective. And so that's what the intro was about. But each chapter after that addresses a certain issue in the community. It can be

abused, it could be infidelity, it could be a relationship issues. And so we come at, we'll use like a case example, to kind of

explain to people like some of the the thought process behind this, it's kind of a relatable way for people to see what others are going through. And then we go, and we talked about, like, how did these thoughts develop, how we can build insight into coping with our trauma, and then like concrete strategies, each chapter at the end has concrete strategies in which is almost like a workbook where people can take some of the things that they learned in the chapter, and then work on it on their own time.

So we, we our intention was to make like a comprehensive guide that people from all walks of life could relate to and can use practically, you know, whether they're in counseling or not. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and, you know, one of our goals when we were doing this project, and something that we had discussed really often was kind of twofold in that, number one was this idea of our community, the Muslim community itself, being a very traumatized community, right. Muslims in the western world Muslim in, in Muslims in the Eastern world, all of them have experienced different types of trauma, right. But overall, there's had been a lot of community based trauma, and then a

lot of individual trauma. So we wanted to address that. And then also, alongside that was, we kind of had this image in our minds as we were working on this, of just, you know, even just one person really, really struggling with difficult thoughts really struggling with their relationship with Allah's pathauto really struggling with feelings of depression, and their spirituality, and then stumbling upon this, and it bringing them a sense of validation and a sense of peace, Inshallah, and that was really one of the images that continued, you know, we worked on this project for over a year, it's a trauma, and it's one of the images that really kept us going, and Hamdulillah. And one

of the components in our approaches that we wanted to address, like the cognitive the thought base, like our minds, our bodies, and our spirituality, our hearts. So you know, all of these different components are really important in healing trauma. So we wanted to address all of them in, in our series, is like a little guide on something which I really love about your theme, is how structured the thought or everything is, the fact that every angle is covered. And it's done well. And it's using a really healthy blend of the spiritual aspect. And also the you mentioned,

work in the profession of mental health and trauma and psychology, and it's been blended together into this really nice, holistic approach. Whenever I look at your clean report, I'm like Subhanallah, this is such high quality, I love it. So it's great to see that over the course of the year, so much work and thought was put into it. So may Allah in sha Allah accept it, and I hope that it does benefit those who come across and need it. So speaking of which, today's topic is

kind of a question that many people ask perhaps at least once, right, and it can be for a number of different reasons. Oftentimes, it can be because of an event that's occurred or just their own thought processes. And so the question is, why does Allah hate me? Okay, very upfront harsh, deep question, which pretty much is going to dictate whether or not someone has a healthy relationship with God and they have a healthy sense of Eman and enjoy practicing their religion. And something which is have mentioned is this idea of emotional reason, reasoning, sorry. So can you explain to us what emotional reasoning actually is and how this relates to the common thoughts that people have,

which result in you know, an unhealthy will

relationship with Allah subhanho wa taala.

Yes. So why does Allah hate me rescripting negative thoughts, I think it's the fourth in the series of the fourth episode. And so it starts out with a case example about someone who has a really hard time in adjusting with relationships and really trying to make things work when they don't. Emotional reasoning is pretty much making conclusions based off of reality, on reality, based off of emotion versus fact. So you're kind of taking how you feel, and then you're making assumptions about yourself or the world are a lot based on that. So if I have a feeling today that everybody hates me, then I, I'm assuming that is fact and I start to discount other evidence around me.

And so this can happen. Like I said, it could be about ourselves, it can be about our environment, but it's a slippery slope. And sometimes it develops regarding our relationship with a lot as well, too. And I feel like people with trauma can be more susceptible to that. Because we people who experienced trauma have, it really impacts a person's life. And there's something I thought I said earlier that I thought was important to mention, when we talk about trauma, I think people usually get the image that we're talking about, like war, or rape. But we can have many little traumas that lead to complex trauma, or there could be little things that we think are not that big of a deal

like a parent's divorce. Or maybe someone saying a racial slur, and people might not think that their time was but but they are. And so they add up over time. And the accumulation of that

can sometimes dis regulate how we feel, and also how we look at the world. And so when we make when we have low self esteem, or we're developing these negative thoughts about ourselves based off of these experiences, then we start to participate in something called projection. So how I feel about myself is how the world feels about me and how I feel about myself is how Allah feels about me too.

And so,

people actually, I had someone call me yesterday, and he said,

it was totally random person. He said, I gave advice to a friend. And right after I had this episode is Do you think this is because Allah hates me or is punishing me. And so from his framework, because of whatever he had experienced, he was taking that experience, and then he automatically wants to, you know, Allah hates me. And sometimes we might,

we might have a very good relationship with a lot. And sometimes, you know, might be in our low points of our Amen. But people who are very spiritually conscious, it's, it's not a big leap for them to go to something like that, and say, Oh, this happened, and this happened to me. So maybe Allah, maybe a lot isn't like me. And so that's, it can be very dangerous thing to fall into. But like you said, something that we all question time to time or what might cross our mind from time to time.

Exactly. And just a quick follow up of that, I think we're gonna perhaps talk about this in more detail afterwards. But

this is coming across, as you know, as a very negative feeling to have, you know, you mentioned there making conclusions based on your own emotion and not facts, and then projecting that, but I think, and forgive me for the tangent here, but it's just popped into my head, because I've seen this right, is that some people will use this as a means of

falling into this deep state of, you know, depression, or spiritual depression. But others will maybe use that as motivation instead, okay? Allah hates me. So that must mean that this is a sign for me to start doing something better. And if I do something better, Allah will love me again. Okay, I think everyone has their own ways of interpreting things. Have you ever noticed that? Or does it normally come? Mostly as a negative feeling?

I think that and I don't want to speak for you that natural, but I know in my experience with clients, it usually is more on the negative side with regards to that particular thought process. Like and I think that it comes from, excuse me, the differentiation between guilt and shame, right. A lot of times the idea of Allah's Pattana hating me as a person, right that the the Lord who chose to create to the Lord who has chosen to create everything, right, the one who's most powerful the one who knows your heart in a better way than you know it yourself, for that being to hate you. It's a different it's at such a different level and it brings

up so much in terms of feelings of shame that a person will experience, feelings of shame, tend to get us into such a negative space where we feel like the issue is fundamentally with us that we are fundamentally flawed as people. And when we believe that idea, when we believe that concept that we are fundamentally flawed, it's very difficult to motivate yourself to move forward, because it almost feels like an impossibility, right. So even the possible becomes impossible, because the problem is just not changeable. But feelings of guilt. On the other hand, if you can say a last part that I hate that I did this, right, so attributing the dislike of alleged data to a behavior, rather

than to you yourself as a person, that can be a motivating factor to propel a person to say, Okay, well, let's pack that up, you know, really dislikes this particular behavior. And, and so we're going to, I'm going to push myself to move away from it, in order to please always have that and to gain his to gain his love and to gain and to gain goodness and to be raised in ranks in his eyes. So I think that that's where kind of that differentiation lies. Excellent is Lakota Phelan, very interesting already Subhanallah, I know that I'm understanding how this is broken down, I can already remember so many conversations that I've had myself with friends and family, and even

thoughts I've had on my own, during certain times of my life. So I'm excited to and intrigued actually to learn more about the other themes and topics we have lined up. So we'll move on to this idea of happiness, right.

And

dependency. So something which we discussed before, it was the dangers of looking for

our sense of stability, and our sense of happiness out with Allah subhanho wa taala.

And how this dependency can affect us psychologically and spiritually. So can you just describe how that part ties in with what you've just mentioned before, and what people should do in this situation? Well, when I was in school, a lot of people, our teachers taught me that

when we have a high internal locus of control, meaning that we feel in control of our environment, then that usually leads to higher self esteem and more motivation to getting things done. And it was also said that people who have an external sense of control meaning that they think that God or something else,

uncontrollable circumstances is in control of their lives, and they tend to do poor, but I but I've learned over time, that that's not really correct. And the Islamic perspective is like, it's a balance of what we can control ourselves, but also

believing and trusting in Allah that He is, He knows what's best for us. And he's going to help us in, in our affairs. And the best way that I've learned since grad school of looking at things is that everybody whether they know or not, has a certain locus of control, right.

And so you have people, you have parents, for example, who they might not realize it, but their locus of control is their children. So when their children are doing well, then they feel like they're right. Some people, their locus of control is school. So when they're doing well, academically, they're thriving, everything is awesome. And then they go, and they take a really hard class, and then they maybe they don't do so well. And then everything seems like it's falling apart. And so all these things are transient. And when we put all of our effort into these things that are important, but we feel like our self worth or self esteem is what is upholding, you know, just

everything together, then when these things are not working out, then everything crashes. And so that's why it's really important for us as Muslims to look at all the different important parts of our life and participate and have goals in them but know that the best and the healthiest locus of control is with Allah. Because ultimately he is you know, he's in control and we do our part with retire Campbell and we do what we need to do. But when things don't work out with your family, or something traumatic happens to you, when you know that you have that sense of stability with Allah that you can always go back to him no matter how much you mess up, no matter like what you do. That

sense of stability, that's something that nobody can take away.

And it it can be deeply comforting, especially when we know he's a rock man, and that you know, he's always

he's there, he knows, you know, things before they even happen to us, and that we can turn to Him for anything. Beautiful. So Pamela, you know, as you were asking the question about, you know, this, this idea of

different kind of holding ourselves to, to, with a dependency on other than Allah subhanaw taala. And the dangers that come from that. The first thing that always comes to mind when I'm hearing that is the idea of the dependency on external validation, right, where we require validation from other than a less path data. And so we base our actions, we base our thought processes, we base our decisions and the choices that we make in our lives, and even to the extent that we base our identity on whether that's going to be pleasing to the people who matter to us, right. And I think that that can be a very dangerous

path to start walking on. Because no matter what the standards of people are always fluctuating right, like little soy sauce alum in here will always make the diet Yamaka liberal clubs a bit call reality integrate to, to, to stabilize his heart, on the on the dean, right that Allah's path data is the one who, who holds the hearts right in between his two fingers SubhanAllah. And so in that we understand that it's human nature to have this fluctuation, the that what is pleasing to one person is going to be displeasing to another. And so the standards of people are always changing. So what's the only stable standard that we can rely on is going to be the standard of almost PandaDoc? Sure,

there are no tricks, you know, and so when we rely on Ulysse Panasonic in that way, and we have that trust in Him, and we have that dependence on him, that can then stabilize us that can then ground us and it can be very healing, to kind of transform our thoughts and our hearts to be going in just one direction that we always know is going to be consistent. And I think that's one of the safest ways. You know, in order for us to heal from trauma, we need a sense of safety, security and stability. And the most stable and secure source of that is Allah Subhana Allah because he is his standards are never changing, his expectations are unchanging. And we can always strive to fulfill that and know

what we get in return for that. Very interesting and very comforting Subhan. Allah I love the

the more I mentioned in the last answer, but it's happening again, the more you've

talked about this, I'm starting to analyze myself now as well and thinking, Am I doing these things, but I think is very comments upon Allah. And it's all starting to make sense and especially this idea of dependency on or your your your validator is being other people, and even how that shaped identity Subhanallah it does make a lot of sense.

And let's now go back to this idea of trauma, because that part was really interesting to me. You mentioned that trauma isn't just something big that you mentioned before, something like war, and or something as major as rape, for example, it can be a number of different things. So I want to go back and really explore

how people's relationship can be affected with Allah, due to these episodes of trauma, however deep, however big

and the role that trauma can play in spirituality, right and contribute to this kind of overall rise of negative thoughts towards Allah subhanho wa taala. If both of you could expand on that a bit more, that'd be amazing inshallah. Inshallah, does that go left for that question. You know, I think that emphasizing that point about the fact that trauma isn't just isn't just like these major things that we typically think of when we hear the term trauma. But the fact is that there was there was a study called the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, where they interviewed 17,000 people, and they found that just within the childhood of these people 64% had experienced some sort of trauma that

was impactful. And if we were to look at that, then for the rest of their lives, then the percentage would be even higher, right? Because there are a lot of other just like SR natural had explained, there are a lot of other experiences that fall under the umbrella of trauma. And I think something that a lot of times people don't realize like just like the approach to healing trauma has to be holistic in that you have to work through a person's mental state. So their thoughts, you have to help them physically because there's a lot of trauma can be

stored in our bodies, right? So a lot of physical symptoms can even be attributed to traumatic experiences. And then also through the hearts right and working through it in a holistic way. In that same way, trauma impacts us holistically, too, right. So a person's neurology is impacted by trauma, like there's a certain part of the brain, the amygdala in the back of the brain. That's the survival part of our brain. And that's the part that's responsible for fear, for anxiety for, for anger. And that part becomes very over activated after you've gone through a traumatic incident. And so to be able to calm that, to be able to heal from that, you know, there is going to be the impact

that, that, that it this brain area is then going to have on our thought, processes. And that's why all of these thoughts that Nigel and I are discussing in terms of does Allah hate me, things will never get better, what's wrong with me all of these different things that is very much affected by that survival part of our brain that that the fear central of our brain is over activated. So naturally, our thought processes are not going to be positive. Right. But but one of the blessings just as like a hopeful note with regards to that one of the blessings is that Alicia pancetta has made our brain so that they are malleable, and they can change in the field of psychology, it's

called Great our brains being plastic, meaning that they can change. So the more that we work on healing, the more that we work on dealing with these negative thought processes, and replacing them with healthier thought processes, then they can be positively impacted. But, but the parts of our brains that are impacted by trauma are the same parts of our brains that we use in our relationship with ls data. Right? So the part if we've been betrayed by a person, then that part of our brain has been so strongly impacted the trusting part that it's then could even be difficult to trust in all those parts that are even though rationally we know that Allah's pancetta is different than people.

But a lot of times our relationships with people, and the things that have happened with people in our lives can can really impact our relationship with ls Pat data. And that is a very powerful study. And another, there's actually been a series of studies that talks about how

some of the the experiences that we have, or some of the views that we have from our parents, also determines how we view a lot as well. And when you look at trauma,

sometimes it happens from a stranger, but a lot of the times it actually happens from the people that are closest to us. So like verbal abuse, mental abuse.

And it can even be like people of authority could be you know, sometimes it's Imams, sometimes it's teachers. And so what happens if we grew up in environments where we cannot trust our parents or our parents who might act in a way that is traumatic for us, then, and we don't know exactly why this is, but people take some of their cognitions about their parents, probably because it's an authority figure. And they apply those same cognitions to Allah. So

someone who grows up thinking that they can't trust, you know, their parents didn't, it'll, the same thing will happen. So going back, I feel like just and gaining insight into how we can develop our own cognitions about a lot from other people can be really profound in recognizing like, Okay, this is this actually comes from somewhere, this is something that I can, I can change, and then going back and like studying the names of a law or even something as simple as like writing down those negative thoughts and then replacing them with healthier thoughts can go back and rewire your brain to have more healthy cognitions not just around like the world around you, but also how you view a

lot as well. Zach was asking him for that insight and those, those healthy thoughts and that healing process that was alluded to, and sha Allah will talk about that a bit more. Later on. In this episode, I'm sure everyone is interested to understand how we can overcome this in sha Allah because a lot has been mentioned here. And I'm very sure that those listening are thinking oh my god, that happened to me, or this is something I've been dealing with for years and I'm sure they'll find out a lot more from your other work as well. But inshallah that's coming up. And I want to know, just as a follow up to this

top a different narrative, right, which is

the idea of hopelessness as well. Hopelessness in oneself for whatever reason, it could be but something which we've covered

In the podcast before it is, you know, I send too much or I'm not worth, X, Y and Z. And although I know the power of Allah subhana, what's gonna, I know his mercy,

I still feel that I don't deserve to have a good life. I don't deserve to have her, you don't mess up from hell, I don't deserve to be the situation that I'm in just now. So hopelessness,

therefore, does have this major impact on how we

are related to Allah subhanho wa taala. But can you dive a bit deeper into that, and the connection between feeling hopeless, on a spiritual level as well? And versus feelings that arise from

mental illnesses themselves, such as actual clinical depression? Okay, because I'm sure there's a difference there between negative and depressing thoughts, versus someone who actually is going through a very deep

tip of depression, which the doctors have said, are actually clinically depressed? What's the difference there? And what can you provide in terms of insight for that Sharla. So we all experience a sense of hopelessness every once in a while, that's, you know, a normal part of the human process. However,

severe hopelessness can be a symptom of depression when it's accompanied by some of the other signs of depression. So that the person's baseline, whatever their usual self is, is disrupted. So usually with some of the classic signs is like, their sleep is impacted, they're eating sleeping too much or too little. They don't have they have like a decreased appetite, or they're eating too much thoughts about death, there could be self harm, low self esteem is common.

And it happens for a significant period of time, usually, like at least two weeks, for most of the day, most of the days. And there's different kinds of depression that are probably beyond the scope, the scope of what we're talking about. But it is a significant difference from the person's norm.

And it has an effect on how they conduct themselves day to day and their relationships.

Now, there can be hopelessness without having a spiritual question, right? So I might just be like, Well, I'm not a vocal about my future. I'm not hopeful about my career, or why my family. And so that's hopelessness. And however, like with spiritual hopelessness, or depression, I feel like it takes a little bit of a different twist, where the focus is not as much on I'm not hopeful about my future, but I am not, I'm not hopeful that I am worthy that Allah will change my, my future, or I have sinned so much that I am not deserving of his of his mercy. So with the first hopelessness, it's more about yourself or your environment, whereas I feel like the spiritual one, I wouldn't say

it's as much doubt but it's wondering, it's about the connection with a law. So it's like a different fields. So it's very possible to have a clinical depression without a spiritual but a lot of times they do go together, because it's such a slippery slope, that, you know, natural, if you feel like negative about your environment, it goes to every project also on to a law as well. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that one of the things that's really helpful to realize about spiritual hopelessness and our relationship with Allah subhanaw taala. And the way we think about him, is for us to realize that that sense of hopelessness has a lot more to pretty much everything to do with

us. Right, and our thought process versus what it has to do with Allah's path data. So I think we often put like, like I mentioned in the beginning, she talked about projection, right? That because you feel a certain way you project it onto somebody else in this case, projecting it onto a less path data, right? Where where, cuz I feel that I'm undeserving then I assume unless pans out of use me as undeserving as well. And I think that getting to the core of that and realizing I am not in a position to attribute thoughts to almost Regatta, right. Like Allah's pants out it is beyond any of our comprehension. He's the highest of examples and everything and so I can't tell what he's

thinking. I can tell what I'm feeling right and then addressing that feeling and the thought that comes with that and saying, Okay, I feel undeserving of Allah's pathos mercy. So what is it and I apologize if you hear my daughter crying in the background?

She's my husband.

But like, what is it that that

that I am that I am experiencing? That is making me so certain that I'm on

undeserving of Allah's patatas mercy. And if Allah subhana, Allah has honored me with the ability to even think about this with the ability to even make.to him with the ability to be a Muslim and to worship Him, then why do I have this assumption of hopelessness that I'm beyond hope, when Allah's past data is, is telling me because I'm still holding on to my faith? He's telling me I'm not beyond hope. Right. So. So that's just the way that you know, I think can be very helpful is bringing it back to you as a person and realizing that the thoughts are yours, they're not Allah's pakodas because we don't know what he's thinking.

And that's where I feel like it comes back full circle in that.

Where did these negative thoughts come to begin with, right, so it is really about you, or it's not as much about a love, like, where do these thoughts like, people don't wake up and say, you know, I'm, I'm not smarter, I am not worthy, there's something wrong with me. Usually, there is trauma behind it, it can be a series of little traumas, or it can be a major of trauma. So we all have this like negative script in our head. And it can come from our experiences, it can come from our parents from, from the people around us. And it takes a long time. But what happens is, over time, we start to develop a sense of self, like a sense of self, and a self a sense of self esteem. And if we have

had a lot of hiccups along the way, or people like feeding us very negative things. That's where that negative those negative thoughts come from. And so what I meant by going back, full circle is like going back and identifying like, Have I experienced trauma? Or have things happen to me that maybe I didn't consider war trauma? And how does this affect how I view myself, and my future, and then also my relationship with with a law. A lot of times if you, you know, you sit there or even if you're with a therapist, you can be like, You know what it was this one thing that this person said to me, it was just two, five, so excuse me, it took five seconds. And but it changed like the

trajectory of my life because of those profound words.

And it's that insight, again, that we can start to like rescript. And look at ourselves and allow from another perspective.

Luckily, for both of you, once again, for covering that from those different angles. And we have covered this topic now, from these different angles of trauma of our thought processes, emotional reasoning and whatnot. And now I want to wrap up today's episode, mashallah with some solid strategies, so we just started there mana and go, that talking about a few that we can do there, bringing it back to ourselves come back full circle, but I want both of insha Allah to enlighten those listening, that are listening to what you're seeing and thinking, Oh, my goodness, that's me. That's where I've been for the past while few weeks years, maybe, and I can't get out of this.

I can't stop convincing myself that Allah does hate me right, and that things are going wrong for me. Perhaps there are no starting to check off those boxes. And it's becoming a bit more reassuring that it's not all gloom and doom. But for those that still are struggling and those who want to improve this relationship, what strategies can you provide us that can help that healing process and transform our thought processes, which inshallah then will result in those more healthy thoughts and behaviors and feelings towards Allah, and the practice of our religion, and just our life in general and Sharla? I love I love thinking about the practical side of things, I think it's so helpful for

people to be able to leave with something that they can do immediately. MashAllah is such a great question.

You know, I think that what Sister nazwa was suggesting, I don't know why I always call you sister whenever we do recordings.

Because we're friends personally. So it feels a little strange, but it comes out automatically when we're doing recording.

Exactly. Maybe I should try and use that from now on.

So what Nigel was saying, was what Nigel was saying, just now about the idea of okay, you know, first I think a good first step is understanding, well, what are the thoughts that are going through my head, right, first identifying it, because I think a lot of times we have these feelings, but we're unaware of the link that these feelings have to the thoughts that are going through our head. So building that self awareness of okay, well, what thought, am I thinking? Is this reality based? Or is this feeling based, right? And just kind of like checking that off in your mind and figuring out okay, well, if it is reality based, then where are the facts? If it's feeling based, where did

this feeling comes from?

Right. And then when we've determined that, I think one of the things that's very helpful to identify when it comes to our relationship with almost Tagata I think a lot of

people have this misconception that Eman is something that's solely in our hearts, right? That faith and belief in others pans out of hope. And Allah spat out a relationship with Allah subhanaw. Taala is something that only in our hearts, and if I don't feel it, then it's not there. But when we look at the different Hadith, when we look at the different scholars in terms of the branches of faith, when they talk about the branches of Amen, the vast majority of the branches of man that are written about are action based, right, they're not just emotional, they're not just heart based, right. And so, so much of it is, you know, our relationship with almost pandemic is not only based on what we

are feeling toward him, or what we imagine he's feeling toward us, it's about what we're doing in our day to day life, right? If we feel a sense of distance in our relationship with somebody that we care about, then how do we deal with it, you know, we invest in it, we discuss it, we communicate with them about it, we take more effort to show them that we don't want this distance that we care about them. Right? And so the same thing goes is true for our relationship with Allah Subhana Allah. And so, you know, in, in studying in the field of psychology, we realize that like thoughts, if we imagine a triangle, right, there's like, thoughts are on one end, emotions are on the other end, and

behaviors are on the other end actions, right. And they're all interconnected, they all work together. So if we change our thoughts, we can change our emotions, if we change our behaviors, our actions, that can also impact our emotions, and our thoughts, too, right? So one step that we can take in repairing our relationship with others patho is to you know, come to the conclusion that, okay, if I'm thinking that Allah subhanaw taala hates me. And I realized that that's not factual, right? Because there I can't determine the facts that that illustrate that. Then what can I actively do to repair my relationship with all those paths out of what's one small step I can take? Because a

lot of times people feel so discouraged in the idea that I was proud that I hate them, that they then stopped praying that they then stopped doing all types of worship, right, and that further deep into that whole hole of despair. So instead, deciding, you know, what, if I can't pray all five prayers, let me at least pray to today. And I can feel good about the fact that I did a part of my obligation to almost pack data. And that's and that can bring me one step closer to Allah. Right. So I think choosing one small thing that we can do on a daily basis, action wise, is very powerful for working on these negative feelings that we have in our relationship with all those PAC data.

And that really reminds me of the the Hadith, and actually, I have it taped up in my office, because it really taught me to dress it's exactly what you're talking about that whoever draw nears to me a hand span I draw near to Him at arm's length. Whoever comes to me for arm's length I draw near him at arm's length Whoever comes to me walking I come to him in a hurry, whoever meets me with an earth full of sins, but does not associate anything worship with me, I will need it was forgiveness equal to that? And subhanAllah it's a relationship unlike any other in that.

Well, with family or teachers or whoever, there is this sense of like I do for you, you do for me, right? And it's usually equal, you don't, I think naturally, people want to do what the other person is doing. But here a law who was you know, control of the worlds who created us as songs if you just do a little bit, I will meet you way more. And that is so reaffirming that no matter what we do, he is he is there. And he can come back to us more than we have the ability to.

But yeah, exactly what solder was saying in that first identifying where some of these thoughts come from,

you know, kind of reflecting on your job, some of your experiences and identifying where they where they come from, and then looking at the thoughts on your clean.com. At the end of this particular chapter, there's that workbook section that I had mentioned. And one of the exercises that you can do in a journal is that you can like fold a piece of paper and a half. And then on the one side, you can write down the negative thoughts that you have, like a law has for saying he hates me, or I feel like there's no hope in life. And you can even like if you want to, you know, take it a step further, you can write it in red, because that's really closely associated with trauma on the other

side, you can write the opposite the healthier thought.

So instead of Allah hate me, you can say you can you can call it a hadith or you can talk about the love that Allah has for his for his slaves. And so, what you're doing is pretty much what I was saying it's cognitive restructuring. You're taking the unhealthy thoughts, and you're replacing them with healthy thoughts.

And over time, you will rewrite that script that I was talking about earlier.

You know, with neuroplasticity, and our brains are very flexible. Before we used to think that like, you know, if you if you were traumatized, not much can be done. But now we know about post traumatic growth that like many people, after they experienced things in their lives, not only come back to baseline, but actually are much better than they were before.

And so practicing replacing those negative thoughts, whether it's in your head or on paper, can help a tremendous, tremendous amount.

Another thing, since we talked about self esteem, one of the exercises is looking at what are some of your positive attributes, and maybe some of your not so positive attributes? And then you're coming from a strength based perspective, like, what are some of the things I'm good at? What would the negative things is taking them and turning them into action items or goals. So it's very similar to the cognitive restructuring. So if you're like, I'm lazy, you know, that's not helpful, because it doesn't really help you get anywhere. But if you reframe that to,

I would feel better if I prayed Federer on time, and I read Quran for half an hour in the morning, now you're taking something that's not so great to something positive, and something that you can actually work on. And that's the self esteem work that when you feel better about yourself, naturally, you're going to feel better about your environment, and a lot too.

And then lastly, I would probably just add, you know, focusing on the positive attributes of Allah as well, when we study and we see you know, how amazing and majestic and all the his good qualities and how forgiving he is, it kind of takes us away from that whole idea of us unconsciously taking the attributes of others and all the negativity around us and putting it on him, it takes us back.

And not only do you learn about him in a positive way, but then you also are starting to build a relationship, because how do you build a relationship with someone you don't really know.

Excellent, thank you so much. And I want to just ask a follow up, which is that the exercise that you gave with the folding the piece of paper and writing down

from experience, you know, I have had feedback because I have released our products. And I've worked with

companies that we've released lots of planners and great productivity tools. And people are like, I'm not, I'm not a writer, I just can't sit and do this. And interestingly, that usually come from the guys, the brother tater things, but I'm not generalizing here. What did I ask you that if someone is having a difficult time figuring this out on their own, they can't come to terms with all of these thoughts at one time, they're a bit overwhelmed.

You mentioned earlier, the idea of seeking therapy. So I wanted to just ask both of you for your advice on if someone's completely new to this. If people are just figuring this out for the first time with regards to themselves, their behaviors, their thoughts, and this idea of cognitive reprogramming, the triangle you mentioned,

what can they do? Who can they go to? Would it be a therapist? Would it be Thor's like yourselves? Mashallah, and the professions? Well, would it be local Imam, I think we had the inspiration as well, I'm sure, of course, he both do receive a lot of emails and calls of desperation to help but we're not qualified to do so. We can only provide them with the links and resources that will help them further. So for someone who says, Okay, that's it, I'll do my best. But tomorrow, or after everything opens up again, in sha Allah, because of the current situation, I'm going to go out there, be proactive and see someone, what would be the best course of action? Obviously, it depends

greatly on the situation and his face objective, based on what they are dealing with personally, but as a first step, how would someone figure that out? Inshallah? So I think that, you know, one of the one of the really nice things about about therapy is that it's not just for really major issues. And I think that that's a misconception a lot of people have, a lot of times, you know, a lot of the clients that have come in or stayed on, after addressing a lot of more of their major struggles, is there's a lot of growth that can come from having that time for self reflection, because how often do we take an hour a week to really reflect on what's going through our mind, the impact that past

experiences I've had on us, our future goals and how we're going to implement them in concrete ways, you know, so it really is, it can be kind of this form of self care in terms of like, how do I progress forward in in who I want to be as a person and who I want to be in my relationship with almost passata so I always recommend that people look into local resources for

We're local therapists. So depending on where you're located in, in the world, or in the US or anywhere else, you know, local resources are always the ideal, especially when you're dealing with trauma. Because we do tend to recommend in person therapy for trauma work, right? If you're looking to explore more of, you know, kind of your your own self exploration, self discovery and growth, and things like that, online therapy is a really excellent option. And actually, you know, during this quarantine time, a lot of therapists are making themselves accessible, even those who haven't traditionally done it, are making themselves accessible online, which is, which is great. So I know,

one thing I would just say is, I know it can be really overwhelming when a person is starting to try to find a therapist. Because they're all They're often so many different options. But I would just you know, for a little bit, dedicate a small amount of time, each day, like a half hour, let's say, each day to exploring different options, keep a spreadsheet or Google Doc, available, like on the side to the ones whose profiles that you read will really appeal to you like there's going to be certain people who resonate with you and others who don't. And that's completely normal, because it's a relationship just like anything else between a therapist and a client. And so picking

somebody who you feel like really resonates with you, and would be a good fit would be great. So I would just, you know, have your like top few contenders in a Google Doc, call them up, and then see if they have availability that works with your schedule, it's just one small step at a time, and that will eventually lead you to the person that will be a good fit for you. And always making diets all those paths are just like, you know, he's Alfetta, right? The one who's the opener, so the one who is going to open the path for you toward healing and growth and help you to find that person who's going to be a really good fit to support you in that journey. And Shawn, does that person

necessarily have to be of the same faith? I think those listening might be thinking, does it have to be a Muslim therapist? And perhaps you can expand on maybe this is too extensive for this episode. But I'm sure that there are different types of therapy, right. So there's those that are,

you know, more kind of cognitive based CBT therapy, for example, there's those that you know, you kind of sit down and you it's more exploring yourself. And there's a lot more talking involved. There's a lot more

discovery involved. And there's different names and titles that are that are there when you when you search, I've done it before myself as well. So that can be a bit overwhelming. So how would someone go about deciding which type of therapy is the best? So that was sorry, two questions was the type of therapy and doesn't necessarily have to be somebody of the same faith? Yeah. So it can be overwhelming and looking at all the different options. And then even within the mental health field, like there's many different kinds of mental health practitioners. So just to quickly rattle off some things, psychiatrists are usually the ones who give medication, and they don't do as much therapy.

So if you're really looking for like self exploration and heavy duty trauma stuff, you want to look for a counselor or a clinical social worker. And there's some kinds of psychologists,

most therapists study a variety of different theories and perspectives. So they're pretty

well rounded and trying different things. You do want to find someone that will be a good fit in terms of modality. So if you are very cerebral, and you like things structured, cognitive behavioral would be great. If you are the kind of person who was into free associating and like, just want to explore like, you don't really have that much of an agenda, you just want to kind of get to know yourself, you might want to consider cycle analytics. So you kind of have to figure out what is good for you. But I would say, most therapists are well trained in a variety of things. The thing that you want to look for is someone who

actually me take a step back, I would say that if it's a faith based issue, I would stick more with a Muslim therapist because something that a lot of clients have come to me and complained about is that just the effort and the time it took for them to explain to their therapist who wasn't Muslim about certain dynamics, or feeling like they were judged for for certain things. So for example, if you have generalized anxiety, you know, I think that's something that's pretty safe. You can go to any, any therapist, however, if you grew up maybe in a house where your parents were polygamous or

the you know, trying to think if you are having feelings about like same sex attraction, then in those situations where

more nuanced and you want someone from a faith based perspective, I would say it's more important to try and find a Muslim therapist because it will save you a lot of time and misunderstanding just to have someone that comes from that. From that framework, it just makes it a lot easier. Perfect.

A whole bunch of those that are listening, now have a better insight into this topic. And hopefully those that had this question of why does Allah hate me can go back and have a look at the thing. And I'm sure this episode will take a couple of lessons to really come to terms with the different factors that contribute towards this and something what I want to thank both of you today for doing

is illustrating that, it you don't have to have something major that's occurred in your life, an episode something traumatic, in order to feel this, it can be a very normal feeling, a very common feeling. And it's not, you know, it's not shameful to experience these thoughts, negative thoughts and emotions. It's not, it's not shameful, even the Prophet alayhi salam your himself as you mentioned earlier, that kind of the foundation and the backbone of this series was surah Taha, which was released after a time in which, you know, he was going through a period of negative thoughts, but thank you both so much. Now, for those who are listening, want to get in touch with yourselves

for more information on what you do, and even the either clean trauma series as a whole and go and explore it and learn where can they go to find out more. So yeah, all of our,

all of our chapters and our videos are on European institute.org. So that's like a one spot place that you can see. And then we both of us are in private practice. So you can find a lot of my information on Amana a m a n h counseling.com. And then my social media links, I do try and post different stuff on different platforms. But that is probably the best way to find me. Yeah, and the same with regards to the pain

resources in sha Allah and then for me, you can find me on either Psychology Today, or my website that is currently under construction, which inshallah won't be under construction by the time this is released,

which is salesforce.com.

Just that was on.com. And then and then also I have a subtle assault on therapy on Instagram.

And I have a Facebook page as well, we're I tried to post as well, so people can feel free to to go there and Shama Excellent. And all of the links inshallah will be on the inspiration.com. As all of you know, we do like to put some comprehensive show notes for each episode. And all the links that sisters network insider have mentioned will be there along with resources to help you if you are currently feeling in trouble, whether it's mentally or emotionally and to inshallah discover more about your Queens work, that before both of you leave, I want to ask if any of you do have any final words of advice, any words of wisdom, if you want to plug anything else is your chance now in sha

Allah, for those listening to give them hope, you know, and to reassure them, that Allah doesn't hate them and things inshallah will be better. You know, with hardship there is ease, and I hope that so far they are feeling at ease and more in comfort from your words are loved. If both of you could share some last minute wisdom before we sign off Inshallah, on today's ACA Lafayette for having us here, it's been just a wonderful experience at home that I this is a topic that we're both really passionate about, and it's always a privilege to be able to talk about it. I think on my end, one of the thoughts that I think is I would really like to leave people with is just the idea that

despite everything that you're going through, you know, you are enough in terms of the way that you're going to be able to overcome it. Right, you know, Allah Subhana Allah tells us, you know, now you can live alone, sma Allah was I heard that he doesn't burden a soul with more than they can bear. And even if you're at a point in your life, where you feel like you just can't bear it, it's unbearable pain, realizing that Allah Subhana Allah sees your strength, and that there are going to be qualities that he's going to give you to be able to ensure that you're going to be able to overcome this in the same way that he takes care of animals in the deepest depths of the sea where

no other type of creature could survive because He equips them with what they need to survive in that environment. You're going to be able to survive through this in sha Allah, Allah has that I will give you the

What you need, it's not going to a lot of times come in the way that we anticipate. But it's going to come in sha Allah and so to keep your hope and your heart open for that in sha Allah. Yeah, yeah, just don't follow her for inviting us, it has been very pleasant and just opportunity to be able to, you know, talk about such an important topic.

And yeah, I don't know when I can add dishonor, you always say things so, so beautifully.

But you know, being optimistic about a lot and just, you know, I always feel so much better when I look at the research that talks about how people can transform their lives and completely turn things around after the worst has come to them. And when we look at the prophets, Allah, Prophet Muhammad assassin, or even Prophet Yusuf, when you actually sit down, and you look at the things that they experienced, if we had gone through these things, and some of us do go through, you know, really dramatic things. And then how far they come. Like there's stories of resilience that people really do. I think the study shows that at least 50% of people come back better. And just that hope

that you can keep going, the trauma doesn't have to define you, or who you are, where you're going. That there is that hope in a lot, and in yourself that you can come out of it is just it's so profound. And something that I hope that people will carry in their heart after listening to this show. I love Wasaga thank you both so much. It's been wonderful. And I think that there was the phrase, this is like a drop in the ocean, right in this topic. There's so much more that can be discussed. And I very much would welcome the opportunity to have you both on again in the future in sha Allah, perhaps when things are a bit easier in terms of connectivity and whatnot. But it's been

a pleasure. For those listening via iTunes or Soundcloud or Spotify we have been trying attempting with our poor miskeen internet connections here to do this in video format as well, which you can finish out a lot on the inspiration.com and our social media channels. But until next time, it's been Ceman here from the inspiration Somali comm recomment Allah

Thank you for having me.

Okay, mashallah, that was today's episode featuring sister sada and Nigeria and I told you, I told you, it was going to be very thoughtful and very insightful. Subhanallah I hope that now, you have got a deeper understanding as to why we sometimes have these negative thoughts and doubt ourselves and have this hopelessness right, regarding our faith, Allah's love for us, and how we can overcome those. If you did enjoy this episode, then please do go ahead and check out the rest of the trauma series by natural ansata on Yaqeen Institute, the links for that, and all of the links for Sadhas website and our Facebook and Instagram and sing with Nigeria as well, how you can contact them, even

if you want to explore counseling and therapy with them as well. Are all in the link in the description down below. Thank you so much. Truly, I love you for the sake of Allah subhanaw taala thank you so much for being here and listening and taking the time out. I would love to have you join us for future episodes of these inspiration podcast show and also to check out previous episodes as well. And to do that, please do go ahead and subscribe to this YouTube channel. And also, you can listen on your phone through all of the major podcast apps on iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud, and all other apps in Sharla Horta, Anna, until next time, I've been your brother Ceman

have an amazing day. And please do stay safe. Assalamu aleikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakaatuh