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We need your support. Salaam, I'm Saba and I got bipolar a long time ago. Learning about the disorder was easy but getting support for it wasn't. I felt alone in my struggle and misunderstood. Sure the doctor, family and friends helped but no one really *understood* what I was going through. Then, I shared my mental health challenges through my first blog in 2008. That's when my life changed. Alhumdulillah so many different Muslims came forward and shared their own experiences. I didn't feel alone anymore and my healing started. There are a lot of Muslim organizations out there offering mental health services and education but an advocacy group for Muslims with mental illnesses is very uncommon. My hope with Mentally Fit Muslims is to have a peer-to-peer support system where people with depression, bipolar, anxiety, OCD and other disorders can meet others just like them. There is power in stories and hearing about your brother or sister's struggle makes you feel less alone. You know that you're not the only one that feels like this. And that can make all the difference. I'm living proof of that and so many other amazing souls I've met along the way. I've tried twice to start an advocacy organization and "failed" both times. Unfortunately, I didn't think about how I could sustain my work financially. So, I'm starting again, for the third time, and this time I've set up Mentally Fit Muslims as an official non-profit with 501(c)(3) status with the IRS. It's a big deal for me mashaAllah because it means that this organization can continue long after I leave this earth. This cause is bigger than you and I. You might be suffering right now and helping someone else in their struggle will ease your pain inshaAllah. I have no numbers to prove that (not yet) but it's kinda of an unsaid universal law I've found to be true in my experience. Abu Hurairah (RAA) narrated that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: “If anyone relieves a Muslim believer from one of the hardships of this worldly life, Allah will relieve him of one of the hardships of the Day of Resurrection. If anyone makes it easy for the one who is indebted to him (while finding it difficult to repay), Allah will make it easy for him in this worldly life and in the Hereafter, and if anyone conceals the faults of a Muslim, Allah will conceal his faults in this world and in the Hereafter. Allah helps His slave as long as he helps his brother.” Related by Muslim. So please give generously to make sure I can keep raising awareness and giving a voice to the Muslims suffering silently. So far, I've been funding all my work through my own pocket and have volunteered all my time and I'll be honest, it's exhausting. A 20 min podcast episode takes me about a month to produce. I do it part-time as I raise my kids so it does take me long. I want to change that and hire more help so this work is not all on me. I made that mistake before with my last two blogs and I'm determined to learn this time inshaAllah. Some people also make fun of me that I start a project and then stop. I let them because with MFM I'm going to prove them wrong! And I need your help for that :) Read on for some info about our organization (currently it's just my husband and I) below. You can also see what expenses I have covered for MentallyFitMuslims.org this year and what future things I need help in sustaining. ​ Mentally Fit Muslims is a non-profit organization that advocates for the mental health of Muslims. We are looking for your support to sustain our work and continue advocating for those who need us most. ​ Our mission is to advocate for the mental health of Muslims, provide education on how to recognize signs of mental illness in oneself or others, and connect people with resources that can help them achieve their goals. We do this through podcast episodes, ebooks and videos. You can make all the difference in someone’s life by donating today! Your donation will go towards helping us continue and sustain our advocacy efforts so we can reach more Muslims who need us right now. Every little bit helps! Also, inshaAllah we will post MFM's budget and financial report soon so you can see exactly where your hard earned money is invested in. We need your patience and prayers. All donations are securely processed and handled by an independent third party (Donorbox). Click HERE to see our financial report.

< Back Episode 3 - Asqarini Hasbi's Battle with Bipolar A Look Inside Asqarini Hasbi’s Battle with Bipolar Disorder Jul 31, 2020 Saba Malik 0:00 Salam Alaikum I’m Saba Malik, and welcome to episode number three of the Mentally Fit Muslims podcast. Asqarini Hasbi 0:14 I hope you’re feeling awesome. On today’s show, I’m going to be chatting with a great friend of mine. Her name is Asqarini Hasbi or Asqa for short. Now remember, stay tuned till the end of the episode to hear her special message to those of you who are suffering from a mental illness. Alright, let’s get started. Saba Malik 0:37 Assalamu alaikum Asqa, Asqarini Hasbi 0:39 Walaikum asalaam wa barakatuhu. So what time is it there in the US? Saba Malik 0:46 It’s 9:20pm. For you it’s 8:20am? Asqarini Hasbi 0:54 8:20am. That’s where I am. That’s correct. Okay. Thanks for having me Saba. It’s an honor. It’s my pleasure. This is my first interview that I’m conducting. And I’m so happy that you agreed to this. We met a while ago. And we’ve just been talking online and sharing each other’s work. And you appeared on my blog as well. So tell us about you. Saba Malik 1:17 Yes, my name is Asqarini. People call me Asqa. My friends and family call me Asqa and at the present, I work at the non-state owned company in my hometown in Jakarta, Indonesia. And I have plenty of hobbies. I like to read, I like to write, doing some cooking and baking and also doing painting at the present. I work in Department of Human Capital in my office, and I’m so happy because I’m able to help a lot of employees to develop themselves. Whether it is in hard skills and soft skills. Yeah I’m happy and I feel so blessed to be able to work. That’s nice. Asqarini Hasbi 2:19 Yeah, yeah. Saba Malik 2:20 You mentioned that you love to write and I’ve read some of your work and your poetry. Tell us how you got into that. Like, what what made you start writing and sharing online? Asqarini Hasbi 2:32 Well, actually, my first experiences of writing, was actually it was back four years ago, when I was in my elementary school. I actually loved writing indiaries. The reason is because I feel that writing in diaries is such a relieving activity for me. It was back then when I was in my elementary and I really liked expressing things. But my first interest was actually poetry. Poetry is actually the thing that forced me to write a lot. It was my first encounter with the writing world and everything related to poetry. Saba Malik 3:37 That’s cool that you talk about writing early on, because when I was in elementary, and especially in high school, that’s when I started writing as well. I always had a journal with me. And whatever I felt, I would always write it down. It made me feel so good. So I can totally relate, when you’re talking about the writing. So do you want to tell us a bit about what happened. I know that you have bipolar? Do you want to talk a bit about that? Asqarini Hasbi 4:04 Yeah, the first time I felt that I had something with my mental health, it was in my second year of high school. It was the year of 1998. I think why did I get bipolar was actually because I think I have this physical and mental fatigue. Fatigue means you feel very, very tired because all years when I was in my elementary and then my junior and senior high school, I can say that I’m proud of myself that I was always the top three students in class. I always achieved that. It was like, okay, I push myself very hard. I studied a lot. I really love studying. I really love going to school. I really love doing homework and stuff like that and then I’ve always achieved more than I expected. So what struck me in my second year of high school, it was actually like, physical fatigue, and then mental fatigued, because I always put 110% in the things that I’ve done, all the things that I’ve worked on. But I think, that kind of mental breakdown was actually accumulating stress in my body and soul. So I just realized that I didn’t really have this kind of balanced life of an average teenage kid, or any other kids who do really fun activities with their friends. But I just put too much focus on studying and then doing my best to be the best school in junior high school, and then at the senior high school. It was quite horrible. It was the darkest moment of my life, one of the darkest moment of my life. And then yeah, it was, it was really hard. And I just remember it was the first time I was completely out of control. I was actually preparing everything and then it was just […] a major breakdown. It was really, really horrible. Saba Malik 7:12 You know Asqa, we’re halfway around the world because I’m in the States and you’re in Jakarta right right now, in Indonesia. Asqarini Hasbi 7:20 Yeah. Saba Malik 7:20 And it’s so funny, because the story you’re telling is basically a mirror image of mine. Around the same time in 1999, I was in high school, and I was always trying to be a high achiever and wanting to just excel, excel and that led to slowly my mental breakdown as well. So when you’re talking about your breakdown, did that start with depression? Or did you have mania symptoms? And then what happened? How did you find out that you had bipolar? Asqarini Hasbi 7:53 Oh, yeah, It was actually a combination of the two. I was so driven in doing my studies. All of my classmates were actually very competitive and I’ve always wanted to be the best. I don’t accept that I’m the third best student or the second best. I want to be the best. I want to be the first. The breakdown was actually a combination between mania and depression. I think it was the manic phase first, because I eventually got overwhelmed with everything. And then it went from being too, too excited to doing things and I was like, “Oh my God, I’m so tired.” And then the depression came but I think the manic manic phase was not really long but I went into the depressive state where I don’t want to wake up in the morning. Then I have problems focusing in class. The teachers were teaching me and I couldn’t understand what they are teaching. Then I started having difficulties in communicating with my classmates. I was in a place where I felt that I was really emotionally and physically disconnected with everyone. The manic phase was where I stay awake for a long time. I was unable to go to sleep at a regular time. Then I don’t want to eat anything. Then I keep having these thoughts in my mind. I could not stop. I’m thinking of this and that and everything. It just won’t stop. And then I got overwhelmed with everything. I was physically tired and then I get sick. So yeah, it was a combination between manic and depressive phase, I think. Saba Malik 10:26 So it was kind of mixed. You are going through a depressive phase, no energy, and then you would go up into the manic phase, and you wouldn’t eat and sleep. Okay then, what did you do to deal with it? How did your family react or the people around you know when this was happening with you? What was going on? How did you deal with it? Asqarini Hasbi 10:49 It was in my second year and I think it was almost off and on, on and off for almost a year. In my secondary years at high school, it was a phase where everything went numb. Actually, my family was just like, “What is wrong with you? You know, suddenly you don’t want to go to sleep and then at night when everybody’s sleeping, you’re knocking through their doors and asking why don’t we have a chat?” Saba Malik 11:34 That sounds very familiar. Asqarini Hasbi 11:36 Yeah. 11pm at night and everybody’s tired and they want to go to sleep but I just ask why don’t you tell me something and I’m disturbing their bed time. And they were just like, “It’s 1am or 3am in the morning, and you’re still awake? Why don’t you go to sleep? You have to go to school tomorrow. I was just like, nevermind, I’m not sleeping. With my friends at school there was absolutely some kind of a change in my behavior. I did my homework but when I go to school I was just like, “Oh my God, what day is this?” I was asking is it Monday?! And we have this assignment that we have for homework that we have to give to the teachers and then I completely didn’t do it. Then in class, I have my books in front of me, but I didn’t write anything or I didn’t do any activities that were related to the homework. Saba Malik 13:02 So everything just felt out of place and things are not how they are supposed to be. Stuff doesn’t make sense. What happened after high school when you went to college or university? Did this continue? What did you do after that? Asqarini Hasbi 13:22 It [bipolar] was actually affecting my last year at the high school […]. Long story short, in my last year, I had to enroll for university. I had to take several tests to enter. I enrolled for this and for that and actually, I failed. So in my first attempt, I failed. I didn’t get accepted in any university and it was just like, Oh my God. I felt that I failed. Everybody’s going to college and I did not make it so what should I do next? Saba Malik 14:24 So what did you do next? Asqarini Hasbi 14:26 It was heartbreaking. I forgot to mention that in my first year at high school, I met a friend of mine. We adored one another. She was so smart and she said that thing she adores me as well because of the things that I achieved at school. She actually inspire me to write more. She writes stories and I read some of her work and it was wow… you can make stories. She said that was one of her ways to express myself. It was one of those moments where I felt inspired by her activities. I thought that it will be fun. So after I got bipolar, in my third year, it was just horrible as well. But during the phase where I did not make it to any university, I tried to do some stuff like, maybe I can write something, maybe I can just share my thoughts and my feelings in my journal. Maybe I can start journaling, again to fill the year that I did not make it. But during that time, I was entering some course, a six month short course, to prepare for the next year for enrolling into university. In this course, I met lots of smart students who actually failed as well, when they first attempted to go to university, so I didn’t feel so alone. And in the class, it was 30 to 40 students and they were so smart, talented. […] In that course, it was really religious, Islamic and I started to wear hijab […] Saba Malik 19:41 So would you say bipolar ruined your life? Or do you think it made it better? What would you say looking back and what program you wanted to get in and what you actually got? What would you say? Do you think it has made your life better or worse or a bit of both? Asqarini Hasbi 20:02 I have to say that it was a blessing in disguise. While I have those horrible moments, I was cursing everyone. I just hate everyone. I hate myself but looking back and then how I got to the present. It’s a blessing in disguise. It was a bitter experiences but Allah has given me this. It was not beautifully wrapped but it gave me lots of lessons. So I have to say it was a blessing in disguise […]. It felt like Allah is directing me to a very beautiful scenario that He already planned for me. I’m still struggling as well as in the present. Sometimes I feel, did I make the right decision? Did I take the right path? Did I serve other people? Did I prioritize myself? What makes me feel content? […] But for real if I didn’t have bipolar, I wouldn’t be able to know Saba Malik from the U.S. Saba Malik 21:51 Same here. Asqarini Hasbi 21:56 […] Then it was a blessing in disguise. I wanted to know, did you face any backlash from the community or your family or friends? Like when some people found out you had bipolar or they saw you acting this was, Like differently? Did you find there was any negative reaction or some tough things you had to face because of that from other people? Absolutely. Saba Malik 22:25 Ok lol I’m not alone. Asqarini Hasbi 22:28 Yeah, I think it was, maybe people are not well educated enough to know about bipolar, right? People don’t say those kinds of symptoms. “Oh, you have bipolar?” No. People said, “Oh, you have manic depression. Right?” The term of bipolar is not really well known back then. “Oh, she went crazy.” I got a lot of stigma. I feel grateful to Allah because at that time, I knew which one is my true friend? Which one? So, yeah, well, maybe because I have Back then everybody’s like, “Can I be your friend? Can I learn from you? You are the center of the universe and everybody is circling around you. Then, I just realized that I onlyhave got several friends. I can count them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 friends from out of those 100 friends. It turns out, I only have five real friends. That kind of judgment, that kind of stigma, the labels were quite, quite horrible. But I realized that family is the one with you. Family is the one who has the real sense of support system. And maybe they don’t understand what kind of things I’m faceing, what I’m dealing with so they will just just try to make sure that I feel safe. Then when I get depressed, they just want to give some advice or cheer me up. It was horrible. I felt I was a burden on the family. So it was really heartbreaking to know that what happened to me really affected the whole family. My uncle and my aunt and their family worried a lot about me. I felt horrible because of it. At the same time, I didn’t really understand what is going on with me. I felt that everybody’s worrying about me a lot. And I felt that I brought them into the same depressive phase with me […]. I think the stigma, the judgments from my classmates, and then from all of my friends at my high school, but there were several friends that did try to understand. They don’t give any judgment. There was just this kind of filter that I noticed. She’s just wants something from me […]. Saba Malik 25:59 I don’t even know how to describe it because I’ve used that same word when I got bipolar. The bipolar became a filter between who was my true friend, who was going to see me at my worst, in mania, depression and all the “crazy” stuff and still be with me. Yeah and all those other people that you’re talking about, that this circle around you, because you have really good notes, or you can give them something but then when the storm comes, they run way. That is exactly what I went through. And then when you talk about family… oh my God, that’s insane! Without family support, I felt I couldn’t have done it without them. And whatever I felt like depression or anything, they felt it. We were on the same journey. If I felt in pain, they were in pain. If I was in mania, they would see all of it. Asqarini Hasbi 26:52 Yeah. Saba Malik 26:53 I feel we have the same story, even though we’re halfway around the world, and we’ve never physically met. Subhan Allah, it was meant to be. You know, that’s the reason I want to talk with you and share your story because I think there’s so many people who just got bipolar, or they’re in the middle of it. Or even if they’re older than us, and more experienced, this illness can make you feel so alone. So what would you say to someone who is maybe listening to this podcast, and maybe they think they have bipolar? Or they know someone who may bipolar? And they’re just going “crazy” in the sense that they don’t know what’s going on? What would you say to them? What do you think would help a person in that situation? Maybe I want to say that you are not alone. Those crazy things in your head, those crazy things that happened in your life. You’re not the only one who feels that way. So you’re not alone. Even when you feel that “No, I am alone and nobody cares about me,” if you have faith, if you’re a Muslim, you still have Allah. You still have Allah and I think it took years for me to understand that. Asqarini Hasbi 28:16 Yes, I am not alone. Yes, I have Allah because you have a tendency of hating everybody and blaming everybody. Maybe I suffered a lot, maybe I’m blaming Allah. “Why did you give me this kind of “punishment?” So it was hard when I talked about depression with other people. They will keep giving you advice, like you’re not grateful enough. You’re just a sinner. It’s your fault. I want to ask for motivation and say that don’t judge me like this. They say you have to pray and there comes a point where people are just like, “We’re done with you. We’re not giving you any advice because you’re not listening. You’re not doing the things that we told you to do. You’re wasting my time because you keep complaining and then there is no solution.” It felt everybody’s just leaving you and then you totally want to quit because of those kinds of thoughts in your head. IOh my God, I cannot tell you what kind of horrible things I had in my head at that time. Maybe time will heal but it has a different experience for each person. Maybe I already understand the message of having bipolar because I had it for 10 years. Then there are several people who perhaps only have it for three months […]. The one thing that I want to tell people who are struggling with bipolar disorder is just you’re not alone. These kinds of things don’t define me like “You are the crazy one and then everybody is the normal one.” It took a lot of years for me to understand that. I actually got a bipolar caregiver around 2013 or 2014. I entered this community of bipolar disorder and I got support but eventually you have to deal with it. You have to deal with it yourself. I think those kind of activities like writing poetry and journaling, it was an escape for me, to make myself sober and to get back on track. Writing helps a lot. Writing heals me. That’s the thing I want to tell everyone. You’re not alone and I like that you use writing to heal. I think each person has to discover what makes you heal, whether that’s through a hobby, or working out or joining a community. You just have to find your own thing and just make it work. And you’re not alone. Allah is always with you. Saba Malik 32:07 We’re gonna wrap up soon. Asqa, is there anything else you want to share? Do you want to tell us about your work? Where can the audience find your poetry or your short stories? Where can they go to find your beautiful work? Asqarini Hasbi 32:22 I wanted to tell you that during 2017 and up until now, we’re collaborating with one of our mental health coaches. He recites in the U.S. His name is Ed McShane. He has a website called “A Coach for Your Heart.” I was actually hoping that after I do this recording, I will send this link to him. For people who are dealing with mental health problems, I suggest they seek and search for help. Go to a psychiatrist or you can go to your psychologists or any hospital, consultant or anything that can help you to get through this. Find someone. Search for help. Don’t burden yourself with things that you are dealing with by yourself. Please search for help. Alhamdulillah doing service for people with bipolar is for the Ummah and it is one of the methods that I use to heal myself. You will feel happiness and contentment when you serve people. So I’m working with several sisters in the United Kingdom, showing my works of art, paintings, writing and poetry to them. Maybework you can share the work that I’ve done. Saba Malik 34:34 I’ll have links in the show notes inshaAllah so that people can find it. Go search for help. Make sure that know yourself by doing journaling and activities that make you happy. And please whenever people give you judgments, labels and stigma, understand that they don’t have the experience that you have at the present. They don’t know anything about you so when they say something bad about you, it’s because they don’t understand. When you deal with someone struggling with bipolar or any other mental health illness, try to be compassionate. Try to have more empathy with people and stop judging people. Asqarini Hasbi 35:31 I easily judge people like, “Oh, she’s so lazy. She doesn’t like studying.” But having this kind of struggle in my life helps me to be more compassionate and more empathic with other people. That’s the thing I want people to know. That’s amazing. I learned so much from you. You’re like an older sister and what you said is true in my life as well. I want to thank you so much. You’re the first guest on my podcast and it feels so good. Thank you so much for having me, mashaAllah. This is beyond my expectations. I never thought that I will be able to share my experiences in your program. I’m so grateful. Thank you so much. Saba Malik 36:31 Okay, take care. Thank you for coming. Thank you very much. Asalaamu alaikum. Asqarini Hasbi 36:36 Take care. Wa alaikum asalaam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Saba Malik 36:36 Alright guys, that’s it for today’s show. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you felt supported and inspired. To find out more about Asqa’s work, you can check out the show notes below this episode. And if you like this episode, please leave a review on Apple podcasts and rate my show. Take care. See you in my next episode. As salaamu alaikum. Previous Next

< Back Episode 5 - Iram Bint Safia on Parenting Uncomplicated Irambintsafia on “Parenting Uncomplicated” and Simple Ways to Manage Stress Aug 28, 2020 Saba Malik 0:00 Asaalamu Alaikum, I’m Saba Malik, and welcome to the Mentally Fit Muslims podcast. I hope you’re feeling great. Today I have a special episode for you. I sat down with my friend Iram. She is a homeschooling mom, and much, much more. I love talking with her. And I hope you really enjoy our conversation. And make sure to stay till the end and hear why we actually think that COVID was really good for us. Enjoy the show. Asalaamu alaikum Iram Irambintsafia 0:41 Wa alaikum asalaam wa rahmatullah. Saba Malik 0:43 How’s it going? Irambintsafia 0:44 It’s been well, can’t complain, Alhumdulillah. How are you? Saba Malik 0:48 I’m good. I’m Alhumdulillah. Thank you for coming on my podcast. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was kind of going crazy with the Corona thing and I have a young daughter. Then I hear about schools closing or opening and we have no clue and I was like, “What am I gonna do?” I’m already going crazy at home with my family. And now I have to think about her school. So I think I was just googling online “parenting and homeschooling,” then you popped up and I saw “Irambintsafia.” I’m like, “Hmm, interesting. Who is this?” lol Irambintsafia 1:26 Lol I’s like to ask. So did you find anything useful Irambintsafia? Did you find anything useful when you saw the name, when you clicked on it? Saba Malik 1:34 You know, the first thing I heard was one one of your Instagram videos, the one where your kids are in the background and they’re helping you record. So, one of them asked, “why Irambintsafia?” and you mentioned that your mom is a single mother and she raised you? Irambintsafia 1:50 Yeah, yes. Saba Malik 1:51 And you know, my mom raised us as a single mother too. That’s the first thing that clicked. I was like, okay, we have something in common lol. Irambintsafia 2:02 Alhumdulillah lol. Saba Malik 2:03 So that first pulled me in and then what is different between us is that you’re homeschooling three kids and I’m not. Well, I’m starting to homeschool now. So what is it like to homeschool three kids? And how do you stay sane? I just want to know, HOW do you stay sane? Irambintsafia 2:24 See, the thing that the video did not show was that I stay “sane.” So that’s an assumption that I leave for the world lol! Saba Malik 2:31 Oh really?! Lol! Irambintsafia 2:32 Ask my children. They will tell you stories. So yes, “Irambintsafia” came into being because I felt the need to make my own niche. I actually started blogging for another website and I had some sort of creative restrictions when it came to them. Although I’m very grateful that they gave me the platform, they gave me the opportunity Alhumdulillah. And then someone else actually asked me, “Why don’t you do it? Why don’t you do your own thing? And where’s your own voice? Where’s your own personality?” So that’s how the whole process of “Irambintsafia” and “Parenting Uncomplicated” by Irambintsafia came into being. I was always a speaker, a motivational speaker, and a bilingual motivational speaker. In fact, I speak in Urdu as well as I speak in English. So I’ve had my audiences in different parts of the world. And I knew that I had this ability to reach out to people and mostly all of us mothers, we have something in common that we share. We might be very different personalities, we might have very different backgrounds but when you become a mother, the first thing that a mother wants for her children is the best of everything, really the best of the best of home, education, love, emotional bonding. I don’t think there’s any mother who would not want all of that, security, safety. Saba Malik 4:09 I’ve heard other parents mentioned that too and I’ve read it on so many other blogs and articles. But what struck me with you was one of your recent posts that you just put up on Facebook and I saw it on Instagram as well. In the middle of it, you said that, “Parenting is the toughest job you sign up for and cannot resign from.” Irambintsafia 4:30 Yes, that’s true. Saba Malik 4:31 I have not read anywhere, something like that and I was like that is so true. It is something you sign up for and then you’re like, you can’t leave it. You cannot turn back and it is a full commitment, all your life. And it is tough. It’s very tough. And I think especially during this COVID time, and not knowing for parents, whether they should send their kids back to school. Alot of mothers who have to work and it’s just you know, a very unique situation. And Alhamdulillah I’m a teacher and I was able to take that option of homeschooling but you don’t have to have a teaching degree to be a homeschooler but it gave me that confidence that yes, I can do this. And I’m not working right now. So I could do that with my daughter. But also I saw that you just got your teaching degree from an online university? Irambintsafia 5:24 It’s an online Islamic University called as International Online University and I was enrolled in it for six years. Saba Malik 5:30 Wow, mashaAllah lol you finally got it! Irambintsafia 5:32 Lol Saba Malik 5:35 I think you already have multiple degrees in parenting. I don’t think you need a degree. I think you could be a professor of parenting. Irambintsafia 5:46 JazakAllah, Thank you so much. Of course, age, and children give you a lot of wisdom. The aches and pains that come along with being a parent. Yes Alhamdulillah. But my whole idea, I started homeschooling in 2015. So a short synopsis of my story is I was born and brought up in thre United Arab Emirates. I did my 12th grade there. My mom is a nurse by profession. I have a younger sister who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. She’s married Alhumdulillah. I got married right after in the last semester of my bachelor’s, which I was doing from Lahore while I was still settled in UAE. So I used to travel back and forth. And my last semester, I got this proposal, and I was so fed up with the degree I was doing, which was IT. Saba Malik 6:31 Oh, lovely lol Irambintsafia 6:32 And I absolutely hated it I was always very sure that I will become a teacher and in the 12th grade, I thought I can go into IT and make money, which was the most wrong decision of my life. Then I hated it so much that I thought getting married was better than completing that degree but I did not see an end to that. Very wrong assumption! It was just jumping from a frying pan into a fire! But somehow when the marriage started alhumdulillah, with the whole birthing and taking care of the babie, I got lost. I got depressed. I did not know I had so much anger and frustration built up in me that when my mom visited me once, back in 2009? No, 2010. Saba Malik 7:44 That was when you had your first child? Irambintsafia 7:46 No, by that time I had my third baby. Sorry, she visited me in 2011 and she said to me, “What is wrong with you? Why are you so apprehensive all the time? Angry, yelling, you know? These are just small children. Have some sabr. Have some patience.” She said this to me and I’ve said this many times in my stories and I will give a joke before I say the main line. I tell this to people, “If your mother-in-law would said these things to you, you would never forgive her.” But if your mother’s saying this to you, then you’re like, “Oh, yeah Mama! You’re so right!” Saba Malik 8:25 Oh, this has to be good! Lol! Irambintsafia 8:28 No, I mean, she just pointed out my behavior and she said, “You were so nice, and so kind to everybody around you except your own children. How are you being a good Muslim?” She put that question. She didn’t say anything more than that. She said, “You read Quran, you do Tafsir. You are a motivational speaker already. You work around people. You go out of your way to help your people but you are so unkind to your own children and they’re literally so scared of you. So please tell yourself, ask yourself this, how are you a good Muslim?” That hit me really hard and then I did not ask her what I need to do or what I don’t need to do. Then after a few days, I came across this certification, course for teaching at Delta College and I asked my husband if I could do this. My mom was like, “Sure, go ahead. I’m here. So I’ll take care of the children while you go for a few hours. That’s completely fine.” And that’s how my teaching journey started. I found so much fulfillment because as soon as I finished it, I started to teach preschool at the Islamic Islamic Academy of Delaware at Masjid Ibrahim in Delaware. I became a preschool teacher over there. I had a good mentor, sister Crystal and then I had a good partner sister Eman and the whole thing was really good for me. I went into that Saba and I realized while I was doing the certification, it actually opened my mind. SubhanAllah, these people have studied children and the research tells us exactly what the Sunnah tells us in how to be with younger children. So, long story short, two years of preschool teaching, and I said, “You know what, my children deserve the best of me.” So now I’m good. I’m stable, and I know what to do with them. So I packed them up and I brought them home and I said, “Mama is going to homeschool.” Saba Malik 10:25 What was their reaction? Irambintsafia 10:27 Noooo. Lol! So yeah, my eldest was in fourth grade. He was turning fourth grade. My middle one was starting second grade and my youngest was starting kindergarten. Saba Malik 10:42 Wow. So you took on three? Irambintsafia 10:44 Yeah, I took on three because I had learned and I had done my homework. I had done my homework extensively. I had read through books. And there was another thing. Before I had my children, I was introduced to Hamza Yusuf and John Gatto and I listened to their talks and articles. And in my head, I was like, “You know what, there’s something wrong with the schooling system.” I knew that before I even had my children. I knew that but the thing was I always thought, “Okay, you know what, I’m not going to send them to public schools, but I’ll send them to Islamic schools.” And I always separate myself from your generation, in a sense that I was not born here. I was not brought up here. I never even set foot in a school or university here. In my head. I was like, you know, I don’t know the system here. So Islamic school is safer for me and later on, of course, Alhumdulillah I came to homeschooling and since then, I’ve been homeschooling for six years. And when I brought them to homeschool, I said, “You know what, I should enroll myself in Bachelors of Education at the Online Islamic University and we never looked back again. Saba Malik 11:59 Congratulations on getting that. Irambintsafia 12:01 Alhumdulillah. Saba Malik 12:02 What’s so crazy is you’re mentioning the Islamic school and Sister Eman there and the funny thing is that my daughter was enrolled in that school last year, and her teacher was Sister Eman. She’s a preschool teacher now. Yes, yes. So that’s really crazy that you were teaching there. It’s also funny hearing you talk, it’s like we’ve been on a similar journey without having met one another. Even not being on the same timeline, it’s kind of the same journey because what happened to me is when I was in high school, and you said you always felt like you wanted to be a teacher, I had that same feeling. Two of my sisters, when they used to come home from school, I would just take them in my room, and I would pretend to be their teacher. I would help them finish their homework, had my own blackboard and everything. And in college, I went into the sciences and my goal was something in biology or something science related. I don’t know subhanAllah, last minute, I chose education. And when I went into education, I had my goal. My dream was one day when I becom a mom, I want to homeschool my own children. So that was my plan. I had it all set. Then bipolar happened lol. Irambintsafia 13:26 Okay lol! Saba Malik 13:30 The story didn’t go as planned. Everything was toppled over. It was like a storm and I had to make sense of it. I had to overcome mental barriers just to get what a “normal” person would have. And after a while, I stopped chasing the normal. I’m gonna make my own normal. Maybe it’s not at the rate other people are at but I’m just gonna do what I can. So how can you stay sane? What’s the actual stuff you do? Like how do you separate Okay, this is homeschool time, I’m going to teach my kids and now it’s time for mom. Nobody bother me. What would you do on a typical day? Irambintsafia 14:06 So the first thing I learned was, I needed to understand that I had to “de-school” myself. I came from a very rigid schooling system right? Sit down. Stand up. Walk in lines. Assembly time. Uniform should be perfect. Nails cut. Be the best student. Get the highest grade. I never got the highest grade. I was a good student up until the eighth grade. And then I was always, mashaAllah tabrakAllah, I mean, just imagine. My mom sent me two tutions to pass in my 10th and 12th grade and if the passing mark was 36, I got 37. Lol. She’s spent a lot of money for her daughter to not pass but get an A+ and her daughter brings home a passing mark. My mother, may Allah subhanahu taala protect her always from every harm and bless her immensely. She hasd patience. She was like, “Mera bacha pass ho gya. Alhumulillah.” Lol. Saba Malik 15:02 That’s so cute lol. There was always a focus on performance. Irambintsafia 15:08 Yeah, yeah. Saba Malik 15:09 Like, being a certain way, acting a certain way. Irambintsafia 15:13 It’s true. Yeah, true. So in college, one of the reasons that I was unable to complete my IT degree was because I had given up. I had given up on this idea that. You know, I’m not meant to study. I always appreciated for my other qualities, talking, speaking, being kind, mannerisms, altruism, all of that. I had all of those things. What I did not have was book smarts. I just did not have book smarts. And I couldn’t score 100 out of 100 and I couldn’t get even 15 in some certain subjects. I just couldn’t work. English came to me. Writing, in Urdu or English came to me naturally. History came to me naturally. These subjects, like the liberal arts came to me naturally, but when it came to the science subjects, I was always a mess. So khair alhumdulillah, I already by the time I became a mother, I was very relaxed. I did not have that notion that my child is going to go to school, and he’s going to get the first grade. No, because, you know, by college I had become like, if I passed with a C grade, I was like alhamdulillah sajdha shukr because I knew that I was much more than my grades. I knew that people liked me had something more to give. And nobody, when they see me are going to say, “Irambintsafia, what was your grade?” Who asks you that right? Nobody asks you that unless until of course you’re applying for certain jobs which was never my goal. Anyways, so coming back to parenthood, I was very relaxed. Then alhamdulillah, my husband, on the other hand, he was very like “army” because he went to army school, right? So he was very regimed. He was like, it should be like this, and it should be like this. But SubhanAllah, I am so grateful to him, that even though we are very different personalities, and every marriage has its pros and cons but when it came to raising children, he trusted me completely. And when I said I want to do Islamic school, he said, okay, Bismillah. And when I said I wanted to homeschool, he said, okay, Bismillah. He supported me without questioning me. Now I can take it in a very negative sense and I will say oh he said “joe murzi kar lo. (Do whatever you want). It’s okay. I don’t care.” But no, that was not it. He was concerned. And he asked me the correct questions. And he saw my research because I know how he works, right? I know how his mind works. So I’m prepared. I did all of my homework, and I went with research work. So he was like, “Okay, you know what, fine. Do it.” SubhanAllah I don’t remember the first day Saba. I still don’t remember it but I remember that my children refused to listen to me. They were like, “She’s gone crazy. What are you trying to do?” I did make a schedule and I made sheets, and I highlighted stuff but I did not know how to communicate. I did not know how to communicate with them from that teacher tone. I was studying on the side still on how to do that and my children alhumdulillah, they started coming around. How we started was we with a set curriculum. I got books from the library that were for their age group, that were being taught in the public and private schools. I saw their curriculum and I got very overwhelmed. I got really overwhelmed. And I was like, I can’t do this. This is too much work. I mean, like, who is going to do this? And then I asked around other people, and then I did more research and then I got with the eclectic method. I instantly jumped into the eclectic. Saba Malik 18:02 Can you describe that? Because I saw on one of your videos you talked about that. Can you tell me more about that? What does that look like? Irambintsafia 19:20 It’s basically a mishmash of other methods. For example, when we doing Quran studies, we are doing the classical method where we are doing rote memorization or the Charlotte Mason method. So we don’t have any ease on that. We know exactly that this is the time that we’re going to sit and this is the time that we’re going to do our Quranic studies. When it comes to reading, understanding and poetry and doing you know all of these things, then we go with the Charlotte Mason method where there are a lot of read alouds. The classical method and the Charlotte Mason method both have the same strategy that let the children read. Let the children read aloud, or read it to them when they’re younger or read with them, depending upon how the child likes it. All of our English, science, social studies went into reading. I gave them paragraphs and lessons and did all of the read alouds with them when they were younger, and then let them read when they are now MashAllah able to read. I never touched the Maria Montessori method. That was too heavy for me. So I never even touched that. Saba Malik 20:32 Okay. Irambintsafia 20:34 Then I even started with the “Time for Learning” online schooling. I even tried that in my first year but it was a very bad experience and I will tell you why. It was not because “Time for Learning” is a bad thing. No, MashAllah, It’s a very good program. It’s like a box curriculum. It’s like bringing school into home curriculum and it’s easy. It’s pretty easy. Saba Malik 20:59 Is that something you sign up for? Irambintsafia 21:00 Yes, but I honestly believe it’s for older children. Now, my son who is 14 can do “Time for Learning” but back then, six years ago, he was not able to manage it. Younger children were not able to manage online learning unless you’re sitting with them. And that for me defies the whole process of homeschooling that if I’m sitting with them for 3, 4 hours and then they’re doing it like a school system, then that’s not homeschooling. That’s basically school and house, which a lot of people like to do and can do. But I couldn’t. That was not my style. I was already anti-school, and got so much anxiety for myself and for my children. Why would I bring that into my house? Saba Malik 21:47 How did you become anti-school? Irambintsafia 21:50 Well, as I told you, I was always “C, D, E.” There was no respect for the “C, D, E” students. And you know, I was something of a mix. If you did not know my grade, you would like me. The teacher would really like me but as soon as the teacher saw my test paper, she would be like, “What is wrong with you?” Saba Malik 22:04 It’s so funny people. They judge you, even ourselves, according to our grades. Irambintsafia 22:12 Right. Saba Malik 22:13 And if we get out of school, and we have our careers, we judge ourselves based on our income. And then once we get married, we judge ourselves on how many children we have compared to the neighbors. Or how many pounds we have or can’t lose or our cars. What is it worth? It is always the numbers. And that all, a lot of people know how to measure their worth, their productivity. And if they’re not producing a certain amount, if their “net worth” is not what society is saying it should be, we start to feel worthless. We feel, “Oh, I haven’t accomplished anything. I’m not lovable or likeable.” And like you’re saying when people didn’t know your grades, they would love you. Irambintsafia 22:58 Yeah. I was specifically talking about my teachers. I mean subhan Allah, it was so funny. Saba Malik 23:04 That made you anti-school. Irambintsafia 23:06 Yeah, I was like come on, seriously? Who has their “A” on their forehead but subhanAllah, there’s a surah that Allah subhanahu wa tala talks about in the Quran: “Al haaku mut takathur. Hatta zurtumul-maqaabir.” “Until you reach your graves, Allah says, if you are into this habit of counting and evaluating and doing this, and contrast (comparing) with the other person, you will just die like that. And even after that, will if you would be given the freedom to choose, you would say no, my qabr (grave) should be better than the other person’s qabr and you know, design it like this and like that lol astagfurAllah. Saba Malik 23:48 Thart reminds me of your three E’s, and one of them is ethical goodness. When I saw it on Instagram, ethical goodness, what does that mean? What does that look like? And hearing you talk, that is basically what it sounds like, to me ethical goodness. Focusing on “what does Allah want?” What is going to be in the end? What have I brought forth? Is it gonna be how big my house is? We hear this right? Don’t focus on how big your house is, your car and your kids and your looks. And the thing I find is that when I’m in the situation, and I am doing that comparison, I don’t notice I’m comparing in my heart. Intellectually I know, I’ll blog about it, I’ll write about it but when I’m in the situation to have that awareness is so difficult. And then in your post in one of them, you said, Taqwa-filled human.” I was like, amazing. Irambintsafia 24:49 Thank you, Alhumdulillah. Saba Malik 24:53 MashaAllah. Irambintsafia 24:55 Like I said, in that post, again, the one that you were saying, we’re not good humans and then we become parents. And when I say we’re not good humans, is doesn’t mean naudzubillah we are some evil kind of a being. I’m not saying that. It’s just that we don’t have restraints on our nafs and we lash out on the children because they’re the most vulnerable of people around us. We cannot lash out like that with our husbands. If we do that, we will be like divorced or separated within five minutes of our marriage lol subhanAllah. Saba Malik 25:34 The younger kids, because they have no power, they’re basically at our mercy. Irambintsafia 25:38 And we abuse that power. And I as a parent, I’ve done that to my children and I recognize that and I do apologize to them. When I remember, I do tell them that at this point, this was happening with me, and I’m so sorry I did it to you. And, alhumdulillah. I have trained myself to some extent, but then there are some crazy days too but my children are alhumdulillah now they’re trained enough to know and tell me “Mama, you’re going back there. Come back, come back.” Saba Malik 25:39 Wow. Irambintsafia 25:43 Yeah because I trained them. I told them, “Listen, I know my flaws. I very well know my flaws and I’m telling you my flaw,s not so that you could rub it in my face when I’m low but tell me to overcome it. Be my support system.” Saba Malik 26:23 Yeah, that is a great thing to teach them. Irambintsafia 26:26 And in my head you know Saba, I honestly believe that we are not in control of the people that they’re going to have as their partners or be married to. And one of the things that I’ve learned from my marriage is that I have to teach my children to be able to communicate. Regardless of what relationship they are in, whether it’s a parent, or it’s a spouse, or it’s an in-law, they should know how to respectfully communicate. Because half of my problems that I had created in my head were my own creation. And I kept blaming the people in my life for the heartaches that I had. When that light bulb went “ding” in my head, I understood. MashAllah Iram, I mean, come on lol. Saba Malik 27:14 How did that lightbulb… Irambintsafia 27:17 Happen? Saba Malik 27:18 What was that moment? What led up to it that things turned on for you in your head? Irambintsafia 27:23 I was able to make dua. So for me, spirituality is my strength. I mean, I do understand the spirituality might not be everybody’s strength but for me, it was my core. It is my core, alhumdulillah. It used to frustrate me the word “compromise.” I hated that word. I hated that word that what does compromise mean? What does sabr mean? And subhanAllah in my head, I was so scared for asking for sabr because in my head, I thought sabr comes to only those who are miserable. I thought that sabr means that indirectly, you’re going to be in misery, and then you’re going to have sabr. When I we used to read Quran and learn Quran, I was like Allah loves the sabireen and shakireen. So I said, “Ya Allah, please give me shukr and give me that station where I’m always in your shukr but I don’t have to go through sabr. Saba Malik 28:20 Hmmm. That’s not life though. Irambintsafia 28:21 Yeah, lol. Saba Malik 28:22 You always have to go through that. Irambintsafia 28:24 Yeah. And when that situation, and many situations like that happened over the 14 years, I went back to the events of my life and I said, “Iram, you did sabr here and Allah rewarded you and then you did sabr here and Allah rewarded you and when you did sabr here, Allah rewarded you.” So what are you running from actually? You have been doing sabr all this time. SubhanAllah. Saba Malik 28:47 So that was like the slow realization. It’s not like one day you woke up and you’re like, Okay, I know not to blame others. And I know I have sabr. I’ve done it in the past. Slowly, slowly, it dawns on you. Irambintsafia 28:59 Yes because humans are stubborn like hell lol Saba Malik 29:03 Yes. That’s what I want our audience to know that, especially when they’re going through a mental challenge, whether it’s just like having stress or raising kids, or having a mental illness, like depression, or postpartum or anxiety, any of those… that we don’t wake up one day, and we’re like, okay, “ding, I have the solution. I know what to do, and everything will be fine.” I think we expect clear cut roads in life and it doesn’t work like that. You know, imagine a cork in the ocean and sometimes there’s waves so the cork goes up, and then the waves go away so it comes down. It’s just like up and down, up or down and we just have to learn to go with the flow and sabr and shukr are definitely like the guidepost. And just like you, faith is huge for me. Islam. I don’t think I would be alive, literally, if I didn’t have Islam, if I wasn’t a Muslim. And the reason is I had a very, very severe, suicidal attempt. And at that moment, everything gave out. It’s often difficult for people to hear about it right? It’s sometimes difficult for me to talk about it, too but the one thing is, I don’t remember much of the moment, but I do remember being there. I was sitting on the ground and I felt this power above me. Irambintsafia 30:35 Alhumdulillah. Saba Malik 30:35 I couldn’t understand, physically, mentally. I couldn’t really, I didn’t have any control over my body but I felt there was a power above me. And I call that Allah. I felt, I literally feel like that at that time, my knowledge of Islam got out of my head and I actually experienced it, and I felt it. Nowadays, people are like, “Why are you always talking about, mentally fit, but with Muslims? Why are you always bringing Islam into mental health? Why don’t you just talk about mental health?” Irambintsafia 31:06 Why? Saba Malik 31:08 I cannot separate the two. If I didn’t have that faith, I wouldn’t be able to continue with that mental recovery. So the sabr and shukr is definitely key because when you’re in a hardship, we go through three states all the time, we’re either in the hardship, or we’re in a blessing, or we’re committing a sin. We’re always in one of these three stations. Irambintsafia 31:34 That’s true. Saba Malik 31:35 When we’re in a test, our act of obedience needs to be that I’m going to have sabr. When we’re in a blessing, our act of obedience needs to be that I’m going to be thankful. I’m going to have shukr. And when I’m doing a sin, what’s the obedience? I make istighfar. I say sorry to Allah. In Islam, the solutions are built in. Irambintsafia 31:58 Yep. Saba Malik 31:59 We just have to seek that. Irambintsafia 32:01 True, very true. Alhumdulillah, mashaAllah tabarakAllah. I would add to that is why is it difficult for us Saba? Because we grew up on movie culture, right? A movie is two and a half hours long. In that movie, the turmoil happens, the sadness happens, the heart break happens, and then they live happily ever after. Saba Malik 32:20 Yes lol. Irambintsafia 32:20 Lol and unconsciously we think of ourselves like that. I will tell you this very frankly, and shamelessly that the only reason I married was I thought that I would live the life Siri Devi or Madhuri Dixit you know with all that jewelry and saris and singing along the trees hanging out with monkeys. And, my husband is always going to be head over heels in love with me. And, you know subhanAllah, we were fighting on the first day of our marriage so Mashallah tabarakAllah. That notion was really easily very quickly thrown out alhumdulillah. But the point is, we are so deluded subhanAllah. We talk about Islam. We talk about Quran and we teach our children stories. What we do not connect as adults, this is this is me, this is my experience, which took me such a long time to understand and it’s a very simple thing, but subhanAllah, you know, human, people, our minds. Prophets Muhammad sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam’s journey was 23 years of bringing Islam. Yusuf alayhis salam stayed his entire youth in the prison. Musa alayhi salam stayed 10 years outside of his homeland and then when he came back, he took the people of Bani Israel. He did not get to see the promised land. He died before that because his people were so stubborn. 14 years. They were in the desert, but they never entered Palestine. Right. SubhanAllah. Then talk about Ayub alayhi salaam. He had the severe of the diseases and how many years? They say 18 years, some say so many more. There are different numbers and he stayed with that disease. Now tell me this. If Allah has given us an exam, and I often think about Yunus alayhi salaam’s exam. I think about how he went into the whale’s stomach, and the other day my daughter asked me, “Mama, what is the inside of the, you know the belly of the whale look like?” I said, and this was the first time, I’m 38 years old, I have narrated the story to my children. It was the first time that I actually felt what it would have felt like. I said, “It must have been very dark. It must have been very smelly. It must have been very congested. It must have acids. I don’t know if he was able to even breathe properly. He must have been crunched and Allah says in the Quran that when he was spat out when he was thrown out of the belly of the whale, he had a disease all over his skin. And he was extremely sick and Allah subhanahu ta’Allah blessed him with health again, right? So my point is, we tell these stories to our children, but then we never tell them that all of these prophets had sabr. And we don’t tell them that, child of mine, whatever life will throw at you, it will take time to get off. It will take time to become better. We have forgotten because of instant gratification. We have forgotten, absolutely forgotten that Allah, the Creator of Time, the Creator of us, the Creator of the good and the bad, He is listening to us the whole while, but our journey is not two and a half, or three and a half hours of a movie. It’s a life journey. So I don’t know if I went on a tangent here but that was also a lightbulb situation for me too like, come on in, Iram. Saba Malik 36:03 No, that wasn’t a tangent at all. I think what you highlighted is the mental strength these prophets had. They did not seek instant gratification, instant results. On the contrary, they left things that they would never see their effects in their lifetime. Irambintsafia 36:20 Yeah. Saba Malik 36:21 I find that’s the same thing with our kids, raising them. We don’t always see, “Oh, okay, here’s the benefit, or this is what they’re learning.” No, even like, I hope when I’m gone from this earth, that she still carries on that good. And I think that’s the kind of focus we need to have because there are times when it’s so hard, when you’re like, I can’t do this. And that’s when I find, you know, like you were saying, I get so crabby. I just want to snap and you know, the closest person is my daughter. And poor her, you know, if she happens to be around, then she receives that. And it’s not fair to her at all. So I think having that perspective, to think that this is bigger than me, and we need that mental strength and it doesn’t come overnight. Irambintsafia 37:06 No, it does not. Saba Malik 37:07 What you’re talking about, that light bulb going on…just whether it’s parenting or having an illness like Ayub alayhi salaam had, he’s one of my favorites Iram. Irambintsafia 37:18 Alhumdulillah. Saba Malik 37:19 When I first got sick, somehow I I fell in love with him and his story. One point when I was reading his story was, so he had all those great things. He had his house, his kids has everything on his farm, riches, friends. And when he lost all that, and he basically had his wife and everyone else had abandoned him. She asked him, you know, you’re a prophet of Allah, why don’t you make dua and ask Allah to you know, bring everything back, get rid of this illness? He’s gonna answer you, of course. And, you know, what his reaction was? He actually got upset. Why? He said I had those all those blessings for so long, and the hardships have not even equaled to all all those blessings that I had. So he actually felt shy. Irambintsafia 38:09 Yes. Saba Malik 38:09 He felt shy to ask Allah. And he was actually praise, he would thank Allah for the hardship he was in. And that’s like, a whole another level of gratitude because it’s so easy to say, “Oh, thank you Allah for the nice weather or thank you for this beautiful food” because it’s something that we like, it’s something that is good. But to say thank you for something that is hard, for something that you don’t like, thank you Allah for COVID, thank you Allah for Trump lol Irambintsafia 38:39 But really, thank you Allah for COVID. Yes, because, I mean, I think a lot of us came back to our senses subhan Allah. Saba Malik 38:47 Yeah, and you know the whole Black Lives Matter, I was like, if we weren’t in quarantine, if we weren’t in lockdown., if all the entertainment shows, games weren’t turned off, this same thing, the George Floyd thing would have happened and we wouldn’t have noticed it. Irambintsafia 39:01 There’s so many men and women who die without being noticed. Saba Malik 39:05 Yeah and that three months of lockdown, where everything entertainment, kind of frivolous, whatever, like, you could still do it,fine. But it was something kind of unnecessary, you know? Irambintsafia 39:15 Yeah, yeah. Saba Malik 39:16 Once that was shut down, we woke up to a newer reality. We woke up to something like our Black brothers and sisters who have been fighting for so long. We actually felt their pain and it’s funny because in your video, you were saying I’m also an “activist” and then your daughter or son? Irambintsafia 39:33 Yeah daughter… Saba Malik 39:39 Yeah, so Iram, mother, writer, blogger, and educator, activist. You were a lot of hats. I really appreciate you coming on. I learned a lot from you and I know I have a lot to learn. Irambintsafia 39:52 JazakAllah Khair and I can say the same about you. Alhumdulillah I’m here and I’m learning from you too mashaAllah. JazakAllah Khair for so beautifully sharing your story and alhumdulillah I learned from you as well mashaAllah tabarakAllah. And hopefully inshaAllah once the COVID is a bit, actually we can still meet though we should plan to meet inshaAllah. Saba Malik 40:16 Yeh. Where can my audience or people who are listening, where can they find you? Irambintsafia 40:23 Okay, so they can find me on… I have two YouTube channels. There’s “Parenting Uncomplicated” which talks more about parenting, positive parenting, homeschooling, and it has both English and Urdu lectures in it because I do a lot of Facebook Lives and Urdu mommy groups. Saba Malik 40:43 Oh really? Irambintsafia 40:44 Yep so alhumdulillah. So I put those onto YouTube and then there’s just “Irambintsafia” on YouTube and the whole idea of Irambintsafia was bringing my motivational talk regarding religion and life reflections on it. I just did a Hajj series life reflection on that and I put it up there. So it is again bilingual. So my niche is basically immigrant parents and Urdu speaking parents regardless of whether they are immigrants or not. That’s the niche that I basically cater to. And apart from that, I’m on Instagram “Irambintsafia” and there it’s “sparks inspire.” So it’s irambintsafia_spark_inspire. And on Facebook, you have my page Irambintsafia. Saba Malik 41:31 So with this episode, in the show notes, I’ll put all the links to your social media, and people can click on that and check you out inshaAllah. Thanks again and I hope to talk to you soon. Irambintsafia 41:43 InshaAllah, JazakAllah Khair. Thank you for your time. Saba Malik 41:46 Really nice talking to you. I hope you really enjoyed the show and that you benefited from it. If you really found some value in it, please do leave me a review on Apple podcasts and give my show a rating. Okay, see you next time. Asalamu Alaikum Previous Next

< Back Episode 24 - Sleep with Insomnia How to Sleep When You Can’t Using Ayatul Kursi | Mini Mental Jul 5, 2021 When I find myself not being able to sleep, my mind wanders and it can lead me down a long, depressing, and anxious path. Trust me, I’ve been there too! But one thing that always helps calm the storm in my head is Ayatul Kursi. Simply reciting this powerful ayah (Quran 2:255) or even listening to it offers solace for your soul. Listen to this week’s Mini Mental episode where I explore how listening to Allah’s words can put us at ease spiritually and emotionally by discussing a unique method of matching your mood to the reciter’s tone. The reciters mentioned are Qari Fatih Seferagic and Omar Hisham Al Arabi. Episode 24 Transcript: I’m Saba Malik, and this is a Mini Mental. One of my best friends is insomnia. It’s always been with me. And it still is, but alhumdulillah I’ve learned to live with it and not just deal with it but actually use it to my benefit. Having mental health challenges means that you’re going to deal with insomnia, where you have trouble falling asleep at night. I’ve given a lot of tips in previous episodes on how to, you know, deal with difficult thoughts. But one of the times that challenging thoughts really hit me is at night when I’m supposed to be sleeping but everything just comes crashing in like a big wave. So what I’ve learned about myself is that I’m a big audio person. I mean, it makes sense I podcast, so audio stuff and listening to audio books or music really benefits me. Now it can go two ways if I’m listening to things that are harmful. I’m not talking about haram and halaal. That’s not what this podcast is about. I’m talking about things that are kind of like junk food for my ears. If I’m listening to junk music, or junk audio, it’s not gonna uplift me. On the country, it’s going to bring me down and it’s going to ruin my mood. So knowing that why not actively choose something that is healthy for my ears. Let me give you an example. I love listening to the Quran and gives me peace. It makes me feel very serene. It calms me down. But I found that if I didn’t have a reciter that I really kind of, you know, clicked with or vibed with, then I didn’t want to hear it. And sometimes if the audio was really bad, it would actually hurt my ears. This has nothing to do with the message of the Quran and the actual words that are being recited. It’s just the voice of the reciter. So what I’ve done is search for reciters I like. And here’s the interesting part that I haven’t heard other people talk about. I look at what mood I’m in, and then I match a reciter to my mood so that it helps me feel better. Let me give you an example. There’s two reciters who are currently my favorite. One of them is the reciter Fatih Seferagic and the second one is the reciter Omar Hisham. Both of them are on YouTube and Mashallah they have great videos and some of their videos are available on podcast apps. You just search for their names. Now going back to my original topic…one of the duas that really help me fall asleep is reciting Ayatul Kursi. It starts off with: اللَّهُ لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ هُوَ الْحَيُّ الْقَيُّومُ لاَ تَأْخُذُهُ سِنَةٌ وَلاَ نَوْمٌ “Allahu laaa ilaaha illaa huwal haiyul qai-yoom. Laa taakhuzuhoo sinatunw wa laa nawmI.” “Allah! There is no god but He, The Living, The Self-Subsisting, Eternal. No slumber can seize Him nor sleep.” “Nawm” is sleep. Ayatul Kursi is talking about Allah, and how there is no god except Allah. He’s the one who never sleeps. So we’re falling asleep yet we are calling on our Protector, kind of a security guard but not like a human security guard (Allah is high above any analogy). Allah is a guard that never sleep. He never gets tired. He’s always watching over us. And with all the anxiety that comes when you’re falling asleep knowing and actually believing that Allah is watching over me can really calm you down. Sleeping is kind of like a temporary death. When a person is dead and they’re lying down, they don’t look any different than a person who is sleeping. They look the same. It is essentially a temporary death. Reciting Ayatul kursi is a great, great way to help deal with insomnia. It also gives you protection and there’s a lot of religious proof and texts behind that. But what I’m talking about here is to listen to Quran instead of junk music or junk audio for your ears. Listen to something healthy, like the Quran, that uplifts you. And here are three examples of different ways Ayatul Kursi is recited. I choose one depending on my mood. Sometimes, within the span of five minutes, my moods are going up and down. I might have first frustration, then aggression and then anxiety, then sadness and then jump back up. It’s so erratic. So when I match my mood with a Quran reciter who is kind of going up and down with the pitch of his recitation or reciting in different styles, I feel I connect and then it slowly brings me back to a balanced state. I’m going to play a recitation of Ayatul Kursi and the first one is a slow one. The second one you’ll see it’s a bit faster. And then the last one is actually very calm. Depending on how I’m feeling, I’m going to play that corresponding one. Give it a listen and see how it is. اللَّهُ لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ هُوَ الْحَيُّ الْقَيُّومُ لاَ تَأْخُذُهُ سِنَةٌ وَلاَ نَوْمٌ لَهُ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي الأَرْضِ مَنْ ذَا الَّذِي يَشْفَعُ عِنْدَهُ إِلاَّ بِإِذْنِهِ يَعْلَمُ مَا بَيْنَ أَيْدِيهِمْ وَمَا خَلْفَهُمْ وَلاَ يُحِيطُونَ بِشَيْءٍ مِنْ عِلْمِهِ إِلاَّ بِمَا شَاءَ وَسِعَ كُرْسِيُّهُ السَّمَاواتِ وَالأَرْضَ وَلاَ يَئُودُهُ حِفْظُهُمَا وَهُوَ الْعَلِيُّ الْعَظِيمُ “Allahu laaa ilaaha illaa huwal haiyul qai-yoom; laa taakhuzuhoo sinatunw wa laa nawm; lahoo maa fissamaawaati wa maa fil ard; man zallazee yashfa’u indahooo illaa be iznih; ya’lamu maa baina aideehim wa maa khalfahum; wa laa yuheetoona beshai ‘immin ‘ilmihee illa be maa shaaaa; wasi’a kursiyyuhus samaa waati wal arda wa la ya’ooduho hifzuhumaa; wa huwal aliyyul ‘azeem.” “Allah! There is no god but He, The Living, The Self-Subsisting, Eternal. No slumber can seize Him nor sleep. His are all things in the heavens and on earth. Who is there that can intercede in His presence except as he permit? He knows what (appear to His creatures As) before or after or behind them. Nor shall they compass aught of His knowledge except as He will. His throne extends over the heavens and on earth, and He feels no fatigue in guarding and preserving them, For He is the Most High, the Supreme (in glory).” [The first and second recitation is by Qari Fatih Seferagic and the third is by Qari Omar Hisham] Okay, so now that you’ve heard all three, go and search for your own reciters. Find ones that you really like and that help you feel better, that you can match with a certain mood and that you actually find are healthy food you can consume for your ears. Maybe you’re not such a big audio person. You’re more visual. Then of course reading the Quran is even a better option. I have multiple copies of the Quran. One that’s just an English one, one that has the Tajweed colors and one that is English and Arabic together. Some are hard cover some are soft covers. Depending on where I am in the house or what I’m feeling like, I’ll pick up that particular type. Make it very easy to reach for these healthy alternatives when you’re not feeling well and when you cannot sleep. There’s always going to be the other option of stuffing yourself with junk food, listening to music that’s just going to bring you down or bingeing on TV shows. Then you realize it’s 3am and you have to get up in two hours again. Consciously decide, what are you going to do to make it easier to sleep? In the beginning, it’s not going to be easy, especially if you’re used to destructive habits around bedtime. It will take time to get used to a healthy routine. But think of your sleep as a retreat. Think of it as a way to get away from everything. No one will come and talk to you or ask you for things. You don’t have to do any work. It’s just you and Allah and connecting with Him and reciting His words and thinking about the fact that one day you are going to go back to Him. It could even be in the sleep tonight. You don’t know. I hope you enjoyed this Mini Mental. See you next time. As salaam alaikum. Previous Next

< Back Episode 1 - Muslim Woman with Bipolar How to Deal with Bipolar Disorder as a Muslim Woman Jul 2, 2020 Asaalam alaikum, this is Saba Malik, and welcome to episode one of the Mentally Fit Muslims podcast. It all started in 2003. I was in college, and I was nearly done. But I went from getting 98% in calculus to barely passing linear algebra. I became so depressed. I used to love sitting in the math lab and listening to Shaykh Mishary recite Surah Mulk and doing integrals. Math was music to my ears. And it certainly showed on my report card. I also tutored English and I was active in social clubs around my school. Then, slowly this beast crept up. It was always there. I felt there was some monster inside me. My nickname as a kid was “jin.” Yep. I was always moody. But I just saw that as a part of me. And I always had anger issues. School, studying, books, library, that was my refuge. And I always carried a journal with me. I started journaling in grade eight when I was in high school, and anytime I felt alone, misunderstood, or scared, I just took to my pen. You know, it was the only place I felt I could control my thoughts. And in high school, I would see all my classmates, you know, chilling and talking. But I just didn’t feel like I fit in. And not just because I wore the hijab, but because I felt I had something, something growing inside me, something scary that I couldn’t even understand myself. I did many things that brought me very, very close to death. I don’t know where I got those ideas from, and why I actually went through with it. I felt like there was some monster inside me and it would take over. And when I would come out on the other side, I didn’t recognize who I was anymore. I would look at all the destruction I did, from broken plates and walls to broken relationships. And I just had no idea how I could “flip.” And of course, other people around me were just as baffled as I was. Only they would say, “You know, let her be. There’s, there’s something inside her or she’s crazy. Leave her alone. There’s a jin inside her.” And you know, it’s only recently that I’ve had the courage and even the stamina to tell my therapist about this “jin” label I got all my life. To the people who said it, it was funny, it was a way to explain something they couldn’t understand. But decades later, it still burns. So if words can burn, they can surely heal and that’s my hope for you. If you’re listening to this, if you’re feeling alone, if you’re feeling misunderstood, if you’re feeling like an outcast, if you feel like you’re being stoned with stigma, whether you’re depressed, bipolar, divorced, “fat and ugly.” Well, welcome, my friend, your home. And here’s my story. So back in 2003, I went from a high achiever to missing class and falling asleep in the tutoring lab. I just couldn’t keep up. My brain became muddled, and relationships became hard to maintain. I was full of rage and doing things like banging my head and ripping the drywall open. There was not a dragon but dragons and dogs and gargoyles raging in my head. They barked and barked and I was scared to death. So what did I do? I masked that fear with anger. And I just acted out. Pretty soon the down came and man what a fall it was. I couldn’t concentrate in school, I would sleep a lot. I didn’t want to see anyone. Life just became a drag. Then I started university. I got accepted into a very prestigious and very rigorous program. But at that time, I just couldn’t handle it. I chose an easier program. But it wasn’t about the school because even that easy program became difficult. It was about the jinn inside me and whether I went to Harvard or Phoenix University, it would always follow me because it still does. I would get up and get ready for school and instead of going to class I would just skip and end up falling asleep in the library. Everything weighed me down, mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally. Then, all of a sudden in 2004, the sun rose bright and shiny. The depression lifted like an umbrella flying away with the storm. Everything was fresh. I could think clearly again, and things looked new. Spring was here. I felt on top of the world. I felt free and light… too free, too light. I went so high without any drugs. I just rose and rose. I felt like a leaf being carried by the wind. And at that time, I was taking a chemistry class. I had a midterm and it was so easy. I knew every answer, and I finished the exam in an instant. I don’t know how I came home, but when I did, I felt so calm and peaceful. I was reciting the Quran and I felt I could finally think clearly again. But this was the calm before the storm. Just as high as I rose, I fell. And man what a fall it was. I didn’t know it at the time but that was my first full-blown manic episode. I didn’t sleep or eat for seven days yet I had the energy of a horse. A Shaykh came to see me but that was a disaster. They thought I was possessed by a Jin. First I’ve been acting like a jinn all my life and now I’m possessed by one. What the heck is going on? Well, I ended up in the hospital and after weeks of hospitalization and a lot of tranquilizers, I finally felt somewhat normal. You know, there are certain things you clearly remember when you go through a madness like this. And this was certainly one of them. I remember asking the psychiatrists, you know what is going on? She said, Well, we’re not really sure. It seems like you had a lot of stress and pressure and you had a nervous breakdown. So here are some pills, take them and you’ll feel better. Okay, Doc. So I went home, I took the pills, you know, for the amount that she gave me, for the time she gave me. I got better. So I thought I don’t need them anymore. You know, I thought that chapter was closed. In 2006, I ended up back in the hospital with a whole manic episode and all that lovely stuff. Only this time it hit hard. And this time it was hard because it was public. And when you fall in public, guess what? Oh, do the vultures have a feast! And what a feast I became. That’s when I finally realized I had bipolar because I remember actually grabbing the notes from my doctor and actually looking at them and seeing that they had put bipolar in my file. But they never told me. Now I knew. Even to this date, that time in my life still haunts me. Decades of therapy, self-care, life coaching, working out, and eating well, cannot undo the damage of careless words. Words like, “Did you hear what happened to her?” Words can burn a scar so deep, you can’t even recognize yourself anymore. The stigma, the gossiping, the fake friends…it becomes worse than the mental illness itself. But my friends, if words can burn, they can surely heal. And that’s my hope for you. If you’re listening to this and you’re feeling alone, you’re feeling misunderstood, you’re feeling hurt, you’re feeling like an outcast, you’re stoned with stigma, whether from others or yourself, if you’re feeling depressed, you’re bipolar, or you got divorced or you lost a job if you feel you’re “fat and worthless”… welcome, my friend. Welcome home. And the next two years were the most difficult time for me. It’s all haze. Now there are cobwebs in my memory. There’s an emptiness because, in those years, I became more and more invisible. I just retreated from everyone and myself. I was put on a high dosage of meds. I took the doctor’s words and took every drug she gave me. I was desperate for any cure. And in the span of one month, I gained 60 pounds. I went from running and playing soccer and skipping rope to barely being able to get out of bed. Many psychiatric medications are chock full of side effects. And one of the deadliest ones that took me years to realize was weight gain. And if you’re taking Zyprexa, please please watch out. I was put on that and I had no clue about the side effects. In 2008, my older sister, my rock, the one I can still call at 2 am for help, took me to a seminar about mastering depression. It was an eight-hour drive, but she drove me. I remember sleeping in the bag while she drove. It was 3 am but she got me there. She got me to that seminar and everything changed from there. The lecture was by a Shaykh that I really admired. And he combined psychology and Islam really well. And subhanAllah there, I got one message imprinted in my brain and heart forever. The message was: If I commit suicide, I will go straight to hell. That’s what the teacher told me. I mean, I knew it from before, too. But this time, somehow, someway, it really, really stuck. That seminar gave me such a heightened sense of myself. And I learned I had so much power. I had a lot of mental power over this depression and bipolar. It wasn’t a life sentence. And there was actually a lot I could do to stay away from suicide. I could stay away from ending my own life. At this time, I also got a life coach and my life completely changed. That’s when I first started blogging, and that changed my outlook on bipolar. I found meaning in this beast. I realized that I had a mental illness for a reason. And that was to help and support other Muslims suffering from it. I went through hell and I made it on the other side, I made it out alive. And I must share this with others, with people like you who are still living through that hell. That became my life’s mission and still is. You know, the truth is, I still feel hurt. Bipolar and all the destruction, it still burns me today. And I have to do something with that powerful pain, that powerful energy. I have to channel it somewhere. So I come here. I turn that pain into words so you and I have a vocabulary for something that is almost incomprehensible. And it seems like I’m all about helping you but you also help me. When I sit here and record my story for you, hoping it makes you feel not alone, I don’t feel alone either. You’re actually the one helping me. You are lending me your ear. You are allowing me to enter your personal space and giving me your precious time. Just knowing that there’s a soul listening to my story on the other side, makes it feel real. It makes it feel real because it makes me feel it’s not all in my head. It wasn’t because I didn’t pray enough. It wasn’t because Allah was punishing me. It was a real pain, real, raw mental pain. And you listening to these words validates that pain. And I’m deeply grateful to you for that even if I have no clue who you are. I kept on blogging word by word. I documented my recovery. I documented my lesson from bipolar. And people started coming forward with their own stories, their own jinns, their own public stonings, and our words became our weapon. And just as words can cut and burn, they can surely heal. And that’s my hope for you. So if you’re listening to this, and you’re feeling stuck, and you’re feeling hopeless, and you feel like there’s no way out, you feel the misconceptions of your illness, your bipolar or depression, you feel them caving in, you feel them eating you alive, then welcome my friend, welcome home. So it was 2009 and even with a year of advocating and learning about my disorder, I still got another severe manic episode. This time it ended my teaching career just as I got started. I got sick on the job and I just couldn’t step back into the classroom. It was too traumatic. I looked for pity, for understanding, for help, but in all the wrong places. It wasn’t in the drugs, or the doctors or therapists. It wasn’t even in my family and friends. Each time I sought comfort in these things and these people, I just got sick and when I sought comfort in anything other than Allah, I would feel more pain. And I would just fall to my knees each time and when each time I fell to my knees I finally felt home. I was with Allah. And that’s why I love prophet Ayub alayhi asalaam’s story. You know, he lost everything. But he didn’t lose “it.” He didn’t lose hope. He still didn’t lose life because he had Allah. Even at his lowest when he was bedridden, and he couldn’t move he said Alhamdulillah. He said, thanks to Allah. So, bipolar was becoming less of an illness, and it slowly started becoming a blessing. And I ran with that. So at this time, I had a personal trainer. I was beginning to lose that Zyprexa weight, and I was working out regularly. And this really helped me keep bipolar under control. In September 2011, I completed my first half marathon. I found the love of my life. My mom said that I started walking at eight months when I was a baby while most kids are just learning how to crawl. I also started recalling vivid memories of running in my grandma’s fields on her farm. So running was freedom, it was freedom from my monstrous thoughts. Then, I finally got married. It wasn’t easy, especially when I would tell the guys who came that I had bipolar. Telling them about my illness became a really, really good filter. And I don’t say that in a bad way. Hey, if you can’t handle that crazy side of me, thanks for letting me know. At that point, having bipolar wasn’t a personal failing anymore. It was just like having another condition like diabetes or high blood pressure. And alhumdulillah, Allah finally sent me an angel, my hero, my rock, and my biggest supporter. He continues to be by my side and he really encourages me to continue my advocacy work. In November 2013, I completed my second half marathon. The same year I did a color run with my husband. Then I got pregnant and sick. After my daughter came, I had severe postpartum depression. I had severe manic and depressive episodes, and they required multiple and months of hospitalizations. My husband became my lifeline and May Allah protect him and bless his soul. You know, subhanAllah, Allah never gives you hardship without giving you so much ease along with it. It’s like the hardship is wrapped up in a present with so many blessings around it. My daughter and alhumdulillah, masha Allah turned out perfect, and she’s the perfect child in every way. The pain of having her was all worth it. Allah gives me life through my daughter because the suicidal storms still clash with me. But this time, they never stay because I’m not just saving myself. I’m saving myself for my Noor. She needs me and bipolar can never take me away from her. So getting married, having a career, having a baby, any big life change, you can think of, good or bad, can bring a manic, or a depression episode. In November 2015, I did my first 5k after giving birth. It was probably the most difficult run I did. But I’m glad I did it. Because shortly after that one, I had the deadliest suicidal attempt. nothing short of Allah saved me that day, my brain was gone, my body was gone, my everything was gone. But not Allah. I held on to him and he picked me up. It’s a time in my life that I can still recall vividly. And sometimes the memories scream at me again and again. And I have to see the lesson in it: That Allah is the One and only He can truly save me or take me. My life is really in my Creator’s hands. I’m happy I did that 5k right before this dark time because it became like a marker. And since that three-mile run, I’ve shaved off more than 20 minutes from my running time. In August 2016 I did an endurance 5k. I was probably one of the last people but I did it. I didn’t know it was an endurance run. And I saw my neighbor running with the breeze but alhumdulillah, I still finished and when I did, I fell to the ground and kissed it. It was like my Bolt moment, just my own moment. So that 5k was a good stepping stone into my first 10k run. In May 2017, I did my first 10k. It was definitely difficult because I had to drive to another city, run the six miles and then drive back the same day. I forgot to factor in that drive and it was brutal. A brutal run can burn. It’s real. It’s physical, the pain is raw. And you know, in an odd way, it’s invigorating. I moved away from self-harm and channeled my energy into running. As my feet thump on the pavement, I feel pain, but it’s a pain that brings joy. It brings healing. Of course, it’s endorphins too but there’s something spiritual and running, I find, you know, especially when the sun is just peeking through and I can see the morning dew and I can smell the earth, I just feel at home. Then words don’t burn so much anymore. Words become just words. In September 2017, I did a 6k trail run. It was a beautiful run. And if I could I would do it again. 2018 was a tough year and that reflected in me not doing any runs, or maybe not doing any runs actually made it a tough year. It wasn’t like a crazy, erratic, tough year, but it was just nothing much happened. So I deteriorated a lot. So what did I do in 2019? What else could I do? I did a 5k. I did a 10k. And I did a Spartan sprint. Yep. All in one year. Was I manic? No. I was actually sane during this whole time. So running keeps me sane. And there’s a whole support network behind that too. And this is my story so far. It’s so far because I’m still alive and my journey will only end when I’m one with the earth. Until then, bipolar is still with me. It still pains me. It still taunts me at night, it often haunts me. And it festers in my mind. Sometimes it pesters my daily routines. But with another word I write. I pray and I get up again. Words can most certainly burn. “Oh she’s just crazy. Yeah, man, she’s just psycho. Stay away from her. Don’t go around her. She’s messed up. She’s got something in the head. She’s just pagal. She’s a bad Muslim. She’s so moody. She’s just depressed.” Words burn but they also heal. So if you’re listening to this, and you’re feeling alone, like I once did, if you feel like no one gets you, if you feel hurt, if you feel alone, or you just feel different. If you can’t take the pressure if you just don’t fit in… Welcome my friend. Welcome home. We are the wild ones. We’re the crazy ones. We’re the “bad Muslims.” We’re the misfits. But mentally ill? We are not. We are fit. We are mentally fit because to survive the mental crap we go through, the mental storm we go through, we are forced to be resilient and strong. Anything less would have burned us to the ground. So what did I learn from my bipolar journey, my bipolar story so far? Number one: what is meant to hit you will hit you and there’s nothing you can do about it. Number two: a mental illness is a great filter to weed out the fake friends and the real good ones who truly, truly matter even if that means people in your own family. Number three: Allah is truly the only One with you. Number four: tests and trials never come alone. They are side by side like two trains. They are always wrapped in blessings. You just have to be willing to see it and open them. Relationships are everything. Your relationship with Allah, with yourself and your loved ones. I hope you enjoyed today’s show. See you next time. Asalaamu alaikum Previous Next

< Back Episode 25 - Toxic Positivity and Spiritual Bypassing Dr. Farah Islam on the Truth about Spiritual Bypassing & Toxic Positivity Aug 20, 2021 Dr. Farah Islam on Toxic Positivity and Mental Health Episode 25 Transcript: Saba Malik 0:00 Toxic positivity and spiritual bypassing. They might sound like two big terms, but they’re actually very common amongst people who have mental health challenges. Asalaamu alaikum and welcome to episode 25 of the MentallyFitMuslims podcast. I’m your host, Saba Malik. And I cannot believe that alhumdulillah it’s been over a year that I’ve been podcasting, and talking to you. Thank you so much for joining me and giving me your precious time. Check out my website MentallyFitMuslims.org because I’ve started adding transcriptions for the episodes I’ve done in the past. So if you really love reading, and you want to just read some of the juicy quotes, check out those show notes. Also, remember to check out my memoir, MorningWind https://mentallyfitmuslims.org/morningwind-memoir/. It’s a memoir of moods, madness and everything in between. It’s available on Apple podcast with a premium subscription. So today’s guest is Dr. Farah Islam. And I was reading her biography to my husband, and he said, she’s basically doing what you want to do. So I said, hey, why not have my future self. Farah Islam has a PhD. She’s a mental health advocate, educator, and researcher. She explores mental health and service access in Canada’s racialized and immigrant populations. Her research is oriented towards community work and breaking down the barriers of mental health stigma. She’s also a senior fellow in the data and psychospiritual department at Yaqeen Institute. I know it sounds really cool! She’s also taught courses in Muslim Mental Health at the University of Toronto, Islamic Online University and Islamic Institute of Toronto. She currently serves on the expert Advisory Committee for the Muslim omen’s shelter Nisa Homes. All right, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Dr. Farah Islam. Asalaamu alaikum Dr. Farah. Dr. Farah Islam 2:14 Wa alaikum asalaam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu sister Saba. I’m so excited to be here with you today! Saba Malik 2:20 I’m so happy to have you as well for that. It’s such an honor. I saw you online when Yaqeen Institute was doing a panel discussion, and it was on mental health. And when I saw you mentioned two terms, which was spiritual bypassing and toxic positivity, I could not believe I had heard someone talk about two things that I had been experiencing for the past 10 years. It was like, my mind was trying to grasp what this was because I was dealing with it but I didn’t know such a term existed. And when I saw you talk about it, I said, “Wow, there’s someone else who is feeling the same thing, who gets that.” I thought if Farah is feeling that and she can voice it, and she has that professional background or research background, then It exists. It’s not in my head, and I’m not making it. So that’s why I wanted to have you on, and I’m so thankful that you agreed to come on. So how are you doing? Dr. Farah Islam 3:25 Alhumdulillah, I’m so good. I mean, I love how you mentioned that as well. You know, it’s so wonderful when we actually get terms, or we put words to what we’ve experienced, that actually resonates with us. I feel these terms of toxic positivity and spiritual bypassing, they’ve only come about in the last couple of years. And it’s just so amazing to talk about now, especially now, within the context of our Muslim community, talking more about mental health and talking about mental health stigma. So I think it’s a fantastic opportunity, Alhumdulillah. Do we want to define them a little bit just for everyone tuning in? Saba Malik 4:04 Yeah, that would be a great place to start. I want to know how you define it and what your research background and professional background has taught you about these two terms. Dr. Farah Islam 4:14 Sure. Okay, inshaAllah. In terms of toxic positivity, that’s basically what we do when we’re going through a difficult time or hardship or we’re listening to a friend going through a difficult time and we explain it away, or we try to kind of coach them out of it. We say things like, “Keep your head up. It’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna get through this” and we go into “coach” mode. We put all these positive, wonderful words to it, because we think that it’s going to help that person be more resilient, it’s going to get them through that difficulty but in reality, what we’re saying is that, “I’m uncomfortable with the pain that you’re going through, whatever dark time you’re facing, and I want to put on “pretty sticker onto it.” I want to put a happy face sticker onto it and I want to just move on because I’m uncomfortable. Of course, it sends a very difficult message to our poor friend who’s going through that. Then spiritual bypassing is the spiritual counterpart to toxic positivity, if you will. Maybe we’re not putting a happy face sticker on it, but we’re putting a spiritual sticker. “Oh, you’re going through a difficult time? Pray more. Have more sabe. Have patience. Go do this, go do that.” And, again, we’re not listening to the person going through the hardship or the pain. The thing is, we do it to ourselves too, right? I’m sure. Saba, you’ve been in situations where it’s such a difficult time, or you’re in complete despair, whatever it is, and you tell yourself, “Hey, I’m gonna get through this. I’m okay. It doesn’t matter. Just shove it away under a rug. You tell yourself not to focus on it.” Yeah, tell me Saba. When you’ve been in those situations, does it help you? Saba Malik 6:05 No, it doesn’t. It’s funny when you mentioned the smiley sticker because a lot of times when I see the bipolar word online, and you search for pictures of it, you know what it is? It’s a smiley face, and then a sad face. You got to be kidding me! If you think that’s what mental health challenges are, so black and white and you can just use a punctuation mark, to show such a nuance, such a complex disorder and other disorders, then that person does not know what is going on. That’s exactly what you’re saying. It’s just a very new thing, especially in the Muslim community, to have a meantal vocabulary. I think that is what really struck me when I was listening to you. Once I heard it, and I learned it, I’m on this path to define it and learn from you. It takes that blame away from you. You stop self blaming because you know that this term exists. That knowledge really brings relief. Dr. Farah Islam 7:29 I love how you mentioned that as well. Having the space to put words to what we’re experiencing is so important. We make those smiley face, sad face. We absolutely oversimplify things, constructs that are difficult and complicated and nuanced. Unfortunately that’s part of being human. When we see something that’s difficult for us to understand, or we fear it, or it’s too complicated, it’s too messy, we would rather gloss it over with a pretty happy face or make it pretty for ourselves, because it brings us that discomfort. So inshaAllah this mental health journey that all of us are on, being more woke to ourselves and being more woke to what we’re going through does require getting into that messy, nitty gritty, complicated, dark, turbulent stuff, and digging around in that mud, and trying to really understand, what are we really experiencing? SubhanAllah. Saba Malik 8:34 In your professional experience, what do you think makes someone avoid those difficult, uncomfortable emotions? What makes someone oversimplify things in their head, especially when it comes to their own experiences? Why does someone have a tendency to do that, or even as a group of people, as a family, seeing someone struggle with a mental health issue. Why does someone use that glossy sticker and just slaps it on them and says, “This is what it is. We figured out. It’s fixed.” Why do we have a tendency to do that? Dr. Farah Islam 9:08 It’s so true. It’s one of the most human of tendencies. As human beings, we would do anything to avoid pain and when we go through those dark times, whether it’s trauma in our in our families, or these dark periods of time, we would rather shove it away, put it into a closet, put it under the rug, and pretend that it didn’t happen. We think that is easier for us but of course, in the long run, that trauma, that darkness, those parts of us that still hurt us, will still continue to jab us from the inside. We haven’t really actually put it away because we haven’t processed it. That idea of having to process it, face our demons, face our darkness. It’s scary, it’s painful, and it’s understandable that as people, as individuals, as families, we try to run from it rather than to face it. Saba Malik 10:07 That’s true. It is difficult. One quote that really struck me is when you said, “Lean into the discomfort.” How can someone do that? Lean into the discomfort because it can be very scary. With COVID and recovering from it mentally, socially, psychologically, it is very scary to go down that path, especially if you’re alone. And you basically are alone in your head. How can a practicing Muslim, or someone who’s spiritual, increase their reliance on Allah? How can someone get away from that spiritual bypassing even to themselves? What are small, tangible little things that someone can say to themselves, little habits that they can put into action? How can they have a grasp on this spiritual bypassing and toxic positivity because it can be a very big thing, especially for someone who recently got anxiety, or depression. They might not know that they’re doing this to themselves and that brings them sadness. I find sadness is okay, but when it gets into despair, that is a very, very dangerous beast. As Muslims, part of our belief is having hope in Allah and despair is from the Shaytan. He wants us to despair. So how do we get a grasp on the sadness and not move towards that despair? What are things that you would recommend to somebody who’s experiencing depression or anxiety, especially in this COVID period we are coming out? Dr. Farah Islam 11:48 That’s beautifully stated. Let me also just say this: I’m not a therapist. I’m not a clinician. I’m coming from an education background, teaching people about mental health and stigma. One thing I always recommend is if you are going through a difficult time, or you are in despair, absolutely do reach out and seek help. We have amazing mental health services now and wonderful professionals. I’ve been doing this exercise myself and I do recommend it. We went through a really difficult dark time together. All of us did as a world. We went through COVID. We went through this idea of lockdown, and socially distancing ourselves, doing things that are completely unnatural to us as human beings. I think it is a very necessary and important exercise to look back on what was your COVID “resilience story?” What did this period of COVID and lockdown do to you? What were those dark periods? What were the highlights? Where did it take you? Where were your emotions? How was it with your family and your relationships? Explore it. Write about it and be honest with yourself. You want to get to the real honest emotions, really dig down deep to what you really felt. Was it fear? I think for a lot of us, it was this sort of fear of uncertainty and this fear of, “I don’t know what’s going to happen.” Sso when you’re able to sit with yourself and understand what your real deep fears are, you can begin inshaAllah to climb out of those fears, and to have that tawakul in Allah. However, it does require you to sit with those difficult feelings and emotions that you may have buried and put away. And for me, it has been a lot about writing to myself. I also started seeing a therapist. It is such an amazingly powerful and empowering journey. And I do recommend it. It was a dark time for us as a family. We went through some very difficult times and add COVID on top of all of that. So therapy was a very important way for me to really process. We judge our emotions. We think that these are good emotions: being positive, being resilient, being hopeful. And these are bad emotions: being angry, being in despair being. Yet the thing is as human beings we feel all these emotions and Allah subhana ta’ala gave us those emotions, so that we can tune in as messages to what we’re going through. Judging ourselves for having bad emotions means that what we’re going to end up bottling our “bad emotions” and trying as hard as we can to focus on the good. However you can’t do that. Let’s say you experienced a death in your family, or something diffcult like COVID, if you only try to tellyourself to just be happy, don’t worry but you are worried, you’re not tuning into what you’re experiencing. I find that the problem with toxic positivity is that we’re deceiving ourselves. We’re painting this beautiful picture, sunset, mountains, whatever we want to see. Yet, we are blinding and barring ourselves from the difficult reality that’s actually in front of us. It cripples us, because we don’t deal with the issues that are actually at hand. We can’t even see them. The whole idea of having rose colored glasses or having rose colored blinders is that the lens is opaque. You can’t even see through it. That’s absolutely not helpful. It doesn’t let you see what’s in front of you. So while we think we’re fostering resilience and strength because we are muscling our way through our tough times, we’re actually making ourselves less resilient because we’re not facing the actual darkness that we’re going through. So the exercise (your COVID resilience story) really is about digging to the root of what you’re experiencing. What is the real, honest raw emotion you’re feeling? Maybe it presents itself as anger. Maybe you’re angry because you lost your job due to COVID so sit with yourself, talk it out with someone you love, trust, whether that’s a therapist, a family member, a friend, or just yourself. Write it out, explore it. “Wait a minute. Let me think about what the root of this fear is. I’m scared of what it means for me to lose my job. Do I lose my identity? How am I going to take care of my family? What’s going to happen to my career?” And maybe at the bottom of it is just sadness that you lost that (job). Acknowledge what you’re experiencing. Feel it and don’t deny it or judge it. Do not to bury it or rationalize it away. I think that’s what we often do subhanAllah. Just be honest with yourself. Be raw and honest. Saba Malik 18:01 It’s funny when you talk about the rose colored glasses because I remember five years ago, I had written a blog post mentioning the sentence, “Leave me alone. And don’t mind me if I put on my rose colored glasses, because everything is great with bipolar. Nothing is wrong. Look at the positive.” I did that for a while but then I said I am lying to myself. This really sucks. It’s hard. How long am I going to denyand just show a happy face that I’ve got this? I’m strong, I’ve conquered bipolar. Then you realize I really haven’t. I’m still frail. I’m still human. I need a therapist. I’m glad that you just mentioned therapist as a regular thing. If someone is gaining weight or they’re not eating well, they start thinking, I need to eat better, maybe get a trainer, maybe go to the doctor. There’s no judgement. I think we need to think about therapy in the same sense. It’s a trainer for your mental health. The more we talk about it, it just normalizes it. Dr. Farah Islam 19:21 The name of your podcast is you, “Mentally Fit Muslims!” It’s about mental fitness. It’s a natural thing to take care of your heart, soul and mind. Saba Malik 19:33 It was funny when I was naming it. I thought, “What’s it about?” It’s about mental illness and people who have mental illnesses, so I’ll call it Mentally Ill Muslims. I don’t want the illness to be the focus though. There is even one psychiatrist he said, I don’t think we need to use the term “mental illness.” If anything, we can call it mental health issues, or just mental disorders. Mental illness is a big label. It’s a very heavy label. Once somebody falls into that, it starts to set the tone for their wellness and treatment. Define it as mental fitness or a mental. The vocabulary really plays a big role. About the COVID resilience story, I think of this podcast because it was born during the COVID time. Dr. Farah Islam 20:46 Oh, that’s amazing. Maybe you’ve been documenting your COVID resilience. Saba Malik 20:50 I think I have and I wasn’t really sure that’s what I was doing. Dr. Farah Islam 20:53 MashaAllah and this is something that got you through it and having conversations with wonderful people alhumdulillah. My COVID resilience story was going back and thinking about what it was like when we first learned we had to be in COVID. Under lockdown, what that meant, all the difficult emotions, the turmoil that it put me, my husband and my family through. I don’t know how it was for everybody but my husband and I approached this whole idea of lockdown and COVID very differently. He went busy, busy mode. He was trying very hard to put all these other elements in place. He was in work mode. For me, I went into this mode to protect our family, work on our relationships. I felt we were not on the same page. That destabilized a lot of our families to begin with. For many families, the gender roles became very magnified under COVID as well. There were all these pressure or stress points, and we were all put into turmoil in different ways. Saba Malik 22:11 It’s true. In the beginning I thought, I got time off. Everybody’s home. Let’s be super productive. I made schedules, timelines, put up calendars. I thought it would last three months: March, April, May. Come June, I should get this much work done so I have a really great summer. Yet, in June we were still in lockdown. I thought maybe fall, we can go apple picking because things will open but cases kept going up. Winter was the hardest. This year, in March. I’m realized I don’t know when this is gonna end. I realize not that the first year was the toxic positivity. Now I have to lean into the discomfort. I have to face this. The spiritual bypassing came crumbling down to. I had to have a real conversation with myself, Allah and the people around me. Just setting boundaries and having those uncomfortable conversations is a very difficult thing for me because stonewall. If I can’t deal with something, I just walk out. That is not a good strategy. In COVID, in lockdown, you cannot walk out. There’s no where to go. You’re stuck. Alhumdulillah. I want to be able to look back at this COVID time and not apply that happy or that sad label. I’m just so blessed that alhumdulillah you came into my life gave me your time and I was able to talk to you. Up till now, we talked about dealing with spiritual bypassing and toxic positivity. It’s going to take me some time to get used to these terms. Dr. Farah Islam 24:13 They’re a mouthful. Saba Malik 24:14 They are. However, it’s not as much of a mouthful as compared to what goes on in my head. The racing thoughts and everything else goes so fast. I especially want to teach it to the next generation. Let’s say you have a little child and they fall down. You say, “Oh, it’s okay. Everything’s fine. You’re fine. Don’t be sad. Don’t cry. Come on. Stop crying. You’re a big girl. You’re a big boy. Boys don’t cry.” Dr. Farah Islam 24:51 Yes. Exactly the things we say. Saba Malik 24:55 It’s taught from such an early point on because we haven’t made mental health and learning about it a priority. I hope inshaAllah, in the future, in our education system, we can have courses on mental health just like we have gym. Even me saying the word “mental” connotates somebody who’s “crazy.” “Oh, your mental. You’ve gone mental.” We need to change the way we see this term and reframe them. What do you think? Dr. Farah Islam 25:38 100%. So much of mental health stigma is rooted in our language because of our fears and misunderstandings. For many of us, mental health or mental health issues or illness is this great unknown. We don’t understand it. We start to use language that really doesn’t encompass the full sort of nuance of what a person goes through. Like you were saying, you’re trying so hard to show the positive side of being bipolar and how exhausting that became. Not being true to yourself means you’re not allowing yourself to show the full range of all the emotions and experiences of what it means to be a complicated, interesting, wonderful human being who also happens to live with bipolar disorder. You’re trying to deny the other parts of ourselves. It becomes very exhausting, subhanAllah. I loved you mentioned what we say to our children. “Don’t cry. Boys don’t cry. You’re okay.” When we do that to our kids, they usually cry even louder. They cry even harder. Or they freeze. You can see from their eyes they must be very scared, or in pain, but they don’t know how to express it to you. Of course, we want to build a healthy, beautiful home, where our children do come to us when they’re in pain. That does start with when they’re two years old, they’ve scraped their knee, and you’re able to, with compassion with empathy, get down to their level and say, “I see you got hurt. Are you okay? How are you feeling?” It’s being able to resonate with their experience and not explain it away because it’s uncomfortable or not convenient for us. Saba Malik 27:39 That’s starting to make sense. We started off by defining the terms, then we talked about it and gave some examples. Now I want to apply it and you can let me know whether I’m “doing spiritual bypassing” or not. Here’s the scenario. Let’s say your kid falls down. They scrape their knee, and you admit that it hurts. “I know it’s tough. I know you’re in pain.” What would you say that’s okay? I would point them back to Allah and say, “He’s the healer. He can fix this and He is perfect. We’re not. We get hurt.” Would you say that’s spiritual bypassing still? I want to be able to respond and let them know that there’s hope. I’m not trying to put a mental bandaid. I’m going to give them a physical bandaid. When you bring Allah in the picture and just mention His name so that someone thinks about Him when they don’t feel okay, is that spiritual bypassing? A child is not going to know the term spiritual bypassing, but they’re definitely going to feel it. So would you say mentioning Allah’s attributes is spiritual bypassing? What’s your opinion? Dr. Farah Islam 29:17 It’s complicated stuff. I love how you bring up examples. There’s no cookie cutter, perfect way that we could respond. It really depends actually on the receiver and the situation. If you feel that your child, or whoever you may be speaking to, would receive solace from those words, connecting them with Allah, reminding them Allah is the healer and if you think that would give them real solace to their pain, then alhumdulillah it’s the perfect and wonderful thing to say. If they’re not ready to receive that message, maybe not at that moment, maybe they’re bleeding, maybe you need to first stop the bleeding and get them to a more calm place, and then give them those words of hope, inshaAllah, then do that. It’s sort of a beautiful dance of back and forth and to understand where that person is at. I think a nice way with kids too is you kind of ask questions rather than make statements. We could say something like, “I see we’re in a kind of a difficult situation right now. So you’re a little in a little bit of trouble, you’re in pain. What kind of du’a do you think we can make to Allah so He can help us or something like that. So you’re also involving your child in that brainstorming. They’re part of the solution. They’re coming up with the solution themselves rather than us telling them. Saba Malik 30:39 I love that: asking them questions instead of stating stuff. That puts them in control, in charge of their experience. They define it. They come to the realization that I am feeling this. I think it makes them feel like they’re not being rushed into “recovery” even though as an adult it’s just a little cut. It gives them agency and power over their own experience. Dr. Farah Islam 31:10 When our children come to us asking for a band aid, they’re coming to us because they’re scared. They’re afraid but they also just want your comfort your love and your attention. Gettting them cute band-aids and just doing that for them. That’s exactly what we want to do as parents. Be that person they can come to in times of need in those times of distress, and we can help them inshaAllah. There’s that sort of fine balance of not resonating with their experience and not helping them at all. Then the other part of that is the helicopter parenting of always jumping in and trying to rescue them from pain but of course, as we know subhanAllah spotlight, life has pain and hardship. Those are some of our greatest teachers in life. I’m sure we can say that and understand. There is that very difficult juggle and balance of not trying to rescue them or trying to protect them too much and at the same time not feeding them too much. It’s a difficult dance subhanAllah as parents. Saba Malik 33:15 It is difficult. I think it’s important we make our life Allah-focused, have trust in Allah that He is the ultimate One who’s going to take care of everything. If my child or even a parent, a sibling, a friend is going through a really difficult time, I wish I could just jump in, fix everything, because then I wouldn’t have to experience and watch them lose it or spiral out of control. I wish I could do that but it’s that stepping back and trusting that what they’re going through, they can figure it out themselves. I just need to be there on the sideline supporting them, letting them know I’m present, I’m here for you and at the same time Allah is the ultimate One who’s here for you and who is present. Dr. Farah Islam 34:08 Alhumdulillah, all this toxic positivity and spiritual bypassing, I’ve been doing a lot of reading of Dr. Susan a David and Dr. Brene Brown. They’re the ones who often talk about these two very interesting concepts. They even did a podcast together so I’m sure you can check that out Saba. Saba Malik 34:32 I’ve heard of Brene Brown’s podcast and she has really great guests on. What I love about her is that she’s very real. She doesn’t hide that she has tough stuff going on, even though she’s done decades of research. I want to hear what Susan A. David because I don’t know about her. Dr. Farah Islam 34:57 David also often talks about toxic positivity. Reading both Dr. Susan A. David and Dr. Brene Brown talking about these two concepts, I think we initially will listen to these concepts and think, “There were these times in my life with this person, that person who maybe did this to me.” But I think the “Aha” moment for me when it’s a real learning experience is when I put that lens back onto myself. When have I spiritually bypassed others? Or where have I not really listened and tuned into someone’s pain? When have I told them, “Go pray it away. I don’t want to deal with this. Just be happy.” I am absolutely 100% guilty of it myself. I think that’s when the real learning opportunity came for me. When I was able to see that these are things I need to stop, see, or I need to tune in more to the pain of others, into what’s happening around me. Saba Malik 36:02 It’s like you’ve got that distance by focusing inward and saying, When did I do that same thing that I’m accusing someone else of? Once you put yourself in that situation, you say wait, I’ve done that many times. The other thing is that if we’ve done it to others, that means we’re very regularly, if not constantly, doing it to ourselves. Dr. Farah Islam 36:30 I was just thinking how all of us as human beings we react to the same situation, but we react to it differently. My sister and I, we were going through this difficult time in our family, and our reactions were in a way opposite. I was just crying a lot and she was more angry. And I know I did the whole toxic positivity. I did that to her as well saying I was not comfortable with her anger and her expressing that. That’s exactly what you’re saying Saba. What that means is that I’m not comfortable with my own anger. That’s also something I absolutely deny to myself. When I’m angry, I just pretend that it didn’t happen. I bottle it up and throw it away. I hide it because I’m not comfortable with that anger. It was a lot of leaning into that discomfort and thinking, “Wait a minute, I told my sister it’s not okay for her to be angry.” That’s horrible, right? Why did I do that! Saba Malik 37:37 Oh my God, I was just going to spiritual bypass and say, “You probably did great. You’re fine.” Wait, no, that’s toxic positivity and we just talked about it for the past 40 minutes. And it’s good that we’re talking about it because then you start to notice it. It’s kind of a backwards thing. First, you see it somewhere outside, then you talk to someone about it and then it starts to go and sink in. Once you do the work in your head, your brain mulls it over and then you start noticing it outside. It’s not so scary anymore to lean into those uncomfortable situations. What really helps is having this invisible wall or boundary. It’s not there to shut the person out or the uncomfortable situation. It’s just to give yourself some distance. You can think of it as you hovering above the situation and just watching it as an observer to see what’s going on. I find that really helps you look at it objectively. What do you think? Dr. Farah Islam 38:57 Yes, that’s also the concept in cognitive behavioral therapy. It’s having that space or that pause between your thoughts, feelings and behavior. I think that’s actually what you mentioned Saba. We all need that moment to pause, remember Allah, center ourselves and ground ourselves. Say Bismillah and then respond to whatever is in front of us. Saba Malik 39:21 I’m going to put in a plug for Salah, prayer five times a day, that is our pause. The whole day we’re going in a horizontal axis. We’re going this way, we’re getting that done and doing that errand. Then when it’s Salah time, you’re transported and pulled upwards. It’s the first time you’re looking on a vertical axis. For the first time you’re looking up and connecting yourself to Allah. That’s a great way to get that distance without shutting yourself out because you feel support Allah who created these emotions. He created sadness. He created anger. I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie inside out. Dr. Farah Islam 40:04 Yes lol. Saba Malik 40:06 I just learned it was made by psychologists and in there, the main character is Joy. All she wants to do is tell sadness, “This is a circle. You stay in there” because she seems to think that sadness doesn’t have a purpose. However, it does serve a purpose. It’s just another emotion. Then going back to what you were saying that don’t label emotions as good or bad. Just like food, don’t label it as good or bad but as healthy and less healthy. This food is going sustain me and this is going to bring me down. It’s looking at it in a better way. Dr. Farah Islam 40:48 That’s right, (looking at emotions) in a non-judgmental way. I love that too. It’s a paradigm shift of looking at our emotions just as messages. They are internal text messages or communication. They tell us what we’re going through. So, if we’re denying those messages, we are putting ourselves in more pain. We’re putting sadness into a square, a circle, or putting our anger into a box and telling ourselves that we’re not allowed to feel these emotions. We deny ourselves the full spectrum of the beauty of this life’s subhanAllah. Even our Prophet (sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam), one of his beautiful teachings is that the spiritual heart is as inconsistent as boiling water. Saba Malik 41:41 Hmm, I didn’t know that. Dr. Farah Islam 41:45 Our spiritual state is always changing. It’s a natural reality of human existence. Why are we denying ourselves by saying that, “No you always need to be positive. You always need to be this, this, this?” That’s so judgmental. That’s absolutely de nying what the reality actually is. Isn’t our deen true in that we acknowledge what the human heart, the spiritual state and emotions really are. Saba Malik 42:21 I love that. We acknowledge the tough part too. The heart does change. I agree with what you’re saying. It is beautiful. We need to look at our faith and see how balanced it is and apply that in every little aspect of our life, especially in the way we think. Is there anything else you wanted to add before we wrap up? It’s been a great conversation. I’m so grateful that you came on. Dr. Farah Islam 43:20 That was a wonderful wonderful session. I think we covered what I’d wanted to say on hum teeny net. One du’a I’ve been really reflecting on through COVID has meant a lot to me. We’ve gone through so much uncertainty and difficulty. I felt that the whole concept of Allah taking everything out of your hands or emptying your hands so that He can give you more, so much of COVID felt like that for me. I lost my job. I had all these difficult things happen in my family. I felt my hands became very empty subhanAllah. Then going into Ramadan with those empty hands made my du’a and connection with Allah subhana ta’ala so much more powerful and deeper than it ever had been. I really do encourage all of us to lean into that discomfort and dark times. Lean into the times where you feel empty, where you feel you don’t have anyone but Allah because that’s when you find Him. That is when you find Him in your life and in your heart. One du’a I found really powerful was: Arabic: اللَّهُمَّ آتِ نَفْسِي تَقْوَاهَا وَزَكِّهَا أَنْتَ خَيْرُ مَنْ زَكَّاهَا أَنْتَ وَلِيُّهَا وَمَوْلاَهَا Transliteration: “Allaahumma Aati nafsee taqwaahaa, wa zakkihaa, Anta khayru man zakkaahaa, Anta Waliyyuhaa wa Mawlaahaa.” Translation: “O Allaah! Grant my soul its dutifulness (taqwaa), and purify it, You are the One to purify it: You are its Guardian and its Lord.” (Muslim 2722) “Allaahumma Aati nafsee taqwaahaa.” Give my nafs, my soul, it’s taqwa. “Anta khayru man zakkaahaa.” You are The Greatest One. You are The One who purifies You are The Best of those who purify. “Anta Waliyyuhaa wa Mawlaahaa.” You are its protector. You are our Guardian. Allah is the Guardian, The Protector. He is The Mender of our hearts. He is Al-Jabbar, The Restorer. Focusing on that beautiful aspect of Allah (as The Restorer, The Protector, The Mender) when I felt so broken was so powerful for me this Ramadan. Saba Malik 45:35 JazakiAllahu Khairun for sharing that. Lean into the discomfort. Lean into those ugly emotions. Turn to Allah. Can you say the du’a one more time? I have not learned that one and would like to add it to my bucket or toolbox? Dr. Farah Islam 45:54 Arabic: اللَّهُمَّ آتِ نَفْسِي تَقْوَاهَا وَزَكِّهَا أَنْتَ خَيْرُ مَنْ زَكَّاهَا أَنْتَ وَلِيُّهَا وَمَوْلاَهَا Transliteration: “Allaahumma Aati nafsee taqwaahaa, wa zakkihaa, Anta khayru man zakkaahaa, Anta Waliyyuhaa wa Mawlaahaa.” Translation: “O Allaah! Grant my soul its dutifulness (taqwaa), and purify it, You are the One to purify it: You are its Guardian and its Lord.” (Muslim 2722) Saba Malik 46:03 Du’a is positive but it does not have spiritual bypassing. It’s facing those uncomfortable things with The Being Who created these emotions. Dr. Farah Islam 46:03 You are being honest about how you are in total need of Allah. There is no spiritual bypassing there. You are being honest with how much you need Him. You’re asking The Only One Who can actually give you. That is empowering. Saba Malik 46:33 You would think that going to Allah and saying, “I’m in total need. I need your help,” would weaken you. Yet, I find that takes the pressure off of you. You can relax. You can let your shoulders down and know that there’s Someone taking care of you ultimately. Dr. Farah Islam 46:50 That’s right. One of the reasons why so many of us go out into nature is because that’s where we feel connected with Allah subhanahu ta’ala. It’s such a spiritual boost for us. We have that feeling that we’re not in nature. The bugs are flying, the weather changes, the sun is here. We’re not in control and that is actually our fitrah. Our natural state is to honestly and deeply believe that it’s only Allah subhanahu ta’ala Who is in control of our lives. However, when we live in this sort of built environment, this space, this concrete box we all inhabit, we believe we are in control. We believe we’re the master of our destiny. We believe that I have this job, I make this money, I put this food on the table. However, we can disrupt that hubris and arrogance that comes from living the way we live in this artificial way.When we go out into nature, and remember, “Oh, wait a minute. I’m not in control. I don’t have control over my surroundings and environment. Who is in control? The only one who is in control is Allah. That gives us freedom. It’s take this burden off your shoulders and you can just relax. All we ever wanted is for our soul, our very primordial part of us to recognize the Lordship of Ruboobiyah (having the firm belief that Allah alone is the Lord and Owner of all things) of Allah. Know that only Allah is in control. That’s another exercise that I do often recommend. In those times we feel overwhelmed with uncertainty, difficulties or when we’re not being true to who we are, we feel exhausted. So go out into nature, really commune with this beautiful earth subhanAllah Allah has given us. Remind yourself of the real connection, the vertical connection, that you’re mentioning, that you have wih Allah. I think this is also a very powerful way to get through a difficult time alhumdulillah. Saba Malik 49:09 I agree with that, especially the nature part. I do that so often. It’s a great way to lean into that discomfort because you realize that you’re not in control. You you feel at one because you’re part of that natural process. I just to recap the tips you gave. We just talked about: Taking a walk in nature Writing. You mentioned writing is really helpful for you. Therapy and CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy In general, anyone who listening can use these and implement them right away in their life. These three tips are packaged with du’a and connecting with Allah. I’m going to do my best not to slap the spiritual bypassing and toxic positivity sticker on to COVID. Thank you again for your time and for coming. I hope to have you on again inshaAllah and have a great day. Dr. Farah Islam 50:15 You too. This was a beautiful conversation. You are an inspiration You are amazing and I’m so honored (mashaAllah). Saba Malik 50:26 It’s nice to be in similar company. Asalaamu alaikum Dr. Farah Islam 50:32 Wa alaikum asalaam wa rahmatullah. Saba Malik 50:34 That’s it for today. I hope you enjoyed the show. I hope you benefited and if you did, please share this with your family and friends. Remember to rate and review this podcast on Apple podcast. Check out my website www.MentallyFitMuslims.org and www.SabaMalik.com . You can sign up for my email list there so every time I post a new episode, you’re in the loop. Alright, see you in my next episode, As salaam alaikum Previous Next

< Back Episode 5 - Iram Bint Safia on Parenting Uncomplicated Irambintsafia on “Parenting Uncomplicated” and Simple Ways to Manage Stress Aug 28, 2020 Saba Malik 0:00 Asaalamu Alaikum, I’m Saba Malik, and welcome to the Mentally Fit Muslims podcast. I hope you’re feeling great. Today I have a special episode for you. I sat down with my friend Iram. She is a homeschooling mom, and much, much more. I love talking with her. And I hope you really enjoy our conversation. And make sure to stay till the end and hear why we actually think that COVID was really good for us. Enjoy the show. Asalaamu alaikum Iram Irambintsafia 0:41 Wa alaikum asalaam wa rahmatullah. Saba Malik 0:43 How’s it going? Irambintsafia 0:44 It’s been well, can’t complain, Alhumdulillah. How are you? Saba Malik 0:48 I’m good. I’m Alhumdulillah. Thank you for coming on my podcast. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was kind of going crazy with the Corona thing and I have a young daughter. Then I hear about schools closing or opening and we have no clue and I was like, “What am I gonna do?” I’m already going crazy at home with my family. And now I have to think about her school. So I think I was just googling online “parenting and homeschooling,” then you popped up and I saw “Irambintsafia.” I’m like, “Hmm, interesting. Who is this?” lol Irambintsafia 1:26 Lol I’s like to ask. So did you find anything useful Irambintsafia? Did you find anything useful when you saw the name, when you clicked on it? Saba Malik 1:34 You know, the first thing I heard was one one of your Instagram videos, the one where your kids are in the background and they’re helping you record. So, one of them asked, “why Irambintsafia?” and you mentioned that your mom is a single mother and she raised you? Irambintsafia 1:50 Yeah, yes. Saba Malik 1:51 And you know, my mom raised us as a single mother too. That’s the first thing that clicked. I was like, okay, we have something in common lol. Irambintsafia 2:02 Alhumdulillah lol. Saba Malik 2:03 So that first pulled me in and then what is different between us is that you’re homeschooling three kids and I’m not. Well, I’m starting to homeschool now. So what is it like to homeschool three kids? And how do you stay sane? I just want to know, HOW do you stay sane? Irambintsafia 2:24 See, the thing that the video did not show was that I stay “sane.” So that’s an assumption that I leave for the world lol! Saba Malik 2:31 Oh really?! Lol! Irambintsafia 2:32 Ask my children. They will tell you stories. So yes, “Irambintsafia” came into being because I felt the need to make my own niche. I actually started blogging for another website and I had some sort of creative restrictions when it came to them. Although I’m very grateful that they gave me the platform, they gave me the opportunity Alhumdulillah. And then someone else actually asked me, “Why don’t you do it? Why don’t you do your own thing? And where’s your own voice? Where’s your own personality?” So that’s how the whole process of “Irambintsafia” and “Parenting Uncomplicated” by Irambintsafia came into being. I was always a speaker, a motivational speaker, and a bilingual motivational speaker. In fact, I speak in Urdu as well as I speak in English. So I’ve had my audiences in different parts of the world. And I knew that I had this ability to reach out to people and mostly all of us mothers, we have something in common that we share. We might be very different personalities, we might have very different backgrounds but when you become a mother, the first thing that a mother wants for her children is the best of everything, really the best of the best of home, education, love, emotional bonding. I don’t think there’s any mother who would not want all of that, security, safety. Saba Malik 4:09 I’ve heard other parents mentioned that too and I’ve read it on so many other blogs and articles. But what struck me with you was one of your recent posts that you just put up on Facebook and I saw it on Instagram as well. In the middle of it, you said that, “Parenting is the toughest job you sign up for and cannot resign from.” Irambintsafia 4:30 Yes, that’s true. Saba Malik 4:31 I have not read anywhere, something like that and I was like that is so true. It is something you sign up for and then you’re like, you can’t leave it. You cannot turn back and it is a full commitment, all your life. And it is tough. It’s very tough. And I think especially during this COVID time, and not knowing for parents, whether they should send their kids back to school. Alot of mothers who have to work and it’s just you know, a very unique situation. And Alhamdulillah I’m a teacher and I was able to take that option of homeschooling but you don’t have to have a teaching degree to be a homeschooler but it gave me that confidence that yes, I can do this. And I’m not working right now. So I could do that with my daughter. But also I saw that you just got your teaching degree from an online university? Irambintsafia 5:24 It’s an online Islamic University called as International Online University and I was enrolled in it for six years. Saba Malik 5:30 Wow, mashaAllah lol you finally got it! Irambintsafia 5:32 Lol Saba Malik 5:35 I think you already have multiple degrees in parenting. I don’t think you need a degree. I think you could be a professor of parenting. Irambintsafia 5:46 JazakAllah, Thank you so much. Of course, age, and children give you a lot of wisdom. The aches and pains that come along with being a parent. Yes Alhamdulillah. But my whole idea, I started homeschooling in 2015. So a short synopsis of my story is I was born and brought up in thre United Arab Emirates. I did my 12th grade there. My mom is a nurse by profession. I have a younger sister who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. She’s married Alhumdulillah. I got married right after in the last semester of my bachelor’s, which I was doing from Lahore while I was still settled in UAE. So I used to travel back and forth. And my last semester, I got this proposal, and I was so fed up with the degree I was doing, which was IT. Saba Malik 6:31 Oh, lovely lol Irambintsafia 6:32 And I absolutely hated it I was always very sure that I will become a teacher and in the 12th grade, I thought I can go into IT and make money, which was the most wrong decision of my life. Then I hated it so much that I thought getting married was better than completing that degree but I did not see an end to that. Very wrong assumption! It was just jumping from a frying pan into a fire! But somehow when the marriage started alhumdulillah, with the whole birthing and taking care of the babie, I got lost. I got depressed. I did not know I had so much anger and frustration built up in me that when my mom visited me once, back in 2009? No, 2010. Saba Malik 7:44 That was when you had your first child? Irambintsafia 7:46 No, by that time I had my third baby. Sorry, she visited me in 2011 and she said to me, “What is wrong with you? Why are you so apprehensive all the time? Angry, yelling, you know? These are just small children. Have some sabr. Have some patience.” She said this to me and I’ve said this many times in my stories and I will give a joke before I say the main line. I tell this to people, “If your mother-in-law would said these things to you, you would never forgive her.” But if your mother’s saying this to you, then you’re like, “Oh, yeah Mama! You’re so right!” Saba Malik 8:25 Oh, this has to be good! Lol! Irambintsafia 8:28 No, I mean, she just pointed out my behavior and she said, “You were so nice, and so kind to everybody around you except your own children. How are you being a good Muslim?” She put that question. She didn’t say anything more than that. She said, “You read Quran, you do Tafsir. You are a motivational speaker already. You work around people. You go out of your way to help your people but you are so unkind to your own children and they’re literally so scared of you. So please tell yourself, ask yourself this, how are you a good Muslim?” That hit me really hard and then I did not ask her what I need to do or what I don’t need to do. Then after a few days, I came across this certification, course for teaching at Delta College and I asked my husband if I could do this. My mom was like, “Sure, go ahead. I’m here. So I’ll take care of the children while you go for a few hours. That’s completely fine.” And that’s how my teaching journey started. I found so much fulfillment because as soon as I finished it, I started to teach preschool at the Islamic Islamic Academy of Delaware at Masjid Ibrahim in Delaware. I became a preschool teacher over there. I had a good mentor, sister Crystal and then I had a good partner sister Eman and the whole thing was really good for me. I went into that Saba and I realized while I was doing the certification, it actually opened my mind. SubhanAllah, these people have studied children and the research tells us exactly what the Sunnah tells us in how to be with younger children. So, long story short, two years of preschool teaching, and I said, “You know what, my children deserve the best of me.” So now I’m good. I’m stable, and I know what to do with them. So I packed them up and I brought them home and I said, “Mama is going to homeschool.” Saba Malik 10:25 What was their reaction? Irambintsafia 10:27 Noooo. Lol! So yeah, my eldest was in fourth grade. He was turning fourth grade. My middle one was starting second grade and my youngest was starting kindergarten. Saba Malik 10:42 Wow. So you took on three? Irambintsafia 10:44 Yeah, I took on three because I had learned and I had done my homework. I had done my homework extensively. I had read through books. And there was another thing. Before I had my children, I was introduced to Hamza Yusuf and John Gatto and I listened to their talks and articles. And in my head, I was like, “You know what, there’s something wrong with the schooling system.” I knew that before I even had my children. I knew that but the thing was I always thought, “Okay, you know what, I’m not going to send them to public schools, but I’ll send them to Islamic schools.” And I always separate myself from your generation, in a sense that I was not born here. I was not brought up here. I never even set foot in a school or university here. In my head. I was like, you know, I don’t know the system here. So Islamic school is safer for me and later on, of course, Alhumdulillah I came to homeschooling and since then, I’ve been homeschooling for six years. And when I brought them to homeschool, I said, “You know what, I should enroll myself in Bachelors of Education at the Online Islamic University and we never looked back again. Saba Malik 11:59 Congratulations on getting that. Irambintsafia 12:01 Alhumdulillah. Saba Malik 12:02 What’s so crazy is you’re mentioning the Islamic school and Sister Eman there and the funny thing is that my daughter was enrolled in that school last year, and her teacher was Sister Eman. She’s a preschool teacher now. Yes, yes. So that’s really crazy that you were teaching there. It’s also funny hearing you talk, it’s like we’ve been on a similar journey without having met one another. Even not being on the same timeline, it’s kind of the same journey because what happened to me is when I was in high school, and you said you always felt like you wanted to be a teacher, I had that same feeling. Two of my sisters, when they used to come home from school, I would just take them in my room, and I would pretend to be their teacher. I would help them finish their homework, had my own blackboard and everything. And in college, I went into the sciences and my goal was something in biology or something science related. I don’t know subhanAllah, last minute, I chose education. And when I went into education, I had my goal. My dream was one day when I becom a mom, I want to homeschool my own children. So that was my plan. I had it all set. Then bipolar happened lol. Irambintsafia 13:26 Okay lol! Saba Malik 13:30 The story didn’t go as planned. Everything was toppled over. It was like a storm and I had to make sense of it. I had to overcome mental barriers just to get what a “normal” person would have. And after a while, I stopped chasing the normal. I’m gonna make my own normal. Maybe it’s not at the rate other people are at but I’m just gonna do what I can. So how can you stay sane? What’s the actual stuff you do? Like how do you separate Okay, this is homeschool time, I’m going to teach my kids and now it’s time for mom. Nobody bother me. What would you do on a typical day? Irambintsafia 14:06 So the first thing I learned was, I needed to understand that I had to “de-school” myself. I came from a very rigid schooling system right? Sit down. Stand up. Walk in lines. Assembly time. Uniform should be perfect. Nails cut. Be the best student. Get the highest grade. I never got the highest grade. I was a good student up until the eighth grade. And then I was always, mashaAllah tabrakAllah, I mean, just imagine. My mom sent me two tutions to pass in my 10th and 12th grade and if the passing mark was 36, I got 37. Lol. She’s spent a lot of money for her daughter to not pass but get an A+ and her daughter brings home a passing mark. My mother, may Allah subhanahu taala protect her always from every harm and bless her immensely. She hasd patience. She was like, “Mera bacha pass ho gya. Alhumulillah.” Lol. Saba Malik 15:02 That’s so cute lol. There was always a focus on performance. Irambintsafia 15:08 Yeah, yeah. Saba Malik 15:09 Like, being a certain way, acting a certain way. Irambintsafia 15:13 It’s true. Yeah, true. So in college, one of the reasons that I was unable to complete my IT degree was because I had given up. I had given up on this idea that. You know, I’m not meant to study. I always appreciated for my other qualities, talking, speaking, being kind, mannerisms, altruism, all of that. I had all of those things. What I did not have was book smarts. I just did not have book smarts. And I couldn’t score 100 out of 100 and I couldn’t get even 15 in some certain subjects. I just couldn’t work. English came to me. Writing, in Urdu or English came to me naturally. History came to me naturally. These subjects, like the liberal arts came to me naturally, but when it came to the science subjects, I was always a mess. So khair alhumdulillah, I already by the time I became a mother, I was very relaxed. I did not have that notion that my child is going to go to school, and he’s going to get the first grade. No, because, you know, by college I had become like, if I passed with a C grade, I was like alhamdulillah sajdha shukr because I knew that I was much more than my grades. I knew that people liked me had something more to give. And nobody, when they see me are going to say, “Irambintsafia, what was your grade?” Who asks you that right? Nobody asks you that unless until of course you’re applying for certain jobs which was never my goal. Anyways, so coming back to parenthood, I was very relaxed. Then alhamdulillah, my husband, on the other hand, he was very like “army” because he went to army school, right? So he was very regimed. He was like, it should be like this, and it should be like this. But SubhanAllah, I am so grateful to him, that even though we are very different personalities, and every marriage has its pros and cons but when it came to raising children, he trusted me completely. And when I said I want to do Islamic school, he said, okay, Bismillah. And when I said I wanted to homeschool, he said, okay, Bismillah. He supported me without questioning me. Now I can take it in a very negative sense and I will say oh he said “joe murzi kar lo. (Do whatever you want). It’s okay. I don’t care.” But no, that was not it. He was concerned. And he asked me the correct questions. And he saw my research because I know how he works, right? I know how his mind works. So I’m prepared. I did all of my homework, and I went with research work. So he was like, “Okay, you know what, fine. Do it.” SubhanAllah I don’t remember the first day Saba. I still don’t remember it but I remember that my children refused to listen to me. They were like, “She’s gone crazy. What are you trying to do?” I did make a schedule and I made sheets, and I highlighted stuff but I did not know how to communicate. I did not know how to communicate with them from that teacher tone. I was studying on the side still on how to do that and my children alhumdulillah, they started coming around. How we started was we with a set curriculum. I got books from the library that were for their age group, that were being taught in the public and private schools. I saw their curriculum and I got very overwhelmed. I got really overwhelmed. And I was like, I can’t do this. This is too much work. I mean, like, who is going to do this? And then I asked around other people, and then I did more research and then I got with the eclectic method. I instantly jumped into the eclectic. Saba Malik 18:02 Can you describe that? Because I saw on one of your videos you talked about that. Can you tell me more about that? What does that look like? Irambintsafia 19:20 It’s basically a mishmash of other methods. For example, when we doing Quran studies, we are doing the classical method where we are doing rote memorization or the Charlotte Mason method. So we don’t have any ease on that. We know exactly that this is the time that we’re going to sit and this is the time that we’re going to do our Quranic studies. When it comes to reading, understanding and poetry and doing you know all of these things, then we go with the Charlotte Mason method where there are a lot of read alouds. The classical method and the Charlotte Mason method both have the same strategy that let the children read. Let the children read aloud, or read it to them when they’re younger or read with them, depending upon how the child likes it. All of our English, science, social studies went into reading. I gave them paragraphs and lessons and did all of the read alouds with them when they were younger, and then let them read when they are now MashAllah able to read. I never touched the Maria Montessori method. That was too heavy for me. So I never even touched that. Saba Malik 20:32 Okay. Irambintsafia 20:34 Then I even started with the “Time for Learning” online schooling. I even tried that in my first year but it was a very bad experience and I will tell you why. It was not because “Time for Learning” is a bad thing. No, MashAllah, It’s a very good program. It’s like a box curriculum. It’s like bringing school into home curriculum and it’s easy. It’s pretty easy. Saba Malik 20:59 Is that something you sign up for? Irambintsafia 21:00 Yes, but I honestly believe it’s for older children. Now, my son who is 14 can do “Time for Learning” but back then, six years ago, he was not able to manage it. Younger children were not able to manage online learning unless you’re sitting with them. And that for me defies the whole process of homeschooling that if I’m sitting with them for 3, 4 hours and then they’re doing it like a school system, then that’s not homeschooling. That’s basically school and house, which a lot of people like to do and can do. But I couldn’t. That was not my style. I was already anti-school, and got so much anxiety for myself and for my children. Why would I bring that into my house? Saba Malik 21:47 How did you become anti-school? Irambintsafia 21:50 Well, as I told you, I was always “C, D, E.” There was no respect for the “C, D, E” students. And you know, I was something of a mix. If you did not know my grade, you would like me. The teacher would really like me but as soon as the teacher saw my test paper, she would be like, “What is wrong with you?” Saba Malik 22:04 It’s so funny people. They judge you, even ourselves, according to our grades. Irambintsafia 22:12 Right. Saba Malik 22:13 And if we get out of school, and we have our careers, we judge ourselves based on our income. And then once we get married, we judge ourselves on how many children we have compared to the neighbors. Or how many pounds we have or can’t lose or our cars. What is it worth? It is always the numbers. And that all, a lot of people know how to measure their worth, their productivity. And if they’re not producing a certain amount, if their “net worth” is not what society is saying it should be, we start to feel worthless. We feel, “Oh, I haven’t accomplished anything. I’m not lovable or likeable.” And like you’re saying when people didn’t know your grades, they would love you. Irambintsafia 22:58 Yeah. I was specifically talking about my teachers. I mean subhan Allah, it was so funny. Saba Malik 23:04 That made you anti-school. Irambintsafia 23:06 Yeah, I was like come on, seriously? Who has their “A” on their forehead but subhanAllah, there’s a surah that Allah subhanahu wa tala talks about in the Quran: “Al haaku mut takathur. Hatta zurtumul-maqaabir.” “Until you reach your graves, Allah says, if you are into this habit of counting and evaluating and doing this, and contrast (comparing) with the other person, you will just die like that. And even after that, will if you would be given the freedom to choose, you would say no, my qabr (grave) should be better than the other person’s qabr and you know, design it like this and like that lol astagfurAllah. Saba Malik 23:48 Thart reminds me of your three E’s, and one of them is ethical goodness. When I saw it on Instagram, ethical goodness, what does that mean? What does that look like? And hearing you talk, that is basically what it sounds like, to me ethical goodness. Focusing on “what does Allah want?” What is going to be in the end? What have I brought forth? Is it gonna be how big my house is? We hear this right? Don’t focus on how big your house is, your car and your kids and your looks. And the thing I find is that when I’m in the situation, and I am doing that comparison, I don’t notice I’m comparing in my heart. Intellectually I know, I’ll blog about it, I’ll write about it but when I’m in the situation to have that awareness is so difficult. And then in your post in one of them, you said, Taqwa-filled human.” I was like, amazing. Irambintsafia 24:49 Thank you, Alhumdulillah. Saba Malik 24:53 MashaAllah. Irambintsafia 24:55 Like I said, in that post, again, the one that you were saying, we’re not good humans and then we become parents. And when I say we’re not good humans, is doesn’t mean naudzubillah we are some evil kind of a being. I’m not saying that. It’s just that we don’t have restraints on our nafs and we lash out on the children because they’re the most vulnerable of people around us. We cannot lash out like that with our husbands. If we do that, we will be like divorced or separated within five minutes of our marriage lol subhanAllah. Saba Malik 25:34 The younger kids, because they have no power, they’re basically at our mercy. Irambintsafia 25:38 And we abuse that power. And I as a parent, I’ve done that to my children and I recognize that and I do apologize to them. When I remember, I do tell them that at this point, this was happening with me, and I’m so sorry I did it to you. And, alhumdulillah. I have trained myself to some extent, but then there are some crazy days too but my children are alhumdulillah now they’re trained enough to know and tell me “Mama, you’re going back there. Come back, come back.” Saba Malik 25:39 Wow. Irambintsafia 25:43 Yeah because I trained them. I told them, “Listen, I know my flaws. I very well know my flaws and I’m telling you my flaw,s not so that you could rub it in my face when I’m low but tell me to overcome it. Be my support system.” Saba Malik 26:23 Yeah, that is a great thing to teach them. Irambintsafia 26:26 And in my head you know Saba, I honestly believe that we are not in control of the people that they’re going to have as their partners or be married to. And one of the things that I’ve learned from my marriage is that I have to teach my children to be able to communicate. Regardless of what relationship they are in, whether it’s a parent, or it’s a spouse, or it’s an in-law, they should know how to respectfully communicate. Because half of my problems that I had created in my head were my own creation. And I kept blaming the people in my life for the heartaches that I had. When that light bulb went “ding” in my head, I understood. MashAllah Iram, I mean, come on lol. Saba Malik 27:14 How did that lightbulb… Irambintsafia 27:17 Happen? Saba Malik 27:18 What was that moment? What led up to it that things turned on for you in your head? Irambintsafia 27:23 I was able to make dua. So for me, spirituality is my strength. I mean, I do understand the spirituality might not be everybody’s strength but for me, it was my core. It is my core, alhumdulillah. It used to frustrate me the word “compromise.” I hated that word. I hated that word that what does compromise mean? What does sabr mean? And subhanAllah in my head, I was so scared for asking for sabr because in my head, I thought sabr comes to only those who are miserable. I thought that sabr means that indirectly, you’re going to be in misery, and then you’re going to have sabr. When I we used to read Quran and learn Quran, I was like Allah loves the sabireen and shakireen. So I said, “Ya Allah, please give me shukr and give me that station where I’m always in your shukr but I don’t have to go through sabr. Saba Malik 28:20 Hmmm. That’s not life though. Irambintsafia 28:21 Yeah, lol. Saba Malik 28:22 You always have to go through that. Irambintsafia 28:24 Yeah. And when that situation, and many situations like that happened over the 14 years, I went back to the events of my life and I said, “Iram, you did sabr here and Allah rewarded you and then you did sabr here and Allah rewarded you and when you did sabr here, Allah rewarded you.” So what are you running from actually? You have been doing sabr all this time. SubhanAllah. Saba Malik 28:47 So that was like the slow realization. It’s not like one day you woke up and you’re like, Okay, I know not to blame others. And I know I have sabr. I’ve done it in the past. Slowly, slowly, it dawns on you. Irambintsafia 28:59 Yes because humans are stubborn like hell lol Saba Malik 29:03 Yes. That’s what I want our audience to know that, especially when they’re going through a mental challenge, whether it’s just like having stress or raising kids, or having a mental illness, like depression, or postpartum or anxiety, any of those… that we don’t wake up one day, and we’re like, okay, “ding, I have the solution. I know what to do, and everything will be fine.” I think we expect clear cut roads in life and it doesn’t work like that. You know, imagine a cork in the ocean and sometimes there’s waves so the cork goes up, and then the waves go away so it comes down. It’s just like up and down, up or down and we just have to learn to go with the flow and sabr and shukr are definitely like the guidepost. And just like you, faith is huge for me. Islam. I don’t think I would be alive, literally, if I didn’t have Islam, if I wasn’t a Muslim. And the reason is I had a very, very severe, suicidal attempt. And at that moment, everything gave out. It’s often difficult for people to hear about it right? It’s sometimes difficult for me to talk about it, too but the one thing is, I don’t remember much of the moment, but I do remember being there. I was sitting on the ground and I felt this power above me. Irambintsafia 30:35 Alhumdulillah. Saba Malik 30:35 I couldn’t understand, physically, mentally. I couldn’t really, I didn’t have any control over my body but I felt there was a power above me. And I call that Allah. I felt, I literally feel like that at that time, my knowledge of Islam got out of my head and I actually experienced it, and I felt it. Nowadays, people are like, “Why are you always talking about, mentally fit, but with Muslims? Why are you always bringing Islam into mental health? Why don’t you just talk about mental health?” Irambintsafia 31:06 Why? Saba Malik 31:08 I cannot separate the two. If I didn’t have that faith, I wouldn’t be able to continue with that mental recovery. So the sabr and shukr is definitely key because when you’re in a hardship, we go through three states all the time, we’re either in the hardship, or we’re in a blessing, or we’re committing a sin. We’re always in one of these three stations. Irambintsafia 31:34 That’s true. Saba Malik 31:35 When we’re in a test, our act of obedience needs to be that I’m going to have sabr. When we’re in a blessing, our act of obedience needs to be that I’m going to be thankful. I’m going to have shukr. And when I’m doing a sin, what’s the obedience? I make istighfar. I say sorry to Allah. In Islam, the solutions are built in. Irambintsafia 31:58 Yep. Saba Malik 31:59 We just have to seek that. Irambintsafia 32:01 True, very true. Alhumdulillah, mashaAllah tabarakAllah. I would add to that is why is it difficult for us Saba? Because we grew up on movie culture, right? A movie is two and a half hours long. In that movie, the turmoil happens, the sadness happens, the heart break happens, and then they live happily ever after. Saba Malik 32:20 Yes lol. Irambintsafia 32:20 Lol and unconsciously we think of ourselves like that. I will tell you this very frankly, and shamelessly that the only reason I married was I thought that I would live the life Siri Devi or Madhuri Dixit you know with all that jewelry and saris and singing along the trees hanging out with monkeys. And, my husband is always going to be head over heels in love with me. And, you know subhanAllah, we were fighting on the first day of our marriage so Mashallah tabarakAllah. That notion was really easily very quickly thrown out alhumdulillah. But the point is, we are so deluded subhanAllah. We talk about Islam. We talk about Quran and we teach our children stories. What we do not connect as adults, this is this is me, this is my experience, which took me such a long time to understand and it’s a very simple thing, but subhanAllah, you know, human, people, our minds. Prophets Muhammad sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam’s journey was 23 years of bringing Islam. Yusuf alayhis salam stayed his entire youth in the prison. Musa alayhi salam stayed 10 years outside of his homeland and then when he came back, he took the people of Bani Israel. He did not get to see the promised land. He died before that because his people were so stubborn. 14 years. They were in the desert, but they never entered Palestine. Right. SubhanAllah. Then talk about Ayub alayhi salaam. He had the severe of the diseases and how many years? They say 18 years, some say so many more. There are different numbers and he stayed with that disease. Now tell me this. If Allah has given us an exam, and I often think about Yunus alayhi salaam’s exam. I think about how he went into the whale’s stomach, and the other day my daughter asked me, “Mama, what is the inside of the, you know the belly of the whale look like?” I said, and this was the first time, I’m 38 years old, I have narrated the story to my children. It was the first time that I actually felt what it would have felt like. I said, “It must have been very dark. It must have been very smelly. It must have been very congested. It must have acids. I don’t know if he was able to even breathe properly. He must have been crunched and Allah says in the Quran that when he was spat out when he was thrown out of the belly of the whale, he had a disease all over his skin. And he was extremely sick and Allah subhanahu ta’Allah blessed him with health again, right? So my point is, we tell these stories to our children, but then we never tell them that all of these prophets had sabr. And we don’t tell them that, child of mine, whatever life will throw at you, it will take time to get off. It will take time to become better. We have forgotten because of instant gratification. We have forgotten, absolutely forgotten that Allah, the Creator of Time, the Creator of us, the Creator of the good and the bad, He is listening to us the whole while, but our journey is not two and a half, or three and a half hours of a movie. It’s a life journey. So I don’t know if I went on a tangent here but that was also a lightbulb situation for me too like, come on in, Iram. Saba Malik 36:03 No, that wasn’t a tangent at all. I think what you highlighted is the mental strength these prophets had. They did not seek instant gratification, instant results. On the contrary, they left things that they would never see their effects in their lifetime. Irambintsafia 36:20 Yeah. Saba Malik 36:21 I find that’s the same thing with our kids, raising them. We don’t always see, “Oh, okay, here’s the benefit, or this is what they’re learning.” No, even like, I hope when I’m gone from this earth, that she still carries on that good. And I think that’s the kind of focus we need to have because there are times when it’s so hard, when you’re like, I can’t do this. And that’s when I find, you know, like you were saying, I get so crabby. I just want to snap and you know, the closest person is my daughter. And poor her, you know, if she happens to be around, then she receives that. And it’s not fair to her at all. So I think having that perspective, to think that this is bigger than me, and we need that mental strength and it doesn’t come overnight. Irambintsafia 37:06 No, it does not. Saba Malik 37:07 What you’re talking about, that light bulb going on…just whether it’s parenting or having an illness like Ayub alayhi salaam had, he’s one of my favorites Iram. Irambintsafia 37:18 Alhumdulillah. Saba Malik 37:19 When I first got sick, somehow I I fell in love with him and his story. One point when I was reading his story was, so he had all those great things. He had his house, his kids has everything on his farm, riches, friends. And when he lost all that, and he basically had his wife and everyone else had abandoned him. She asked him, you know, you’re a prophet of Allah, why don’t you make dua and ask Allah to you know, bring everything back, get rid of this illness? He’s gonna answer you, of course. And, you know, what his reaction was? He actually got upset. Why? He said I had those all those blessings for so long, and the hardships have not even equaled to all all those blessings that I had. So he actually felt shy. Irambintsafia 38:09 Yes. Saba Malik 38:09 He felt shy to ask Allah. And he was actually praise, he would thank Allah for the hardship he was in. And that’s like, a whole another level of gratitude because it’s so easy to say, “Oh, thank you Allah for the nice weather or thank you for this beautiful food” because it’s something that we like, it’s something that is good. But to say thank you for something that is hard, for something that you don’t like, thank you Allah for COVID, thank you Allah for Trump lol Irambintsafia 38:39 But really, thank you Allah for COVID. Yes, because, I mean, I think a lot of us came back to our senses subhan Allah. Saba Malik 38:47 Yeah, and you know the whole Black Lives Matter, I was like, if we weren’t in quarantine, if we weren’t in lockdown., if all the entertainment shows, games weren’t turned off, this same thing, the George Floyd thing would have happened and we wouldn’t have noticed it. Irambintsafia 39:01 There’s so many men and women who die without being noticed. Saba Malik 39:05 Yeah and that three months of lockdown, where everything entertainment, kind of frivolous, whatever, like, you could still do it,fine. But it was something kind of unnecessary, you know? Irambintsafia 39:15 Yeah, yeah. Saba Malik 39:16 Once that was shut down, we woke up to a newer reality. We woke up to something like our Black brothers and sisters who have been fighting for so long. We actually felt their pain and it’s funny because in your video, you were saying I’m also an “activist” and then your daughter or son? Irambintsafia 39:33 Yeah daughter… Saba Malik 39:39 Yeah, so Iram, mother, writer, blogger, and educator, activist. You were a lot of hats. I really appreciate you coming on. I learned a lot from you and I know I have a lot to learn. Irambintsafia 39:52 JazakAllah Khair and I can say the same about you. Alhumdulillah I’m here and I’m learning from you too mashaAllah. JazakAllah Khair for so beautifully sharing your story and alhumdulillah I learned from you as well mashaAllah tabarakAllah. And hopefully inshaAllah once the COVID is a bit, actually we can still meet though we should plan to meet inshaAllah. Saba Malik 40:16 Yeh. Where can my audience or people who are listening, where can they find you? Irambintsafia 40:23 Okay, so they can find me on… I have two YouTube channels. There’s “Parenting Uncomplicated” which talks more about parenting, positive parenting, homeschooling, and it has both English and Urdu lectures in it because I do a lot of Facebook Lives and Urdu mommy groups. Saba Malik 40:43 Oh really? Irambintsafia 40:44 Yep so alhumdulillah. So I put those onto YouTube and then there’s just “Irambintsafia” on YouTube and the whole idea of Irambintsafia was bringing my motivational talk regarding religion and life reflections on it. I just did a Hajj series life reflection on that and I put it up there. So it is again bilingual. So my niche is basically immigrant parents and Urdu speaking parents regardless of whether they are immigrants or not. That’s the niche that I basically cater to. And apart from that, I’m on Instagram “Irambintsafia” and there it’s “sparks inspire.” So it’s irambintsafia_spark_inspire. And on Facebook, you have my page Irambintsafia. Saba Malik 41:31 So with this episode, in the show notes, I’ll put all the links to your social media, and people can click on that and check you out inshaAllah. Thanks again and I hope to talk to you soon. Irambintsafia 41:43 InshaAllah, JazakAllah Khair. Thank you for your time. Saba Malik 41:46 Really nice talking to you. I hope you really enjoyed the show and that you benefited from it. If you really found some value in it, please do leave me a review on Apple podcasts and give my show a rating. Okay, see you next time. Asalamu Alaikum Previous Next

< Back Episode 2 - Yasmin Mogahed on Depression Uplifting Words by Yasmin Mogahed When You Feel Depressed | Mini Mental Jul 17, 2020 Asaalamu alaikum, I’m Saba Malik, host of the Mentally Fit Muslims podcast. And here is today’s Mini Mental. Today’s Mini Mental is a quote by Sister Yasmin Mogahed. She’s the author of “Reclaim your Heart” and this is one of my favorite quotes from her. “To all those suffering from sadness or depression, know that it isn’t your fault. It isn’t because you’re weak, it isn’t because you’re just not grateful enough. It isn’t because you’re just not religious enough. It isn’t because you don’t have enough faith. It isn’t because God is angry with you to all the well meaning people who tell you this, just smile and know deep in your heart that the tests of God come in different forms to different people. And know that by the help of God, every test can become a tool to get closer to him. And that verily with every hardship, and like all things of this world, this too shall pass.” That’s it for today. See you next time, Asaalamu alaikum. Previous Next

< Back Episode 24 - Sleep with Insomnia How to Sleep When You Can’t Using Ayatul Kursi | Mini Mental Jul 5, 2021 When I find myself not being able to sleep, my mind wanders and it can lead me down a long, depressing, and anxious path. Trust me, I’ve been there too! But one thing that always helps calm the storm in my head is Ayatul Kursi. Simply reciting this powerful ayah (Quran 2:255) or even listening to it offers solace for your soul. Listen to this week’s Mini Mental episode where I explore how listening to Allah’s words can put us at ease spiritually and emotionally by discussing a unique method of matching your mood to the reciter’s tone. The reciters mentioned are Qari Fatih Seferagic and Omar Hisham Al Arabi. Episode 24 Transcript: I’m Saba Malik, and this is a Mini Mental. One of my best friends is insomnia. It’s always been with me. And it still is, but alhumdulillah I’ve learned to live with it and not just deal with it but actually use it to my benefit. Having mental health challenges means that you’re going to deal with insomnia, where you have trouble falling asleep at night. I’ve given a lot of tips in previous episodes on how to, you know, deal with difficult thoughts. But one of the times that challenging thoughts really hit me is at night when I’m supposed to be sleeping but everything just comes crashing in like a big wave. So what I’ve learned about myself is that I’m a big audio person. I mean, it makes sense I podcast, so audio stuff and listening to audio books or music really benefits me. Now it can go two ways if I’m listening to things that are harmful. I’m not talking about haram and halaal. That’s not what this podcast is about. I’m talking about things that are kind of like junk food for my ears. If I’m listening to junk music, or junk audio, it’s not gonna uplift me. On the country, it’s going to bring me down and it’s going to ruin my mood. So knowing that why not actively choose something that is healthy for my ears. Let me give you an example. I love listening to the Quran and gives me peace. It makes me feel very serene. It calms me down. But I found that if I didn’t have a reciter that I really kind of, you know, clicked with or vibed with, then I didn’t want to hear it. And sometimes if the audio was really bad, it would actually hurt my ears. This has nothing to do with the message of the Quran and the actual words that are being recited. It’s just the voice of the reciter. So what I’ve done is search for reciters I like. And here’s the interesting part that I haven’t heard other people talk about. I look at what mood I’m in, and then I match a reciter to my mood so that it helps me feel better. Let me give you an example. There’s two reciters who are currently my favorite. One of them is the reciter Fatih Seferagic and the second one is the reciter Omar Hisham. Both of them are on YouTube and Mashallah they have great videos and some of their videos are available on podcast apps. You just search for their names. Now going back to my original topic…one of the duas that really help me fall asleep is reciting Ayatul Kursi. It starts off with: اللَّهُ لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ هُوَ الْحَيُّ الْقَيُّومُ لاَ تَأْخُذُهُ سِنَةٌ وَلاَ نَوْمٌ “Allahu laaa ilaaha illaa huwal haiyul qai-yoom. Laa taakhuzuhoo sinatunw wa laa nawmI.” “Allah! There is no god but He, The Living, The Self-Subsisting, Eternal. No slumber can seize Him nor sleep.” “Nawm” is sleep. Ayatul Kursi is talking about Allah, and how there is no god except Allah. He’s the one who never sleeps. So we’re falling asleep yet we are calling on our Protector, kind of a security guard but not like a human security guard (Allah is high above any analogy). Allah is a guard that never sleep. He never gets tired. He’s always watching over us. And with all the anxiety that comes when you’re falling asleep knowing and actually believing that Allah is watching over me can really calm you down. Sleeping is kind of like a temporary death. When a person is dead and they’re lying down, they don’t look any different than a person who is sleeping. They look the same. It is essentially a temporary death. Reciting Ayatul kursi is a great, great way to help deal with insomnia. It also gives you protection and there’s a lot of religious proof and texts behind that. But what I’m talking about here is to listen to Quran instead of junk music or junk audio for your ears. Listen to something healthy, like the Quran, that uplifts you. And here are three examples of different ways Ayatul Kursi is recited. I choose one depending on my mood. Sometimes, within the span of five minutes, my moods are going up and down. I might have first frustration, then aggression and then anxiety, then sadness and then jump back up. It’s so erratic. So when I match my mood with a Quran reciter who is kind of going up and down with the pitch of his recitation or reciting in different styles, I feel I connect and then it slowly brings me back to a balanced state. I’m going to play a recitation of Ayatul Kursi and the first one is a slow one. The second one you’ll see it’s a bit faster. And then the last one is actually very calm. Depending on how I’m feeling, I’m going to play that corresponding one. Give it a listen and see how it is. اللَّهُ لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ هُوَ الْحَيُّ الْقَيُّومُ لاَ تَأْخُذُهُ سِنَةٌ وَلاَ نَوْمٌ لَهُ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي الأَرْضِ مَنْ ذَا الَّذِي يَشْفَعُ عِنْدَهُ إِلاَّ بِإِذْنِهِ يَعْلَمُ مَا بَيْنَ أَيْدِيهِمْ وَمَا خَلْفَهُمْ وَلاَ يُحِيطُونَ بِشَيْءٍ مِنْ عِلْمِهِ إِلاَّ بِمَا شَاءَ وَسِعَ كُرْسِيُّهُ السَّمَاواتِ وَالأَرْضَ وَلاَ يَئُودُهُ حِفْظُهُمَا وَهُوَ الْعَلِيُّ الْعَظِيمُ “Allahu laaa ilaaha illaa huwal haiyul qai-yoom; laa taakhuzuhoo sinatunw wa laa nawm; lahoo maa fissamaawaati wa maa fil ard; man zallazee yashfa’u indahooo illaa be iznih; ya’lamu maa baina aideehim wa maa khalfahum; wa laa yuheetoona beshai ‘immin ‘ilmihee illa be maa shaaaa; wasi’a kursiyyuhus samaa waati wal arda wa la ya’ooduho hifzuhumaa; wa huwal aliyyul ‘azeem.” “Allah! There is no god but He, The Living, The Self-Subsisting, Eternal. No slumber can seize Him nor sleep. His are all things in the heavens and on earth. Who is there that can intercede in His presence except as he permit? He knows what (appear to His creatures As) before or after or behind them. Nor shall they compass aught of His knowledge except as He will. His throne extends over the heavens and on earth, and He feels no fatigue in guarding and preserving them, For He is the Most High, the Supreme (in glory).” [The first and second recitation is by Qari Fatih Seferagic and the third is by Qari Omar Hisham] Okay, so now that you’ve heard all three, go and search for your own reciters. Find ones that you really like and that help you feel better, that you can match with a certain mood and that you actually find are healthy food you can consume for your ears. Maybe you’re not such a big audio person. You’re more visual. Then of course reading the Quran is even a better option. I have multiple copies of the Quran. One that’s just an English one, one that has the Tajweed colors and one that is English and Arabic together. Some are hard cover some are soft covers. Depending on where I am in the house or what I’m feeling like, I’ll pick up that particular type. Make it very easy to reach for these healthy alternatives when you’re not feeling well and when you cannot sleep. There’s always going to be the other option of stuffing yourself with junk food, listening to music that’s just going to bring you down or bingeing on TV shows. Then you realize it’s 3am and you have to get up in two hours again. Consciously decide, what are you going to do to make it easier to sleep? In the beginning, it’s not going to be easy, especially if you’re used to destructive habits around bedtime. It will take time to get used to a healthy routine. But think of your sleep as a retreat. Think of it as a way to get away from everything. No one will come and talk to you or ask you for things. You don’t have to do any work. It’s just you and Allah and connecting with Him and reciting His words and thinking about the fact that one day you are going to go back to Him. It could even be in the sleep tonight. You don’t know. I hope you enjoyed this Mini Mental. See you next time. As salaam alaikum. Previous Next

< Back Episode 26 - Dua for Fear A Muslim’s Guide to Conquering Fear Using A Powerful Dua Sep 20, 2021 The dua for fear is “La illah ila Allah” (Reference Sahih Al-Bukhari: 3346). Recite it often so you do not let fear of “false gods” take over your life. Put Allah at the centre of your life, love and be conscious of Your Lord. Only fear Allah using this powerful dua of “La illah ila Allah” to stay grounded. Episode 26 Transcript: I’m Saba Malik, and this is a Mini Mental. I recently got sick again. You would think that because I podcast about mental health, and I talk about it so much that I would have bipolar under control, and would never get sick but that’s not the case. I still have my ups and downs just like you. The body that I love and cherish so much literally turned against me. I lost total insight, and I could not control the suicidal thoughts, delusions and all the lovely stuff that comes with it. I realized there’s one problem. What I love most is what I fear losing the most. Is that true for you? You might think that love and hate are two opposite things they’re really two sides of the same car. Whatever you love most is actually the thing you fear losing the most. Today’s Mini Mental is about what to do when you feel afraid. What do you say? Dua for Fear In Islam, we’re taught to say, “la illah ila Allah.” Why? When you’re afraid, why are you affirming that there’s no God except Allah? Why do that? I just want to reflect on that today. When you say the first part, “la illah.” What are you doing? You are negating all false gods and clearing the path, clearing your heart of any other thing that you might worship. Does worship mean that you stand in front of a statue and you pray? No. This is a more subtle kind of worship, which is that you obey what you love. In your heart, if there are false gods, let’s say the god of money, the god of body where you worship your body, god of what other people think of you, the god of your mind, where you think your opinion is “god,” if all those things are competing for your love, then that is your diety. That is essentially what you worship. You Fear Losing What You Love Most Anytime you lose the thing you love the most, let’s say you get sick or people don’t love you anymore or you lose your job, what’s going to happen? You are going to get destroyed along with the thing that you worship. When you say, “la illah ila Allah” you’re cutting all that garbage out. You’re not worshipping those things. You’re reaffirming, that there is no other God except Allah. When you have that fear, and consciousness, you know you can lose everything in your life, including your sanity and mental health, yet you are still alive. You are still standing. What matters most to you is your connection with Allah, not how sane you are now, how pretty you are, not how many followers you have, not how many kids you have or what kind of job you have, not your marital status. Nothing. What matters most is your connection with Allah. That’s your reason for being. My Experience with “la ilaha illa Allah” What did I do when I was going through the episode? I was repeating la ilaha illa Allah so much. There came a point where it was even hard to say the whole dua so I was just saying, “Allah, Allah, Allah.” And let me tell you, it was scary. It’s something you try to prevent, every single bipolar episode, but there’s things that are unpreventable. I ask myself, “Why did I go through this?” Let me learn the lesson and use it to become closer to Allah and to help you realize the benefit in saying la ilaha illa Allah. I thought maybe this is a punishment. So let’s turn it into a blessing because I’m using it to become closer to Allah. Recognize How Fear Manifests in Your Body When you feel afraid, how does that fear manifest in your body? What happens to your hands, breathing and stance? How do you stand? What are some of the behaviours that you do? Do you stonewall? Do you run away? Or do you attack a person out of fear but you mask it with anger? How does that fear manifest in your body? Find that out because if you cannot identify that fear, you are not able to say la ilaha illa Allah. You’re not able to have that response because you’re not even conscious of what you are feeling. Build a Habit of Saying “la ilaha illa Allah” Does saying la ilaha illa Allah magically get rid of all your fear? Do you finally feel super brave and you feel like you can conquer everything? Of course not. It’s not a magic pill but it will get you through those tough moments because it really centers you. It changes your perspective and you realize what is the most important thing. Every single thing you have, including your mental health is from Allah. There’s no guarantee you’re gonna have it forever because it’s a gift. If somebody gave you a book to borrow and then after months, they came back and they asked you for it back, you wouldn’t be surprised because you knew that it was never yours to begin with. So you return it. Same thing with every single gift we have. The problem is, do you forget that it actually belongs to Allah? Do you remember that one day it will be taken away from you? I sometimes get so attached to this podcast. And I have to pull myself back and say it is from Allah. It is a gift from Allah and one day, it’s going to be taken away from me and I’m going to have to pass it on and give it to someone else. I need to do the best I can to use it to come closer to Allah. Saying the Dua for Fear La ilaha illa Allah is not a magic pill for fear but it is a great and an essential tool for any Muslim who’s going through a mental health challenge, especially during this time of COVID. What are some tips that you can use right now to start implementing this in your life? I have three easy ones. One of them I mentioned already, which is ask yourself, how does fear manifest in your body? For me, I start to feel like I’m suffocating. I don’t have enough oxygen. I almost start to tremble. Interestingly, I also start to mask it with anger and aggression. I know that those are the signs of fear in my body. How does it show up in your body? Ask yourself that and you will answer it for yourself. Next tip is to say la ilaha illa Allah in the moment you are NOT afraid. When you do that, you are building that consciousness of Allah. You realize He’s the only Deity. He’s only Being worth worshiping. He is Constant. Your mental health challenges are not constant. Your relationships are not constant. They’re not going to be there forever. Things come and go. The only Eternal, Ever Living Being in your life is Allah. Center your life around him. The next tip to start using la ilaha illa Allah in your life is ask yourself, what do I say when I feel afraid? Do I say, “Oh my God!” or start to swear and yell? Recognize that sign, and then replace it with la ilaha illa Allah. “Piggyback” Your Habit Even if you have to say it in English first, or if you just have to say the word Allah, start to make that tiny, little change. I have this term called “piggyback” which is essentially a way to start a new habit. Let’s say you want to start reading more so at nighttime, you put your book beside your bed. When you head to sleep, you see your book, you pick it up and you start reading it. So you’ve “piggybacked” the habit of reading with a the night time routine of sleeping. How can you piggyback this amazing dua, this amazing tool that we have in Islam? How can you add it on to a small habit that you already have? Maybe it could be when you wake up in the morning? The first thing you say is la ilaha illa Allah. Maybe when you are with your child or you’re having a really good moment at work and you’re really enjoying it and all of a sudden you feel like you’re gonna lose it. You have this horrible thought in your mind of your child going into an accident. Do the piggyback right there. Say la ilaha illa Allah. Become conscious of Allah. Become conscious of your Creator and use it to come closer to Him. If you benefited from this Mini Mental, please share it with your family and friends. Subscribe to my podcast and remember to check out my premium show “MorningWind on Apple podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/morningwind-memoir/id1570192392 Alright, see you next time. As salaam alaikum Previous Next

< Back Episode 4 - Am I Enough? Am I Enough? How To Boost Self-Esteem By Turning To Allah | Mini Mental Aug 14, 2020 I’m Saba Malik, and this is a Mini Mental. I’m not enough. I’m not smart enough. I’m not pretty enough. I’m not rich enough. I’m not thin enough, tall enough, I’m not worthy enough. I’m just not enough. Does that sound familiar? This kind of self talk…I’m sure it’s familiar to you because many of us think like that. And, frankly, you know, what? I’m done trying to prove to myself and others that I’m enough. You know, I tried those self affirmations, you’ve probably heard of that. So I found this one that said to repeat “I am enough” 400 times a day. So I tried it for a week, you know, just wanted to try something and see if it could actually change my thinking. Well, it did somewhat, but not really, not at the core. And I think here’s the problem. When I say “I’m enough,” my brain automatically goes into, “Well, what makes you think that? What’s your evidence?” And then I need evidence to back it up. And honestly, no matter how much stuff I gather, how much proof I have, I found there’s always someone who is more rich, more smart, more pretty, more fast, more this, more that. And then I heard this Ayah, which literally came as a “sign” to me. In Surah Az-Zumar, Ayah 36, Allah says, which translates to, “Is God not enough?” Bingo, hallelujah! I found my answer. I’ve been trying to be enough when Allah is enough for me. And knowing that gives me so much mental peace. Honestly, managing a mental illness is like a full-time job that no one sees. And we’re always trying to measure up to “normal” people but what does Allah want? When I start to make that shift, I stop the “perform, perfect and please” pattern that we can all fall into. Measure your worth, according to what Allah wants from you, not people. Make Allah the center of your gravity and orbit around Him, not people. There is only one God, Allah and pleasing Him and performing good actions for Him is way, way, way, way easier than trying to please others who are in their own struggles like you. So ask yourself better questions. Rather than asking, “am I enough?” Ask yourself: Are my actions enough for Allah? Am I praying enough? Am I giving enough? Am I helping enough? Am I being kind enough to myself? Trust me, you’re not broken. It’s not that you’re not enough. It’s the measuring stick that you’ve been using. That measuring stick is broken. Measure your worth according to your actions for Allah. Okay, that’s enough for me. See you in my next Mini Mental. Asaalaamu alaikum Previous Next

< Back Episode 28 - Mentally Fit Muslims Is Now A Registered Charity I really hate the F word, which is finance. I hate dealing with money. And I hate the financial aspect of running an organization. And I used to have two blogs before. One was MorningWind and then I started MuslimBipolar and both of them I had to stop. Nov 20, 2021 I'm Saba Malik, and this is a Mini Mental. I really hate the F word, which is finance. I hate dealing with money. And I hate the financial aspect of running an organization. And I used to have two blogs before. One was MorningWind and then I started MuslimBipolar and both of them I had to stop. And one of the main reasons was that I couldn't sustain it, meaning I was putting in the hours and I was paying for it. But there came a point where I got burnt out, and there was only so much money I could invest in it. This time with Mentally Fit Muslims, I vowed, I made a promise to myself that InshAllah, this time when I start this organization, I'm going to work on sustaining it. It's not just a little project or hobby on the side, but it's actually an organization that I want, and that is bigger than me. So I have a special announcement that has been in the works for the past year. Alhumdulillah, finally Mentally Fit Muslims is a registered charity. What does this have to do with you? Well, you've been tuning in every month from my podcast episodes, and inshAllah they've been helping you. And when you give, when you donate to Mentally Fit Muslims, what are you doing? You are sustaining an important resource in the Muslim community that is not just going to help you, but help future generations inshAllah. With the nonprofit, I'm still learning how to set it up, especially when it comes to the accounting side and the finance. And alhumdulillah my husband has that background so he's helping me with that. Now, when it comes to web design, and producing and editing podcast episode, that's where I'm so excited, because inshAllah with your contribution, I'll finally be able to hire people so that they can work on that. And I can just be the content producer, the creative mind behind this, and the one who's doing the research to bring you better episodes, to bring you better education about mental illness and mental health in our community. Now, I could try to do this all by myself, which I have been doing for the past year and a half but honestly, it is exhausting. And I don't want to get burnt out. So that's why I know I need to bring people on. InshAllah, I'll be having a big fundraiser in a couple of months but for now, you can go on www.MentallyFitMuslims.org/sustain and make your donation. You can also be a monthly contributor so that every month you can donate a small amount or whatever amount you'd like. When you're giving to this organization, you are not only investing in yourself, in your mental health, in your wellness, but that of other people and future generations who are to come. Please make dua for this organization. Please make dua for me and my husband. Please make dua that this project is successful and that inshAllah it outlives me because seriously, it's not about me. Itt started out like that and how I had bipolar and my journey, but now it's bigger than that. So please support us. Please support your mental health and donate at MentallyFitMuslims.org/Sustain. Alright, see you next time As Salaam Alaikum. Previous Next