​All ailments, disbalances stem from our emotions one way or another. How, I will be explaining below; but that does not mean they in themselves are causing us ailments, in fact it is the other way around, we are causing ourselves ailments, by not honoring our feelings.
 
The body is a vessel, designed to keep running in the best possible way and in as much balance as possible. We are not the body, but the Soul that inhabits it. The Soul is not material, thus is does not have "material problems and disbalances", the material disbalances and problems come as a result of a non-material disruption that is encountered by the Soul. The Soul is our true self, the Soul expresses itself through feelings. Feelings are what drive us, and make us "human". Our feelings are what controls our Will, which in turn controls our actions, which consequently invokes our intellect for thought, (intelligible thought, not “free floating random thoughts” which are known as ‘Waswasa’ – the whispered provocations of the Devil, Shaitan, more on this coming soon).
 
In the early years, one acts out of pure imitation, as the years progress, the Will takes charge and one acts out of their Will. If this Will is suppressed, challenged or threatened, thus not allowing it to be, the fire of the Will gets dwindled. The Will is at the core of ones’ self. A dwindled Will, thus core, means a dwindled self. If the Will is not allowed to grow and become strong, one becomes a but a fraction of themselves. They no longer act out of their Will, instead have to switch over to acting out of their intellect far sooner than they should have needed to. Their thoughts become their main driving force for their actions. Their Mind develops, but their Soul-self is left neglected. When this happens we grow up with a sort of hollowness inside of us. No matter what we may do or achieve, the satisfaction does not reach to the core of us, it stays on the surface and we are often left troubled and dissatisfied with life despite “worldly successes”. When a big part of us has not had the opportunity to be developed it is this lacking that we are yearning to fill, but are unaware of how to do so, or that it even is the case. This dis-ease lives within us and eats away at us and our vitality.
 
Ordinarily if given the right space and time our Will and Soul does develop and later as we get older and "wiser" and our Mind too develops. We then allow our Mind to take the wheel, we start listening to and actioning what the Mind calculates through its experiences the "better" course(s) of action, which is healthy. But when we get plagued with a conflict of the Emotional actions and the Mind’s actions this is where dis-ease begins. The longer this dis-ease sits within us the more it makes a more "permeant pitch within our being. This then manifests into a disease state, with or without pathological changes.
 
This does not mean that one needs to be passive and vanilla with everything in life, in fact that in itself will still result in dis-eases. And all of this is also not to say that one should completely make away with Intellect, thought and the development of them. No, they are also necessary; for without them we would remain very child-like, living purely in and out of emotions.
 
It all comes down to balance. Just as there is a place and need for the Mind to take control once it has developed, there is a real need for there to remain a space for the Emotions to still take charge and rule. When either side is suppressed or given sole charge for too long and too often that is where the problems begin…
 
 
Imagine a delicate multi layered set of scales all balanced upon each other, if you add a weight to one side of one scale this will make that scale disbalanced and in turn the others that are connected to it setting off a chain reaction of readjustments until a new "stable" condition is reached. This "stable" condition will be balanced as best possible so that the whole structure does not come tumbling down, but the balances will not all be in there original "optimal" positions. Until this weight is not removed everything cannot go back to their "resting" optimal positions. Over time if more and more weights keep getting added on parts of this delicate structure more and more deviations will result from the original optimal position.
 
This is what happens to us in life, as more and more we live through our Intellect and less in touch with and honoring and respecting our Feelings; more and more imbalances make home within us, leading us to more and more dis-ease and eventually "diseases".
 
To thrive in our Earthly life we need to develop our Mind, but all the while still nurture and nourish our Soul. When we start living too much out of our Mind and in the material world, then we risk not acknowledging and nurturing our Soul enough. This can be seen when no matter what we may do or achieve, any happiness we gain is short lived. Because happiness is an expression or our innate emotion, joy. When the happiness is induced by the intellect it is short lived, but when happiness is expressed as a result of our Soul experiencing joy, then it is deeper rooted and not dependent of upon an material circumstances, thus longer lasting and experienced as what is known as “contentment”.
 
 
Although it must be pointed out over here, that there are some emotions that stem from the Intellect, like fear and anger. Fear results from our thoughts (mainly and often from the Waswasa thoughts), its roots live in the Ego, just like that of anger. They are a consequence of one's Ego being threatened or challenged. Fear and Anger are the two extremes ends of the Ego’s expression when it encounters stimuli. Our Ego is a part of ones’ Soul-self that gets developed as ones’ intellect gets developed: it is best described as our Mind’s persona; it is an acquired facet of our Soul’s self, developed as a result of ones’ Worldly Journey, (which is why despite its development it can still be allowed to be “let go of” in a healthy way – more on this coming soon).
 
When the Ego faces any perceived threat or challenge, in interest of self-preservation, it acts out with a number of different emotional responses. These emotional responses are not the same as the emotional actions that come from our Soul, as their origin is from the Intellect. They are not innate to the Soul, but are acquired emotional actions that have been developed from and with the Ego, as a result of the stimuli that a Being experienced in its Earthly journey.
 
For example one person may be found to live completely in and out of fear, where another is completely “fearless”. It is not that the latter is reckless; no its Ego, in its journey so far, has not felt threatened to the point where it needed to develop its sense of fear very much; and the former may have experienced much adversities where its defense mechanism has kicked in and developed its fear emotion to such an extent that it has completely taken over.
 
Let me explain with another example: If you observe a new born baby sleeping, its expressions are mainly that of joy or sadness. Over time if the baby feels its self or its safety threatened then it slows develops its acquired emotions of fear or anger depending on the environment and circumstances.
 
Often it is not our acquired emotions we suppress first, but our innate ones. Because our acquired emotions stem from our Ego and once it starts to develop it has the main driving wheel, thus the first emotions that are suppressed are our innate ones, as our Soul-self gets pushed aside and ignored. Then if our Ego gets repeatedly threatened, then it too can start getting suppressed and sidelined (and with it our acquired emotions), which is another defense mechanism of its: submission and surrender in-order to prevent annihilation; and we become but a slave to our outer world, “living” life more like a robot, going about our daily life without much of ourselves actually living and being present in any of our actions. We become passive and vanilla in life. This is what we see described as being here, but not present. Because your material self is here, but your spiritual self, your soul self is not. No prizes to guess that this too is not a healthy way of living. Our Earthly journey is not for us to surrender and became a slave to our surroundings/circumstances, it is for us to develop ourselves, our light, our gift and bring our offering to the World.
 
If we live in balance and nurture and develop all aspects of ourselves that is when true Wellness can be achieved.
 
Although it is much harder to develop your Will and Soul-self at later stages in your life, it is not impossible. The more you allow quietness in your Mind the more better you are able to connect with your Soul-self. Bring stillness within to help settle the waters, once the mud settles things can become more clearer.
 
Fear lives in the Future, and Anger in the Past; what we need is to live in the Present and for that all we need is internal stillness and quiet.
 
May we all find, keep and act out of our stillness; for then we will have truly arrived into the Present.

Who are you?
 
What are you?
 
You are not your brain.
 
Your mind is not your brain.
 
Your thoughts are not your brains “random” functions. They are the projections of your mind, the projections of you.
 
 
Your brain might be the region/organ where your soul “houses” the mind, but it does not control the mind. The brain does not control the processes and thoughts of your mind. The mind however, can and does control the brain, and with it, the rest of your physical matter.
You are an energetic being which is “having an experience on earth”, through the physical body that it has been gift by Our Lord, Allah SWT.
 
(N.B. However, not the main subject of this post, but I will briefly below touch upon homeopathy to tie up the thinking sphere.)
 
Homeopathy works on the energetic plain. It looks to “resolve” disturbances on the energetic plain.
 
Pathologies do not start with the physical.
 
Its not: one day your heart decided to beat faster; or your arteries decided to collect plaque; or one day your body started to dish out more cholesterol.
 
Pathologies always start from the energetic plain.
From the heart and mind of the energetic soul, that is what is “us”, truly us.
 
When left: untreated; unresolved; uncared for; unfixed; the physical symptoms start to show up, first as just symptoms, then eventually as pathological changes. By the time there is detectable pathological change, normally when allopathic care steps in, the dis-ease has been so far gone that it has turned into a disease. It needs a lot of work for it to be reversed a long and slow process, but that does not mean it cannot be done. However, whether this outcome can be reached depend on a lot of parameters. Its not a simple case of: take this remedy for x number of years and it will eventual cure it all for you. It needs a lot of dedicated love and care. Years of: toxicity; self-neglect; suppression; and overlooking; bring us to diseased states, so it takes years of: detoxing; self-love; addressing; and care; to bring us back. Usually, no singular entity has brought us to this point, so no singular entity, usually on its own, can undo it either.
 
As mentioned above, this post is not essentially to do with homeopathy (however mentioned), but in fact is for one to realise the true essence of ourselves. What and who we actually are. We are not the physical outwardly body that houses us, but the living soul within it, that is our true being. For us to experience the physicality of the physical world that is Earth, we too need a physical medium to experience it through. But the medium is just that, a medium, it is not us! So why are we so focused on the physical?
 
Allah has told us that we have 6 lives, the first was in Alamul-Arwah, where the latter of us “humans” of the human race, have lived for an eternity, thousands and thousands of years, ever since we were created by Allah SWT. There we had: no gender; no body; no relations; we were just beings that lived in sole worship of Our Creator Allah SWT. Then when Allah SWT chose for us to leave that life and enter in to our second, HE had us sent down to our second life which was to be in a womb of a person HE now destined for us to be our mother. A soul was blown into this physical entity which was once a clot, but has now by the Ordaining of Allah SWT steadily been growing to become the form of a 4 month old embryo. This HE has thus ordered to be continued to be formed into the form that HE desires best for us to enter into our third life with, the Duniya, the earthly life. How long HE wishes for us to be in this life, for our souls to be “encaged” in this physical body, only HE alone knows. And then when HE so wishes for us to leave this life to go on to our 5th; HE will order an angel to extract our soul from the earthly physical vessel, that HE had gifted to us, and once again we will be set free of physicality in order for us to go on to live our 4th life in Alam-e-Barzakh.
 
Here is Alam-e-Barzakh there are two worlds: Iliyeen and Sijeen. The good souls will be merrily greeted by their family in Iliyeen where they will have a good time with all their past relatives; and the unfortunate souls who did not fair well in the earthly life will suffer on Sijeen. Here, in Alam-e-Barzakh, all the souls will live on till the Day of Judgement, when the horn will be blown and all in all the worlds will seize to exist. On the second blowing of the horn we will be resurrected back into our former earthly vessel and brought forth in front of our Lord Allah SWT. Here will be our 5th life, the life of the Day of Judgement, Qayamat. Which for some will feel the duration of the two sunnah rikhat of the Fajir prayer, those who will be in the company of The Prophets; and for some it will be 50, 000 years, but those years are not the same years in quality of earthly life. May Allah SWT protect us and forgive us and make us of the good believing souls.
 
(See links for more info: https://youtu.be/y58jT-YgdP0 Death - Jourey of your Soul (nasirislam.com) )
 
Our life on Earth is very very minute in comparison to the full life of our souls. Our souls are in a manner of speaking eternal from the point of our creation by the Ordaining of Allah SWT. The material experience of our soul’s life is but a blip in the grand scheme of things, yet we are so focus on it. Just as a mini comparison/perspective: if our childhood life is equated to our first life in Alam-e-Arwah; our second life, which is in the womb, the university years; our worldly life is like our university exams, our place where we “prove our worth”; before we head off to “live our life” in the “real world”, where we work, which can be equated to our life in Alam-e-Barzakh and that of Day of judgment; and our eternal, Heavenly life (insha-Allah), like life after retirement where we can do our “real living”. So why are we so worried about a time period that is so short? Our focus should not be to prolong our material life, but to make full use of it to achieve a better life in the Hereafter insha-Allah. Our focus should be to do all that we can to get our eternal reward and be saved from eternal punishment, because guess what, they are ETERNAL! That is a very long time to overlook and God-forbid get wrong! It’s about time we got some perspective and straighten out our goal and focus while we still can insha-Allah Ameen. May Allah SWT forgive us our short comings and our sins, help us, guide us, and make us of the pious believing souls that HE showers His choicest blessings upon both here and in the Hereafter insha-Allah Ameen Suma Ameen.

Hi Everyone,
 
For some time now I have been seeing this struggle with people from the indo sub-continent who have moved from there to the west or otherwise. Back there, there is a lot of house help and a lot of family support due to joint family living so people indulge in a lot of practices that frankly is not achievable to live up to outside of said areas. Not only due to the reason we don't have the same house help and family support, but also nowadays a lot of the women have to/or would like to work.
 
One such practice I find people drowning away in, is the practice of cooking a magnitude of dishes! Not just for parties, but also for daily meals! I mean talk about madness, these women come home from a full day of work, get in the house, straight away sort the children out. Getting them washed and dressed ready for bed, sorting through homework loads and ensuring it gets done, all the while preparing a feast for dinner??? I kid you not, a feast is exactly what it is: a meat curry dish, a veg curry dish, a kabab dish, a salad, rice, daal, nan some even make two meat dishes??? I mean come on!!?? Why are you trying to kill yourself?!! There is only so much any one person can eat and frankly even one well-made dish will be just as satisfying!!!
 
No one, but no one will come to ease your aches and pains when you have ground yourself to the ground and you sit in your old arm chair at 75, so for who and why are you killing yourself for today?
 
A little self-love, a lot of self-forgiveness and smart working attitude can do you a whole lotta good!! And I talk not only to the people who are outside of the indo sub-continent, but to those also who are in it! House help is a luxury not everyone can have all the time. Don't depend on it. Become self-sufficient, smart-working, self-loving people. Schedule in one chore per day for yourself, one each (age dependent) for your children and one for your Husband- we need men brought up in the indo sub-continent culture to "grow-up" and realize that we are not living in the 1930's when we were all part of the "creme"! We are living very fast paced lives in the 21st century. House help is a time of the past, stay at home women are but a few, if she is helping you with the finances, help her with the house! It's not a taboo thing anymore, it's called we are a family, we work and support each other. Thankfully the latter is a positive change though that is already coming about! I see a lot now, both in the indo sub-continent and out, men being very supportive of the wives working and helping them achieve that. I have the pleasure of knowing many kind hearted men who nurture their children like a loving father and not like the times when the theory was "children are meant to be seen and not heard". Thankfully there are now plenty of men who are more than happy to do the dishes or vacuum, or even help wash n get the children ready for bed, let's keep spreading this positive message and break free from that taboo once and for all!
 
Coming back to this change needed for day to day cooking. The way of the indo sub-continent is to eat in quite a “princely” manner. Having a long table laid filled with a variety of indulgences, but what then happens when you come to throw a party??? A celebration in a manner of speaking should be bigger and better more elaborate then the everyday, so now what happens when you already lay a huge table for the everyday then your celebrations need to be bigger and better. So you end up going OTT with cooking and decorating etc. which means man more hours of labour both before and after; and not to mention the amount of food always left over! And the amount of money spent on everything! Let’s thinking about scaling back maybe? And I am not saying any of this for my benefit, what do I care how much money time and effort you spend on your day to day or your special celebrations! I say this for you, for your wellness. Its ok to have less items on the table every day, its ok to enjoy simple uncomplicated flavourful foods that don’t span the length of the table. Make life easier for and on yourself. Make one veg dish and one meat dish at the most. Make one accompaniment with it, rice or bread not both. Lets make our lives easier for ourselves, not harder. The outside world puts enough pressure on us as it is, lets at least give ourselves a break! As you are “modernizing” your wardrobe, lets modernize our dining tables too perhaps. Let’s modernize our self-love too! We no longer have to be hard on ourselves because we think that is what we are supposed to do. Relax! Take a break, enjoy life, enjoy being with your family, not just serving them. The key as always is in the balance.
 
I am not pro or anti modern or traditional life styles, I am just saying don’t drive yourself to the ground by putting unrealistic pressures on yourself. Re-assess your life and make it easier for yourself. Its your life, your health; only you can look after it and do what’s best for it. The days of where women were looked upon as the servants of the family are gone, but the practices are yet far from gone. Let’s change that.

​They say there are always two sides to a story, what they don't say is that both sides have an agenda. They would not be telling you their side of the story if they didn't want you to see things from their perspective, if they didn't want you to "approve" of their actions.
 
Always be mindful of these agendas.
 
The truth is always somewhere in-between both sides, our job is to sift away the agendas and always seek the truth in every story.

​What is really interesting to see is how our body works and how our mind works in relationship to that.
 
When it comes to our health we concern most about the peripheral then work our way inwards, but interestingly our body works in the opposite way.
 
What do I mean by this?
 
So for our body the utmost important thing is the very core of us. When stressors hit us, it looks to protect the most vital, our inner most self, our actual being. Then it protects the vital organs most, then the dual organs and then the limbs etc and lastly the skin.
 
For our body the skin /our outer most layer of existence is the least important. It is more than happy to shift the energy of the stressors through our skin. Because for it, that means that the rest of the actual important parts are healthy safe and strong.
 
But for us, mentally/emotionally we concern most about our outer most selves when it comes to looking at our health: our skin,  hair, weight, limbs etc.
 
What do I mean by this?
 
Well if our limbs ache we are concerned about it. If our body looks "ugly" we are concerned about it; we struggle to make our appearance how we/society thinks it should be.
 
But when it comes to the important stuff we are not so concerned.
 
When it comes to what we are feeding our body via the physical, mental and emotional. We are not so bothered.
 
The thing which effects our health the most is our emotions. They are at the very core of our existence. Because they are us, we are them. It is how we feel and see the world and how we experience everything that makes us who we are. It is what separates you from me and me from my children.
 
Everyone who can see the colour blue will see the colour as it is received by them, via the light hitting the colour bouncing off and hitting their eye and getting processed to become the image one sees it as, (which in itself could be different for each of us, but that is convo. for another time).
 
But what that colour does to us on a mental and emotional level in that moment is entirely unique.
 
And what it does to us/for us makes us unique and individual and who we are within ourselves.
 
What stressors do to us on an emotional level affect us profoundly and define us. What stressors trigger within us on a mental level affect us deeply.
 
What thoughts we feed ourselves, impact our healthy on a cellular level.
 
These things are actually what define our health and yet we concern not so much about how we feel. We don't allow ourselves to feel. We push aside our feelings and press on.
 
It is these pushed aside feelings that because ignored, come back in a different form. In the form of blood pressure, diabetes, tooth pain, gall stones, obesity, mood swings etc etc.
 
What we feel, and how we allow or don't allow our feelings to be, define our health on every single level.
 
Give yourself the permission to feel!
 
Give yourself the permission for your feelings to be accepted, both by yourselves and the rest of the world, but most importantly by your self!
 
It's ok to not be ok!
It's ok to be miserable, angry, sad, confused, anxious, etc.
 
Until and unless you give yourself permission to be that, you will not be able to get through and over it!
 
The only way to free yourself from a “negative” emotion is through it! (and by the way, there is no such thing as a negative or positive emotion, it is just how social dictate has labelled them. But we will go into that at another time.)

​The more you learn, the more you realize how little you know; the more you see, the more you realize how little you see; the more you live, the more you realize how little your living really is.
 
No matter how wide you open your gaze you can absorb only a finite amount. What I see, may not be what you see; but equally what you see, is not what I see.
 
There will always be something that the other person knows not, that I know; but equally there will always be something that the other knows, that I do not. So what is with this imaginary egotistical arrogance and superiority over another? It is all in your head! Come out of your head and see how little it is that you truly know! Everyone is an expert in the knowledge that they hold; mocking one for knowledge that another does not seem to possess which you have been lucky to stumble upon, shows not their ignorance and lacking, but shows your small mindedness!
 
If you can count to 1000 in both English and French it makes you not superior to one who can count to a million in Swahili, only different.
If yourself, hypothetically who is currently in class 12, knows more than a Human hypothetically currently in grade 2, does that make you superior? The fact that you compare yourself to one in grade 2 reflects a lacking in yourself.
 
Any knowledge that has been brought to you is not for you to gloat, but rather entrusted upon you to share. Don't be a miser with your knowledge, share it, for with sharing it can only ever grow! And I say share it (and not arrogantly flaunt it!), because with sharing comes the concomitant act of compassion, which is humbling and cannot be achieved without love!

​Life is like a game of Cricket, Allah has set up the game for us to cater exactly for our style of playing, where we can be challenged and stretched, but not strained beyond our capacity. It’s now up to us if we hit a sixer on every possible ball, or if we let them go by as a dot ball. You can live life like you’re in the power overs of a twenty20, or you can play it slow like you are in a long slog of a test match, whatever it maybe, but you have come to play; so play!
 
If we live life afraid of getting out then we risk not putting up any runs on the board. Yes, upon some ball our wicket will fall, but will it be a: run out, catch out, bold, lbw, caught behind etc, no one knows; but we can’t let our fear of getting out stop us from playing and enjoying the game, otherwise what’s the point of coming out on the field in the first place.
 
Trust in yourself, read the balls being bowled to you and take your best shots at them. You can have perfect timing, effortlessly hitting the balls for boundary all around the park if you trust in yourself. Even if you don’t have perfect timing, you can still work hard and smart, doing calculated shots, you can still pull up a handsome score. Or you can even tune into your Afridi instincts and go savage wacking ‘em all out the park. Or maybe you like a more quick quiet singles approach, ticking the score board over quietly. Whatever your style, pick up your bat and give it a fair fight. Be in it to win it, don’t shy away from the fight. You were not brought here to be the 12th man, standing in to give others their break! You are the captain of your team, its time you stepped up and took the lead!
 

I want to colour my moment, put my stamp on it, claim it to be...

Thank you dear friend who has painted this piece, I know you not, but know that your painting called out to me in a group of many.

Thank you for painting an expression of your moment, it calls out to me expressing something to me, and at the same time expressing something for me, my moment...

when words are not enough, colour can tell your story...

tell me what you see, tell me what you want me to see...

tell me your story, come I'll tell you my story...

let's come together and let colour be the story...



x

An experience is just that, an experience. It has no flavour to it. We, ourselves; our ego; is what attaches flavours to any experience.
 
When one knows this, they do not even need to go and "reframe" it to change the flavours "to help us help ourselves". Just knowing that the flavour is not a part of the actual experience itself, but our personal input; our framing; our ego's choice of lens, that is giving it any flavour whatsoever, then we can let go of whatever flavour we may think an experience has, for it is not real; merely just a projection.
 
Allah brings us to experiences as we need those exact experiences in our life in some way or another. Sometimes those experiences relay very quickly why we needed them; other times they relay in many years to come; and sometimes we may never realise why a certain experience was necessary for us. But this is where we need to have faith. We need to understand and believe every experience is elementary. Allah Pak has already told us not one thing HE has created or does is unnecessary. Every single thing has a need, for if it was surplus or excess Allah Pak would not order it to be. Every interaction we have with every human being; every word we exchange; is elementary. We do not stay one minute less or one minute more in any place or conversation than absolutely necessary. There are no accidents; there are no coincidences; there is nothing that has not been crafted perfectly by the Order of Allah SWT. Everything is planned and executed to beyond precision by Allah SWT, THE BEST PLANNER, THE ALL KNOWING, THE ETERNAL! ALLAH-O-AKBER ALLAH-O-AKBER ALLAH-O-AKBER!!! LA I LAHA IL LAL ALLAH!!
 
Allah SWT has told us that all the humans that ever were and are ever going to be, all of their roohs (souls) have all already been created all at once. They all have been kept in Aalam-e-Arwah. Yet you and I have not been sent down to earth until now, nor kept till later why?? Because we were not meant to be here before, we were not needed before. No one soul will visit earth at a time that is not exactly perfect for that soul and for all the other souls that they are meant to interact with. No one soul will ever leave a minute too soon, nor a minute too late from earth or anyone's company. We stay in any one place, company or upon earth itself for exactly the perfect time that we needed to. Don't just say "Inna lillahi wa Inna elaihi rajioon", truly truly understand what it means!
 
Don't let your ego let you fool yourself into thinking you are anymore than that which you are. It is Shaitan trying to colour every experience with flavours through your ego, so to make you lost from the truth. The truth is the experience, you will live it no matter what. Take off the lens of your ego and you will see that you were the one colouring the experience with flavours; the experience is not tied with, nor needs flavours. Shaitan convinces us to put on these coloured lenses which bring flavour to any experiences, because then it distracts us from seeing the experience itself, as we are too consumed by the flavour we have attached to it; be it good or bad. Don't let Shaitan distract you with his game of lenses and flavours. Break free from his hold and see the truth, the experience, with pure clarity for what it truly is. Shaitan uses these coloured lenses and flavours to control our "nafse", take back control of your "nafse".

The lenses are the thoughts that come and go out of our minds. Thoughts induce feelings inside of us - this is "the flavour" that comes as a result of the "lens that we put on". We cannot control our thoughts; we cannot stop them coming into our minds; but we can stop ourselves from clinging on to them and the flavours they bring and understand that they are not explicitly part of the experience itself. If we can see clear as day that the flavours are superimposed on any and every experience by us and that they are not inherently of and from the experience itself, then we can objectively be in and see all experience we experience and not take things so personally. This then allows us to live a more "healthier" life, filled with a lot more faith in Allah's plan and less resistance to it, as well as less worry and stress pinned with either, past present or future experiences. Its allows us to see the bigger picture and be less phased by any curve balls life may throw at us. When you know that every experience, good or bad, is essential and has been perfectly crafted and timed for you, for what you need for your future to be; then you become much more at ease with all experiences, not letting yourself be carried away with any emotional waves.

Your path has already been set, but the journey you take on said path has been left for you to choose. You can let your emotions allow you to suffer along with the pains or you can choose not to suffer despite of pain. Its our choice. 


Peace and Love to you all. May Allah Help you find your inner "zen".

Over the past couple of decades I have suffered from depression several times, sometimes very severe and other times less so, but suffer I did nonetheless. On several occasions I used Homeopathy to “cure” my depression and “cure” it it did, or so I thought, until now. Surely the cloud of depression dissipated and I managed to get on better with my day to day life. But as life rolled on so did with it the cloud of depression roll on back in. Every time I took Homeopathy for it I did feel as though I had “healed” from it and most likely I did heal from said depression. As a homeopath would describe it, that layer that had formed had gotten removed. But had I actually really cured my depression? If it keeps coming back, even though in different forms as the remedies needed displayed, can I truly say I have cured it?
 
Let’s take a closer and deeper look at this shall we…
 
Yes clinically the depression I was suffering from in all the different occasions each time cleared with homeopathy, but the question is: why if I have cleared the layer of depression does it keep coming back? Do I just have a depressive personality? Do I have a depression tendency? Or it is just the ups and downs of a depression patient as an allopathic practitioner would tell you. Or is it the maintaining cause as a homeopath would say?
 
Well, let’s explore my life from a bird’s eye view a little for some perspective.
 
Each time I went into depression, was because of certain triggers; then I would take homeopathy, which helped me come out of it. But then what did I do after coming out of it? Did I remove the trigger from my life? Did I change how I reacted to the trigger to prevent the same consequences? Did I change my life in any way to prevent the trigger from being a trigger and still triggering me. The answer, as any one may easily guess, to all of these questions is “NO”. I did not remove the trigger; I did not change my reaction to the trigger; nor did I change myself in any way to prevent the trigger from being a trigger. Thus, it’s no surprise really that I kept going back into depression. The flavour of the depression may have been different each time, but that is about all that truly had changed over these past two decades…
 
Here in lies the problem. I did not learn anything from my depression…
 
I was on a boat on a stormy sea, I fell into the water, somehow I managed to pull myself back up on to my boat, but what did I do then? I did not complete the journey, I did not change how I handled the storm, so all I kept doing was falling back into the sea and rescuing myself over and over again. There was no progress. Thus I came to realise this now: I keep getting thrown overboard into the stormy sea, because I keep doing the same things again and again; I am not learning from my mistakes; I am not progressing in any direction on my journey, just staying stuck.
 
This is not healing myself; this is not curing myself; this is still symptom management.
 
After deep reflection I have come to the understanding that merely removing the triggers (or trigger people) from ones’ life is also not true healing, that is just being an ostrich – how many people is one to “run away from”? We cannot run and hide away from our problems. It is not the people that is the problem, but us with not being able to “cope” with the problem being present to us by these triggers.
 
I’ll explain it in another way: why is it that certain character types; or certain traits; or certain habits of people trigger us? Are they really the worse traits on earth? Are they really the only bad traits? Are they the same traits that trigger everyone else as well? NO.
Every person gets triggered by different things. Sometimes the things that trigger us might not be the worst possible traits on earth, but they still trigger us. Sometimes there may be some other traits that we do feel are also bad, maybe even just as bad as our triggering ones are, but we don’t get triggered by them. Why?
 
It is because of our history. What we have been through, who we are, what our belief systems are that determine what triggers one and what does not. Any trait that triggers us in any way is because of us and not the trait itself. The problem is not with one trait or the other, but within us. [That is not to say that its ok to have bad traits; or that an evil act per say should not be condemned; or that it can be pardoned. Just because it is not the actual act itself, but what it does to us because of our history, that is causing us a problem does not make the bad actions O.K. NO. By no means is this an excuse for any wrong doers to keep doing their wrongs. NO. Bad traits or evil acts are not excusable and the perpetrators have to be accountable for their ill doings, which they will be to ALLAH SWT. This matter being discussed here is not about them or their actions. This matter is about us and us getting triggered.]
 
Again let me explain this in another angle.
 
If act 1 triggers us but not act 2, why does act 2 not trigger us? They are both equally bad. Why can we “tolerate” or brush past act 2 but not act 1, despite our condemning both acts equally. It’s because somewhere deep inside act 1 has hit a nerve of ours and act 2 has not. So why has act 1 hit a nerve and not act 2? The answer to this question can only be found in our story of life. Sometimes we can find this answer with relative ease, other times maybe even deep psychotherapy might not be able to reach that far into our core. But the question is, do we need to reach the this answer or have we already reached an answer that is sufficient to proceed with remedying the situation? Does it matter what in our history made this nerve active? Is the solution not still to make it un-active? Yes if we can pinpoint it great it may help break the cycle sooner however, even if we don’t, it does not mean that the cycle itself cannot still be broken. Therefore whether we can deduce exactly the moment and incident that activated this nerve or not is neither here nor there, the point is to understand that said actions hit said nerves. Now what needs to be done is our neural pathways need to be rewritten to prevent us from going down the same neural pathways and hitting said nerve.
 
Is that even possible I hear you ask? Yes it really is. Our brains are not fixed, new neurons can be created and new pathways laid, but we have to actively chose to walk a different path and not let us keep slipping down the same pathways.
 
How can this be done? Well the first and most important step is to recognise that this needs to be done; for we cannot chose to walk a different path if we do not realise that it is our default path wherein the problem lies. Once this has been understood and our triggers identified then comes the long hard uphill slog of actively choosing a different path to set into our brains. But it is actually not as difficult as it may sound! It just calls for persistence.
 
Understanding ourselves is quite useful in this, if we can understand what part exactly about our trigger is causing us suffering then we can work backwards and teach ourselves not to let that take hold upon us. Like pointing a torch upon the shadows in the dark can relieve us from any fearful thoughts; pinpointing that it is (for example) the lack of ones’ freedom, felt from the others’ dominating and controlling nature, that is causing ones’ suffering can then give rise to the idea for creating a space and place for ones’ freedom.
 
We cannot change or control another’s actions; a dominating person will continue to try and dominate that is their personality, we cannot change it, but one can change how the others’ action affects them. By understanding that one craves their freedom which is being challenged and robbed through said actions which is affecting one negatively, they now have a better chance to fight for it. That does not mean a literal fight, but more a stand against the injustice.
 
It always helps to know what we are fighting for; what chance do we have in a fight we do not know we are in?
 
Once one has identified where the problem with a certain trait lies for them, then every time that trait presents itself they have to actively choose a different course of action to prevent the suffering that they feel from it, (for example, using the above scenario: refusing to be ruled by and dictated upon by another persons’ insecurities or ideals, being ok to set in boundaries and being content by them being placed, restores a space and place for ones’ freedoms). Do this enough times that it becomes second nature and hey presto the trait no longer presents itself as a problem for us, despite the trait itself still actively co-existing with us.
 
So you see, it is not just merely recovering from a fall that one needs to do, they need to heal and seal – recover, learn and grow from said fall so to not repeat it again in order for them to actually be cured from the fall.
 
 
Complete the journey of every challenge life presents to you. Don’t stay stranded in the middle of the sea; for if you stay stranded, I promise you, you will just keep staying stranded. There are no rescue boats upon these seas; there are no heroes in these stories; this is your life’s journey and you can only keep moving forward in it if you so choose to do so, otherwise you will keep re-living the same mistakes over and over again – like being trapped in a time loop. Let’s truly heal from our trauma and cure ourselves from them.
 
 
Don’t run from yours triggers, learn and grow to co-exist with them in peace, that’s is where true healing lies.


MUCH, MUCH LOVE TO YOU ALL,
Meher Andleeb Eqbal