You are listening to Muslim mastery breakthroughs, a podcast series in which we share insight on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationship and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life Inshallah.

The real cause of inner emptiness

Lack of Love is the real cause of inner emptiness. We will talk about the perfect Love and how it can complete your life and make it beautiful. We will also discuss who you should trust more: technology or human, and how that almost caused tension between a couple. This is also our last episode covering the gems from the great book The Disease and the Cure by Ibn Al Qayyum Rahimahullah.

Bismillah. Wallahumdulillah Wa Salat Al al-Salamu wala rasulullah. This is your breakthrough coach, Zubair.

Who or what you trust more, your spouse or WhatsApp?  Recently I was with a friend of mine. And he was talking to me he has phone on his hand and we are going for the prayers. So a lot of different things were happening, he’s talking to at the same time, his phone was buzzing, he is seeing other people’s messages, and he is responding to some messages, and then we go and pray isha, and then we come back.

So it turns out that his wife has messaged him about something. And, as you know, the WhatsApp shows the notification on the reading status of message. So as for that, you know it shows the wife that husband has read the message. And there was something important that the husband was supposed to do, but he didn’t do it, and the wife thought that he had seen the message and he ignored it. What was actually happening was that as he was talking to me and his phone was buzzing. His phone was buzzing and the he may like accidently open the window, and may not have look at it. so as WhatsApp with technology, it sounds only taking a look at it, hey was the  screen is opened, that is not necessary mean that the person actually read the message.

So just as an example of how in life sometimes you may have conflicting message, one may think that the other person is lying. But actually both people can be speaking the truth. It is just that the meaning is different. So, yes, the wife saw the notification from the WhatsApp that the message was read which only meant the window was opened, it does not really mean that the person actually read the message. And the husband was right as well, I haven’t seen your message. So that is just a very simple basic example. There are many examples that can be happened in your life, you cannot really combine the two narrators. But often there is a narrator, it is really about trust, if you trust someone enough, you try to dig deeper, or just trust that person, hey, you know, although it does seem.., it seem contradicting, but there is no contradiction, right? It just as we saw in that example.  

Anyway, that was the side lessons you take a look at in your relationship and has there been an issue and cases in which you mistrusted someone because of different alternative or narrative.

So let’s move into the main topic of today’s episode which is love.  So recently I have been approached by several people and they come in to the masjid, they come in for coaching and they want to discuss the emptiness or the feeling of emptiness in their life. And some of them have been very successful in their life, they have amazing career, you know, their own business, a lot of wealth, and so on and so forth, but they still find them emptiness. This is not something unusual we see the news all the time, that a lot of people who are very successful from the worldly metric in terms of the wealth, finances, fames, powers, status, love, even being celebrity, but they still feel that emptiness.

So a lot of people that, you know realize that emptiness. We talk about last time as well in the last episode that sometimes this is a sign if this open the door for the person to connect with their creator, and this shapes their world in the way that their life in this dunya and this world become much better as well as the life in the hereafter. Now there is some people ignore the sign or they are trying to suppress that by taking other forms of medications, or drugs, or substance abuse, or just raising their bar higher, changing their mile stone and so on and so forth .

So if you think about it, the meaning of the word ibada, the meaning of the word worship is basically complete love along with submission humility to the creator. So that is the essence by Allah (subahana wata alla) has created us and if you think about whom Allah (subahana wata alla) is, right? And you distance that, you don’t think about what Allah (subahana wata alla) has done for us, but just Himself, whom He is, right? And you try to reflect on His name and attribute. How powerful He is? How beautiful He is? How He has created these amazing beautiful things in this world? The oceans, the seas, the lakes the mountains and greenery, the pasture, the animal kingdom, the beautiful animals, amazing things, and the amazing phenomenon, sunrise, sunset, rain, cloud, sunshine, snow, so just from that angle, if you just take a look at His creation, and the phenomenon, and even the process of creation, the process of a chicken, a chick being born, or hatching out of an egg,  you know how the chick gets the blood, the oxygen into a blood stream, and so on and so forth.

As you reflect these things, as you reflect in the animal kingdom, or any of the human body, or human body organs, and the way they function, you can appreciate the detail and the beauty and the sophistication of the creation of Allah (subahana wata alla), and the power of Allah (subahana wata alla), the mercy of Allah (subahana wata alla) which is demonstrated by the mercy that we have for each other, the mercy that the animal have among each other, and so on and so forth.

So as you reflect on that, you realize who Allah (subahana wata alla) is, and then you realize that Allah (subahana wata alla) choose to create me. He is the one who bless me with whatever I have, right? so we are not talking about the more or less, but any amount that we have, your ability to hear, and be able to communicate with people, that’s great blessing itself, right? we do not have any right or authority to demand the blessing of Allah (subahana wata alla) has given us, or the ability to see, or the ability to speak, the ability to touch, the ability to taste foods, and whatever foods that we have available, and the feeling of thirst that we have and then how is quenched by a cold drink. All these amazing things are from Allah (subahana wata alla) we enjoyed.

So as the one, thinks about all these beauty and bounty of Allah (subahana wata alla), we start reflecting on these things and that should help us to think and fall in love with Allah (subahana wata alla), and to have that complete love and submission to the commands of Allah (subahana wata alla) because of His perfect wisdom and knowledge, and because of these command being for our own benefit, and Him rewarding us for obeying Him in those commands.

So such an amazing law that we have, that builds the amazing connection, we kind of start falling love of  Allah (subahana wata alla). And then Allah (subahana wata alla) says

So meaning that any bounty, any blessing, any ny’ama that we have is from Allah (subahana wata alla). We do not have any foundation or fundamental right to it, is a favor and blessing from Allah (subahana wata alla). And then when some sort of hard, some sort of hardship touches us then we start to like, you know, start asking Him, and begging Him, and that is especially when we see that nobody else as human can help us in that.

So something amazing to reflect, now another thing to reflect here is that, look, anybody in this world that loves you, from the creation of Allah. Whoever loves you, there is essentially a need of them being met by loving you, there is a personal benefit, whether it is obvious or not, there is a personal benefit, there is a feeling that is returned for them. Whether it’ll be an emotional return or worldly return, or whatever, right? but Allah (subahana wata alla) love you for yourself, he choose to create you, he choose to create you in this time of age in the circumstances that you are, it is not a random act.

And there is affair that narrated by this mention by the AlQayyum Rahimahullah in his book. And Allah will honor him by his authenticity. But, as it says that, all my slave, everyone desires you for himself, right? There is this own benefit there, but I desire you and I want you for your own self. So Allahu Alam about that but something to think about, right? and he mention a point here that how could it be that Allah (subahana wata alla) gives us all this opportunities, these blessings and even with that he comes down on the last third of the night and He ask us, is there anyone who is asking me, I will give him more, asking for forgiveness I will forgive him, and so on and so forth.

Allah (subahana wata alla) says in Quran that

Ask me, follow me, make Dua to me, I will respond you, and so many other things right? How can it be that we are not shy that Allah (subahana wata alla) being whom He is, the amazing, magnificent He is! And the same time, we are turning away from Him. And we are turning away from Him and we are falling and being engaged, being occupied by love of someone else other than Him.

Something very, something to think about it, something to reflect on it, and we feel shy from.

So something we need to think about it, once we realize who Allah (subahana wata alla) of how much we are in need of Allah (subahana wata alla), that will help us to focus in salah, that would help us to rush to sallah, that would help us to find calmness and peace and in salah. That would help us to feel enjoyment in salah, and that would encourage us, lead us to not disobey Allah for the pleasure of creation.

Now think about how generous Allah (subahana wata alla) is. How He gives, gives and gives. How He forgive us. How He still give when we disobey Him. And how Allah (subahana wata alla) always protect us and there is no one can harm us except by His will, there is no one can benefit us except by His will, and from His bounty is that he has sent down the books and the messengers to us so that we can be guided, or how to worship Him, how to live a life in term of relationship with each other, or relationship with Allah (subahana wata alla) with financial matters and so on and so forth.

And how He facilitate us to do good deeds, and how He forgives and wipes off our bad deeds, and how He response our Dua, and how He forgive us mistakes, and how He covers our sins, how He covers our shortcomings and how He removes harm and hardship from us, and how He response to our desires and our dire needs. So He is the one who is the most deserving to be remembered, and mentioned, the most deserving to be thank, the most deserving to be worshiped to , the most deserving to be submitted to, the most deserving to be praised. He is the one who love us more than our own parents, there is no one can love us more than Allah (subahana wata alla), care us more than Allah (subahana wata alla), how he facilitating us, guide us, give us all these opportunities toward guidance. And He is the king; there is no partner with Him. He is the one that has no child, no son, or no daughter, He is the one who will remain, and while every other person, every other creation will die and perish, He is the one that we obey by His facilitation and He is the one who is aware and knowledgeable when we disobey him. He is the one who is ghani, who is not in need of anyone and anyone is in need of Him.

So once we’ve realize that how beautiful Allah (subahana wata alla) is, and that, if we take a one step toward Him, He will facilitate more and more obedience from us. So that becomes a beautiful life we live in. and that is kind of indication in Him of the life that Solihim, the one, the righteous servant of Allah (subahana wata alla), and how their life were beautiful. With that they will long and look forward meeting with Allah (subahana wata alla) in prayers in this world, and meeting and seeing Him in the hereafter. So that is something they look forward to, and they enjoy in this world by the clam of Allah (subahana wata alla).

That something to think about how much we are in love with the book of Allah, how much time do we spend in the book of Allah (subahana wata alla),  with the book of Allah (subahana wata alla), reading it, listening, and reflecting upon it.

So these are some of the indicated us and a sign for how beautiful our life can be once we start falling into the real love, the love does not diminish, because your relationship with Allah (subahana wata alla) will exist when you die. In the life of grave and hereafter, every other relationship will perish. And that is where emptiness comes from because we start think that we are self-sufficient one way or the other. So once we realize how much powerful, how much loving, how much amazing Allah (subahana wata alla) is, and how much we are in need of Him, the life would be different.

So some action point out there is basically reflect on what you focus on, reflect on what you desire of, how do you compromise Allah (subahana wata alla), look, as Allah (subahana wata alla) says in Quran, and tells them

If you love Allah, than follow me, follow the messenger (sallalahu alayhi wasalam), Allah will love you. So making Dua for us, asking Allah (subahana wata alla) to bless us for His love, and taking means sacrificing our own desire over the commandment of Allah (subahana wata alla), until our desire are aligned with the commandment of Allah (subahana wata alla).

So may Allah (subahana wata alla) make this happen to us, may Allah (subahana wata alla) bless us with His love and increase us and make us to take the means to achieve that.

This is basically also the ending of the book. We were covering the book of AlQayyum Rahimahullah, obviously it’s a great book, you may find the book online, there is an English translation of, I am not sure if it’s a great translation are available, but definite check it out there obviously other longer lecture on the books that other people have done. We have just taking some major points from the books, some gems and apply some contemporary examples with those points.  

until next time, please do let us know how you benefit it, what you like, what you do not like, which topics, or which problems that, or which area would you like to address in the future, episode. Weather it will be podcast or videos, and we would love to hear from you if you have applied any of those things and how it has benefit in you.

So until next time, Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh

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Muslim Mastery Breakthroughs is our weekly podcast series in which we share insights on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationships, and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life in sha Allah.

To check out previous episodes visit Breakthrough Podcast

Got questions or comments? Send us an email at breakthroughs at muslimmastery.com

You are listening to Muslim mastery breakthroughs, a podcast series in which we share insight on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationship and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life Inshallah.

Love is the foundation of all Actions

This week we will be talking about how to understand our actions and desires based on the foundational and most powerful emotion of Love. We will also complete the picture by discussing how Love is impacted by sound or weak intellect, knowledge and desires.

Bismillah. Wallahumdulillah Wa Salat Al al-Salamu wala rasulullah. This is your breakthrough coach, Zubair.

We have been discussing in the last two episodes that concept that one does not leave what one likes and loves. So he will always stick to it. The only way for him to leave that is that he leave it and gives it up because of something that he likes much more. Or on the other hand, he would not do something he dislikes except that he does it to attain something that he love much more, or to avoid something that he is dislike much more. That quality of intellect, the sound intellect, the sound understanding is what helps one to prefer the more beloved and the more desired, over less beloved and less desired. And the less dislike over more dislike, and this is from the perfection of love and hate.

Alright, now if somebody is not doing that, than this is because of one of the deficiencies. A) Lack of understanding. He does not understand and perceive what should be more beloved to him, and what’s more beneficial, and what’s more harmful. So he does not have the right choice and the right preference. Or he lacks courage of heart, the boldness to take the action, lack of will power, self-esteem and confidence.

There are people in whom their desire for gratification is more powerful than their faith, than their iman, and intellect. And there are people in which the situation is opposite. How many physically sick people continue eating, drinking and consuming what the doctor clearly advise them as being harmful to them? Now the same reason they lack of world power that they understanding this is harmful, that’s the same reason that they are lack that will power, they have that understanding this is harmful, but they lack the will power, lack the patients, or they’re not fully comprehending harmful effect.

So the foundation of goodness and wellbeing is correct understanding, comprehension, knowing the good from bad, knowing the better from the good, the worst from the bad, and then having high ambitions, will power and patients to deal it, patient to pursuit it. And the essence foundation of evil, sadness, rationalist, humility is opposite of that. The essence of every action is love and will, and hatreds and dislike is the absence of not taking actions.

So this how we make our choices. And this way of choosing making the choice is common between animals and humans. The error that many make is to pursuit and chose that which will give you the instant gratification but that will only last for a very short time and give up the long term benefit. And this is something we see when animals are hunted. How they offered something that would appear to give them quick gratification but compromise their life or freedom. As you reflect and ponder on what people are after, they all in general are after happiness and content, and to remove sadness, grief, and anxiety. Now some do this by eating and drinking, education, businesses, trade, marriage, having kids, and music playing, and amusement and so on. These are ways with some success, but ultimate eternal success is the path to the creator, submitting to Him, trusting Him, loving Him, and making His preferences and orders in our prefer way, and submitting to them as we discussed in the last episode.

Now look at the Kalimah of Tawheed, which we say la ilaha illaa, that there is no deity worthy of worship, the rooh, the essence sort of that is to single out the Rab, the Lord, the creator, the owner, the one who controls all affairs, the one who dictate all affairs, the one who is in charge all of affairs, the one who plans all affairs, the one who provide sustainers. Just singling out when it is come to the love, when it is come to the respect, the honoring, when it is come to the fear, when it is come to hope, right? and these things that lead to trusting in Him, depending on Him, repenting to Him, longing for Him, you know, having fear of Him, and not to love to anybody other than Him, accept that love of someone else leads to the love of Allah, or leads him to increase the love of Allah, and so on and so forth, right, that the whole essence of it, right? The one only repent to Him, the one make obedient to Him, the priority, the one to obey Him completely, and in all situations, right? The one seeks His help first and formal, and does not seek help in idols, and the dead, and so on and so forth. And does not prostrate to somebody else, and does not sacrifice for somebody else, and so on and so forth. And that is the essence of Tawheed to give his full hug, and full right, right? And Allah (subahana wata alla) says in Quran, praising the people. Allah (subahana wata alla) says in surah Al-maarij.

And these are the people that upon their testimony, they are firmly standing, right? So, this is giving the Hack, the right of the shahada,

Now for the people who do that, they are the one who will taste the good life in this dunya, as well as in the hereafter, right? So their paradise of this dunya is sweetness and beauty of worship. They enjoy the worship of Allah (subahana wata alla), actually enjoy fasting, praying, and doing things for the sake of Allah (subahana wata alla). They don’t take it as physical burden, they’re actually enjoying it. Then, in the hereafter, they are blessed with the Jannah, and good live life in the Jannah. As Allah (subahana wata alla) says,

“Whoever does good deeds, whether male or female, and he is a believer – Allah will give him a good live life, and Allah will definitely give him a good live life.”  

So the one who is not feeding that sweetness, the one who is not enjoy that sweetness, now they are in one of that situation, one is that they may have some of  these indicator something calling them from inside, from their soul, and showing them there are some sort of emptiness in their life. And they can feel something is missing, their heart, their Fitra’s giving them signal, but now what would happen is either they don’t have the knowledge of how to pursuit the creator, or they don’t have the courage, the Tawfiqh, the facilitation from Allah (subahana wata alla). Or the other type of people are the one who are busy and drowning in their love of dunya, and what the dunya has, so they may be busy chasing and enjoying  fame, wealth, man and woman, so on and so forth.

Similar to someone who is fully intoxicated, that he may see his home, car burning down, but would not be aware of his loss, because he is intoxicated, so even he is missing out, he does not realize that loss until he wakes up, until he sobers. For Some people, this awakening, this sobering happen at a very late time when nothing can be done and that is the time when they are facing death.

Love has its consequences, feeling, and taste of sweetness, excitement, desire; separation from the one being loves, being away from him, longing for him, missing the beloved, crying, exerting efforts and so on.  One may go from joy and pleasure to crying and sadness, and back and forth, these are all power of love, and the whole package of love. But love can be beneficial and praiseworthy, and harmful and blame worthy, right? Either your love is praiseworthy, and is going to be beneficial for your or is harmful for you and blame worthy.

So the one who would choose the love of one that is harmful and blameworthy, the reason for that is either the person is ignorant of the harmful effect of that love, so one is not realizing how the love for someone or something is harmful for them, right? Or they are trying to meet instant gratification or faults promise, they are following their desire. How to fight that is with proper knowledge and patients, patients upon not following sinful and harmful desires.

So the beneficial love all the painful emotions, anything that you suffered, all the efforts that you exert, all the pain, all the crying, and all longing, all becomes beneficial.

So action points from today’s episode is to check what is our true desires, what are we after, what do we think most of the time? What do we think about during our prayers, our meeting with Allah (subahana wata alla), what make us disobey Allah, who is love, who is pleasure, who is comfort, what are we seeking when we disobey Allah, are we following any fault promises? The way to bring this change is to have consistent, authentic knowledge, and consistent reminders, and to plan our actions and to be patient on pursuing them, and to do checking our own accountability to see the failure and success rates for our plans. Or having a coach and an accountability partner, so when you are having a coach and an accountability partner, let’s say you have a bad habit or a sinful habit, you don’t have to necessary disclose that, you can make it an anonymous  habits, you know, did I do that or not, and then, digging the coach on what causes you to do those sinful actions and so on and so forth. Associating short term penalties from bad behavior, right? A lot of time when you do that behavior, or a sin, we don’t realize that the cause of it. because Allah (subahana wata alla) is very forgive him, and He does not take us, make us accountable right away, He does not punish us right away, so sometimes you don’t not realize the power that He has, so you can have short term penalty, and such as that, if I do such such things, I would give such such amount in charity, or I would fast, or I would volunteer certain number of hours, do something that will deter the bad behavior.

Lastly but most importantly, do not forget the power of Dua.

Until next time

Subhanakallahumma wa bihamdika, ash hadu anlaa ilaaha illa anta, astaghfiruka wa atoobu ilaik.

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Muslim Mastery Breakthroughs is our weekly podcast series in which we share insights on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationships, and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life in sha Allah.

To check out previous episodes visit Breakthrough Podcast

Got questions or comments? Send us an email at breakthroughs at muslimmastery.com

You are listening to Muslim mastery breakthroughs, a podcast series in which we share insight on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationship and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life Inshallah.

Love, Focus and Joint Ventures

How would life be if in all our ventures we had the top most expert partner with us, he would be there to advise us on which path to take, would be there to consult on important and time sensitive decisions, would be there in all aspects of our venture whether it be relations, education, career, business, da’wah, activism, investments and so on. When we try to please multiple people with different or opposing demands, we spread our energy and efforts and may often feel frustrated or losing because of contradictions. How fulfilling life would be when all different forms of love and focus are aligned, our focus is in one direction and we have the best advisors?  We will also discuss a natural form of love and inclination and when it is blameworthy and when it is not.

Bismillah. Wallahumdulillah Wa Salat Al al-Salamu wala rasulullah. This is your breakthrough coach, Zubair.

Last week, we were discussing about giving up a bad habit, addiction, or in general unwanted behavior. We discussed three key ingredient, and that of those words.  No. one, love for something bigger, something more important, or fear of something, fear of losing something bigger, right? So someone has addiction, or an unwanted behavior, and they realized that, hey, I could be pursuing my time, energy in my life and pursuit of this higher purpose, and pursuit of this higher goal, my higher dream. And this unwanted behavior and addiction is pulling me down. And when they realize that, and they realize how spending time in that unwanted behavior would make them lose the bigger picture, their bigger dream, their passion, you know, that would help them to focus on that bigger passion, and that greater purpose and to leave the bad habit, or addiction and unwanted behavior.

The two other ingredients that are the super necessary are the will power and patients. We’ve talked about how it has to be done with patient, because it’s not going to happen overnight, and we will have to invest time and energy until we see significant results.

Now that time we were talking about just having something else, something bigger, a bigger worthy purpose, right? Now, if you take it to the next level, right? As you take it from one, from lower step to higher step, right? You realize that eventually, ultimately comes down to the love of creator, and the desire to please Him, right? Now if you get to the level, everything else becomes secondary, right? Your metrics change, the way you see life change. So as an example, you know, if you have worldly goal, right? And let’s say if is to read some sort of financial independence level, reach a level of saving in your bank account, right, your metrics is just that, right? In general, what happen is that you wouldn’t be counting your efforts towards, you’ll always be stressing out your final numbers on, hey, how much money do I have in my bank, Right? But if your purpose becomes that pleasure of the love of the creator as oppose of the creation, and in this case the creation would be the money, the wealth, right, the assets verses the love of the creator which is, hey, you know, I’ve been giving my life, and my time, and my focus and my energy, and I just don’t want to waste it chasing comfort of my body, right? So If your chasing up of your body, you would be very stagger, you may be end up very lazy, and you know, sleeping a lot, just not making any effort, right? or vice versa, but in general, let’s take a example, what someone who is very complacent, and just like sitting at home, or relaxing too much, you know, hiding from people, hiding from taking, making efforts and so on and so forth. Whereas someone realized, look I’ve been giving this life as a matter of trust, I’ll be accounted, for my energy, for my youth, for my time, for my asset, for my skills, and so on and so forth. That person would be thinking about how to best use my time, skills, focus and my energy, and then, the journey becomes the metric, right? How are you using your resources becomes metric. So if your using it the right way, even you don’t see significant success right away, you are happy, you are content, because you know that the way you are using your energy, and your resources are in the pursuit of the creator.

Another thing to realize that, look, you know, these two love, the love of the creation, the ultimate love of the creation, whether be your own desire, your status, your fame, your money, your wealth, your family, what have you, or the love of the creator, they do not exist together, right? So one form of the love will ultimately expel or diminish the other form of love. So having the love of highest, the creator, is the most beneficial form, and will help you live a fulfilling life. So is something to make a choice like, which love do you want to focus on it? Because eventually, ultimately, one love diminish and expel the other from your heart.

So when we reach that form of love, the love of the creator, then loving others and other things become for the sake of that love, right? So if you love other things, because they help you get closer, and help you increasing the love of creator, right? or it prevent you from losing or diminishing love of creator, so that’s like an example, right? So you may have some friends that you love because Allah (subahana wata alla) wants you be close to,  Allah (subahana wata alla) wants you to take care of them, they can be like imitate family members, parents, spouse, children, and so on and so forth. Or people that remind you of Allah (subahana wata alla), people that teach you about Allah (subahana wata alla), and the deen of Allah (subahana wata alla). It could also be the love or pursuit or having things that would prevent you from falling into haram, from falling into prohibited things, right? so having a spouse, pursuing a spouse, or getting marry, or having a good relationship with spouse, having good life with the spouse, helps you to prevent you from Zina from falling into illegal or impermissible relationship in Islam. So your pursuit and you are spending time investing your relationship with spouse actually helps you from falling into haram relationship which would have caused you to diminish or to decrease your love from Allah (subahana wata alla), or His love for you. So you see how it becomes all aligned, or how it becomes, you know, in line, and becomes eventually for the love of the creator, the One.

Obviously, as we know that the shirkh, shirkh in the love associate the partner, that love is not forgiven, right? So that means you loving someone equally, or more than you love the creator. And that love could be for people, for fame, for status, for wealth, for access, and also for your desires. So we see in surah Al-Jathya, and Allah(subahana wata alla) says in verse 23.

Have you seen him who takes his own lust, his own desire as his god, so his obedience, his submission, his following is only to his desire, right? and Allah (subahana wata alla) says, and Allah left him astray and seal his hearing and his heart and put a cover on his sight? So he is not able to see beyond that, right? His all concern and focuses is his own desire, what would make him feel good, what would make him feel the enjoyment and so on and so forth. And the verse continues: who then will guide him after Allah? Will you not than remember? So as you make this choice of following our desires, or following the knowledge, following the commandment of Allah (subahana wata alla) is very important thing to consider. As you keep on doing more on the desire side, as we are talking about earlier, you know, may Allah protect us, come to a level that our desire become our God, may Allah (subahana wata alla) protect us from this.

Ok, now as we are talking about earlier in the introduction of the episode, regarding joint ventures, right? So think about it, right? How do you feel that if in every effort and every pursuit that you have in life, you have the best advisor, the most experience person as your partner, right? You want advice? Boom, you can have it. You want support, connection, networking, boom, you can go to the partner and then you have it, right? That’s how, if you look at the start of world of entrepreneurship and you know how you have seen the investor, the angel  investor, then you have venture capitalism, and so on and so forth. That is how you put on to invest, you know, and financially as well as they bring in their own experience, and their own connection, and their own network and advice, and help the new business grow, right? Think about it, how would it be if you had that opportunity, right? And what can be a better advisor?  Who can be a better advisor? Who can be a best support other than Allah (subahana wata alla), the creator Himself.

So, let’s take a look at the beautiful hadith kursi which is a narration by prophet (sallalahu alayhi wasalam) in which he is narrating from Allah (subahana wata alla). So this come in the salih buhari and is partial long, and we’ll take a look at part of that, in which the prophet of Allah (sallalahu alayhi wasalam) has been reported to have said that Allah (subahana wata alla)says:

So the translation of that it goes, whosoever shows enmity toward someone devoted to Me, someone in allied with me, someone that obey to me, I shall be at war with him, right? So in that case, you know, when you reach that states, your enemy becomes enemy of Allah (subahana wata alla), right? Is that beautiful, right? And Allah (subahana wata alla) mentions how does that happened. Allah (subahana wata alla) says, my servant draws not near to me with anything more love by me than the religions duties I had made obligatory upon him. So the best way, the most fastest way, the most efficient way for us to get closer to Allah (subahana wata alla) is to focus on the quantity and quality of the thing that Allah (subahana wata alla) has made obligatory on us. Things that are compulsory, things are wajib, things are fard upon us. And then to excel, Allah (subahana wata alla) says, and my servant continue to draw near to me with voluntary deeds, voluntary actions, so that I shall love him, right? So you continuing doing that until a point that Allah (subahana wata alla) loves him, and then “I love him, I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks. And if you want ask something of Me, I would surely give it to him, and if you were to ask Me for refuge, I would surely grant it to him.”

So now think about this, the words that hadith uses is “wabe” scholar explain it to be as the companionship, meaning that Allah (subahana wata alla) is with you when you are doing those actions, right? So Allah (subahana wata alla) is with you, with His support, with His aid, with His guidance, with His facilitations, so on and so forth. So doesn’t life become so beautiful because whenever you are taking a decision, imagine Allah (subahana wata alla) is aiding you in taking the right decision, in choosing the right partner, and choosing their right friend, choosing the right spouse, and choosing the right ventures for business and careers, and education, or Dawa, or activism, or socialism, anything right?

If you think about some of the verses in Quran, such as the Al-Taoba, in no.40, narrating that how prophet of Allah (salalahu alayhi wasalam) was telling Abu Bakr (ra), when they were in the cave, and the enemy the mushukim were chasing them and find them, and prosecute them, and he tells him that, look, (Arabic…)

“Do not be afraid, do not grieve, Allah (subahana wata alla) is with us.” right? so If you had that sort of motion in your life, that sort of awareness, that sort of internalization of this concept in your life that Allah is with you, and is aiding you, supporting you, in everything, and whatever happens to you is by the choice of Allah (subahana wata alla), His choices for you are better than your plans for yourself. You know, how perfect and how beautiful life would be.

And then you have in surah Ash Shura how Musa responded to his people, right? This is when he faced with sea, ocean in front of him, and you know, Ferron and Ferron’s people were chasing them,  behind them, right? so he know from a worldly perspective that 2 plus 2 equal 4, the material perspective you have the destruction and death in front of you and behind you, right? but you know, he can see beyond that, he say, look, no, this would never happen, Allah would not let us go to waste, and Allah is with us, He will guide us, right. And then Allah (subahana wata alla) comforting Musa (a.s) and his brother Haroon (a.s), you know, when they were being sent to Ferron, Fara, they were concerned about what he will do to them. Allah (subahana wata alla) says that, look,  “you do not fear, verily, I am with you, hearing and seeing.”

So this is something that we can aim to the right, higher form of love. And now, you know if we were to look at it from different angle, look the sweetness of faith, right? I mean, if you’re not enjoying the sweetness of faith, and the beauty of faith, the beautiful hadith in which the prophet of Allah (Sallahu alayhi wasalam) has reported, he said that, there are three qualities, whoever has them, will taste the sweetness of Iman, will taste the sweetness of faith.

And these are the three qualities.  No. one, is to love Allah and His messengers more than anyone else, ok? To love a creation, the slave of Allah only for the sake of Allah, and then thirdly to abhor, to hate returning to disbelieve after Allah has save it from it, as it would heed to return to the fire of hell. So no. one likely you know who do you have pure love for, who you desire most, who is your main focus, Allah and His messenger their pleasure, or someone else, right?

Secondly, when we love people it is because of Allah or some other reasons.

Thirdly, how much do we value faith, Right? and the part of that is also like,  you know, as we talked about earlier that disobediences and sins and the consistent of that, and not repenting, and not stopping enough, you know, trying to give them up, can lead to one of disbelief, right? So are we concern about it, hey you know, you know, I really want to avoid, you know, going back to disbelief, right? Are we taking the measure of that?

And then an beautiful ayaah in surah Baqara: 165, Allah (subahana wata alla) says

From mankind among some who have taking for worship others beside Allah, they love them as they love Allah, but those who believe love Allah more than anything else.

Now, let me talk about this love, it’s important to take a quick look at the different types of love. So first love is love for Allah, right? How much do you actually love Allah, right? And that would necessitate falling a love, meaning if you love Allah, you’ll also love what Allah loves, right? This is the second types of love which is to love what Allah loves. And that would lead one a true love for Allah, would lead one to actually follow Islam, and to follow the rules and commands of Allah (subahana wata alla), and to obey to Him, and to submit to Him. Now the third form is basically you love someone else, a creation but you love it for the sake of Allah (subahana wata alla).

And then the forth one is actually loving someone alongside of Allah. So it’s not for Allah, but is someone even if is a contradiction with Allah, you actually love them similarly, or even more than Allah. And that’s rare, you know, you start falling into the Shrik, this is something that’s not forgiven. That’s very dangerous territory to be in it, and that could be your love for your own desire, or your own thinking, or your own intellectual. You know, above and beyond the love of Allah (subahana wata alla), right? similar to what shaytan did, he did not obey Allah (subahana wata alla)’s order to prostrate to Adam (a.s), rather he refused and he was thinking on his own that, oh no I am better than Adam, and so on and so forth. And all that argument we are aware of, right? So you can have similar things when our desire, our family, our culture, our friend, you know, are our context with Allah (subahana wata alla) wants us to do it.

And then, finally, the love which is natural love, right? So someone who is really really thirty, really going to love a nice cold drink, right? So that’s the natural love, our natural inclination, right? Or the natural love for, you know, wealth, or comfort, or you know, the opposite gender, and so on and so forth, right? So these are natural form of love that Allah (subahana wata alla) has placed. And they are not blamed worthy, right? They are not blamed worthy as long as they do not distract us from our primary purpose, right? If they do distract us from our primary purpose, than they could be blamed worthy, or they could be falling into what we were discussed earlier about loving others as you love Allah, or loving others more than what you love of Allah, right? And this is something if you take a quick look at two verses in the speech of the book of Allah (subahana wata alla) in surah Al-Munafiqoon, in which Allah (subahana wata alla) says:

Oh, you whom believe, do not let your children, your wealth, distract you from remembrance of Allah (subahana wata alla)

So this when our children, or you know, the wealth, and the pursuit of wealth, preservation of wealth, come in a position to Allah. So we may be missing prayer, because of them, we maybe you know, forgetting or being distracted to pause pray to Allah (subahana wata alla) or do what Allah’s commanded, or maybe taking haram and prohibited means to increase our wealth and protect our children and so on and so forth.

Likewise in surah an-noor, Allah(subahana wata alla) says praising the people, He says

There are people that their wealth, and their transaction, their trade does not distract them from the remembrance of Allah (subahana wata alla). So they do engage in that, they are not lazy, they engage in that, they are active, you know, when the time for Athan, when the time for prayer comes in, they would stop pause to do what is necessary. Likewise, they were not engage in any haram dealing and so on and so forth.

That’s something to keep in mind that natural form of love inclination is not an issue. What becomes an issue is when it becomes an opposition to, or a distraction from Allah (subahana wata alla) once. So let’s recap, right? And we talked today about focus, and the ultimate love for the creator, and how if we make him a focus for His pleasure, how are metric change, and how life becomes more comfortable, and how it expels our fears and so on and so forth. Then now, the notion of how do we get there, how do we get to the point that Allah (subahana wata alla) love us, and we become worthy of Allah (subahana wata alla)  His support, His aid, you know, all throughout and we have talked about focusing on our right, the obligatory deeds, then the votary deeds on obviously alongside, asking Allah (subahana wata alla) by Dua to bless us with His love, to bless us that we focus on Him, and His pleasure, and He becomes the most beloved to us, and so on and so forth, and then actually doing active checking, right?

So, you know, a lot of time we have these checking at work, or education, where we are receive our grades, our regular quizzes, or assignment, or midterm, or finial exam, and we have similar things at work, you know, different performance of metric, you know, if you run your own business, you have different metric to measure the profits and losses, PNL, loss and gains, and sales, and revenue and all that other stuffs. But, you know, how much time do we actually take to check in on our relationship with Allah (subahana wata alla), right? Our focus on that, our commitment on that, you know, our commitment to prayers, the quality of prayers, you know, our attachment and time spent with the Quran and so on and so forth. And then we want to take a step forward, then also check in with your important relationship, such as with your spouse, with your children and so on and so forth.

So may Allah (subahana wata alla) help us focus and follow what is beneficial, and until next time. Subhanakallahumma wa bihamdika, ash hadu anlaa ilaaha illa anta, astaghfiruka wa atoobu ilaik. assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh

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Muslim Mastery Breakthroughs is our weekly podcast series in which we share insights on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationships, and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life in sha Allah.

To check out previous episodes visit Breakthrough Podcast

Got questions or comments? Send us an email at breakthroughs at muslimmastery.com

You are listening to Muslim mastery breakthroughs, a podcast series in which we share insight on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationship and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life Inshallah.

Three key Elements to Break Away from Addictions & Unwanted Behavior

The three elements that are key to self-help. These are the qualities and abilities that you need to develop and enhance within yourself. Of course, this is not impossible to do and just like everything else this cannot be facilitated if Allah does not facilitate it. No matter which self-help book you read, coaching you take or workshops you go to if you cannot bring these three ingredients , success will be far away. In this episode, we will be discussing these three elements as Imam Ibn AlQayyum Rahimahullah responded to the one who asked him about the cure for one who is addicted to behaviour and knows that it is leading him to destruction but he can’t seem to come out of it.

Bismillah. Wallahumdulillah Wa Salat Al al-Salamu wala rasulullah. This is your breakthrough coach, Zubair.

Many time when you are dealing with people, and trying to enhanced a performance and the achievement and satisfactions in different areas of their life, we notice that there is typically and addiction and unwanted behavior of fears, some sort of enslavement to some desire, or unwanted behavior, or a love of it, extreme love for a person, or something that the person is not able to achieve and that desire, that love with that addiction and that behavior is really causing the person to slow down and not make progress towards their goals.

Now this can be something emotional, something related to weight lost, something related to not making progress in their businesses, or careers, or their education, and so on and so forth. Or something related to a destructive sin that is putting them far away from Allah (subahana watallah).

So the question arise, and this is kind of related with the book that we are also discussing in the book that the disease and the cure in which a questioner asked Iman Ibn AlQayyum Rahimahullah about the situation of someone who is into an addictive behavior, or a destructive behavior, he understand that this is leading to his destruction but he can’t seem to come out of it.

So the first thing that the Iman mention is around the facts that, hey, is there even a cure for that, is there even a solution for that. And again he quote something that we were discussed in our earlier episode, and that is the notion of that, look, any disease that Allah (subahana watallah) has sent down has a cure, right? And this is in the Hadith that we’ve discussed earlier as well. “Allah does not send any disease, but he also sent down a cure for it.” So that is from our mindset perspective, yes, it is possible, so regardless of your situation, regardless of your addiction, regardless of your unwanted behavior, it is possible for you to come out of it, for you to give it up, for you to break out of it.

Then, the Iman mentioned two things, one is the prevention, and the other angle of it is to the approve it. So basically, one is to prevent that sort of unwanted behavior, or addiction, or characteristic, to even forms, even form within you in the place. And the second is if it has formed, if it has taken place, if it has hooked you up, how do you get rid of it?

Before we go into those two ways, or two steps, or directions, something you understand is that, look, it is only easy and possible for someone who Allah (subahana watallah) facilitates for. And the one who is left by Allah to depend on himself, his own intellect, his own activities, his own means, and his own activities will not be successful. And that person will be the loser. So this is why you see the Dua in the Sunnah made by prophet( Sallahu Alayhi Wasalam) would asked Allah, do not let him depend on himself, but to depend on and trust in Allah (subahana watallah) and to rectify our affairs, and reform our affairs. So this is what our Dua should be. This is what our dependent should be. And with that dependent, and that understanding, and that faith, we take action to help us out.

So if I going on side tangent, this is something that, you know, keep saying about that look the Salah, the prayer, is not a time for planning, it is time for asking. So when you are in prayer, you need to understand that, hey, I am not trying to depend on myself, but I am in front of someone, in front of the one who owns everything, who control everything, so let me ask Him for His help, for His facilitation, for His assistants, rather than think about my to do list, or think about my planing, or planning my next steps. So whenever I consider come in prayers, we should understand, go back to Allah (subahana watallah) and ask Him to help us out.

Another way to do that would be to remind ourself before the prayer, that look, I am going to pray, I am going to take time out to pray to the one who control everything, likewise when we get busy, like oh, I don’t have time to pray, we need to remind ourself, look, the one I am praying to, the one I am going into meet in the prayer which is one on one meeting is the one who own and control everything.

Ok, that was a side point, but it is very important to remember that, look, we need to depend on Allah (subahana watallah) and consistently and continually ask Allah (subahana watallah).

So, having said that now, when we take a look at those two ways, one is prevention and then the second one is once it happen how do we respond, how do we approve it, how do we take it out. So let’s talk about the prevention, the first thing that he mention about is the protection of gaze, lowering the gaze. So this is part of the last four episodes that we talk about this four entry points, right? The sights, the thoughts, and so on and so forth, right? And then we’ve talked about minding our steps, and watching out what step we take, and how one step builds up to a thousand of steps, and how a person can be deviate from one steps to the next, and so on and so forth.

Let us talk about this point of lowering your gaze, protecting your sight. This is again from the perspective of prevention, right, and how this sight is a way, and an entry point of a lot of addictions, for a lot of deviations.

So a few episode ago, we talked about the sight in details. Now in this one is reminding us on the benefits and the goods of controlling your sight, and lowering your gaze, and not looking at things that Allah (subahana watallah) has prohibited. And he brings up various benefits in his book. We will be only talking about a few of them from the perspective of keeping it in the scope of this podcast and not to make it too long.

So, now he talks about the first one is that, by doing that, you are carrying out Allah’s command. You are obeying Allah. So whenever you stop looking at things that are unnecessary for to look at, that are prohibited for you to look at, it will bring happiness to you, because you are obeying your Lord. Second thing he talked about is that is to prevent us from poisoning us from Shaytan. The third point he mention is that, Because of that, you will have the blessing of having your heart attach to Allah. So when we let our eyesight go loose, we will make our heart away from Allah, right? so the more we obey Allah, the more we capture and look at things that Allah is please with, the more opportunity and the more blessing we have, than our heart will be connected and attach with Allah (subahana watallah. Than fourthly, he mentioned that we will earn the light of heart. And he mentioned the connection in the Surah Al-noor in which the verse of when the noor comes in, in which Allah (subahana watallah) has mentioned that the noor and then the light of the heart for the believer, and how the verse is preceded by the command to Lord that gives.

That is something interesting to take a look, to go back to the translation of surah noor, and look at the translation of the ayah of noor.

Fifth point he mentions is the “toru frerasa”, right? which can be translated as the ability to distinguish between the truth and falsehood, Is the ability, the gift Allah (subahana watallah) gives to the believers, the insight, the understanding that they are able to see the truth from the falsehood, their heart is directed, their heart is pure, their heart is becomes a compass and is able to detect the truth and the falsehood, right? Which options to take, who to trust, and so on and so forth, right? It’s about clarity, it’s about sharpness, is about the insight, right?

And now, think about this, how does that happen is that, look, the reward of a good deed, is something similar to it, right? So if someone gives that falsehood, that someone gives us what Allah (subahana watallah) is not desire, then Allah (subahana watallah) give them insight, so you don’t look at things that are prohibited and Allah gives you the insight, Allah blesss you with that internal scene, the ability to discern, to understand, to choose from the falsehood. So one who follows the Sunnah in external and the internally aware and cautious of Allah is watching him, and he lower his gaze, and refrain from doubtful matters, Allah will open the gate of knowledge for him, Allah will open the gate of Firasah for him for him, Allah will increase in his faith and so on and so forth. So you close your eyes to haram, and Allah will open up your insight for you.

So next one he mentioned is the bravery of the heart. The izza, the glory, the power, the might, right? And this is something that has mentioned in various places in Quran.  Allah (subahana watallah) says:

“The might, the honor belongs to Allah, His messenger and to the believers,” right? This is how Allah brings the victory and might to the believers. So the more you obey to Allah (subahana watallah), the more Izza, the more honor, the more might, the more bravery you will be getting. And likewish in other place such as:

In surah Imran, Allah (subahana watallah) says, not to lose hope, not to get tired, not to grief, because Allah is promising that you will the one who will be victorious, who will be over powering, who will be victorious, if you are believers. And you know, from the point of believe, and Iman, we know that it is included your statement, as well as your actions, the actions of that strong actions, as well as the internal actions, right? So if you have that Iman which is statement and action, you will be the one who will be, the one who will be over powering, and who will has that Iza, and so on and so forth. And Allah (subahana watallah) says, in Surah Fatir:

“For Allah, is the all the mighty and power”

To Allah, you know, that goes up or rise up. The good words, the words of and the, the good actions, the righteous actions, it elevates it.

So think about it, right? Your obedience to Allah (subahana watallah) is connected to your Iza, to you’re your victory, to your glory, to your mights, and so on and so forth.

Now, again we are talking this all in the contents of lowering gaze and not looking at prohibited and haram things, but this is a very general concept. The more obedience, the more compliance you are to Allah’s deen, and Allah’s order, the more might, the more power, the more Iza, the more success, the more victory you have.

Likewise, in the Dua, in which we says, you know Dua of noor: there is no one who can mediate, overpowers the one of Allah takes us ally, right? And no one can basically give power in mind and success to the one that Allah takes as the enemy, so these are some of the benefits of closing the entry point for Shaytan to the heart, right? And that entry point is the sight, you know. It takes different perception, you know, oh, I just take a quick look, just to see what is going on, and just have a look, right? This is how things start. If you are look at person who has an issue, in terms of addictions, in terms of fall into unwanted behavior, they started trying something, right? They just say, let me just try, let me just go in to check it out, let me just go in and try it out, and that is how it starts. And then you get hook on to it.

So the first thing is, to prevent, right? And it’s not to make things constrict, is just basically make your life easy, why give yourself taste of something that will addict you. That will be very hard for you to come out of, and the reason it happened is that we go on to try something, and then we kind of get hook on to this instance gratification, and the hard work and good quality are left alone.

Now, the second angle, the second route is that, you know, after prevention, let’s say, somebody has already fallen into an unwanted behavior. And the sheikh of Iman Rhimanhuallah, he discussed very important points. Says, look, you know, you cannot give up the love of something, unless you have something that you love more, right? So realizing and understanding and contemplating and asking for it that you are, you have a love for beneficial thing and your love for that is much higher than you love for the destructive behavior.

Ok, so you may have addiction, you may be like, for example, you know, fall in love with a person that is impermissible for you, or an addiction, or a behavior that you know, impermissible. Now, that is something you are measuring the desire, for instant gratification, and so on and so forth, ok. Because you fulfill some sort of emotional lead, fulfill some sort of gratification.

Now, if you have a love for something else, ok, that is positive, that is constructive, right, and then you are comparing the look, yes! I desire this thing, but I also desire another thing, right? And if I go after a lowly desire, if I go after my desire of unwanted behavior, I am going to miss out on my main love, my primary love, then that motivate you to not go after your lowly desire. Or on the opposite, the fear of losing something greater, ok, so you may think, ok look, you know, I want to go for this unwanted behavior for whatever reason, for instant gratification, or what have you, ok, but i fear that, if I don’t work on something else, that is constructive thing than I may lose something even greater. And that lost is going to be much more painful than for me to give up this unwanted behavior. Ok?

So imaging this alright, let’s take some examples, so, let’s say, you know, if somebody is, you know, addicted to a very common issue pornography, right? They addicted to taking a look at it and going back to, you know, indecent movies and phones, or pictures on internet, ok, now this is something that give them this instance gratification, you know, this instant rush of blood, and all that sort of that happens, right? And they get this instant gratification, and emotional experience, and so on and so forth, right? But then what happened is after that, usually, they are so tired, they go on this guilt trip, and then they go on all these routes, and then they are not able to function properly, they are able to pursue their goals, ok? We are not even talking about the love of Allah (subahana watallah) which is the extreme pure love; we will talk about it in the next few episodes.

Even is from the Dunya perspective, right? Now that person, because I know, for example, I’ve talked to some university students, I know they had been like failing, and really really doing poorly in their exams, in studies, so on and so forth, right? that person can template, look, I have this possibly in earning this degree, and you know graduating in than doing all these great work that I want to do from my family, from myself, so on and so forth, but this behavior is kind of preventing me from even graduating, I might drop out the university, I might still have all the student loan, right? Look, I have two options, either I quit this behavior, but don’t put this behavior and related to my failure in the university, right? That becomes the bigger fear of not quitting the university, right? or, the love for all the possibilities of completely, you know, for completely success in the university, getting a good job, getting a good career, and so on and so forth, and actually having a positive view, meaningful and good solid emotional connection with real people as it suppose going on, watching things on my digital screen, right, so that could be example of it, right?

Obviously a very pure example would be for someone to realize who Allah (subahana watallah) is, and to realize the love of Allah (subahana watallah), and the possibilities that exist with Allah (subahana watallah), such as the Izza, the glory, the might, the victory, the Jannat, the paradise, and all these things, right? That will be the ultimate things, but even as in middles stage if the person realizes what is on a stake, because of their unwanted behavior they may have the motivation to realize and quit the unwanted behavior. So first thing is to theoretically really realize and internalize is that, there some bigger that they are missing out on. So that’s the first element, is the realization of what are they missing out because of their unwanted behavior, ok? And what is possible for them to achieve if they were to leave that unwanted behavior.

Now if I were to take a pause here I like you to go back and think about how we started this podcast series. The first three episodes, right? The first episode we have you worked out a plan on what is possible for you to achieve in this life. We talked about the stronger identity like what are you about to achieve if you take on that stronger identity, right? And we help you to write down your things, and your plans, and your dreams so that you can have a greater goal, so that you can realize that because of some of your unwanted behavior, and your negative activities, and your negative energy, and your laziness, or you’re not putting in your full hundred percent, or your fears, or whatever is around that is preventing you, what is at stakes? What are you able to achieve? What are your true dreams? What are you able to do, right? So if you have not done that, I recommended you go back to episode number one of this podcast, or if you’ve done it, it would still be a good idea to review it. To review you stronger identity and see if you are following that, how much are you complying with that stronger identity that you wrote down. How far, how much progress you’ve made towards your goals. And what needs to change in that definition. Maybe over times or the last two quarter you’ve decided, you’ve realize that here is some behavior needs to change. Maybe you need to change a bit on your identity, maybe you need to change a bit on your behavior, or on your mindset, maybe you need to change a bit on your dreams, maybe you now have realized that much higher goals are possible, much higher things are possible, and you can have extra ambitions.

So from the three ingredients, the first one now is to realize that what is there for you to love more, and the ability to understand what is more powerful, what is more constructive and what is more destructive. So that you will be able to see what you’re losing because of you unwanted behavior. Now once you have that realization, you’ll still need two more ingredients for you to be successful. The first one is the will power, ok? Now, this is again going back into the first episode, you have to have that will power to behave like that stronger identity, that stronger you, right? And to behave like that, that would require will power, and not to go back on your unwanted behavior. We’ve talked about it in detail in the first two, three episodes, about how you behave in terms of when you go to bed, how you go to bed, what you think about, what kind of thoughts you downloads, what kind of thoughts did you prevent. A lot of it have been talked about it in different episode, ok?

Now second thing is, that is super important, and that is one of the key things that really missed out on people that I’m working with, and that is the importance of patient. Things will not happen overnight. You have to be patient, you have to be consistent. We have been talking about it again and again. You have to consistently take one step at a time, you have to understand one step is needed to for a thousand steps journey, and so on and so forth. You have to be patient. You have to be patient when making dua, you have to be consistent when making dua, right? And these are thing Allah (subahana watallah) mention in Surat Sajjad and He says:

“We made them leaders”

They are guiding people by the command, why? What are the two qualities that they have?

When they are patient

And they firmly believed in the ayats and in the verses that were prove, and evidence, and promise, and so on and so forth.

And this is something Allah (subahana watallah) says:

“O you who have believed,”

“Seek help”

“With patient and with prayers”

So look we have given you this model, you know? Is this something that our scholars, our ulamah, the people of the deen have written down books and books have talked about it. That the point is for us to work hard to bring in these characteristic, and patients, and hard work, and will power, and you will see the change.

So as a quick summary, look that it is possible, number one depend on Allah, ask Allah. Secondly, prevent it from happening, you know prevent it from happening, or prevent it from worsening. So for example, somebody has an addiction, instant addiction that they keep doing it, and they keep giving themselves more and more of it, and things become more and more worst, right? They become worst, right? And this is something for us to realize. And second thing is if it has happened, should realize that what else can we be achieving, what else are we losing, what’s more important for us, and then do you have that will power, and the patient to go and get it. May Allah (subahana watallah) facilitated it for us. Oh Allah, rectify and reform our affairs and do not make us depend on ourselves for the blink of an eye.

Subhanakallahumma wa bihamdika, ash hadu anlaa ilaaha illa anta, astaghfiruka wa atoobu ilaik.

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Muslim Mastery Breakthroughs is our weekly podcast series in which we share insights on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationships, and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life in sha Allah.

To check out previous episodes visit Breakthrough Podcast

Got questions or comments? Send us an email at breakthroughs at muslimmastery.com

You are listening to Muslim mastery breakthroughs, a podcast series in which we share insight on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationship and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life Inshallah.

Watch your step

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a step. The horse riding lessons that I have been taking my coach always reminds me of two things, correct your horse as soon as she deviates from your intended route or speed. The longer you wait the more deviated you are and the harder it is to correct or speed up. Another thing my coach tells me is to be aware of areas where the horse is likely to slow down or not do what you want her to do. So if you are away of those spot, you can take action before hand and be extra careful with those areas. Our breakthrough idea for this week is all about minding and watching your steps.

Bismillah. Wallahumdulillah Wa Salat Al al-Salamu wala rasulullah. This is your breakthrough coach, Zubair.

Welcome to our next episode of our Muslim mastery breakthrough podcast. We have been talking about four vulnerabilities. Or four areas that are immensely important for our correctness and our success. The first one of those was looks. We talked about why is it important to watch out what we look at and how to be carefully about things that we will be looking at, or staring at. The next thing was thought, to put filter on your thought, to not let our mind be occupied by useless or harmful thought. The third was about words, what our words tell us about our own self. What do they tell about our emotional blogs, about our mindset blogs, what do they tell us about why do we not successful. It also give us an opportunity to understand and go deep and look at the importance of words when it comes down to our own relationship with Allah (subahana wata allah), and how not to use our words to hurt other people.

Now today we are talking about the forth one, which is the important of a single, which is an importance of a single step in our life, in our hereafter, and in our journey toward Allah (subahana wata allah) as well as our worldly success. Now all these four points has been combined in Quran in two Ayats. The first one is Surah Furqan which Allah (subahana wata allah) says:

So this one is talking about his servants, the praiseworthy servants, the servants that Allah has praise when they are walking on earth how they are walking with ease, and how they are proper, Right? And then speaking to the ones that are ignorant, how they basically maintain their own honored, and how their peaceful, and how they are using the words of peace. In Surat Qaafir Allah (subahana wata allah) says that how He:

That he is aware of the cheating that the eye sight does, and what is hiding in the breast.

So you see in these two verses that how the importance of walking, talking will be look at, and what is in our chest, our thoughts, how Allah (subahana wata allah) combines all these four areas.

Now last week we’ve talked about the statement of the Messenger of Allah (sallahu alayhi wasalam), when he was asked about the deeds which we will be foremost lead a man to Jannat he replied, fear Allah and the good conducted. Than he was asked about indulgence which will admit a man to hell fire and he answered, the tongue and the genitals. And a different narration the importance of protecting private parts comes as, that are reported by Abu-hurrayra (Allah-hu-anhu) is reported to the Messenger of Allah (sallahu alayhi wasalam) has said, Allah is self-respecting, right? The arabic words are, Allah (subahana wata allah) has a Ghaira. And a believer is also self-respecting, believer also have a Ghaira. And the respect of Allah, the Ghaira of Allah is endure is a believer does what he has forbidden him to do, right? So this is basically talking about how Allah (subahana wata allah) Ghaira is heard, and is challenged when a believer does what he has been forbidden to do. So think about it.

Now if you have a boss, a client, a partner that you really respect, really hope that he can cause you a lot of damage, and he can cause you a lot of benefits, right? You truly truly believe that, and you know that he has certain thing that he really really hates, right? Would you do that? So imagine if you were to do things that he really hate, let say he has a daughter, a sister would you go and mess up with her, Right? Would you try to harm her, or his children? Now think about it, right? I mean because now you’re directly challenging that person. So Allah (subahana wata allah) has highest example, there’s no one like him. And this is the words that the Messenger of Allah (sallahu alayhi wasalam) is using, for us to be watchful of not crossing the boundary of Allah (subahana wata allah). And then this narration from Abdullah-bin-Askhud, one is his own statement in which he (RA) said that when and if usury and interests emerges in a town Allah permit its distraction. So now this is the chapter around which also talking about the importance of watching your step as well as the dangerous of zina in which Ibn Qayyim mention in his book we have been talking about the Diseases and the Cure of how bad the sin is, how one should be asserting his/her own efforts to be away from those sins.

Now this specific act, this specific sin Allah (subahana wata allah) has set immense punishment for it, even in this Dunya, and He has forbidden the believers to have mercy on those who are being punished, right? Because this is severe sin in the eyes of Allah (subahana wata allah). So it’s very important for us to be aware of the sins, the danger of the sins and how they cause our own distraction. But the same time, the mercy of Allah (subahana wata allah) is vast, right? so for anyone who is doing the true sincere repentance, that those repentance will be always open to Allah (subahana wata allah) says in surah six verse 36

Say, “O My slaves who have transgressed against their own souls, do not despair of the mercy of Allah. Verily, Allah forgives all sins. And He is the one who immensely and completely forgiving, completely and immensely Merciful.”

Now in today’s episode, we want to talk about the importance of steps. Look, regardless of where you want to be in life, you know, let’s say the journeys of 1,000 miles begin with the step. So it will be your daily step, you weekly step, weekly progress, your daily progress, your monthly progress, your courtly progress, that will make it happen for a big massive progress in the whole year. So the importance of steps is very very important. Not only because those steps counts toward your destination, and toward your journey, and toward your success, but also because one single step in the right direction motivate you to take another step in the same direction. If both that moment, and one step in the wrong direction makes it you harder for you to make a right step tomorrow.

So if you are going to achieve, like we know from your experience in the worldly things, right? if you are not doing well in the school, if you had a bad year, and you do not catch up, you do not understand the concept and you move on to the next grade, it will be very hard for you to maintain, and will be very hard for you catch up and move on, because you now have a baggage to take care of. Likewise, if you skip a day of gym you suppose to go, and you became lazy and you ate things you are not supposed to be eating, and you were have very, had a very exhausted day it will be very hard for you go get up and do the right thing tomorrow, right? And we know this so on and so forth. So patient and the right step is very very important.

Now at the same time, from a perspective of the divine blessing, the baraqa, the Khair, the Tawfiqe, the facilitation from Allah (subahana wata allah). These things, if one is continuously disobey Allah (subahana wata allah), not repenting, the biggest danger for that person is that he can have an evil ending. Now, this is very very important serious topic, that topic of ending, the state in which one will die.

I want you stop and pause and think about that how many people that you know in your life who had a very bad past and then they repent and had a great life and they die like that.  But At the same time, you would know people who had a great youth, and they were memorizing Quran, they were all doing the right things, but then turn 360 degrees, and they die in that state, right? So the importance of hussal Qatimah the good repenting, the bless ending is so important, and I want us to realize it myself, and yourself, do we really have a guarantee for having a good Qatimah, a good ending, ending with faith, and believing Allah (subahana wata allah) or saying lailahaillallah muhammadarrasulullah as our last words. Something we are very very careful about.

Now, there are causes for evil ending. And this is the sins we are accumulated, so this is the desire that one prefers this world, and prefers the love and pleasure of others over the pleasure of Allah (subahana wata allah). These are the things that lead you to the evil ending. Allah (subahana wata allah) says in surah al- an’am verse 110 this is the words that in many Salah would use during Suqoon. And he says:

“And We shall turn their hearts and their eyes away from guidance as they refused to believe in it for the first time. And We shall leave them in their trespass to wandering blindly.”

Now think about it, there were Salaf, there were people, they were used to cry, because of this. They will think that their sins may lead to an evil ending. And how negligent have you become for that. So now this is time to think about all our steps, and to think about which step are in the right direction, which step are not.

So firstly, I would like to encourage you to really pause and think about the question of how will my end be, what are my current steps that are leading me, or potentially leading me in the wrong direction and to have a wrong ending, may Allah protect us from it, and may Allah give us all the best ending upon the faith, make us from the people of Jannah tul Firdous.

The second things would be how I can guard these four entrances better, my eyesight, my words, my thoughts, and my steps. Then from our perspective of our worldly goals, whether it will be relationships, jobs, careers, educations, wealth, or health, Take a look at which step am I taking or going to take me to the wrong direction. So figuring out where I want to be and then knowing the steps is relatively easy. What happen is that we start thinking about the end and how far we are from the goals, rather than focusing on our today, how am I doing today, how was my week, how was my month, and so on and so forth.

So most of you might be listening to this in Ramadan, so maybe it’s a good time to plan, what do you want to achieve from this Ramadan to next Ramadan, in all different areas, in your relationship with Allah, in your steps, to perfecting, and to improving, and to making your Sallah better, in your Quran, in your family, in your spouse, with your spouse, with your health, career, jobs, children, parents, all these things. And then to have a routine of weekly checking, daily checking how I doing in all these areas and ask people for feedback, especially when is related to important relationship. So ask Allah (subahana wata allah) to facilitate this for us and help us to think about what we are learning and to make it practical in our life.

So next time. assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh

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Muslim Mastery Breakthroughs is our weekly podcast series in which we share insights on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationships, and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life in sha Allah.

To check out previous episodes visit Breakthrough Podcast

Got questions or comments? Send us an email at breakthroughs at muslimmastery.com

You can access the video series here.

You are listening to Muslim mastery breakthroughs, a podcast series in which we share insight on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationship and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life Inshallah.

Spiritual shortcuts

Have you ever been in a situation where you had access to investors or experts from various fields but you could not make personal connections because of lack of confidence, not knowing what to say, how to say, where to start or you were busy focusing on less important parts of the events such as food and desserts? To really take advantage from such rare opportunities it is extremely important for you to understand your strengths and weaknesses and have a strategy tailored for you to make the best use of these magnificent moments. What we mean by magnificent moments and blessed times are times and places where a little effort from you can get you massive success and they are too precious of moments to be wasted. This week’s breakthrough idea is a collection of strategies for a variety of different states and stages. We will be focusing on special blessed moments to improve our relationship with Allah (subahana wata allah), get close to him, increase love of him but similar things can be applied for other less important areas of life.

Bismillah. Wallahumdulillah Wa Salat Al al-Salamu wala rasulullah.

So type one or stage one are the people who are feeling left out. They are people who said, hey, I see people are taking time off; they are trying to make the best of these bless time, weather it will be Ramadan, the last 10 night of Ramadan, first 10 days of Hijar, Friday of every week, last third of every night, and so on. But I just don’t feel motivated. So our tip number one for them is to get their mindset right. Your success depends heavily on who you hung out with, who you love to spend time with? Who you listen to, and who you have as your sponsor and allies. If you can’t identify expert in various fields of interest you, whether it’ll be health care business, education relationship, you can have direct access to them, how would you feel, how would it impact the connection you can have, how many mistakes can this save you from making, how much faster can you reach your goal, the questions is how do you get access to these people, think about it.

Are there any shortcuts to getting access to these people? Absolutely, for most people, you can identify certain time of the year, certain events, certain locations, institute, conferences, etc. where are much easier to get their attention. How can you get there would be another question. But the point is that if you really want to connect with them, then you should not miss out on these special opportunities. We have been talking on previous episode that if Allah is with us by His special support, guide us in facilitation then what an amazing journey to success we would have. From the generosity and mercy of Allah is that He has chosen certain time of the year that really makes it easy for us to get closer to Him, but much less effort and a speed that is not available during any other times.

Tip no. 2, you can’t love someone if there is nothing to love about. Commit to seek more knowledge about Allah. I am not talking about technical knowledge the Arabic language of Tajweed, but rather knowledge of who Allah is. What is this life about? The event of death, grave, and afterlife, as you learn it, open yourself to reminder how summiting to Allah will liberate you, empower you, how even protect you, and your family in this time and hereafter. As you consistently remind yourself of what is the state for you in this life and the life of hereafter. It will motivate you to take advantage of these bless times to secure yourself from hell fire, to secure yourself from the punishment of the grave, and so on and so forth. So knowledge in reminder is very important, they will also help you to get closer to Allah in ways that he had prescribed. That is following the Sunnah, the way of prophet of Allah (sallahu alayhi wasalam), and not innovating new ways of worshiping Allah. Find out what works for you, classes, books, radios, personal teacher. Find out what worth for you and commit to it, think about how you can have daily reminders, will you be reading Quran daily, or listening to it, or listening or watching, and reading the explanation of Quran.

Ok, now let’s move on to the type 2, stage 2, which is the people who would say, hey, you know what, I don’t feel like giving up anything. So they are saying that I see the importance, but I don’t feel like changing my daily routine and giving up what I am use to doing. So in that case, tip no. 1, is to remove the excess baggage, be light, be fast, how can you do that, well, sincerely ask Allah (subahana wata allah) for two things, a) motivation and facilitation, b) to forgive your sins and past shortcoming, because they really make us heavy, they deprive us from the sweetness of worship, and they deprive us of the good of this world and the hereafter. Then you realize the greatness of Allah, the greatness of His famous on us, and how you had been falling short on His right, and how His merciful! and you engage sincere one on one conversation with Him, with Duas, supplications and prayers, that will get you closer and closer to Allah, and will erase your sins and with your sincere repentance you will become light, and you will enjoy worshiping Allah (subahana wata allah), continue doing that and you will find, you start enjoying the good deeds and giving up bad things and bad deeds.

Tip no.2, build momentums, start doing things that are easy for you, if giving up your time is hard for you because you are busy with work and different engagement, think about giving extra money, think about sacrificing some of the things that you are going to buy for yourself, and give that money for the causes that Allah (subahana wata allah) loves, such as feeding people, helping people, or invest in spreading the knowledge of Allah (subahana wata allah). If reciting Quran is hard, but volunteering is easy, do that, right? So if sitting down and reading Quran, or sitting in the lecture is hard for you, give up your time and start volunteering for causes. So start stretching yourself slowly, but be consistent, so if you’re busy at work, then again think about spending your wealth for supporting other people, and In-Sha-Allah it will make it easy for you to engage in your own private worship as well. Start giving up and doing things for Allah that relatively easier.

Tip no. 3, don’t feel overwhelmed. This can happen if you’re comparing yourself to someone who is way ahead of you when it comes to the external. so if you are looking at someone in your family or your friend circle, and you’re are seeing that how much they are praying, how much they are reading Quran, how much class they are attending, how much good things they are doing, you might feel very overwhelmed, and you might feel like you are not trying at all, so don’t do that, right? Don’t worry about them, let them where they are, be happy for them, and start finding the right competition for you, the right support for you, right? Or better yet, you know what, just compete with yourself, make yourself better, make your today better you than yesterday.

Type no.3, people who are intellectually confused.  So they would say, I can modify my routine, I can spend time in the group activity and volunteering, but I feel that I can do more if I did not have to fast, right? They are thinking that by fasting, they are losing more energy, if they preserve that energy they can do more things, or they would say like, why go spend my money on Hajj or ummrah, I can just use the money to help people, why I spend time on prayer, why don’t I use that time to help other people. So they have this intellectual dilemma. And this is a very common trap of Shaytan. Spend money on people, why go for hajj, why lose energy with fasting, use it for helping people, etc. No! If you know who Allah is, than you know He is completely and perfectly knowledgeable and wise. He has legislated obligation that has huge wisdom. When you do that, you are doing to worship of Allah, to show your submission to Him, to show your trust in Him and not to worship your own intellect. So when you fast, and feed hungry, tell yourself, it is not me being deprived of energy, and not being able to do other things I want to do. But think about this, I am doing this for the love of Allah. He is seeing me, I am getting closer to Him, and I need that, I in need of saving my own self rather than going to saving the world. I need to have my sins forgiven. He is happy with me by doing these things, as you reflect on these, and you will see many benefits of these things, but your submission is not depended on you seeing benefits or not. You are doing it for the sake of Allah (subahana wata allah), yes, there are many benefits, right? this deprivement of energy or lack of energy, or give a full sustenance actually makes you stronger, actually help you think on a spiritual level, and there are many other benefits to that. But the point of  this is not to be chasing the benefits, not to be chasing the benefits and be ready to submit and to give up, and to trust in Allah (subahana wata allah) even if you cannot see the immediate benefit.

Also realize that this world is a place of shortcomings and gaps, right? This world is not meant to be perfected. So there will always be things that need to be fixed, there are always things you need to spend time on it to bring benefits to others. But at the same time, the paradise is the place for perfection, and this is a main aim that where we want to get to, right? So Allah (subahana wata allah) has lay out a system and has recommend  this for us to have this balance whether we are taking care of personal worship as well as working on our community as goal.

Think about the life of the prophet (sallahu alayhi wasalam), he had a lot to do, but he still take time to connected to Allah (subahana wata allah) , engage in fasting, engage in reading Quran, engage in prayers, and so on and so forth. So this is the strategy that Allah (subahana wata allah) has given us for success on bringing good in this world. So let us not depend on our intellect to lead the guidance and the knowledge of Allah (subahana wata allah).

So, type no.4 are people who we would call can’t rise up. So they are doing all the previous things, but they don’t have time for private worship, for privately remembrance of Allah (subahana wata allah), engaging in prayer and reading Quran. So they are taking advantage of it, and they are sacrificing the time and money in doing a lot of community things. But they don’t have time for private things. So something to think about is that this private time is very important, because now you are trying to see that, ok, how can you raise up, right? I am doing something great, but are there things that are more be loving to Allah (subahana wata allah) specific time and how can I step my game up, how can I step up to that next level. So is important not to be just contempt at the level, we have to see that, ok, how can I start raising up?

So, Obviously, the previous advice on seeking forgiveness and asking Allah (subahana wata allah) is very important, and then start thinking about it that, ok, so if I want to start something privately, I have a few options, I can be sitting down and reading Quran, or I can be praying, or I can be doing ziqh, or, I can be making Dua, so different people will find one of these things to be relatively easier. So, if you find, ok, if you open a book, and you start reading the explanation of Quran, or translation, or reading Quran in Arabic, or just making Dua to Allah, just talking to Allah (subahana wata allah), or engaging prayer, so think about which of the private activities are easy for you, set aside some times  for private worship either is 15, 20, 30 minutes, and do the activities that are easier for you, and make Dua to Allah (subahana wata allah), to make it easier for you to engage things that are more beloved to Him.

Now, the type 5 is feeling exhausted, right? And this can happen in all stages. So, a very important point here is to think about the balance, right? Think about a dial or knob and norm, think about what kind of the balance do you have between physical assertion and the present of heart. You know the quantities verse the quality. so are there places that you worship are moment in your worship where you can actually increase the qualities, so if you are praying four rakha, two rakha, or you are reading a page of Quran, 10 pages of Quran, 20 pages of Quran, somebody else doing the same amount of quantities can actually get much closer to Allah (subahana wata allah) because of their present of heart, their present of the connection with Allah (subahana wata allah), their love of Allah (subahana wata allah). So think about how you can, you know, move that nob on the dial to go more on the quality side, while keeping the quantities consistent. Or maybe you can slightly reduce the quantities, because you are feeling exhausted, so you can reduce the quantity and you can increase that quality. So think about where in your worship can you increase your quality. Now this can be done by your present of heart, or you know, changing the time, such as you know, praying in the masjid as supposed to praying in home, for men, so on and so forth.

So, think about those things and remember the narration from the prophet of Allah (sallahu alayhi wasalam), and he said, make Dua to Allah in a state that you are certain, that your Dua will be responded too. And know that Allah does not respond to a Dua that originate from the heedless heart. So this is very important right? And the same thing also said about the prayer that, you know the person only have the reward for the prayer for which he was actually present in, right? And somebody can get like, you know, a third of tenth, and so on and so forth of the reward, You may not even get the complete reward for the action that you are doing, and you are getting physically exhausted, so why not focus on the quality as well.

Now types 6 are people who are kind of looking down on others. So, they would say, hay, you know what, I think I do a lots, Allahamdulilah, but I feel angry and frustrated at my family and children for not caring, and not doing as much as I would like them to do. This is a very common issue, is a very serious issue, remember shaytan would try to deceive and distract you in all stages, when you see your love one are not caring for important thing as much as you do, you need to check in about a few things:  

1. a)   Is your current practice that you care for the deen your own accomplishment? Or is a gift from Allah (subahana wata allah). If you realized is a gift from Allah (subahana wata allah), be humble and be grateful to Allah (subahana wata allah), and realize that it can go away. Keep asking for steadfastness.
2. b)   Do you want to help your family members connect with Allah, or are you just thinking them of them as needs and employees to help you making your numbers, to help you reach certain numbers. So this is very important to think, what is your mindset about your family members, so if is to connect to Allah (subahana wata allah), than you will be making sincere Dua for them, and most importantly, you will also be making Dua for your own steadfastness, and your own consistency.

Now finally, if you really want them to connect to Allah (subahana wata allah), you will be very careful that not pushing them in the way or using wrong words that would discourage them to worship Allah (subahana wata allah), that would cause them to kind of really not enjoying it, he start hating it. So this is not the purpose. So encourage them, use the method and technique that we talked about earlier, such as Dua, you know, help them to realize who Allah (subahana wata allah) is, if they don’t know who Allah is, what this world is about, and their distract by the Dunya, then they will remain distracted. So work on these stages, and do not overwhelm as well and do not look down on people.

So until next time we ask Allah (subahana wata allah) to help us to think about these stages, and to use them to take advantage of blessed times, so whether it’ll be the tenth night of Ramadan that are coming up for most of us, or your listening to this episode any other time, first ten day of Hijja, or we thinking about taking advantage of Friday, or taking advantage of the last hour of the night the time before Fajr, and so on and so forth. So is very important for us to take advantage of these times and get closer to Allah (subahana wata allah) and be friend of Allah (subahana wata allah), and allie with Allah (subahana wata allah). May Allah (subahana wata allah) make this happen,

Until next time.

Subhanakallahumma wa bihamdika, ash hadu anlaa ilaaha illa anta, astaghfiruka wa atoobu ilaik.

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Muslim Mastery Breakthroughs is our weekly podcast series in which we share insights on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationships, and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life in sha Allah.

To check out previous episodes visit Breakthrough Podcast

Got questions or comments? Send us an email at breakthroughs at muslimmastery.com

Listen to yourself for these seven clues to break through your barriers

You are listening to Muslim mastery breakthroughs, a podcast series in which we share insight on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationship and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life Inshallah.

Hear yourself for these seven clues to break through your own barriers

When your car makes weird noise you pay attention right? Well, guess what! What you say, what you don’t say and what you try to say but can’t say can give you a lot of profound insight about you. We talked about the powerful filters on your sight in episode 22, and the filters for thoughts in episode 23, and how they can have huge impact on your emotions, inspirations, motivations, and actions. For this week our breakthrough idea is around the power of words from various angles. The area that will be a breakthrough idea for many is if you hear yourself it will tell you a lot about all the reasons you are not making the progress you want to make in all areas, whether it be your relations, emotions, motivations, inspirations, actions or even physical health. We will also discuss how you can avoid harming others by your words whether it will be spiritual, emotional or mental.

Bismillah. Wallahumdulillah Wa Salat Al al-Salamu wala rasulullah. This is your breakthrough coach, Zubair.

If you want to find the proof of what is inside the heart, check out the tongue, tongue will make you to see what is inside the heart whether the person want or not. We will be taking a look at several areas to be exact seven precise areas that your tongue can give you a clue for. We will be taking a look at seven different areas. Your words will give you immense insight into these seven areas and will tell you why you are not making the progress that you want to make.

No.1 what does a lack of word imply? So, if you are not saying a certain thing that imply a lot about your feelings, a) if you don’t hear any words appraise or appreciation from someone, then either is not there that really something to appraise you for, the person really does not appreciate you, and that could be something you learn from. Or, it is there, the person actually appreciates you but does not know he should use the words to express his/her appreciation, or he doesn’t know how frequently he should do that. Check our episode no 21 on love and appreciation languages

No.3, the person actually is ungrateful. There is a lot of to be grateful for, but the person is ungrateful. That is the reason you are not receiving words of appreciation from that person.

So these are the three reasons that you will not hearing appreciations from someone. And when you don’t hear that, it doesn’t mean that person is not appreciate you, it could be any one of these three reasons.

Now, think about the same person, how ungrateful he could be toward his lord, if he doesn’t praise him, if he only thinking about things that are negative, things that are not working for him, if he is only thinking about the challenges in his life, that person is ungrateful person, that person need to focus on his own gratitude. And this is the reason that he has barriers which are barriers to his own happiness and contentment.

No.2, focus. What is the person focusing on? If he is talking about people, then he is focusing on people, if he is talking about events, then he is focusing on events, if he is talking about ideas, than he is focusing on ideas, right? So that tells you a lot of the person. That also tells you a lot of your own self, what are you focusing on? Are you focusing your shortcoming? Now it depends on how much you focus on that, how much you talk about those and in what context, right? So one can be talking about this in the sense of, ok, these are my challenges, and I should work hard to overcome those challenges. I am prone to making this and that mistake, and these are my shortcoming, so I should be working toward them. Or, he could be talking about that to get him all the excuses to take action. Or he could be talking about his wins, his success stories, and that person can be doing that because he is so full of himself or herself, and he is always bragging about himself. Or he could be doing that for inspiring other people, or he could be doing that to encourage himself, that look I was able to do that, with consistent effort and the mercy of Allah, let me continue and achieve my next goal. The person can be appreciating and talking about the favors from others, right? Or the person can be talking about the favors from his Lord.

So, all these things and a lot of time when spend talking about these things give you insight of what the other person is focusing on. If you start listening from yourself, you will have a better understanding of what do you personally focus, and then you can decide is this focus beneficial for you or is this focus a barrier toward your success?

No.3, mindset, attitude toward others. If a person is engaging on backbiting, what does that tell you about him? Maybe he doesn’t have anything better to do, or he is so jealous of other and he always backbiting about them, and he try to destroy their reputation. Or the person is carrying tale and he is trying to influence others not to love someone, or to spread hatred, or spread suspicion and doubt. Or the person is ridiculing and mocking others, what does that tell about the person? Either he is so full of arrogance, or he is lacking his own self-respect, is trying to radicular other and trying to feel good. Or he is trying to disrespect others, what does that tell about the person, so all these things give a lot of clue of your own self, and as well as others. But most importantly, you want to use your own words to listen to them, and learn about your own self.

No.4, self-respect, right? your words and your actions, and reaction to other people what tell you a lot about your own self own respect, about yourself doubt , and self-esteem as well. Are you always talking about excuses? Are you talking about the fears that you have? Or you’re doing others than that. Next, the person is talking about the joke and making jokes that hurt others. This is very comment. You may find something enjoyable and laughable but the other person is being hurt. A comment example of that is husband and man is talking about second wife. This is something a lot of female, a lot of women; a lot of wife complains about it hurts them. So it’s not about doing it or not doing it, but just mocking about it, just making joke about it, which actually hurts other person. How can you find its funny which is hurting someone else? This is huge mistake. You have to pay a lot of attention to it.

Likewise, making joke about the way someone looks, or someone’s acts, walks, or talks, and so on and so forth. Very very important, because this can actually be hurting other people, and causing you to put away from Allah (subahana watalla), and may Allah protect us all from earning the anger of Allah (subahana watalla). Or the person can be using the worst discipline other in an inappropriate manner or to encourage other, or the person maybe using a lot of foul language, and swearing all the time, thinking that it may make him look smart, but tells a lot about the person, either he is so frustrated, it also tells about the way he express him from frustration, right? Likewise, if the person is angry and using the words of frustration, then, for something that so trivial that tells you the under line reason that the person is frustrated, maybe he is bringing work at home, maybe he’s angry at something else or someone else, and that person is not able to control and direct the anger at the right person and is harming someone else. So why someone is angry? How much he/she is angry? What time they are angry, tells a lot about what is going on internally as well as their own ability to control their emotions, and words, and actions.

No. 4, good things. Good things can come out of words that are advising others in appropriate manner, giving someone sincere advice without expecting any rewards, returns, honor, you do your best, you give the right advise, commanding good and forbidding the evil, connecting with Allah, increasing your own love for Allah by praising Allah, thinking about the praises of Allah, remembering Allah, making Dua to Allah. How much this will benefit you with connect to Allah, to realize who Allah is, to recite Quran, the words of Allah, with reflection, with thought, and listen to your own self, great way to increase your love to Allah.

And No. 5, treating yourself, protecting yourself and family members. You can do that by your tongue and words by reciting Quran. By the Dua of the prophet of Allah (Salalahu Alayhi Wasalam) has taught us.

No.6, take a look at what things your being silent for. Are you being silent for greater good, Right? Because if you were to speak of this time, you would cause more harm. Many people criticize and say things that are of lesser important, of lesser priority, and they make a big mess, make a big fuss, so being silent at that time is super important, right? Or are you being sad for personal benefit, because you don’t want to lose your popularity, and respect among the people, so you are not speaking the truth. Are you are being silent from expressing love to someone, so you love someone, you like someone, you would like to pursuit marriage with them, but you just so shy, and so afraid to express it, and then you go around it, and you trying to join them in a volunteer project, or a study project and going around it, and then, basically you don’t even get what you want, you don’t even try, because you are so afraid. And this may be coming from a past experience or you own self fear, why would you do that, right? So it’s much better for you to be swaying about your own feeling and see what happens, and then if it doesn’t work out, you move on and you try with someone else.

Likewise, when you are talking to a client, you are speaking to a client, you are not pick up to make that sales call to go the interview to apply for that job, this all imply something deep inside, either you are too afraid to try, and this is something you need to change, talk about it in mastering your own emotions, that you have to realize that yes, what can happen is you make a note but that does not mean that you’re not qualify, only means that you are not able to convince the person that you are the right person for the job, or you are not the right person for that match, or you wouldn’t know until you try.

And no.7, expressing and asserting your own opinion. Now this is very important. Look, many times what would happen, is you see something that is wrong, someone is mistreating you, someone is using wrong words with you, someone is abusing you, and you just don’t speak up. This can be something that you’re choosing to ignore, because you have other things to focus on, and you don’t want to focus your energy on this. Ok, if you do that, you have to be very intentionally, you have to know that: I am choosing to not assert myself. If you aware of that, than you won’t feel that you are being abused. You won’t feel that you have no choice; you would realize that this is my choice, and I am being silent.

Part B from point no. 7, is about asserting yourself. Stating your own opinion, sometimes, people state their own opinion and then they are so afraid they start to debate in this to justify themselves. Sometimes you have to define; sometimes you just have to say that this is how I feel, right? and sometimes the best things is just to say, hay, this how I feel, I can’t do this, I am sorry, I can’t help you, I am sorry, it is too much, I’m sorry I get tired, right? And then instead of debating and explaining why you’re tired, and this and that, you just say it, if other person does not agree, the best thing to do in most scenario is to say, “you know what, think about it, and I will talk to you later”, right? Sometimes, oh, I am sorry, I can’t help you, and the wife is saying to the husband, vice versa, and the other person does not agree, and then it’s a big debate, and then it’s a lot of confrontation, because none of the party are listening to each other, they’re all debating. So if you see that happens just assert yourself, tell the other person, hey, you know what, think about it, we’ll talk about it later, and then you come back and you explain why you said what you said, and sometimes by the time, you know, in a day of two, the other person would have already realize your position, and you wouldn’t even have to justify.

So be careful, are you being assertive? Are you debating? Do you need to debate? Is your debate helpful? Should you just assert yourself and leave it at that and all follow up with explanation later.

So there are many other points, but these are the 7 points that I want to share with you, I am sure that In Sha Allah, each one of you would have found a point that you can learn from your own words. That you didn’t know, that your words can only tell about your own self. So here are some principles, and by the way this time you are in the chapter of the danger of words. We continuing the book of Ibn Qayyim the disease and the cure on the chapter of words- the danger of words. Here are some principles we have taken from the book. No. 1, only speak that will benefit you in your relationship with Allah, If there is no benefit, then to stop. If there is benefit, think that by speaking those words will you miss out on a greater benefit. Is it something else that you could be saying for greater benefit, so always be careful. No. 2, if you cannot bring happiness by your words, don’t bring sadness. If you can’t bring benefit, don’t bring harm, right? These are general principles.

And now we have hadith that saying by messenger of Allah (Salalahu Alayhi Wasalam). One of them is the one that is reported by Abu Huraira (RA) in which, he said, that the messenger of Allah (Salalahu Alayhi Wasalam) was asked about the deed which will be for most to lead a man to Jannah, ok? Now this is about an action that will be the most important that will be for most in taking someone to Jannah, which is the internal destination for happiness, should be our own goal for everyone, right?  This was the messenger of Allah (Salalahu Alayhi Wasalam) replies, fear of Allah and the good conduct. Then he was asked about indulgence which will admit a man to hell fire, right? So regarding what would admit a man to hell fire, he (Salalahu Alayhi Wasalam) said that tongue and the genital, right? So, look at these two muscles in the body, these two parts of the body, how important they are to be protected.

And there is the Sahih Bukhari in the narration from the messenger of Allah (Salalahu Alayhi Wasalam), in which the prophet said (Salalahu Alayhi Wasalam), a slave of Allah may utter a word which pleases Allah without giving it much importance. So one may say something, and one doesn’t think is a big deal, but that word will please Allah. And it will be such a pleasure that because of that, Allah will raise him to degrees of rewards. The slaves of Allah may utter a word carelessly, which displeases Allah without thinking much about it, right? And this one is displeasing Allah, and what happen is because of this, he is thrown into the hell fire, so this is the power of words my brothers and sisters.

Finally, look, what we know is that your words are your own possession, they are your captives, they are your slave as long as you don’t speak them. But when they are out, they own you, right? And right now, actually, these days we are seeing a lot of that right? I mean, you see a lot of people on twitter, even like people that are the leader of nation, they are on twitter, on social media, they are saying things, they are being ridicule, and mocking about it, and they are being held accountable for it.

So just take to look at the important of words. Allah (subahana watalla) say that in His book in a pure speech, Allah (subahana watalla) says,

(Quran, 50: 18)

“Not a word does he/she utter, but there is a watcher by him ready to record it.”

Many people stay away from several form of Haram prohibited actions, but they do not pay attention to their tongues. How much does it elevate or destroy the relationship with Allah, with your family, with your clients, and so on.

And finally, think about this. Maybe there’s servant comes on the day of judgement, with good deeds like that of a mountain, and is all demolish because of his tongue, because of what he had used his tongue towards sins and hurting other people. Likewise, someone may come with sins like that of a mountain and finds that his tongue has earned from the remembrance of Allah and what is connected to this remembrance good deeds that demolishes all his sins. So watch out what comes out of your tongue and what you hold back. This will give you lots of insight about what is going in your heart and in your mind.

If you like this idea, please share and benefit others as well.

Finally this is most likely for most people who are listening to this on Ramadhan, and as you hold off from your food, and sexual intimacy, watch out how you’re holding your tongue.

Until next time. Asalamu Alaykum.

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Muslim Mastery Breakthroughs is our weekly podcast series in which we share insights on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationships, and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life in sha Allah.

To check out previous episodes visit Breakthrough Podcast

Got questions or comments? Send us an email at breakthroughs at muslimmastery.com

Do you download every thought?

You are listening to Muslim mastery breakthroughs, a podcast series in which we share insight on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationship and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life Inshallah.

Immigration policy and controls for thoughts into your heart. What type or which quality of food will you NOT eat? What type or which quality of clothing will you not wear in public? This week’s breakthrough idea is all about filter controls for thoughts. Many of us have different filters and criteria for what we will eat, who we will invite at our homes, whose home we will go to, what kind of clothes and brands we will put on our bodies in public. Most of us are conscious about what apps we download in our phones, which videos and photos we keep on our phones and if we are not then we learn our lesson pretty quickly when we have to pause and clean our phones because the storage is too full with media and unnecessary apps are slowing down the phone, but are we open and flexible when it comes to which thoughts and ideas we will give our mindshare to, and are we unaware which thoughts and ideas become permanent residents of our hearts.

Bismillah. Wallahumdulillah Wa Salat Al al-Salamu wala rasulullah. This is your breakthrough coach, Zubair.

Ideas and thoughts are the beginning; they will give birth to wills, aspiration, and intentions. If you take care of thoughts, you will have full control of its desires. If you don’t pay attention to it, it will lead to your destruction, will continue extracting jam and presenting a recon temporary metaphor analogy in case studies from the amazing book the disease and cure by Ibn  Qayyim Rahimahullah.

Let’s take a deep dive into thoughts, the type of thoughts, ways of dealing with thoughts, and so on. False dreaming comes from the inability and laziness which then leads to complete lost and regret. It would not help a hungry and thirsty person to keep imaging food and drink, and not take any means to get it. Nobility is to get away the thought that do not have reality. Thoughts that don’t have the reality are of the following types.

No. 1, the “I can do it” type. One has completely accepted himself to be incapable and does not realize that if his intentions are sincere and he is not afraid to put in his effort, there is no failure for him by the mercy of Allah. Such a person would not set any concrete short, or long-term goals, would not put a strategy to achieve it, and would not take a step toward it. We talked more about this idea in episode 7; talks the reasons people don’t take the action that would actualize their dreams.

No. 2, the spectator. Such a person would just see and imagine other people performing and will get his/her dopamine rush and excitement from it. This can take the form of excessive time spend and watching others performance, all the way to very shameful and harmful content. The issue here, other than wasting time, being distracted of what maybe obligation at that time, is that one start suffering from low self-esteem, watching forbidden content and then becoming bored with such contents and finding something even lower.

It should be clear that we are not talking about someone who is watching others perform, to learn, to get inspire to see what is possible, but someone who is just excessively engage in watching others without other growth for him.

No.3 the sin planer. Such a person is engaging in desire and thoughts about committing sins, to achieve what impermissible eventually starts planning about it and getting close to it. He feels a false sense of security that he is not committed act of prohibited it, but fail to realize the longer he devour on this thought, the more painful they will become. As either he may end of doing it, which is the sin or his desire is just keep increasing, and then to stay away from it would require a higher amount of patient, so he would be either following the sin, exerting much higher level of patient and self-control, or just just having complete lost and feeling self-pity for not being able to get it. Therefore, just like we are cautious of space usage on our phone and drive, we are careful what we put into our phone, and as we are cautious what we eat, even though the first we will eat a lot of unhealthy stuffs and not worried about the quantity of food we consume we all have a standards of quantity, and would not eat certain type of food unless we are compelled.

I don’t want to get too graphic here, but you can use your imaginations, let me just leave it to a rotten apple. You may see it but will not bit it. Likewise, a thought maybe there, it may be a passing though, and it does not mean that we have to adopt it. It does not mean we have to give a mind share, and absolutely not let it reside in our heart, just like we would not see or smell a rotten apple for long, let along to put it in our mouth.

From one angel, we can start categorizing thoughts, and concerns, and ideas into four different types. No.1, thoughts that are beneficial for our Dunia from worldly games; Thoughts that push our worldly harms; thoughts that are beneficial for the hereafter and the pleasure of Allah, thoughts that will push away harms from the hereafter.

So either you didn’t want to put affords directions that we are moving toward benefiting in our Dunya and Ahirah. By it comes down to overcrowding and then we have to make a choice, we have to give president to what is important. It is very interesting for me to find that, you know, Ibn Qayyim was discussing these points out, on what we focus on, and what to prioritize. In this we will be studying the modern time’s management and the goals setting and achievement. So we categorize can fall into the four categories. Things which are important and urgent, things that are ideas and thoughts are important but not urgent, things which are not important but urgent, and things which are not important and not urgent, right? And he mentions that the ones that give confusion are the one that are important but not urgent. Verse, things are not important but urgent, right? So let me repeat that. Things are important but not urgent verse things that are not important but urgent, right? And many people start preferring not important and not urgent, except the one whom Allah has mercy on it.

So, this is something to be very careful about, right? and then he bring a range of principle, that is the very foundational principle of this being the religion of Islam, and he gives that principle was that he always give precedence to the greater benefit, right? so if he has two benefit, one is greater benefit and one is lesser benefit, he have to take one, but always go for the greater benefit, always secure the greater benefic.  And if he has two evils, we will always prefer the lesser evil, right? And this requires Fiqh, this requires understanding, this requires inspiration. That’s why we are so depend on Allah (subahana wata Allah), directing our affairs, and managing our affairs, and giving us the right guidance. We should realize this dependence and asking Allah (subahana wata Allah) for this guidance, in the same times to use knowledge of Allah (subahana wata Allah) that is given us in His book, and in the Sunnah of the messenger of Allah (Sallahu Alayhi Wsalam).

Some examples could be that if you have condition at home, right? So there’s many times would happens is that someone is not listening, someone is not doing the right things. Would you just expel them, would you just break their home, right? Or, what happen is if that were to be done greater harm would be fall for their family, and so on and so forth.

We are talking about many different things in our earlier episode around the strategies, and finding our right portions in the situations. So this is something to keep in mind, always prioritize the bigger benefit, the greater good, and always go for the lower evil if you have to choose one.

Then he mentions from our perspective of different ideas and different thoughts to prioritize. He says that one that are deserving of high important are the one that is related to reflecting and pondering upon the verses of Allah (subahana wata Allah), which would lead to understanding what Allah (subahana wata Allah) had sent down, and that is the primary purpose of us to receive the book, the revelation, the speech of Allah, to reflect and to understand. The goal is to implement it, and the goal is to internalize it and make it part of our life.

Many of us have really left that book away, and have adopted other form of modern content, and are prioritizing over the book of Allah (subahana wata Allah). And the one we do read it, had become contempt with mere reading, and do not ponder, do not understand, do not act upon it, do not count themselves of how much they are acting by it. So now this is the month of Ramadan, The time that we release this podcast, is the first week of Ramadan, so most of you will be listening to it during the Ramadan. So it’s a special time, right? As we are focusing what we are putting into our bodies and when we eat, when we drink, and when we do not eat, we do not drink, is also a great time to think, where we are spending our mental resources. and it’s a month of Quran, how we are using it, it is just mere reading,  is it no reading , is it just mere reading , is it understanding, and is it real focus and plan to implement it, and to hold ourselves accountable and how are we going to preventing it.

The second thing he mentions is basically reflecting on the signs in the creation of Allah, reflecting on the sign and bounties of Allah. And this will, as one focus on signs, as well as bounties, that one enjoys from Allah, this will increase one in knowledge about Allah, and will increase the loves of Allah, and will increase hope and fear in Allah (subahana wata Allah). If you continue our thoughts like this, along with remembering Allah (subahana wata Allah), not just by our tongue, but also engaging in our heart, it will really dye our heart, fully color our heart, by the knowledge and love of Allah (subahana wata Allah), and that was the goal of our sound heart.

Then the next thing he mentions is to have the thoughts and ideas around reflecting on the deficiency of our soul, the diseases of our soul, the different disease that we hold, the different attribute, the negative attribute that we hold, and reflect upon what is important, and what is obligation, and what is the most important things for the current times. I.e. being in the moment, Focusing on what is important for me now.

So, he mentions amazing parable here that time is like sword. Either you cut it off, or it will cut you, meaning you spend it well, right? That is the right use of time, or basically time passes and takes away from your life. So another way of thinking about it like, let’s say, if you are playing a sport, like soccer, or basketball, or football, right? These are time bonded games. So each minute, each second counts. Either you are scoring, and making progress toward your opponent, or they are making progress toward you, right? Than the interesting thing there is that the time is known, you know how much time is remaining and your make full use of that time, right? But when it comes to life, the time is unknown, so we have to make each day count.

So, think about it, for any types of goal that you have either you’re using time for you, or against you. Similar example could be thought about, like, if you have a very powerful car, and you have full tank of gas, or full tank of petrol, now you have to use that wisely, because once the petrol runs out, you did not use your car wisely, the engine was on and it was running, and the petro was being consumed, but you were not able to get where you want it to get.

Now, another angel that is to realize is not to be scare of ideas and thoughts, right? Some people can be very consume by how can I have this evil idea and evil thought in my mind. So this is something to think about, not to basically get too worried and anxious about this, because that is something you do not have control about, right, and that is something the companion of prophet (Sallahu Alayhi Wasalam) also mention about, the prophet (Sallahu Alayhi Wasalam) that sometimes ideas and thoughts may come to them, they would never consider speaking about it, right? Because of their shyness, and because of how bad the thought was, and the Prophet (Sallahu Alayhi Wasalam) than explain it to them that, this is something from the signs of iman, this is something the Shaytan is distracting them with. So if is passing you, that is not necessary a dangerous thing, right? That is not necessary a dangerous thing. But think about it, if something is passing by, just like a rotten apple on the side of the street, you do not have to keep staring at it, you do not have to smell it, and obviously do not have to taste it.

So continue on, he mention the topic of two types of nafs, right? The one that incited to good, the one incised you toward things, and ideas that will gain the pleasure of Allah (subahana wata Allah), and the opposite that will incite you toward disobedient for Allah (subahana wata Allah). So the angels suppose the signs, the nafs that give us push toward good deeds, toward the pleasure of Allah (subahana wata Allah). And the Shaytan move us toward the one that says, be away from Allah (subahana wata Allah), be disobedient to Allah (subahana wata Allah), and this battle will continue. This battle will continue, and the only way to win this battle is the one to be patient with himself, than one to be patient with the enemy, which is the Shaytan, and the desire, the fault desire. And then one to be garding the entry point, right? The thoughts, the last time we talk about the site what we look at, and likewise what we hear, what we  read and what we see, all these things as one guard these thoughts, and guard his eyesight, his heart, his mind, this is one can be successful. This is the only way.

Now at the same time lastly, bring up a very important point, and that is the other extreme side of it, right? so it’s important for us to make space for good idea and good thought so we can think about higher thing, thing is more beneficial to us, and get rid of the lowly things, right?

The other extreme here is that some people want other extreme of cleansing the heart of everything, and they are like, I don’t want any thoughts, I want complete silence, I don’t want to do anything with the worldly matters, and that is also wrong. Because this is how Shaytan will busy one with something that is not important and put in the false idea. Rather one should be cleansing the heart, right? So if you go back to the example of the smartphone, if it acting slow and if storage is full, you will cleanse it and you’ll put beneficial app on it.

Likewise, we mention the beneficial things are for one to be concerned about understanding with the deen of Allah; it is about how has Allah define success?  What does Allah want from us? And then to focus on, and to think, to plan how one can implemented in his life, life of his family, as well as people around him. How can be giving as a knowledge facilitated for people to implement it, right? And that is the most beneficial things.

So to be concern about this other extreme in which one does not want anything to do with the Dunya, and one just want to have a complete empty mind. This emptiness is not what is desire.

So let me give you a few action points before we conclude. So number one, be aware of what thoughts your processing, what thoughts get your mind share, what thought are reside in your heart. One idea for that would be create reminders, so you can put google account reminders, any reminders on your phone that come out every a few hours, just ask you this question about what are you focusing on? Is it the right thing to be focusing on, right? Likewise could put it on your wallpaper, on your computer, on a sticky note, something on your desk that would remind you to ask yourself activities what are you focus on. Secondly, to control what you see, to control what you read, and control what you hear. Thirdly, especially when you wake up in the morning, do not start by consuming any social media content, or to consume content from your email, rather give yourself plenty of space, opportunity to engage remembrance of Allah, to engaging with the words of Allah (subahana wata Allah), and to reflect on those words. Likewise, you know, to do it at the time of Fajr, after Fajr, even before Fajr. This is power of practice, the power of guidance, if you are having a religion. And then to start your day with something productive and think about what you want to achieve in the day before being all polluted by other people’s idea, and social media post, and emails, and this and that. Or, if you can even do it to read more beneficial content before starting a new day so that you are being more productive.

Likewise, if you are thinking about reading, so you have option of reading social media contents and random posts, or a good book, likewise for videos, likewise for podcast. And so on and so forth.

Finally, if you like this podcast, if you like the ideas help us out and share with your friends, your family members, and until next time Subhanakallahumma wa bihamdika, ash hadu anlaa ilaaha illa anta, astaghfiruka wa atoobu ilaik.Assalaamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh

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Muslim Mastery Breakthroughs is our weekly podcast series in which we share insights on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationships, and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life in sha Allah.

To check out previous episodes visit Breakthrough Podcast

Got questions or comments? Send us an email at breakthroughs at muslimmastery.com

You can access the video series here.

How to Resolve Trust Issues in a Relationship

You are listening to Muslim mastery breakthroughs, a podcast series in which we share insight on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationship and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life Inshallah.

How to Resolve Trust Issues in a Relationship

Without trust you have nothing. With it you can do great things. Today’s breakthrough ideas are around spouses dealing with trust issues, suspected cheating spouse or a confirmed cheating spouse, How to process this strategies and how to move on. We will also look into who gets to define sexual morality for us. What does it have to with spirituality and various levels bad destructive behavior can be intercepted.

Bismillah. Wallahumdulillah Wa Salat Al al-Salam wala rasulullah. This is your breakthrough coach, and welcome to our episode #22

So, when we think about trust issues in a relationship, it can follow into various categories. Number one is that there is a doubt, a fear from one of the spouse.  In that situation what I would typically recommend is to take a look at the root cause. What is it, right? Is this something related the insecurity of one of the spouses, has there been a sudden signs? Or just is affair because people have heard from their own friends, now the people around them of such cases, have they been listening to someone from their friend circle who has been putting into those doubts and those fears? Or is it because of the past experience? What is it, right? What is the root cause?

After that, I will probably recommend an honest conversation. We talked about this in episode 5, when we were talking about timing, and we were talking about checking, right? So we were discussing about various forms of checking that you can check it with your spouse, first to identify what is it that be right, and what is that their missing, right? We talked about languages of appreciation in our last episode as well. So things like, you know, respect, feeling love, feeling important in our significant, growth in relationship, happiness, and caring for each other, emotional needs and physical needs as well, right?

So, have a check around that, and then see what is important for each spouse, and how their feelings. Sometimes they can describe on a scale of 1-10, for example, and if it is relatively lower numbers and is important for them, than is important to figure out what is that is missing, right? So sometimes, one of the spouses may have higher expectations regarding to emotion needs, or one spouse may have higher expectations regarding the physical needs, right?  And the other one may not be doing that, and that could be due to various reasons. That could be because their physical needs are not being met, or their emotional needs are not being met, they are too busy, they are stress out. So just having the conversation first to understand what is their need? And to than understand what is stopping the other person will really go a long way.

So once you understand that, it is very important to not think that why the other person have this need. People are different, and it is part of the companionship, and is part of being a spouse, you know there are certain of things to their expected, to be giving in that relationship, right?  So once you know those things, and once you understand where your spouse is coming from, and then you can think about how you can remove the obstacle in your own life, right? It could be reduce some workloads, reducing stress, sometimes you maybe stressing out of other things, such as work and business, and career, and so on and so forth. And then you are saying that I am doing this for my family, so we can have a great vacation, or we can do this, we can buy this, right? And I can have more time in the future. But what is that for? If your current career, current job, your current activities, your current volunteer projects, and your community are stopping you from having a healthy relationship at home, then what is it for, right?  Your priority is wrong; maybe you need to either outsource some of your activities, some of your projects, some of your tasks, or maybe you need to cut down some of your commitments.

Once you understand that, it is very important, I mean, I think I will repeat that to understand and to appreciate the needs of other person. Even though that maybe that is not you need. We talked about it in the last episode, right?  What you need maybe completely opposite than what’s your partner need, right? It is very important to think about that.

Now then the second thing is to think about what I can do about it, how I can improve it. At the same time, it could be that, it is nothing wrong with you, there is nothing that is shortcoming from you, it is just that, due to faith issues, due to greed, due to the natural of his spouse; he/she has a problem, Himself/herself, right?  That is the different situation, right? We are trying to understand what can be done from your side, from the side of the person who is expecting their spouse to be cheating, or have seen their spouse to be cheating, or is confirm their spouse is cheating. May Allah protect us all. Similar thing can be apply from a spouse who is wife or husband is suspecting them of cheating.

Ok, so now, let me move on, basically, let’s say, you’ve talked about it, there is nothing wrong, you know everything is fine, and it just a fear that you have. What can you do at that point?  Right? So firstly you have to realize, look, you know we are influenced by other people, we are influenced by friends, influenced by what we read. So you may want to check what kind of content you are consuming, right?

Next thing is to think about what is your expectation from Allah. And you believe in Qadr, right? To always remind, look, there is nothing for me to doubt what I am doubting, right? There is no sign for that. I am just afraid of it might happen because of past experience, and so on and so forth, right?

So remember, firstly, no harm, no emotional harm, no physical harm, no discomfort can come to you, can approach you, can afflict you, except, it has to be a approved by Allah (subhana wata Allah) , right? And what is your expectation about Allah (subhana wata Allah). Is He going to choose good for you or is He going to choose bad for you? If you think Allah is going to choose evil for you, where is that coming from? Why you have that evil expectation from Allah (subhana wata Allah), right? And we’ve talked about this in various episode in what you expect from Allah (subhana wata Allah), right? And then remember, if it has to come to you, it will come, right? So why are you imaging this every day and living the same thing every day while it has not even happened to you, right? Isn’t that also sort of being ungrateful to Allah (subhana wata Allah) that you are not contemplating and reflecting on all the good things that He has given you? And you are thinking of something that may happen to you, right? So is something to think about it, why you could not focus on positive things in your life.

Next point here is act of investigation, right? Allah( subhana wata Allah) prohibit us from, you know, the justice, from spying, from investigating, from unnecessary just trying to figure out, from just always to chase, always figure out where my husband is, where my wife is, and so on and so forth, right? To the point that you know, when prophet (Sallahu Alaykum wa Salam) and his companions would come in, they would inform their family that they are coming, right? In part of that is not just like to show up, you know, and surprise their family, right? So something to think about, are you over investigating? Are you trying to find things that you don’t need to find? Are you trying to find something that is hurting you, right?

And finally, who are your advisors, right? So when you think about this thing, when you have fear, who will you talk to , do you talk to the people who remind you of good thing from Allah( subhana wata Allah), who would remind you to put trust to Allah( subhana wata Allah). Or are you talking to people who have experience this from their spouse, right? When you hear stories from them, maybe there is affecting you. So again, back to what kind of context you are feeding yourself. And this is something also applicable to another situation, in which, you know, some of the friends be likes: oh my God, your husband does this to you! How can you listen to this? How can you provide this much support to your husband, he should do this, and so on and so forth. And vice versa, right? Same things apply for brother as well.

And those people are not really aware of this situation. They don’t know what your spouse is doing for you. They are just like measuring, or checking on your situation from their own angle, right? that could be totally different, right, they may advise you that, oh, this relation is never going to work out, you know, this is tortures, this is oppression, this is abuse, right, and they are speaking from their own way, right? So do you have trusted advisor who know what they are talking about. And remember, any decision that you make should be own decision, right? you should not be just doing something because of your friend said, oh you should do this, you should not respond to this, you should not give this to your husband, you should not give this to your wife, you know, your wife doesn’t have right for this, your husband doesn’t have right for this, right? And they are talking about from their own cultural, their own families, whereas marriage and right, the spouse are very dependent on cultural, on how and where you both come from, how you both do, and what is it you guys expect from each other, right? And what is expected of one person, what is the ability one person can be totally different from the other. And beyond to see what we are able to do and what we are capable of doing, right?

Now, same thing is the, you know, if the demand of one of the spouse is higher than what the other person is able to do, right, then you know, you could think about, what are some of other alternative ways of fulfilling those desires, right, Which are permissible in the Sharia of Islamic, for the greater good, and so on and so forth.

Anyway, so next come to the point that this is not a fear, this is not a doubt, this not a concern, but it has actually happened. And you know the person, your spouse, has confirmed interest in other person, or has confirmed the actual intimacy with somebody else outside of marriage, right? Now this is something that is big trauma, is a big emotional set back. Right? So how do we deal with that? Now, if it has been done in the way of permissible in the deen of Allah, in the way of Allah, right? then is a different way to deal with it. And if it is not permissible in the deen of Allah (subhana wata Allah), then is a different way to deal with it.

Now we are talking about, like, who gets to define all this ethic?  Who gets to define this sexual morality, in a bit, we will talk about our spirituality section. But let’s think about it right now.

First, think about it, it is say; it is a painful thing that is happened to you, ok? Now, as we talked about it earlier, look, if it was in your hand, if you were in charge, if you were running this school, if you were running the show, you would have had prevented it, right? Ok. But who is really in charge here?  Allah (subhana wata Allah) is the real in charge here, right? And He allowed that to happen to you. Ok. Now would you expect Allah to do something evil to you, to do something bad to you, or you expect Allah to do something that has a greater good, right?

Now this is where your trust in Allah comes from, right? So imaging you are going somewhere with your friend, ok? And, you know, she takes a turn that is totally opposite to the direction that you thought you guys will be traveling, right? I mean, you’ve always gone to that places, and that restaurant and place, and she just took a total turn, right? If you trust that person, and she says, you know what, don’t worry about it, just trust me, right?  Would you trust her, right? So depend on what you think her abilities are, you think that she is a smart person, she know what she is doing, and you are trusting her, right? Verses, if you think that, you know, the person is weak, you know, she make some not so great decisions at the moment, you probably you wouldn’t trust her, right? But what is it, you know Allah (subhana wata Allah) has highest example, what do you expect from Allah (subhana wata Allah), right? Why do we give it a wrong means? Yes, it’s painful, I am not denying it. Why do they give it the wrong meaning, right? So we are all encouraged to, for example, Surah Kafh right? And we have these three stories in which things happened like the ship, the incident of a boy being killed, and you know, the wall of the orphan, and in the short form, in the short term, the short vision, it looks like it is a very painful things that has happened. But there is a greater good, right? So what is our expectation from Allah (subhana wata Allah).

Now, second thing, is that Allah ( subhana wata Allah) says in His Kitab: (Quran,24:21)

“O you who believe! (Do) not follow (the) footsteps (of) the Shaitaan, and whoever follows (the) footsteps (of) the Shaitaan then indeed, he enjoy immorality and wrongdoing.”

So Allah has clearly instructing us not to following the steps of Shaitaan. And the Shaitaan, Allah has declared that he is the one who is going to be enjoying immorality and wrongdoing.

Ok, the next step, the next information, and the next part of verses is very important. Allah ( subhana wata Allah) says, “look, if not (for the) favor of Allah upon you and His Mercy not one of you (would) have been pure ever, but Allah purifies whom He wills. And Allah (is) Hearing, and knowing.”

Subhanallah!

So, think about it, why is that important? Go ahead and pause the audio. Let’s see if you can reflect the point that I am trying to make here.

So, I hope you got it. But think about this, look, had Allah will, situation could have been reversed, right? You could be the one who would have cheated and your spouse could be the one who has found you to be cheated, right? So think about it, that Allah protected you, and you are the one who are on the receiving end, right? So, you are the one who are receiving this painful calamity, your spouse, you know, cheat it. Verse is, if you would have done that, how bad would that be, right?  Look, this is only from the fear of Allah (subhana wata Allah) that it is not the way it is, right? Otherwise, the situation could have been reversed.

The Second thing, Allah (subhana wata Allah) says in His book, (Quran, 24:22)

And look, this could also, you know, applicable to certain situation which a parent has finds out that their child did something outside their marriage. Right, Allah does say that, look, you know:

“Let them pardon and overlook”

And look what Allah (subhana wata Allah) says that, “Would you not like that Allah should forgive you? And Allah is Forgiving and Merciful”. So, think about it, how many rights of Allah do we violate? How are we with our Salah, with our prayer, with our obligations? How many of them do we violate? Left right and center(15:51), right? Don’t we want Allah to forgive us? So Allah is teaching us, and telling us to be forgiving as well.

Next thing to think about is what meaning will you give it, right? Is it something that you is going to reduce your own self-esteem, or your own self-confidence, right? As we talk about earlier, I mean, this may has nothing to do with you; it may be just the greed, desire, and desire from your own spouse. So it’s not something to be ashamed of in a sense that it’s not means that you are incapable, there’s something wrong with you, you fall short on commitment, and you fall short on your own will. I mean there maybe something that may have, you know, you will have to do with it.

And so, we have talked about this earlier, to have this regular checking, and so on and so forth. But in many cases, also the case is just the case, just the issue with the other spouse, and he or she basically is falling into their own desire and greed, and how to process this emotional trauma? We talk about it in episode 16; we talked about details step by step, ways of how you can understand the multi-layers, you know complex emotional experience.

Ok, now everything has been, you know, out there, now everybody knows what happened, like, hopeful within the family, and so on and so forth, right? So, something to think about is, what do we do next? Right? First, we try to understand is what is the root cause? Was that like a slip? Was it just like a one time thing? Just happened? You know, and the person is really really remorseful, and he has basically committed to true repentance, right? Are there signs for that, right? Was it because of some sort of issue between you and the spouse, right? is there something that can be fixed in the future? Or this is just the beginning, or this is just one of the various instances? Do you think it would not happen in the future? Is their sincere repentance? Are you still able to forgive them, right? I mean, are you physically, emotionally able to look forward and just move on? Are you able to do that? And so on and so forth. There are other ways to do it as well, just take some time off, the Islamic act of divorce is something that you get that optional, basically taking time experience what it would be like to not to be together. So this is give you time to process things, you don’t have to make a hesitate decision.

Ok, now let’s move on to our section of spirituality, where we talks about our relationship with Allah (subhana wata Allah). So let’s talk about sexual morality. In today’s world, we’ve seen various standard of it, right? I means, we are seeing different campaigns going on there, to different scandals coming out, different people being accused of sexual harassment, different type of, you know,  weird behaviors, strange behaviors that used to be totally unacceptable in the society, is becoming acceptable now in our sub society, right? So, who really gets to define it? What is acceptable? What are we accepting in this society, Right? Even if you remove any religious boundary, most people, for example, would not accept adultery, right? Do you see that as a very inappropriate, a very curl and injustice thing to do, right?

But then, who is it that has the right to define what sexual morality is? What is acceptable for the society? So, think about this, who really has that right? Actually as I was looking at something that, you know, is accepted all crossed the world, I even found that there is certain people who are arguing in defense on the acceptance of adultery. If we really go for live and let live, right, I mean, in that situation, it has really no boundary. So if you do take that option, if you do take definition that looks into the adultery is accepted form of sexual immorality, right? And, you know, if your spouse does that than he or she is violating the right of the spouse. So, if you take that, then think about it.

Ok, so husband or wife has a route that their partner, their spouse should not use their body in the way of that is displeasing to them, right, to have exclusive access to them. Ok, but if you accept that, then what about Allah (subhana wata Allah), the one who created all of us, what is His right? right, so, imaging how our spouse feels if his wife or her husband cheat on that, right?  How would they feel? Imaging now ..for Allah is the greatest example, right? how would Allah, what I’ve been doing for Allah, what I’ve been doing against Allah when we violate this right of Allah, when we violate this religion of Allah, when we violate this boundary of Allah? Right? How low are falling? So think about that.

Allah (subhana wata Allah) says, define in Surah Mumenoon, (Quran, 23:1), “certainly, indeed, verily, definitely, the believers has succeed.”

Right! And He defines several qualities of who true believers are, right? And then one of those qualities is what Allah (subhana wata Allah) is describing, He says:

(Quran, 23:5) “And they are the ones who guard their private part.” (Quran, 23:6)

So by default it is something private, right? It’s supposed to guard it. But Allah (subhana wata Allah) says that they guard it except the ones Allah (subhana wata Allah) has made permissible, right? So the ones, for example, take in marriage, right? So, if you have committed to obligation to the right of unmarried bond in the name of Allah, then is permissible.  And so on and so forth.

So Allah is the one who has the right, who has the wisdom, who has the knowledge, who has the perfection to be able to even say that, to be able to even demand that.

So now we also from the perspective of how we are looking at the book: the disease and the cure, right? By Ibn Qayuim, we already on the chapter of Zina, the illegal, the impermissible sexual activities. So now, basically, that chapter he is describing how much of the evil is, how much great this sin is, it is from one of the major sin, right? And then it is describing in his book. Now one of the thing he say is that this happens, this act of cheating, and this act of adultery, this act happen in four stages, right? He’ll define those four stages and talk about those four stages. Today we’ll define those four stages. But we only talk about the first stage.

So, he says, look, this starts with a look, right, this starts with an impermissible look which brings about thoughts, and ideas, which leads to words, which lead to deep and repeated thoughts, then desire, then will and the will becomes establish intention. Right, which finally becomes an action, when we say action, we talking about the sin, the great sin of Zina, right? So it’s talking about all these different stage, right, in a way there are these four stages of looks, thoughts, words, and then steps. Ok, and then the following that it happens, right?

So, today, we will be talking about the look. So, from the advice, from the instruction of prophet of Allah, the messenger of Allah (sallahu alayhi wa salam) is the hadith, in which is reported to have said: “oh, Ali, do not follow a glance with another, for you will be forgiving from the first, but not for the second, right, so, if you have a lustful desire on opposite gender, right, the first one is forgiven. But when you intentionally look again, that is not forgiven, right.

Now, let me just first of all talk about how so many people made fun of this, right: oh, just keep your first one longer, right? I mean, this is off topic here, but this also comes in how we mock religion, right? So it’s an instruction of prophet of Allah, the messenger of Allah (sallahu alayhi wa salam) who is talking, who is telling us on behave of Allah (subhana wata Allah), how can we mock with that, Right? I mean, do we really have to make fun of everything? This could be a very serious issue. And I see many people that do that with many other things as well, I mean sometime people are just having fun about, let’s say, you know, the android and iPhone debate, oh, Astaghfilulah, you use IPhone. Like, “Astaghfilulah” is a Dua, if you are asking Allah to forgive us, right? do you intent to say that? Or you just joking way of saying that. I mean, this is a serious thing, I mean, are you confident that Allah is happy with you mocking and taking these words lightly? I know, I know I’m going off topic, but this is the serious things to think about it.

Ok, coming back about lowering gaze. Ok, now, we are not scholars here, trying to give Fatwa, right? And we’ve talking about it in our last episode, remember? We were talking about the strategy, we talked about the dangerous of innovation, we talked about the importance of taking information and guidance from respective scholar who have the knowledge, who have credential, who have the experience, who have the trust of the Ummah, right? So, we would say like, you go back and you understand from your own scholars what is lowering the gaze mean, right? And I mean obviously there are people; you know, both extremes here, right? You know, their ways, their places, their situations, which is permissible to look, right? How much, how long, how less, it depends on the situation, the uscle is it’s forbidden. You don’t look at the mahram women, for example, right? But their situation, may allow that base on the needs, based on your own personalities, based on your own conduct and base on your fear of Allah (subhana wata Allah), so on and so forth. But again, this not for me to dictate, this not for us to make fun of each other, but it is important for us to go ahead, you know, verify that and learn it, and get it from justice scholars.

Ok, so we talk about that, right? And then, you know, he goes to explain a lot about this in his book about what is the danger of having a look, right? And it is much better, and much easier to intercept it at the first instance, which is the look. It’s much easier to be patient on preventing once from looking, then to prevent once than when that desire already devolved. When the person has high desire and he is very intense, he is very passionate, but he cannot get it, right? He does it for various reasons, and he is very hard to be patient on that, right? Likewise, if there is a situation which one is already addicted to watch inappropriate content, right? And this is something to think about that, you know, why is that happening? What emotional need is the person meeting when he or she opens and watches things that are impermissible, right? And you know, they could be varies way of dealing with that,  obviously, for one is to discipline oneself, secondly you think about what is it that they are missing, what emotional needs, or what is that they are trying to fulfilling their life, right? Is it because they are feeling loneliness? It is because they are feeling a lack of purpose? So, it is much better for them to go ahead, and you know, build those constructive behavior, constructive solution to those problem as it suppose to those constructive behavior.

We talk these two things in episode 6 and 7 on how to heal from emotional trauma, and you know, how do we replace destructive behavior. So please check out those episodes as well.

And you know, again, think about it may give you some temporally pleasure, but it’s going to have a very harmful effect on your heart, on your productivities, on your psychology, on your body, so on and so forth. It’s very important to think about those things again, recap it, think about it what is and where is your fear coming from, your level of investigation, and spying on the spouse, who are your advisors, you know, if you have fear, and your suspicious without any justification, you know, think about it, think about the Gadr of Allah, your expectations from Allah (subhana wata Allah). If there is a continue having you know, weekly check in the honest communication to understand each other, if it gets confront than how would you deal with it? We talk about those steps, and then we talked about, you know, Allah (subhana wata Allah) is having the right to define sexual morality. We talked about some of the dangerous of not following the orders of Allah (subhana wata Allah), and not intercepting in the earlier stage. And we talked about some of the ways hinted in the previous episode on how to deal with those situations.

So if you found these ideas beneficial, if you found them to give some new insight, and if you found them to give good reminder, go ahead and please share with your friends, and family members, and let us know what do you think about these episode and how we can make it better, and talk about the ideas and questions that you have, or I will consult it to you.

So, until next time, Subhanakallahumma wa bihamdika, ash hadu anlaa ilaaha illa anta, astaghfiruka wa atoobu ilaik.

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Muslim Mastery Breakthroughs is our weekly podcast series in which we share insights on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationships, and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life in sha Allah.

To check out previous episodes visit Breakthrough Podcast

Got questions or comments? Send us an email at breakthroughs at muslimmastery.com

You can access the video series here.

Skill, Consistency and Speed will make you Fail Faster with a Wrong Strategy

You are listening to Muslim mastery breakthroughs, a podcast series in which we share insight on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationship and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life Inshallah.

Skill, Consistency and Speed will make you Fail Faster with a Wrong Strategy

Strategy without tactics is a slowest route to victory. Tactics without Strategy is noise before defeat (Sun Tzu)

The breakthrough idea for this week is that once the intention is right, the destination is clear, one can be slow, inconsistent, lazy, unskilled or even distracted, and still get to the destination. but there is nothing worse than not having the strategy right. We will see how this principle applies in all areas of our life. We will also talk about the different love languages or appreciation languages, how misguidance and unqualified advisors can mess up the strategy for you and I will also share with you my story about the most embarrassing reason I had to cancel my flight to one of the destinations and take a flight back to the UK. Bismillah. Wallahumdulillah Wa Salat Al al-Salam wala rasulullah. This is your breakthrough coach, Zubair.

So, in 2014, Allahumdulilah, I found a security issue in Android court. And I got to represent my research across the globe, including Australia, Turkey and Ireland. One of those trips was to Berlin via UK. And after speaking in Berlin, I was book to go and visit clients in Khadar. I have recently upgrade my laptop to one of the recently released the Norah business machines and still had the charger from my old laptop.  The look and size of the charger for both laptops are exactly same. Guess which of the charges I took to the Berlin. Yep! I got the old one. Well, it turned out that although size was same, the voltage and current output was different and I could not charge my laptop battery in Berlin. After giving my presentation, I started the mission of calling and visiting serval dealer in stores to find out the right charger. But I was not able to do so. Partly was because of this was the newest released and was not available in that region.  As I was not able to access my corporate systems and data, I decided in the inch of times and productivity and I postpone my trips to Khadar, and head back to a stop over while I am in UK, and then back to Canada.

So, how is this related to our breakthrough idea? Well, see, you charge a smartphone, but you put gas of petrol in the car. You provide different form of energy to a microwave and oven, well; the car is an example of become irrelevant soon as the electric car become the norm. But the point is, a wrong road map won’t get you to the desire results. If you want to keep using your phone, you have to give the right source of power. Human relations need appreciation of love to flourish and growth.

The first step is to realize the value and importance of love and appreciate in any relationship, and then to commit to providing it. Once the goal is clear, the commitment is clear, the next more important thing is to find the right way to do it. It is common sense that what one person needs to feel appreciated. Maybe is completely opposite to what someone else’s need. Sadly, this common sense is not very comment.

Let’s share with you the five languages of love and appreciations. So you can choose the right one for the right person.

Number one: words of affirmation, expressing affections through spoken words. Such as the word of praise, thanks, appreciations, and so on and so forth.

Second, acts of service, Actions rather than words. This could be to show and receive love by doing something that is important for someone else, like picking them up or dropping them off, and taking them out to an event, doing something for them, making something for them, and such so on and so forth.

Thirdly, receiving gifts, Gifting is symbol of love and affection. Right? So you find the right gifts for the right person, and you present something that is of value to them. But it is not about how expensive, or how cheap the gift is, is the thought if you going to purchase something and then the other person will appreciate it.

Fourthly, quality times. Expressing affection with undivided and undistracted attention, so you are in present with them. Right? That could be just talking, that could be attending an event, that could be doing something together.

And finally, physical touch. That could be intimacy, holding hands, a pad on the back, hug, and so on.

There is a lot of research out there, for example how you can use this idea with your parents, spouse, children, client and team members, and so on. The key thing is to realize what you may like and appreciate most, may not be what the other person want. Make sure you know your love language, and let important people in your life know about it, and ask them for theirs.

Another caveat here is, as an example, someone spouses would say, hey, you know what, I do want him to do this because I like it, I want him to just do it naturally, this is being unrealistic, isn’t it? Shouldn’t you appreciate that someone cares for you, and he want to express his love and appreciation in a way that you will like, Even though it is not their natural way.

Finally, once you figure out what other person’s love language is, you may still need help to come up with an idea to express it. So don’t be shy to ask for suggestions, example, if you are not big on quality time, you may have not known what it means to have quality times for that specific person, right? So you just ask about it. How do you? How would you like for us to spend time together. Right?  And then you find the activities and ways that are mutually of interest. And then you find activities and ways that are for mutual interest.

Now let’s move on to the spiritual side of things. In your journey to strengthen your relationship with Allah, Be one of the beloved; be blessed with His love and mercy. The strategy is still very important. If you know what you need to do, and what you don’t need to do. Even if you are slow, you are falling short, and you are still repenting, you have higher chance of succeeding by you asking for forgiveness and doing your best. But if you deviate from your right path, even it is a small deviation, with time, speed and consistency that small deviation will take you way of.

There is something that messenger Sallahu Alayhe wasalam clear warn us against.  And he informed us that every innovation of religion is misguidance. And every misguidance leads to hell fire.

Think of this as someone being on a right path, even if he is slow, he take a few steps forward, and a few steps backward, he still on the path and much safer than someone who is deviated from the path, and he does not even realize that he has deviated, so he would not even correct the path, he would not even change the strategy because he think he is on his right path. Allah subhana wata Allah says in His book: Verse (Quran 18:103) “Say (O Muhammad Sal’Allahu ‘alayhi wasallam): Shall We believers inform you of those greater losers as to (their) deeds?”

Right? Shall we tell you about the one who are the greatest loser regarding their deeds. Then the next words go to

Verse (Quran 18:104) [They are] those whose effort is lost in this world, while they think that they were doing great.

So this is the example, that you know, people are putting effort, they were putting a lot of effort, they were busy, but was all lost.

So in this age of social media, everyone has a voice. It is very important for us to pay attention; who we are getting risk strategy or Our path is getting closer to Allah from, is a very subtle concept. Not only does it apply to knowing what is permissible and what is impermissible. As many do use intellectual gymnastic to convince people that something impermissible, is impermissible, and vice versa.

It also applies annoying which of the two evils is a greater evil. And which of the true good is higher good. This helps us to avoid the greater harm. Many people call to good, but the way they advise or call to good creates more harm. Hence we cannot emphasized the needs of the right strategy, and sticking to the way of messenger of Allah (Sal’Allahu ‘alayhi wasallam) as enlisted by his companion, and taking advices from trusted and well established scholars?

Again, this is also something that we see as harming relationship and homes. A child, or husband or wife will try to correct the behavior of parents, or of his spouse, but do it in the way that would cause much more harm and just break apart the whole family. After that, every individual becomes weak individually, they become weak emotionally, they are so stress, they will be much easier for them to deviate from the path and keep falling into the sins. May Allah protect us all from this!

Now finally, we realize it is such a subtle issue that many fallen to it except those whom Allah protect. And Allah will definitely protect those who deserve. So let us not forget our needs to repent to Allah, to be steadfast on the right path.  And for us to take means to get this favor from Allah. One of the greatest means from that is to consistently, and sincerely ask Allah for it.

So let’s recap and look at some action points.

Do you know how much love or appreciated in your life to different people feel? Do you know their love language? Do you know how to express it? Do you feel not love or appreciated by the key people in your life? Do they know your love language? You didn’t know how to express that.  In your personal and community life, are you avoiding the greater evils, and going for the greater good. Is the greater evil and greater good understood and verify by trusted knowledge of the person? Or it just base on you own desires. Note, the importance of dua and dependence on Allahto be protected from wrong strategies and path.

Until next time

Subhanakallahumma wa bihamdika, ash hadu anlaa ilaaha illa anta, astaghfiruka wa atoobu ilaik.

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Muslim Mastery Breakthroughs is our weekly podcast series in which we share insights on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationships, and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life in sha Allah.

To check out previous episodes visit Breakthrough Podcast

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