If you think you can or you can’t, you are right.

“At the end of your feelings is nothing…But behind every principle there’s a promise..”

This 5 min video is the best thing I watched this year. (Check it out and tell me it doesn’t affect you) in fact the very purpose of this blog entry is so my loved ones can watch this.

Mohammed Ali was asked once how many sit ups he does during workouts. He said something that turned a light bulb on in my head. He said “I don’t count my sit-ups I only start counting when it begins to hurt”

I was blown away by his mind, when I read that because is it not true that when it hurts is when it counts? Ironically is it not true that when it hurts is when most of us give up?

One day at the gym I was using the weights for my thighs and I remember counting from the jump off. Only when it began to hurt did I feel satisfied and got off, having reached my count down goal it seemed practical to. After seeing what Ali said I realised how misguided I was. I got off that machine when it counted the most but felt satisfied. I learnt something from Ali.

Apart from liking to write about what teaches, and inspires me. This morning I kept thinking about why growth and results always happen through struggles. Why do trials transform us. It’s because through it we GROW. Pain is the essence of growth. Struggle is the correct process of pain suffering isn’t. The best version of ourselves only appear after success in any given struggle. Fitna is the Arabic word used to describe the process used to clean the impurity out from the centre of gold. Likewise we go through fitna (trials) and tribulations which knock us down, because it gives birth to the crux of mental, emotional and spiritual growth that take us to that next level.

At the end of our feelings is nothing but behind a principle is a promise…behind every fear is the person you want to be.
Let that sink in for you the way it did me.
When we give in to our feelings during trials we get nothing. But when we choose the principle of perseverance and patience we find the promise of ease fulfilled. When we feel fear in something we want to do, or feel fear regarding what we wish to have. The feeling achieves nothing. Unless you adopt the principle of courage. Is it any wonder that only then we find a promise of success fulfilled.

Feelings like everything else has its purpose, its purpose being a signal a cue. Often the purpose is ignored and the feeling is therefore misused. Is it any wonder then, that at the end of it we achieve nothing? Suppressed feelings, intellectualised feelings are prime examples of the purpose of feelings being disregarded, missed cue results in a missed route. Welcome to a dead end where you get nothing substantial at the end of your feeling.

When Allah wants good for a person he brings trials into their life to help them attain it.  Sometimes trials happen back to back, give or take a year or so break because a tree is never half grown. Every tree whether short, tall or bent has reached its full potential for growth. Trials through Knock downs and set backs are in fact signals used to alert us, that there is more growth needed. The matter might change but the journey is the same. Each trial is tailored to a specific growth and behind all of them you hear with your heart the call of Allah saying “come back to me”

The older we get the more frequent the trials. Until we are fully grown trees, (who knows when that is) because as expanding human beings growth remains continuous until we reach the full potential we were created with.  To believe in ourselves is paramount to the duty of the untethering of our souls. It is brave to be willing to use feelings right, its cues and messages are there to assist not obstruct the journey.