One of the biggest lessons we can learn about life is the difference between compromise and cooperation. How the former makes you give away a part of yourself. whilst the latter allows you to explore from a balanced space so much so a mutual outcome becomes favourable by default.

Just like there is a difference between wanting reassurance and validation. There is a difference between compromising and cooperation. When someone reassures you they affirm something already within you. This instils confidence and permeates love. However when you put someone in a position to validate you, they are given power to render you valid or not. This promotes another’s authority whilst demoting yours. Pretty messed up thing to do when the subject is you.

I don’t believe anyone should compromise because it hinders us from collecting the fragmented parts of ourselves. That requires so we may move into wholeness.

Cooperation promotes understanding, maturity and maintains individuality through self respect.

The thin line between these meanings are like land mines. To step over it is to contribute to the eraser of yourself & to stand clear from it, is quite simply put self love.

Life for me is about building perspective not accumulating regrets. It’s about seeking understanding to nourish clarity. It’s about prefering discovery to conformity.

Most of all it’s about holding onto your truths regardless of outcomes.

With no generalisation intended I’ve noticed a phenomena amongst our communities (Muslims not Islam) that disturbs me deeply.

Where does the entitled mentality that our children are investments come from? Where did this mentality that results in pressure and demoralising put downs, when said child doesn’t meet the expectations come from? (Even the qadr based reasons via trials and tribulations affecting said child,when grown are over looked for this mentality to remain having a voice?) where did this come from?

I’ve noticed myriad of parents with this mind frame. The whole walidka ka duceysta seems to fuel this ferociously. The only investment Islam says your child is for you is a Sadaqa jaariya (continuous charity) upon your death.

I don’t support caasi’s who abandon and/or do no good towards their parents. But I’m writing in regards to the opposite extreme on the spectrum. A topic I wish ppl were more vocal about, instead of being shackled by some respectability politic.

Islam said our children are an amana/trust towards us (the parents) how did this get forgotten so much they’ve been reduced to investments we can emotionally abuse and put down if we feel they didn’t a) return enough “interest” in adulthood. B) not moving fast enough towards fulfilment of like expectations?

A lot of youth are stagnating in life and suffering silently, most unable to articulate or make sense of the internal conflict they feel. Due to the duality that exists within them, a duality that gives birth to a serious cognitive dissonance that on one hand internalises blame (because they have yet to “amount” to something such parents can deem a good return profit or pride wise) and on the other secretly and resentfully harbours thoughts such as I didn’t ask to be born.

Islam is a balance it emphasised the rights of parents and the child. Why is the latter forgotten?

Meaning of amana/trust should weigh heavy on our hearts. Our children are not our property. They are human beings who rely on us to raise them well and take care of their emotional development. To support advice and teach them. This mentality is a serious detriment to that and I guarantee you most people you meet with parent issues are victims of this stamped with silent approval mental and emotional abuse that goes unchallenged due to cultural restraints of cayb and threats of habaar.

I just wanna say some of us see and understand you. And what travels to and fro your chest that wavers refusing to settle, is a wrong even if people defend it. Let the duality collapse. Hats off to the parents who understand the amana given to them, who UNDERSTAND that Islam passes the buck right back to them. The sadaqa jaariya investment awaiting you isn’t guaranteed If you failed to bring your kid up right to begin with. And still I say pray for such parents they themselves are probably victims of a messed up structure that reared them. Ancestral baggage is real.

 

“Look for the why behind your feelings of hurt and pain because they signal where we should make some changes.” ~Nanette Mathews

Most people react to what triggers them, getting lost in the story. (Person, object, or circumstance where the trigger arises)

I’m convinced the story never matters, there is an unconscious thing at play here, that your soul is trying to make you remember. The trigger is the bullet it uses to help you become aware.

What’s an emotional trigger? To summarise a surprise you get when something causes a negative like reaction to something you haven’t processed yet. Ever had a a feeling that leaves you destabilised whilst perhaps others around you are unaffected?

That’s ok they don’t share your history. Never compare your feelings about a matter to another persons. The dismissive logic of “it’s just me” shouldn’t be used to ignore your predicament.

Be brave enough to instead want to observe the negative feeling that comes up in you, ask why does this affect me? Why do I feel aggy about this?
Most triggers were formed during childhood or adolescence due to unprocessed impressions. The original matter that created the triggers you receive in adulthood are buried in the subconscious.

So when you get triggered it’s your souls attempt to make matter conscious. To challenge the reactive programming you’ve become accustomed to. It’s an opportunity for a paradigm shift.

Clear the triggers, it’s almost as easy as acknowledging the feeling and then tracing back the earliest memory where you felt it. Just by becoming aware of it the trigger associated with that emotion weakens drastically and even better dissolves because you get to transmute its energy.

What not to do is repeat the same old avoidance techniques. Everything is about perspective triggers can either be your “friend” that’s guiding you. Or a ghost from the past that’s chasing you. One things for sure, Allah will keep creating the circumstances that allow the triggers to come up. His primary interest is to make you whole again. Your soul will oppose the part of you opposed to this. Because it’s not in its best interest.

Follow your triggers…they lead somewhere liberation rests.

The biggest mistake you can make is to project your own running onto someone else…

“You can run away from yourself so often, and so much, just because the broken pieces of you cut your feet too deeply if you stay around for too long. But then what if someone were to come along and pick up those pieces for you?…” ~ C. JoyBell C.

What if they did but not in a way you recognised. What If instead, they mirrored the broken pieces back to you?

You may resent them for that, and appreciate only when you surrender

We can only connect the dots looking back. And in stillness now I still remember, the joy before the trigger…

I’ll follow the trails of my triggers to discover my stolen peace. Triggers I prefer to keep to myself lest they be used in covert ways against me.

I’ve lost my armour of projection on this battlefield. Surprised i’m riddled with hope and not fear as I feel…

These triggers I’ve became conscious of tonight, came quadrupled hours after my heart chakra exploded with a beautiful fire.

If via an intuitive flash I saw myself celebrating my hearts desires. Then these triggers are maps not obstacles. They are a path I want to tread on alone.

Only Allah would fuel me with faith before sending me on my way.

“The yellow brick road laid out by your triggers, will lead you home” said my soul.

Pain heals to suffer is not my choice.

 

“Speaking your truth” sometimes claimed and assumed to be done by most, but is usually understood and executed right by a few. Your truth should have no expectations accompanying it, nor any covert neediness hidden in it. Your truth although can be shared through an opinion or a suggestion. Is still free from the expectations of acceptance and appreciation that come with them.

It is speaking what’s true in your heart irrespective of the risk in circumstance. Even if it’s rejected your energy lurks beating a drum in your absence.

A sign you spoke your truth properly is you are left with inner peace, because you’re detached from outcome. Your truth is your authentic higher selfs voice it is firm, not rude or volatile and more importantly to stifle it is to over extend or harmonise whilst expressing it. That disorienting feeling after having done the latter, is a branch of disempowerment stroking you.

Your feelings are a gps, inner peace is your souls language of approval. The only validation you need pay attention to, is the one from yourself.

 

“Let’s not complicate much there are two primary choices in life. To accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.” -unknown

“We live in clichés, in patterned behavior. We are playing the same role over and over again. Too raise our potential is to live and review every second refreshed.” ~Bruce lee

Someone once said the problem with introspection is it has no end. I disagree, as expanding beings it’s actually a great blessing.

“All we are not stares back at what we are.” (W.H. Auden)

Allah tests us based on our potential not capacity as generally understood. As our default potential (that he knows of, because he created us with it) will always trump a current capability we know of.

He will not burden you with anything except your own potential. This is the truest and clearest meaning of the ayah “La kuliyo nafsan illa wu3s aha” (excuse my funny transliteration)

The point is this ayah is usually translated in English as “Allah doesn’t burden a soul beyond that it can bear” or “beyond its capacity” (Quran 2:286)

If that was the actual meaning end of ayah would have read “Ila BI wu3siiha” (to their capacity) there would have been a ب in there.

So it’s not the clearest translation but it’s the bare minimum. Nouman Ali Khan has a lecture where he explains this really well. The actual Arabic of the ayah 2:286 says…”Allah has not burdened you with anything EXCEPT your own potential”

It’s our potential he aims to bring us to via tests. I remember when i heard the bare minimum meaning of “Allah doesn’t burden a soul beyond that it can bear” I once thought what is it that I can bear? And then I had faith that was content with if I don’t know at least Allah knows. So any hardship I faced I kinda had a calm comfort in the thought that “this wouldn’t happen if I couldn’t handle it” so a test became a platform to reveal a new strength to me so to speak.

When nouman got technical with the Arabic in translating it into the English to the clearest meaning mentioned above. That difference of you will not be burdened “…with anything except your own potential” resonated deeply with me. I had a soul shock hearing it. Like it meant a lot to me.

I felt a shift and that thought of “I wonder what I can bear?” turned into a curiosity about my potential.

I think our true capacity is connected to our full potential. And our current capability to how much of it we possess so far.

Hope this benefits you like it did me.
“I did not put you through difficulty so as to harm you, but rather to complete my favour upon you so that you be of those who are grateful”

^This ayah in sura Maida one of my favs in the Quran. That favour he wants to complete upon you, is sealed through you reaching your full potential.

Our potential is comprised of all the risq/provisions/attributes he jam packed into our individual souls.

I also think this is why our nabi scw when asked by two different men “if I  complete the 5 pillars will I go to jannah?” Replied yes to one and stayed silent with the other.

I wondered why and my intuition whispered “They don’t have the same potential, the one that got told yes; his potential is fulfilled in doing no less or more than that. Whereas the other guy Allah knows he is capable of more”

And Allah knows best 💙