Important Subtle Messages

Like many of us , I'm on a journey of improving my qida , or Islamic creed , defined as believing with certainty and conviction in one's heart and soul . And during this process , while I'm trying to uplevel my du'as and strengthen my belief , I'm learning more and more about Allah's names and attributes .

One such name that came about in my learning process is al-latif , translated as kind , or the subtle . Surah Mulk , ayah 14 , translates as does he who created not know , while he is the subtle , the acquainted ? So today we will be talking about the quality of subtleness and as it relates to mental health .

And when I mention names of Allah , it's not my intention to anthropomorphize his qualities , because that can take us down a dangerous road of applying human norms , limitations of the human mind , to Allah , subhanahu wa ta'ala .

But I mention his names and attributes with an understanding that , with limitations , his attributes are also present within us as humans , that , with limitations , his attributes are also present within us as humans and , as his creation , we could take advantage of it .

Some scholars say that humans hold these attributes so they can get closer to Allah SWT through experience . For example , allah SWT holds the attribute of being merciful , but his mercy is beyond what humans are even capable of imagining . But humans also carry the quality of being merciful to others if they so choose .

Similarly , we possess the quality of being subtle and recognizing the subtle . We can detect some things that hover right under our conscious awareness . I use this name , allah Tleef , and make Dora to help me recognize the subtle , the subtlety of emotions , to be exact .

And yes , I want to bring your attention to some very subtle emotions that we might be experiencing and , yes , another exciting podcast about emotions .

But I will not compromise the effectiveness and the integrity of human emotion , especially since we've spent the last few centuries separating the effectiveness and the integrity of human emotion , especially since we've spent the last few centuries separating the mind and the body . So I'll do whatever it takes to put the mind and the body back together where it belongs .

When I'm able to tap into subtleties , I can recognize the thoughts that don't serve me and I can release them . And I can recognize what emotions don't serve me and process them and I want to share all of my secrets with you guys . And , as a Muslim woman , I've said it many times before I think we hold the keys to shaping the next generation .

So let's enjoy the experience , shall we ? And one of my best secrets again on this podcast , not so much of a secret is the formula C-T-F-A-R Circumstances , thoughts , feelings , actions and results .

Circumstances are outside of us , neutral and out of our control , to which we apply our thoughts , which are under our control , that create feelings or emotions , that are sensations in our body that fuel our actions or inactions , that create the results in our life that we're currently living . As a reminder , our thoughts create our emotions . Circumstances do not .

Examples of some circumstances are the past , other people around us , the words they say to us . It can also include social programming and cultural expectations . All our actions come from our thoughts and are fueled by our emotions . Then there are some emotions that are high energy and hit us like a ton of bricks . Sometimes they feel like a gut punch .

We feel them very intensely . Mostly these are negative emotions because we are hardwired to pay extra attention to danger and negativity . We are attuned to the negative for survival .

Sometimes you will experience a lot of good , extreme positive emotions like joy , excitement , supreme bliss inshallah Again , these could be extreme emotions as well , but I don't think there's anyone who's in a rush to come out of these emotions .

So for that reason , we're going to just focus on the negative emotions , and by extreme positive emotions like bliss and joy , I mean the true happiness that gives a net positive result in our life , not the kind of happiness that comes with hedonic pleasures . I just want to make that clear .

So on the journey of increasing our intrapersonal intelligence clear , so on the journey of increasing our intrapersonal intelligence , we will focus our attention on the difficult emotions , because that's what weighs us down and that's what most of us want to change . In the glaring , high energy , high vibration negative emotions , we will act according to that fuel .

But if we can tap into the subtle message of why these negative emotions are present , we can tap into the actions from the subtle thoughts and emotions . So why is it important to recognize the subtle ? Because in the loudness of the negative , we miss out on the underlying message that each negative emotion is telling us .

A post that recently came across my social media feed has to do with what could negative emotions tell us , and it said , and I quote resentment shows you where you lack boundaries . Jealousy shows you what you most desire . Shame teaches you what parts of you need acceptance . Fear shows you your biggest opportunities for growth .

Anxiety teaches you where you need to ground in the present . Anger shows you where you want justice . Sadness teaches you how to let go . All of the negative emotions have a subtle underlying message and if we act from the intensity of the obvious emotion like anger , anxiety , fear , sadness , our life will have a net negative result .

Imagine always being in resentment , jealousy , shame , lust . That will not create a life that you will enjoy in the long run . But if you can listen to the hidden message behind them , then you can actually act on how you want to act and your life will be what you want it to be . That way you create a life rather than living a life at default .

The reactive emotions of shame , sadness and anger have you respond to events in life with a knee-jerk reflex in which your life seems out of control .

So this is so good because behind all of the screaming in your face , ever-present loud emotions , there is a subtle message behind them , and the message is so faint that in the noise of the strong emotion , we can't hear what it is saying .

Now , to be honest , I hesitated in mentioning what each emotion can tell you because I don't want you to make me the authority of what these feelings are about . I don't want you to make me the authority of what these feelings are about . I don't want you to make anyone the authority on that but yourself .

But I have given you some guidelines with , hopefully , a promise that you will continue to explore what the subtle message behind your negative emotion is , and you will get more examples of how to do that in this podcast .

In this podcast , you will invoke the name of Allah Al-Latif , the one that knows all the subtle qualities of everything that is ever created , and you will make Dara to help you understand the subtleties behind your difficult emotions . This is the path of self-discovery .

This is where your soul intelligence is most active and this is where you tap into the true wisdom of your brain , something that gives you answers over the long term . Nurture that , stay in exploration .

It will feel really good during the process , because emotions that are fueling this process of tazkiyah , or purification of the self , are curiosity , exploration , wonderment , and these emotions are the basic parameters of a life of Ihsan as well . Anger will be so loud and prominent while the message behind it will be ever so subtle .

Grief will be so profound while the message of love behind it will be subtle . Our rational minds want an answer now . Our academic training sharpens that rational mind and creates a hunger for answers . Need to know now , have to have the answer now .

In this infantile nature of immediate satisfaction , we can miss the big picture lesson , something that only comes with the passage of time , patience and exploration . The subtle messages behind your most intense negative emotions are for you to discover .

You can surely learn what other people's opinions are on these matters , like in the post I shared with you , and I will also tell you what these emotions are there to show you .

But maybe the answer is different for you and the answer you come up with will be far more valuable in creating your life than any answer you can come up with from a blog , an article or a third party . Difficult emotions teach us subtle lessons .

When you can slow down enough to learn what these lessons are , even the most negative emotions become a key to well-being . Like I always say , everything just is . It's not negative or positive . Even emotions are a circumstance .

They can be neutral if we can observe them , and with the power of observation , we can make them mean whatever we want and discover the meaning behind them . This is how you take authority over your response that you've chosen , rather than a reaction that comes from your primal brain .

If you were ever in a situation where your response wasn't your top choice , or you're finding yourself wishing your circumstances were different , you absolutely need to understand the energy source of your actions , and that is the thought and the feeling pair , the qalb .

Reactivity comes from the activation of the primitive circuits instigated by the intense negative emotions , but the subtle lesson behind the intensity that gets overlooked is usually the value that your higher brain is trying to bring to your attention . A very tough lesson that I learned in my life that had to do with this exact subtlety happened in my residency .

This was a subtle message turned a life lesson , and the lesson was that I like to trust my own authority , and when I say that , I mean authority in a human capacity , with an understanding that the ultimate authority is Allah SWT .

But through this incident it became apparent to me that it's very , very important for me to trust my own intuition , which actually I had not learned how to do up until this point .

So in residency I believe it was my second year I got a toe infection from a pedicure and when it didn't improve with just some local care and topical antibiotics , I had to take oral antibiotics for it and one of my physicians prescribed me a sulfa-based antibiotic .

It turns out after two days of taking it I started noticing skin peeling off my body in shapes of like about a quarter . So for my international listeners the coin of the American quarter is about an inch in diameter . So I started seeing these welts show up on my skin and I could literally peel my skin off .

It was painless and it was mostly superficial , so I didn't think too much about it and at that point I could rationalize if this is related to the antibiotic .

I still have to finish it because I'm treating the toe and in my head I was doing that because I didn't want to come off as a complainer and I definitely didn't want to mention it to my prescribing physician . I mean , it was bad enough that I was dealing with an infection on rotations .

Now I'd have to get more attention by dealing with the reaction to the medication that was treating my infection , or so that's what my brain told me at that time .

Two or more days go by and I'm religiously taking the antibiotics as prescribed and I happened to mention these symptoms on rounds one day and I was mostly doing that as a casual conversation , but it caught one of my attendings attention and she was a nephrologist by training a kidney specialist and she said it sounds like a real allergic reaction .

You better stop taking that medication or it could hurt your kidneys . And the way that happens is through something called interstitial nephritis , which means an allergic complex circulating in your blood can attack your kidneys .

And the way that happens is through something called interstitial nephritis , which means an allergic complex circulating in your blood can attack your kidneys and cause renal failure , which just means that again she was right I could have hurt my kidneys . You get the picture . And with that comment I was struck . I stopped dead in my tracks .

Of course it was an allergic reaction , I knew that , but I chose to continue to take the pill because I felt I wasn't going to get a bad reaction . That was supposed to be for patients , it wasn't supposed to happen to doctors .

That just goes to show you that , alhamdulillah , I've lived a healthy life , and being able to identify as a patient was hard for me , because a patient needs help , a patient needs guidance , patient is sick , and my brain was making all of that mean that if I had to be a patient , I can't be a doctor .

That's the discomfort that I was avoiding and was hovering right under my conscious mind . This was a completely false dichotomy . I might add A classic black and white thinking , which is a blatant lie which my primitive brain was offering me in the moment of fear . Doctors are humans and can be patients at times .

One of my attendings suffered from a Crohn's disease , an inflammatory disease of the bowel , and one time he rounded with us with an IV pole attached .

The pole was going wherever he went Did not make him less of a doctor , just like an allergic reaction to SELFA did not make me less of a doctor , but I had this notion in my subconscious mind that I had to be invincible to be able to serve . Nothing could go wrong with me if I was going to train as a hardworking resident that I was .

So , despite knowing the symptoms of a SELFAR reaction , I chose to gut it out in order to flee the discomfort of feeling vulnerability . Now , looking back , I can see how much subtlety I was evading .

It was fear of vulnerability , the loud in-your-face emotion that dictated the action of continuing to take the antibiotic like a fool , while I had the logical and the academic training telling me I knew better . But somehow that didn't matter , because I blocked my wisdom when I was in fear .

Health professionals are notorious for this fallacy of invincibility and as mothers we do this all the time . This is so common for us as mothers that it seems like a part and parcel of life . Mothers are not supposed to need help , they're not supposed to get tired , they're not supposed to make mistakes Like motherhood somehow makes you above humanity .

Muslim women in general are groomed and socialized to believe exactly this Self-sacrifice in the name of greater good , dismiss your own wisdom and rely on external authority , appear invincible . I can tell you that servitude is one of the best acts of Arbada , no denying .

But you cannot serve anyone if you're in renal failure , like I faced when I pretended to be invincible . You cannot serve anyone if the cost of that service is you . Fear , in my case , had the subtle message that I value trusting my own intuition , but I was afraid of what others would think of me . I was distrusting of my own wisdom .

Fear of appearing weak veiled the subtle lesson that I value having my own authority . Such an important lesson Now , learning to trust my wisdom over the years has shaped me into the leader that I am today , alhamdulillah , and learning to rely on my own authority is an ongoing work in progress . This is a part where I live in exploration and creativity .

Allah SWT has the ultimate authority , but I have authority over my life from the free will and wisdom that he gave me , from the intelligence that he granted me so I could get an education and become an expert in my field . Another place where the name of Allah is mentioned is in Surah Luqman , ayah 16 .

And Luqman said O , my son , indeed , if wrong should be the weight of a mustard seed and should be within a rock or anywhere in the heavens or in the earth , allah will bring it forth . Indeed , allah is subtle and acquainted . Again , in our religion , we're told , we carry a hint of Allah's attributes .

You know that you have the capacity to detect the subtle , even if that doesn't seem true right now . Applying this quality , you can recognize the ever subtle changes of your emotions and the message behind them . You can recognize the thoughts that don't serve you and release them , creating more room for you to access your own wisdom .

Release them , creating more room for you to access your own wisdom .

Sometimes I'm coaching a client and just being present with them in the moment and being in tune with the subtle changes of the client's energy , I can offer them such transformative thoughts where I don't even know where that came from , and that's because I'm able to access a deep level of my own wisdom .

In my progress towards my business and my personal life , I use this technique all the time . What is the rushed energy telling me ? Why the anxiety ? What is the story between the lines ? What is the big picture here ? Ask yourself , what is anger teaching you ? What about despair , remorse , defeat , feeling offended , embarrassed , lust ?

What is all of that teaching you Such high intensity emotions and behind them , an equally important but not so obvious message ? So this discovery of subtle traits is not a destination . You don't all of a sudden arrive at having discovered all of the messages behind all of your emotions . You will always be discovering something new .

The whole idea behind mind management and thought work is to be curious and compassionate with yourself . Mind management does not give you a way to come out of the human experience . It tells you where your choice and your agency lies .

It gives you the answer to how do I take responsibility when I feel triggered , rather than okay , I'm here at this final train station of having achieved a fully managed mind and now I would have to learn no other subtle lessons and life would throw no curveballs at me and I would not have any difficult emotions .

That doesn't happen at me and I would not have any difficult emotions . That doesn't happen . So if there's no final destination , at least in this material world , then why not enjoy the journey of exploration , enjoy the process of the Skiya , the Nafs , self-improvement .

So for myself , I'm at a point where I have made a list of what emotions trigger me and what they might mean . I can recognize jealousy , mostly telling me that I'm ambitious . I can recognize hurt , mostly telling me that I have placed my trust in a human being rather than the divine .

Hurt also tells me that I have people in my life that I care dearly for and that care for me , while my brain mistakenly labels them as the source of my hurt , although care is usually not the very first message that I get when I feel hurt Care is a very , very subtle message .

I have to let this percolate in my mind and my body for a while before I can arrive at this conclusion . All because when I'm in the hurt I just want to curl up and hide . And you might find when you're in the anger you might want to punch someone . Don't worry , I've never done that and I'm not saying that you do that .

But you might notice that during this process it might take a lot of processing of the superficial emotion to get the message behind it . The enormity of your negative experience will directly correlate with how long it might take you to find the subtle message behind it . Give yourself grace during that process .

My personal goal is to eliminate all reactivity from my life , to show up as a person so that when I look back at a situation I can say I acted as an upright human being . Again , a goal does not mean that I've turned into a saint . There are a lot of tough ongoing reality checks .

If you are interested in learning the subtle message behind any particular incident in your life , you're welcome to schedule a free consult at islamiclifecourseschoolcom . Slash appointments . I will leave a link in the show notes .

In the 30 minutes we spend together , I can help you see what subtle message you might be missing behind the apparent difficulty you're facing . Whatever you give your attention to will determine your reality . If you attend to the subtle , then that will become your reality , but if you only attend to the obvious , that will continue to be your reality .

With that , I pray to Allah SWT that we are able to recognize the subtlety in our lives , because living with the message of the subtle creates a huge difference down the road . I pray that Allah SWT make this path easy for us . I pray that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make this path easy for us .

I pray that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make it easy for us to fortify our faith , our raqida , through learning His names and attributes .

O Allah , please give my listeners , muslim women and our ummah in general , the gift of an open mind that's able to live in the question and a mind that's able to live in the question and a mind that is able to receive wisdom directly from you . O Allah , please keep me in your du'as . I will talk to you guys next time .