Obligations

But sometimes the perception of these acts as a rigid obligation can lead to a psychological trap , especially if done over time . I know I just started this podcast and I already hit you with a deep concept , but I'm going to repeat it and slow it down just for our understanding .

Any act , not just your daily prayers , if that act is perceived as a rigid obligation , it will eventually start to be seen by your brain as a trap . When your brain senses an absence of choice , it creates a narrative of entrapment .

The concept here is a sense of freedom versus a sense of compulsion and how our subconscious mind perceives both and how it creates a completely different body experience of emotions based on what the mind perceives . A sense of freedom , of choice , loosens its grip on the body and a sense of compulsion produces tight emotions in the body .

A lack of choice feels suffocating , leading the brain to perceive that the obligated activity is a threat equal to a physical danger , because the primal subconscious mind perceives every threat as if it's a threat to your existence and the next natural reaction that your body will have is it will go into fight and flight , freeze or fall .

In response , if you see that you have to force yourself to pray , chances are that you're perceiving it as an inescapable choice which is very stressful to the body in itself , and no wonder you can't make it a consistent habit .

This idea suggests that when we view an obligation as a compulsory act , something without a choice , it becomes a source of fear , a source of threat , and this fear response is overwhelming and uncomfortable .

So , while trying to conduct the act , while trying to be consistent with your studies , be consistent with your prayers , body and mind have to overcome this threat of anxiety and the sense of entrapment . Then it wastes a lot of energy .

From an evolutionary perspective , when humanity unlocked the power of metacognition , which is the ability to think about your thinking , your prefrontal cortex began to act like an internal scanner interpreting the sensations within your body .

This was groundbreaking in evolution , because when this part of the brain detects stress , particularly the kind of stress induced by the sense of entrapment or obligation , it raises an alarm , mistaking these feelings for life-threatening dangers . This is like perceiving a tiger . Only the tiger is internal , a false threat fabricated by your mind .

Dr Kelly McGonagall says in her book the Upside of Stress the tiger moved inside , meaning . Instead of worrying about the tiger jumping out from behind the bushes and eating you , the tiger started to be within you , tiger metaphorically representing a sense of danger and the object of fear as fabricated by your mind . When it comes to your sense of obligation .

And it's fascinating to notice that a tiger outside of us creates the same sense of danger as if we perceived an obligation as inescapable or trapping . This capability to introspect , to sense the stress triggers our primal instinct to escape , and this trigger can be a sense of obligation , as it relates to the daily prayers .

Escape from your obligations of being a mother doing laundry , being a financial provider for the family , or obligation pretending a garden that you planted .

If you stop seeing a choice that you don't have to tend to the garden , that you're actually choosing to tend to it , the garden will be start to perceived as an inescapable threat Just because you have a sense of obligation towards it . All of these responsibilities will be detected as though there's a real predator .

But we do have a profound advantage , and that's the one of mind management . We have the option to dominate this primal response . Our higher cognitive functions understand that the perceived threat is not real . We have the power to override these primal alarms , to recognize that the stress , whether worn from obligation or something else , is not a true danger .

It's a remarkable demonstration of how a human mind is complex and how it has the ability to navigate between the primal and the higher reasoning . If you're having a hard time creating a habit around the priorities that you set , chances are you've stopped seeing them as a choice .

You're making what the brain labels as obligation through the pathways of the primal response I described to you . That creates stress . This obligation starts to dominate your thought and mental space , intruding and bleeding this obsession into the other matters of your life .

The key takeaway here is that , while responsibilities are important , framing them as absolute necessities without a choice creates an unhealthy mindset . Everything , ultimately , is a matter of choice . Recognizing this will transform how you approach your obligations , reducing the fear and anxiety associated with them .

The goal is not to abandon responsibilities , but to understand and reframe your approach to them , recognizing the power of choice in your life . When the story to the self is that this obligation is inescapable , there's a lack of choice and autonomy . You feel trapped , you feel powerless , you feel helpless .

That's when your primal brain is fully engaged and , through this lower brain , obligation becomes an object of obsession , and it's not a good obsession . It starts to affect your physical health , causes sleep disturbances and you think non-stop about all of the things you have to do .

Important distinction I want to make is that you might not always like the choices you make . I personally make a lot of hard choices . I'm choosing to take the high road when people might have been unfair to me , and this is a choice that I don't like , but I am making it . Reminder here is that I always have a choice .

I can stoop to their level or take the higher road . My brain is really good at forgetting that I have a choice in this matter , and maybe I'm making this choice because I want to be a better person than them . That does not mean that I let people walk all over me . It just means that I don't engage in petty arguments because my ego is hurt .

I can choose to take the high road even though my ego makes it look like it's a difficult choice in the moment , because of the difficulty of the choice , the brain says you actually don't have a choice . You're obligated to be nice , and then I start to hate myself for acting nice . This is a very common scenario for highly empathic Muslim women .

In this case , all I'm inviting you to do is to see that you have a choice of stooping down to somebody else's level or to take the high road . There is a level of cognitive climb , meaning more and more elevated thinking that you'll have to practice , and the cognitive climb to this is to get from . I don't have a choice to .

I have all of the choice in the world . The small thoughts in between to practice is that it was a difficult choice that I made . What I'm doing is hard work , but it is my choice . Or I hated both of my choices , but I did make a choice . There was no coercion . No one forced me .

I made a choice out of two bad options , because sometimes that's what you have to do in life . It's not like I'm telling you to think that you made the best choice in the world . If you have two bad choices , then maybe you chose lesser of the two evils , but nobody forced you into it .

The point is to train your brain into a less threatening version of it was done to me , it is all being done to me . I'm always being told what to do , I'm being forced to , I'm obligated to . These are all highly triggering sentences to your lower brain .

The slow cognitive climb to an improved type of thinking , more evolved thinking , is I'm making a hard choice , but nobody is forcing me . I might have not made the best choice , but I made it regardless . This pattern alone helps me elevate my worship so much because I didn't have a healthy portrayal of connection with my spirituality growing up .

It was always you better do it or you're going to hell . I even used to be really angry for having to pray as a teenager and out of this anger my brain would always look for a logical benefit for why I had to do it and I would spin in circles trying to justify all the health and the psychological benefits of prayers .

But the five daily prayers are way more than any benefit that you can fathom with your logical brain and I did not find the serene concentration and the connection until I was able to do this out of my own choice , out of my own free will , coming out of the trap of obligation .

We pray because we need the prayers more than Allah needs our prayers from us . When you actually see the choice , even recognizing that you might be making a hard choice , then you will see the tension in your body will just unravel .

It will just release itself because the tension that builds up from constant belief , running in the background , that you were manipulated into prayers . You were manipulated into doing something you didn't want to do . Maybe you're choosing to stay married because you have no idea how to deal with the financial obligations .

If your spouse's financial support wasn't there , then you're choosing marriage . You're not being trapped into the marriage . You might be making a difficult choice , but you are making a choice .

If you're living under the obsession of how obligated you've been to do the things you're doing , then you will need to amplify this voice in your brain that is ready to see the choice , how you're choosing , the actions you're taking , what two difficult choices you're choosing from .

You're choosing to live in the West , even if you disagree with the foreign policy , you disagree with toxic capitalism , but you also don't like the choice of leaving your country to go to your parents' country , which is otherwise still a third world country , and it has its own challenges .

You're making a difficult choice of staying in the West while your kids are being educated in public schools about sexual liberties and gender fluidity . You're making a very difficult choice . You're not being trapped into living an industrialized nation , even though your brain will tell you that you don't have a choice .

But the point to consider here is that maybe you're making a choice between two difficult options . Maybe your father owed people money but he passed away and you're paying the loans back because you're doing the right thing . Your brain will say that your father trapped you into this mess and now you have left with no choice but to pay people back .

But you always have a choice of not paying them back , just like your father didn't . Maybe you're choosing it because you want to be a better person , because you want to do the right thing . I'm not saying you have to do one or the other . I'm saying you're making moral decisions , and that is usually the hard thing to do .

And that's the cue that your brain takes to make you think that you don't have a choice in the matter . And then the rest of the obligatory obsession follows . And I'm not saying I know all of the moral decisions behind your choices . I'm not living your life . That's up to you . What I'm saying is that you always have a choice .

Obligation is an illusion that your lower brain creates in order to trap you by the hard choices that you make . Life is full of hard choices . We make them every day . This life is not promised to be easy , but you can recognize your hard choices and celebrate yourself for them . Allow yourself the win of making hard choices .

Maybe it's that I'm choosing to stay in a toxic relationship because I don't have social connections , I don't have an education to survive outside of this relationship . Yet . What a sad choice to make . What a difficult choice , but it is a choice . And then I will

offer you that .

Once you come out of this constant narrative that your brain feeds you that you don't have a choice , that you're obligated to stay in the relationship , once you acknowledge to yourself that you're choosing a toxic relationship , as difficult as it might be initially , eventually your brain will start to show you that you don't have to keep making this choice .

You can tap into other resources . It will start to show you all of the other support that you have . You can make new friends , you can work a minimum wage job until you get a higher education , the brain will start to show you other choices .

Because until you're swirling in the neurochemical soup of the thoughts that you are bound and restricted to your current circumstance , your primal brain will remain active . Your prefrontal cortex , your resourceful brain , will continue to stay shut .

And that is the perfect setup for you to continue to not see the choices and how you can actually leave the relationship in a healthy manner .

Because at any given time , you are operating from two brains the lower or primitive brain that is wired for danger , safety , pleasure , and the higher brain that is wired for creativity , curiosity , empathy , growth and action . Once the lower brain is engaged and is ruminating in the trap of obligation , the higher brain gets shut down .

It's disengaged and unavailable , meaning the faculties that you need to actually see the options of how you can survive outside of the relationship aren't even functioning .

So it is extremely important to start seeing your choices , no matter how difficult that might seem in the beginning , and at the same time , when we consider our prayers as obligations , the brain says I don't have a choice but to pray . The truth of the matter is that you always have a choice . You don't have to pray five times a day .

I know that sounds sacrilegious , but there are plenty of people on the planet , there are plenty of Muslims on the planet , that don't pray five times a day . Allah swt created us for His worship and then he gave us the freedom to not worship .

The higher , more evolved possibility is that you recognize the importance of this worship and you want to worship , meaning you're making an active choice . It might be a difficult choice because the prayers seem interruptive , because they're getting in the way of your daily schedule or whatever other superficial obligations you have , but it is a choice you're making .

It might be a hard choice . When you pray because of your sense of obligation , because your father will otherwise disown you , your community will disconnect from you obligations because of fear of hellfire . It renders your brain incapable of seeing the choice in the matter .

Then that will create so much more resentment and rumination and the obstacles towards prayers become so high that you have to come up with a tremendous amount of energy to overcome this objection , to be able to pray for that day .

Consequently , you will always find yourself in lack of motivation because there is never that high enough energy to overcome the monumental objection that your brain creates . You will have to generate a very high level of motivation to overcome the negative downward pull of the obligations that you have associated with your prayers .

It's a possibility that you pray because you want to . Maybe you're praying because it's a commandment of Allah . It's a part of your religion . Maybe your act of prayer is not as good as it could be yet because you don't have constant concentration in it , but you always have a choice between not praying and praying with somewhat skipping concentration .

You can choose a bad prayer that is not up to par to what you think going to be a perfect prayer , and this choice is to see so that you don't drop praying altogether just because you're obligated to having a perfect prayer .

If you don't give yourself a choice through this fear of not having a perfect prayer , it will constantly keep your lower brain engaged . You're making a choice of staying in a marriage , staying in a career , no matter how strong the evidence is that you don't have a choice . You can't leave because of the kids .

You can't change careers because of financial obligations . These are all reasons that make it a hard choice of staying in your situation . But you do have a choice . You have a choice to never caring about your kids and leave . You could become homeless and quit your job , but you don't want to make that choice .

You want to make the hard choice of staying in the marriage and staying at your current job , and I gave you these extreme examples on purpose .

The point I'm trying to highlight is to find a choice in whatever actions you're taking , and when you come out of the forceful narrative , when you're in a more resourceful state , then , and only then , will your brain show you how to choose differently . If you want . It will give you other pathways to take .

Give yourself a choice , because then maybe you will see , the hard thing you chose was because that was the right thing to do , because you want to be the better moral human being . You're taking the high road , because you're stepping up to doing something that nobody else is taking responsibility for .

You are doing the hard thing when you pray , when it doesn't seem like it's immediately benefiting you , and you still choose to pray . You might be making a difficult choice and you have the freedom to make this choice . A sense of obligation makes you a victim of your circumstance . You will not be able to think clearly about what to do next .

Among all of this , you have to understand how important it is for a person to have a sense of agency that they've had over their choice they make . When people feel helpless and hopeless , they act completely outside of their true nature . When you own the choice , then through your own resilience , you're able to create something amazing out of a bad situation .

Also , avoid the pitfall of when your brain tells you that among the hard choices , you made the wrong choice .

Any human being that makes a choice has the capacity to deal with the outcome of that choice . Labeling it wrong is not going to do you any favors . You get to give yourself credit for making that difficult choice , which you don't get to do if you're constantly thinking that it's happening to you , it's happening towards you , it's happening at you .

With that , I pray to Allah . O Allah , grant me the clarity to see my choices , strength to embrace them and the wisdom to endure the outcomes . In every decision I make , let me feel your guiding presence . O Allah , we turn to you to teach us the value of our decisions , knowing that in your wisdom alone , I am never outside of your mercy .

O Allah , the Most Merciful , guide me to recognize my agency in crafting my life on purpose , on your deen , choice , by choice . Amin , ya Rabbal Al-Alamin , please keep me in your du'as . I will talk to you guys next time .