The Thunder, Chapter 13 of the Quran, describes how the thunder with its scary roar, in its essence, it glorifies and praises God. Could this be a parallel for our pains and sufferings? The roaring pain that brings within its folds a blessing and a gift from the Divine?
In its essence, suffering, like the roaring thunder, praises and glorifies God. Initially, our pain brings with it fear that might throw us into a chaotic narrative… the chaos of a life-threatening diagnosis or a life-altering illness, the chaos of cancer, depression, autoimmunity, fibromyalgia, or chronic pain… a chaos that forces us to press a pause or even a stop button on our lives…

But, what if we pause and listen? What if we try to decipher the message our body is sending us? If we listen carefully, we will hear our suffering opening the door for spiritual insight, a door that will take us closer to God. We will hear our suffering praising our Lord.

The Thunder chapter (Surat Ar-Ra’d) challenges our belief about the dichotomy of good and evil. To discern the wisdom in our trials, we need to challenge this modern cognitive frame. We need to stop judging evil solely on the basis of it not serving an immediate interest or pleasure. Likewise, healing should not be reduced to curing the illness. Healing means becoming whole again, becoming at peace with oneself, the world, and the Divine. 

Healing entails finding meaning and purpose that is bigger than ourselves and bigger than our suffering. It entails bringing all who we are, body, mind, heart, and soul into a relationship with the Divine. As physical suffering is drawing us towards a bigger life meaning and purpose, to a vocation and a calling, in reality, it is drawing us towards God. To find our calling, we need to know ourselves; and to know ourselves, we need to know God. Such knowledge allows us to understand the interconnectedness of all things around us and within us and the relationship to and ultimate dependence of this amazing web on its One and Only Creator.

Listen to the inspiring story of Ali Banat: Gifted with Cancer, May God bless his soul.

At a point on our journey, we are forced to withdraw into our “innermost cave” where life challenges become just too much for us to bear... when we realize that it is not about power, strength, or fighting… when we finally accept that it is okay to be vulnerable.

In our innermost cave, we learn to be humble, we clearly see our limits as human beings and we acknowledge our limitations.
    
The cave is dark, cold, and scary, like the dungeon prophet Joseph (Yusuf) was thrown into… Yet, it is in this cave that our connection with God gets stronger, it is there where we realize that God is our only solace… it is there where we meet God on the deepest level… we meet Him as servants and slaves meeting their Master… we meet Him in awe and humility… we meet Him as our souls as dying from starvation and thirst… only His presence can feed our souls and only His words can quench our thirst.

Sometimes, all what we need to do is pause and connect… come back to our deepest core … to the place that Marie Schwan describes as “Home.” Home is this beautiful innermost place within us where we are truly ourselves. Home is a place where we are profoundly and genuinely connected to God, speaking to Him in our own words and mindfully listening to His reply.

    Al-Harawy (d. 1089 C.E. /481 A. H.), the eleventh-century Muslim scholar and Sufi mystic, describes human beings as travellers on a life-long journey towards knowing God. This hundred-stage journey starts with the most critical step: Awakening. For him, awakening is achieved through awareness:

• Awareness of the blessings in everyday life,
• Awareness to our misdeeds and pitfalls that might drive us away from God or throw us off track, 
• Awareness of the passage of our time. As we are running on autopilot riding the hamster wheel every morning.

 
Awareness is essential to reach this pure centre inside each and every one of us, this Home, that is still deeply in touch with its Creator… with God who is above time and space, yet who is “closer to [us] than [our] jugular vein,” (Q, 50:16).
    
​In our innermost cave, as we connect with God… as we strip bear our soul… as we become humble and in awe, we learn to surrender… We learn to let go and let God show us the way… the way to Him… the way back “Home” to who we truly are.

Also check staying connected blog
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​Since the dawn of civilization, one fundamental question that has always perplexed human being is “why?” Why is there so much suffering in the world? Illnesses, physical pain, and suffering could be debilitating and crippling. Nevertheless, for some people, they turn out to be the most rewarding experience of their life, a blessing for them and others. 

The arabic word for patience is Ṣabr, a word from which the name of the cactus plant, Ṣabbār, is derived. Cactus is a plant that can grow in the toughest conditions of the desert, it adapted itself to withstand the most difficult and extreme harsh environmental conditions. Cactus represents hope, hope in the face of adversity and hardship, hope coupled with determination to survive despite the circumstances, hope that defies, hope that strives to make life worth living.
Ṣabr means more than patience… within its name you get meanings of:
resourcefulness
firmness
pursuit
resolve
persistence
perseverance
fortitude
bravery
determination
toughness
decisiveness
holding on

Ṣabr is also the Arabic name for the Aloe Vera plant. Aloe Vera is the highly bitter cactus that offers amazing medicinal properties. Herbalists classify Aloe Vera as vulnerary, meaning it helps heal wounds. It is applied to burns, abrasions, and even to bites to sooth the pain and promote healing.

Bearing those meaning in mind, now, look at our Ṣabr, It is like an acknowledgement that patience in the face of pain and suffering is bitter, it is spiky and prickly, it hurts , yet in its deep core, it is soothing and healing.

Like the cactus, Ṣabr is not passive, it does not helplessly wait for conditions to change or for water to pour down from the sky. Rather, it digs its roots firmly in the ground and stubbornly reaches for those underground invisible streams; it toughens its skin and, faces the desert harshness with determination and fortitude; it saves water for the rough days and perseveres when the sustenance is scarce. Ṣabr is an active engagement in life, it honours the struggle, the grit, the pursuit, it is motivating and empowering.
The Quran teaches: “So be patient with gracious, beautiful patience” (70:5)
“فاصبر صبرا جميلا” 
A gracious, beautiful patience is brave, assertive, honourable, determined and active.
And, “God does not change the condition of a people until and unless they changes within themselves” (13: 11)
“ان الله لا يغير ما بقوم حتى يغيروا ما بأنفسهم” 

Change is tough, but, as Anais Nin says: “and the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud is more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Change happens when the passive, helpless patience turns into an active determine Ṣabr, this Ṣabr is the quality of the people of excellence, people who do good - people of Iḥsān.
“ واصبر فإن الله لا يضيع أ جر المحسنين” 
“And be patient, for indeed, God does not allow the rewards of those who do good to go to waste.” (11:115)

Trying to just go through life with the illusion that only by willpower we can achieve everything is just that: An illusion… Our rational, logical self-control is like a rider on the back of an elephant. The rider seems to hold the rein and direct the elephant… But, the rider can never force the elephant into a direction it does not want to go into. The elephant is the one running the show… We have always learned that Ramadan fasting is there to strengthen our willpower… it is there to train us to be more in control of our desires… but unfortunately, we got the mechanism all wrong… if we treat our fasting as mere training of self-restriction and self-control… we will be further wearing off our self-control muscle… Ramadan Fasting is not a physical exercise that trains us to withstand our hunger… Neither is it a psychological exercise that teaches us to control our desires, temptations, and urges. Ramadan Fasting is a spiritual practice… We reduced Ramadan to numbers and rituals (and an endless supply of sugars, fats, and carbs). Our heart and soul are not into it… We drugged the elephant so that it takes a nap until we finish the holy month; We dissociated our hearts from the whole process… because our hearts are already very heavy, exhausted and weary... So how can we make the best out Ramadan? How can we tame our elephants?

    In 2013, when I first came to Canada I was introduced to Dana, a Libyan Canadian lady who had a project in mind. Dana wanted to gather ten Arab women and help them write their stories. She wanted to collect stories of immigration, living in a new culture, leaving the homeland, feelings of homesickness, stories of hope, loss, pain and gain, and stories of helplessness and bravery. Her aim was to publish the stories in an ‘Arab Women’s Notebook’ for the world to know more about those women’s dreams, hopes, pains, and struggles, for women around the world to see their own stories in those ten women’s narratives and reshape their own stories of hope and survival.
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     It was a long journey, and for me, it came at exactly the right time. My chapter was entitled ‘Journey of Self-Discovery’. I wrote it during a time of my life when I was wondering who am I? Where do I belong? And where am I heading? What is the meaning of life? What is my purpose? I wrote my story at a time when I had lost my grandmother, my only anchor in the world, her loss created a vacuum that seemed never to fill up. I wrote it at a time I lost my homeland, not by migrating away from it, but by it drifting away from me. I chose to leave as the land wasn't my land and the country wasn't my own. I was forever a stranger as I witnessed the collapse of the values, morals, and ethics I grew up with.
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      The book, An Arab Women Notebook, was published in 2016. At the book-signing event, we, the authors, met many women who told us how they found their stories in ours. They told us how our stories helped them heal and empowered them to re-shape their own narrative.

     Between 1987 and 2002, 67.5 million antidepressant prescriptions were written in the U.S.; this accounts for almost quarter of the U.S. population. Many of the people taking the medication might, in fact, need it, but do they all? And, are they offered any other alternatives? In the late 1980s, early 1990s, Japanese strictly resisted the use of anti-depressants that Eli Lilly decided against selling Prozac in Japan. By early 2000s, however, Japan became a massive market for anti-depressants after removing what Bradley calls “cultural obstacles.”[1] All it took was few years to ‘educate’ people about the importance of those medications in their life. Huge financial investments, media shaping public view, and continued medical education funded by pharmaceutical companies are clear conflict of interest that most people tend to ignore. All those facts make me question who is really benefiting from Bell’s Let’s Talk initiative? It is a double edge sword, removing the stigma by ‘normalizing’ mental illness is a good intention, yet are we offered any alternative, other than the biomedical model?
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     Junger, in his book Tribe, notes how history has never witnessed such high rates of depression and mental illness. As opposed to the traditional tribal culture where everyone is involved in a meaningful community role and purpose, modern Western culture, he adds, and I totally agree, makes us feel un-necessary and unimportant, which is one of the main reasons behind modern-day affective disorders.[2] Dr. Gabor Maté sees that a person with schizophrenia in a tribal culture holds a better chance of survival and well being than one following the Western medical model.[3] Our view on mental illness cannot be removed from the person’s context and culture. Our Western materialistic society focuses on achievements and possessions cutting off emotional, social, and spiritual needs, which, according to Maté, separates us from ourselves and paves the road for pathology.[4] Loneliness, is radically different from solitude. Loneliness is not about being alone; it is rather about the lack of belonging and the feeling of unworthiness. Belonging is a stepping-stone to our independence, freedom, and maturity.[5] Our self-image, self-esteem, and self-worth are major components of how we perceive and interact with our surrounding. And, this self-worth is defined within the context of the whole community.

       Taking a closer look at Western Muslim community, one notices the oppression, cultural stigma, and social isolation enforced upon people living with mental illness.[6] Attributing pathology to lack of faith is a way of blaming the victims for their own affliction. Sometimes, society could be more coercive towards people with disability than their physiological or physical limitation.[7] Initiatives working at eliminating social barriers and stigmas are so much welcome, they will allow disabled people to better integrate into the society and assume better responsibility for their own life.[8] But, are they truly authentic?

      Foucault, the famous French philosopher and social theorist, argues that coercion is no longer a direct phenomenon; it is rather a series of subtle disciplinary practices,[9] which gently causes the oppressed to internalize their own oppression. People start to discipline their own actions to comply with the ‘norm’ whatever the coercive power defines as ‘norm.’ The process happens in such a subtle way that most people do not even notice they are changing (like the Japanese cultural change discussed earlier). The hegemony of normalcy becomes a tyranny enforced by media ads, movies, novels, and the like.[10] In a way, eugenic practices are still applied to date albeit in a much subtle and ‘socially acceptable’ methodology. The most affected are people “located at the intersections of difference.”[11] Without realizing it, this difference, or ‘deviation from the norm’ becomes their identity. Replacing normalcy by ‘diversity,’ as the new trend is going here in Canada, does not quite solve the dilemma of mental illness discrimination either. In an open global economy where consumerism and lifestyle define one’s identity, the diversity picture does not make room for non-consumer mentally or physically disabled individuals.[12] 
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       If we are to tackle the mental illness issue, we need to go beyond the psychiatric, genetic, biomedical, and even psychotherapeutic models, taking societal, cultural, intersectional, political, spiritual/religious, economic, and historical sides into account. We need to find alternatives and collectively work at raising human awareness.


[1] Bradley Lewis, Depression: Integrating Science, Culture, and Humanities (New York: Routledge, 2012), 73.

[2] Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging (New York: Harpercollins Publishers, 2016), 10.

[3] Gabor Maté, The Myth of Normal (2016). From YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_j5mmBa4mw (accessed October 30, 2017).

[4] Gabor Maté, The Myth of Normal.

[5] Jean Vanier, Becoming Human, (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2010), 35.

[6] Sima Barmania,“Islam and depression,” The Lancet 4 (2017): 669.

[7] Tom Shakespeare, “The Social Model of Disability.”

[8] Mohammed Ghaly, “Disability in the Islamic Tradition,” Religion Compass 10, no. 6 (2016): 150.

[9] Michel Foucault, “Docile bodies” in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. (Vintage Books, New York, NY, 1979).

[10] Lennard J. Davis, “Introduction: Normality, Power, and Culture,” 10.

[11] Nirmala Erevelles and Andrea Minear, "Unspeakable Offenses,” 359.

[12] Lennard J. Davis, The End of Normal: Identity in a Biocultural Era (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2014), 1-14.

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Jill Bolte Taylor, in her book a stroke of insight, says all it takes is 90 seconds for the body to process the hormonal and neurotransmitter reactions associated with negative emotions such as fear, worry, frustration, or sorrow… if you turn those emotions into stories, though, they may last forever. All we need to do is simply acknowledge them until they go away – just 90 seconds. Do not turn them into stories, do not feed the anger, fuel the pain, or pump up the fear; do not hold on to them but also do not push them under the carpet hoping no one will notice – they will still be there for you to clean up later on, this time with much more damage involved.
 
The stories our fears are feeding fall into two categories: worry and grief.
Worry is when we project our fears onto the future and grief is when we drag our past stories along into our present and allow them to shape our life and ache our heart and soul.
 
In his book, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, Robert M. Sapolsky says that zebras do experience life trauma. Attacked by a lion or seeing a tiger devouring their cub, they experience fear, pain, and grief but they do not attach any stories to the feelings, they fully experience the event with all what it triggers from hormones and neurotransmitters, then they flip the page and change the scene…
 
Some people have this amazing gift of ‘flipping the page’, you see them cheerful, happy, and bouncing soon after a life trauma hits them… sometimes, it is really a gift, they do live in the moment, fill their heart with peace, faith, and trust and let life flow and unfold as they go… yet, in many cases, the page flipping is just a denial mechanism or a mask they wear hiding their true unbearable pain even from their own selves… they still write the stories in their subconscious mind and shove it under a pile of fake laughter and joy. This is not a healthy way of experiencing emotions. They might get by for a while, but these stories will one day resurface from the shadow and haunt them. Their stories may start as subtle Body Whispers®, but soon, the screams will force them to wake up and really face their fears.
 
Facing our fears starts with the inner work. It starts with true belief that we live in a purposeful world, that God is wise, merciful, and just and that every event, challenge, or ordeal carries a valuable lesson and meaning that might or might not reveal itself with time. Yes, we might never understand ‘why.’ Deep in our hearts we need to believe that there is a valuable reason… when we reach this stage of faith, belief, trust, and surrender, we will finally be ready to let go of the fear.
 
It might take weeks, months, or even years.  You can’t rush it… “You can’t make a rosebud open by hitting it with a hammer” as R. N. Ramen says… Let the process unfold, be gentle with yourself, be compassionate towards your vulnerability… just keep doing the inner work one baby step at a time: Breathing, praying, meditating, reading, learning, getting therapy, hiring a life coach… whatever it takes, just keep it up and running.

My 3 big goals for 2018 are: (1) launching my signature training program "A Brave Woman's Journey of Self-Discovery" hopefully you all going to love it! I have been working on it for a long time now and it is one of the best curricula I have ever developed; (2) establish a woman circle where I live so we can actually meet and create our little community of brave, ambitious, like-minded women who support and help one another and support and help their communities. (3) finish at least 7 more courses of my Master's degree.

Now it is your turn... Take out your journal and make some reflections! 
​Happy New Year!

​Years ago, I read a play called The Fate of a Cockroach by a famous Egyptian writer, Al Hakim. It is the story of a wife who woke up one morning to find a cockroach in her bathtub. The woman panicked and screamed waking up her husband who volunteered to kill the beast. The wife closed the bathroom door and waited outside for her husband to come out victorious. She waited and waited...
 
Starting to worry, she cautiously opened the bathroom door and peeked inside to see her husband sitting in front of the bathtub looking at the little beast in admiration.

• “What the heck are you doing?” Asked the wife in astonishment.
• “Shhh!” replied the man,  “Come and look at this amazing creature. What a tremendous perseverance and patience it has!”

The wife came closer, still very cautiously. She saw the cockroach as it was trying to escape by climbing the slippery walls of the tub and sliding off again and again before even reaching half way out. Still, it kept trying … tens and even hundreds of times non-stop.
The wife, failing to see any meaning in what this ‘stupid’ insect is doing screamed at her husband: “Are you crazy? What are you waiting for? Just kill it!!!”
 
The husband totally ignored her and kept looking at the cockroach in admiration.
Desperate, the wife reached out to her neighbors for help. The couple came quickly and the man head straight to the bathroom to help get rid of the cockroach.
 
Again, time went by with no news. The two women went into the bathroom; they saw their husbands leaning on the bathtub with their eyes wide-open and big smiles on their faces. They were happily following the little insect’s trips up and down the tub wall with tremendous admiration for its perseverance, determination, and forbearance.
Soon, a fight started between the two couples. The men on one side tried to explain the reason for their amazement and the women on the other just asked for the death sentence of this horrible beast. The argument suddenly came to an end when they smelled a strange odor. Running into the bathroom, they saw the maid standing victoriously with an insecticide bottle in her hand and the cockroach lying on its back in defeat.
 
I loved the way each character in the story dealt with the ordeal. They symbolized the three different way of approaching a problem. One person can take some time to admire the meanings and learn useful lessons (the two men in the play); another can just deal with the problem any way he/she can and get it over and done with while failing to perceive any hidden wisdom (the maid in the play). And still, a third can just panic and run around asking for help taking no action and blaming others for his/her failure (the wives in the play).
Setting aside the sexist orientation of the writer, I love the wisdom in his story: Don’t kill the beast… it is here to teach you something!
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One of my favourite books about anxiety and mental illness is Sarah Wilson’s First We Make The Beast Beautiful. Sarah wrote about her life long struggle with anxiety and OCD and how she finally managed to get her life on track by admiring the uniqueness of her own mind and digging into the wisdom of her challenge. Instead of fighting and drugging ‘the beast’, she shifted her efforts into ‘making the beast beautiful’… It is not easy… In fact it is much easier to drug the life out of our beasts… but it is much more rewarding to learn and grow with them.
 
We all have challenges, pains and struggles… we all have ‘beasts’ that keep us awake at night and bring tears to our eyes… they are here for a reason… they are here to teach us something, to help us grow… Don’t kill the beast… you’ll find a way to make it beautiful…