Are you always worrying about the future? Does your mind work at the speed of light? Is it always trying to predict and control the future? Yup, mine too. It’s very common for our minds to do this and in this blog I want to explore that and also some steps that have helped me manage it.
The past couple of months have been the most difficult weeks of my entire life thus far because of some personal challenges that maybe I’ll talk about in a blog someday because I’m truly learning a lot through these challenges.
I remember a night I woke up several times having difficulty going back to sleep each time because of all the thoughts that were racing through my mind.
I kept thinking of all the worst-case scenarios. I kept thinking of all the bad things that can and in my mind are going to happen. I tried reading duas and reading my adhkar. It would temporarily work, but then I’d wake up and the cycle would start again. I couldn’t manage to turn off my brain.
The brain continuously goes to the negative. Always thinking of worst-case scenarios. Always wondering what will happen, as if thinking repeatedly about it will change the future.
Thinking does nothing. Action does everything. But when you’re stuck in the thinking, taking action is difficult.
I was so stuck in the thinking that all I was doing was thinking, and worrying myself so much. I ruined my sleep because of these thoughts. There was absolutely nothing I could have done to make my situation better at 2am besides praying tahajjud and making dua (which I did). But only sleeping for 3-4 hours a night causes a lot of harm to the body that is not good. And so by not sleeping because of all the worry I was causing physical damage to my body.
Most people spend 70% of their lives living in survival and stress.
That means only 30% of their lives is spent outside of survival and stress. So if someone lives for 85 years, 60 of those years are spent in stress and only 25 years are spent outside of stress.
As Muslims, we’re held responsible for every minute of our life. If you spend 60 years worrying and in survival mode, that wouldn’t be the best thing. That’s not to scare you, that’s just to offer a new perspective on time spent on anxious thoughts.
Your body is your unconscious mind. It keeps score of all the stress that you put it under. It keeps score of all the worry and anxiety it goes through. For your mind, stress means a lack of safety. It will literally go into survival mode based on stress.
If you’re sitting down and you start thinking about some future worst-case scenario that you’re conjuring up in your mind, your body will begin to feel the emotion of that event. Your mind and body don’t know the difference between the event that’s taking place in your world, outer world, and what you’re creating by emotion or thought alone.
Your body legitimately thinks the event is happening. You will have all the emotions and feelings of the event actually happening even though it is not happening.
We spend so much time thinking in our minds. Did you know that studies have found that out of what you think will happen, only 3% actually goes that way. 85% never happens and 12% happens way better than you imagined.
For us Muslims, it’s even better, because we believe that 100% of the time, the best is happening.
Allah says in the Qur’an in Surah Al-Anfal Ayah 30:
وَإِذْ يَمْكُرُ بِكَ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ لِيُثْبِتُوكَ أَوْ يَقْتُلُوكَ أَوْ يُخْرِجُوكَ ۚ وَيَمْكُرُونَ وَيَمْكُرُ ٱللَّهُ ۖ وَٱللَّهُ خَيْرُ ٱلْمَـٰكِرِينَ (٣٠)
‘And ˹remember, O Prophet,˺ when the disbelievers conspired to capture, kill, or exile you. They planned, but Allah also planned. And Allah is the best of planners.’
Everything that is happening in your life is part of Allah’s plans. If you had the ability to zoom out and write your entire life, you’d write it exactly the way it was because Allah has written it in the best way. You’d want every challenge you’ve been through because each challenge brought you closer to Allah and it made you call out to Him so much more. Now this may not apply to someone who doesn’t believe in Allah and never repents to Allah. Allah knows best. For them, we do not know what their life looked like. We are talking about believers here.
Having full trust that everything will play out perfectly is difficult.
It’s definitely difficult to believe it in the moment. Trust me, I’ve had severe anxiety and till this day still suffer from anxious thoughts. That particular painful night, I was having a bunch of anxious thoughts. And no matter how many times I tried to tell myself that everything was going to be fine and Allah is in control, I was still struggling.
And I finally realized why. It’s because I’ve repeated to myself soooo many times that everything was going to happen for the worst and convinced myself that it was true. I repeated the negative thoughts so many times that of course my brain was going to only repeat that to me. I had just now begun to tell myself that Allah will take care of everything.
Imagine if we could just live carefree because we knew that Allah SWT was taking care of everything. Allah loves us so much and He is at all times so close to us.
Anxiety comes from the mind. It comes from thoughts. It comes from continuous worry.
Let’s go into 3 practical steps I took to really let go and worry less. 3 steps I took to become more resilient and push through. Now these 3 steps are to lessen the worry in the moment, they’re not to change your circumstances because the only way to truly do that is to take action. But like I mentioned earlier, it’s hard to take action when you’re constantly just thinking and worrying. So these 3 steps will insha Allah help with the worry so that you are able to take action to make your circumstance better.
The first step is awareness. It’s understanding where the anxiety is coming from. Which thoughts are causing the worry and stress.
90% of the thoughts we have every day are the same ones we had the day before and so if you were anxious yesterday, you will most likely be anxious today as well. Being aware of these thoughts helps us become conscious of them. The thoughts may keep coming but at least now you can answer back to your brain, ‘Hey these thoughts are repetitive and I’ve thought them before.’
The next step is to bring yourself back into the present. Every time you find yourself beginning to worry, bring yourself to the present moment. Open your eyes and start to identify where you are. Start to think of all the good things around you. We’ll actually talk about gratitude in another blog post because having gratitude is a big way to increase resilience.
Once you’ve become conscious of your thoughts and you’ve brought yourself to the present, the next step is to talk to Allah. Tell Allah all your worries. Tell Him SWT all the thoughts that are coming to your mind. Ask Allah SWT for help. To make this moment easier. To ease all your concerns. To remove all the worry that you’re having.
One really good dua to memorize and repeat is:
اللَّهُمَّ إِنِّي أَعُوذُ بِكَ مِنَ الْهَمِّ وَالْحُزْنِ وَالْعَجْزِ وَالْكَسَلِ وَالْجُبْنِ وَالْبُخْلِ وَضَلَعِ الدَّيْنِ وَغَلَبَةِ الرِّجَالِ
‘O Allah, I seek refuge in you from grief and sadness, from weakness and laziness, from miserliness and cowardice, from being overcome by debt and overpowered by others.’
No one but Allah can truly help you with your internal concerns. He SWT has the power to do anything.
These 3 steps, becoming conscious of your thoughts, bringing yourself to the present moment, and talking to Allah SWT have helped me lessen my anxiety. And the beauty of these 3 steps is that they are accessible to everyone at all times. You could be anywhere in any state and you can do these 3 steps.
And remember, these steps are to lessen the worry in the moment, in order to truly change your circumstances you have to take action. Making dua is an action, yes, but there are still other actions you have to take. You cannot only make dua and think everything will change.
I really hope these steps help you insha Allah.
Remember, you are confident and you are strong. You are being tested because Allah knows you can handle it. You got this sister!
Until next time my friend,
Remember you got this because you have Allah.
Your sister,
Mariam
