Everything that we do in our life, every feeling, every action is based on what we’re thinking. It’s based on the thoughts we’re having and the average human has around 60,000 thoughts a day. I am so excited about today’s topic because learning about thoughts is the single thing that completely changed my life. We’ll be talking about the power of thoughts and also how it relates to science and most importantly how it relates to being a Muslimah.
I remember this one incident so vividly as if it happened yesterday. I was driving with my mom and brother down a bridge. We were enjoying our time in the car having random conversations. When suddenly something happened to the car and we started to go off the bridge at high speed. I legitimately thought all 3 of us were going to die and it’d be all my fault cause I was the one driving. I couldn’t believe this was happening. How did I get to this position? Why is this happening to us? How will I live with myself if I’m the reason my brother and mom passed away? The car was going at full speed and we tilted downwards and fell down.
And then I woke up. It was a nightmare. None of it happened. But I woke up in a panic. I thought it had actually happened. My body definitely thought something happened cause my heart was pounding and I was sweating.
The body doesn’t know the difference between events that happen and events that are just thought of.
This is why if you think of a stressful memory or a future worry, your heart will start to race and your body will go into fight or flight mode.
The body’s difficulty in distinguishing between actual actions and imagined ones is largely due to how the brain processes and responds to mental imagery. When you vividly imagine performing an action, your brain activates many of the same neural pathways used during the actual performance of that action. This can trigger physiological responses similar to those you would experience if you were really doing the act.
Our thoughts are so powerful. They are the single most important thing that determines how you live your life. Everything that you do in life is to feel a certain way or avoid feeling a certain way. And all your feelings are based on your thoughts.
Guess what? Many of your thoughts are subconscious. You’re not even deliberately choosing your thoughts.
So how did our subconscious thoughts come into play? It starts from when you’re a child. Everything you’ve heard, seen, and experienced. How the people closest to you think is how you’re subconscious thinks because it picked up on it. And the more you go through life, the more certain thoughts are reinforced. The thoughts that are reinforced the most become beliefs. These beliefs are what then form the new thoughts you have. If you’ve heard the episode that was titled ‘You’ll never know this about others’ then you’ll remember that I talked about how everyone is wearing a unique pair of glasses to see the world. These glasses are based on the beliefs that you carry. They become like the filter that you see the world through.
Beliefs that have the most amount of thoughts behind them are the most deeply rooted. These are the hardest to change. Because beliefs are what we at our core believe are true. We view our beliefs as factual. So all the thoughts that are formed on that belief are presumably true to us.
Except guess what, just because you think something is true doesn’t make it true.
Our thoughts are subjective. They’re our opinions and opinions are not factual.
For example, I grew up in a household where drinking water while sitting was not good. I was taught that it was wrong to do. When in reality there is no sin for drinking water while standing. It’s recommended to drink water while sitting but to the best of my knowledge there are hadith that narrate that the Prophet SAW drank while standing sometimes. And so it’s not wrong to drink water while standing.
Another thought that was repeated quite often around me was reading the traveling dua from Surah Az-Zukhruf, ayahs 13-14.
سُبْحَـٰنَ ٱلَّذِى سَخَّرَ لَنَا هَـٰذَا وَمَا كُنَّا لَهُۥ مُقْرِنِينَ وَإِنَّآ إِلَىٰ رَبِّنَا لَمُنقَلِبُونَ
Except when you actually look into the ‘dua’, it’s not us asking Allah SWT for protection while driving. The meaning of it is: “Glory be to the One Who has subjected these for us, for we could have never done so ˹on our own˺. And surely to our Lord we will ˹all˺ return.”
All we’re doing is praising Allah SWT. So yes praising Allah SWT is good but we are not directly asking Allah SWT for protection by reading the ayats from the Qur’an.
There are many beliefs that we walk around with thinking that they are true because to us they are true.
I’ve heard so many people tell me they’re not a morning person. They say it’s too hard to wake up early in the morning. Who said? Why is it so hard? Have we ever stopped and really asked ourselves why we think waking up in the morning is difficult?
What if we told ourselves it was easy? What if we told ourselves we’re morning people? I mean we’ve told ourselves we’re night owls, so why can’t we just tell ourselves that we’re early birds?
Our choices come from our thoughts. How we think is how we act. And so if I think repeatedly that eating cake kills a person then guess what, I will never eat cake again.
Why is it that there are so many Muslims who never crave alcohol? Because we have told ourselves that it is haram. We have told ourselves it is forbidden. And so we’re never tempted because we’re convinced that it is haram. Whereas non-Muslims will casually drink because for them they have no beliefs around alcohol.
Over drinking is not a problem for many Muslims but overeating is. Why? Because eating too much food is not considered to be haram. We don’t hold the belief that eating too much is haram.
It all comes down to how we think.
What we believe to be true and untrue. And everyone holds different beliefs.
Our thoughts are easily influenced by what we see, hear, and read. For example, have you ever heard about a new restaurant opening up and wanting to try it only to go through the recent reviews of it and read about how terrible it is and then decide not to go? And then we go around telling people how this restaurant sounded so nice but it got terrible reviews so you’re not going to go. And then your friend who you just told decides to believe you and then automatically thinks that this restaurant is not good.
This is why reviews are so important. We get influenced so easily by our surroundings. We believe so quickly without stopping to even question if what we believe is actually true. What if those reviews were because the restaurant was slow in delivering their orders cause it was opening week and the reviews were not based on the food but rather the timeliness of the orders? What if the food is actually amazing and now that they’ve hired more staff and have been open for a few weeks they’re actually a fantastic restaurant? You’d never know cause you’ve already chosen to believe that this restaurant is not good. Until, a few months later a friend tells you how good the place is and to not trust those reviews you had read previously. Now suddenly you believe the restaurant is amazing cause someone told you it is.
Thoughts change so quickly. And so if they can easily be changed by outside influences why don’t we choose to change them consciously ourselves to make our lives better? We can choose the way we think. It’s actually crazy that no one has taught us how to think.
You can choose to think that you are a morning person.
You can choose to think that you eat clean food.
You can choose to think that you don’t like to put processed things in your body.
You can choose to think that you love to walk.
You can choose to think that you are an entrepreneur.
The possibilities are endless.
If you want a different life, all you have to do is start thinking differently. If you try on new thoughts, you’ll have different feelings which will lead to different actions.
If you are suffering from a lack of good sleep, tell yourself you sleep at 9:30 pm no matter what. Set that as a rule.
What if it was haram to sleep after fajr? Really think about that. Of course, I’m not saying make something haram that isn’t. But think how different your opinion of sleeping late would be if sleeping between Fajr and Isha was haram. You’d sleep right after Isha no matter what happened in the world because you know that you can’t sleep after Fajr. You’d become a morning person very quickly. And all that changed was your belief in the fact that sleeping after Fajr is haram.
Your thoughts are extremely powerful. They shape your life. They shape how Allah is for you as well. There’s a hadith Qudsi that was narrated by Abu Huraira (RA) where The Prophet (ﷺ) said:
.'يَقُولُ اللَّهُ تَعَالَى 'أَنَا عِنْدَ ظَنِّ عَبْدِي بِي
“Allah says: ‘I am just as My slave thinks I am.”
How you think Allah is, is how He is. The word ظَنِّ is a verb in Arabic that means to think.
That’s how powerful your thoughts are. If you think that Allah SWT can get you married, then guess what, you’ll live your life as someone who will get married and do the actions of trying to get married. If you truly think that Allah SWT will always take care of you no matter what, then that is how you will live your life, free from dependency on anyone except Allah SWT.
The people in Gaza right now, they’re belief that Allah SWT will take care of them is so strong that you can see them smiling while sitting in the rubble of their destroyed home.
How you think is how you will behave in this world.
At the end of the day, what makes a thought true is whether you believe it or not. You can choose to believe whatever you want. So start choosing deliberately and consciously.
Question all the thoughts that you’ve been having for several years.
Question the beliefs that you’ve been carrying for years. Beliefs around topics like education, marriage, family, kids, parents, home, friends, food, habits, etc.
One amazing activity that I’d like to suggest every one of you try that I’ve done several times, is whenever your mind starts to feel overwhelmed, get a blank piece of paper and write down all the thoughts in your mind. Write down whatever comes to your mind. Like, ‘I am a bad mom, no one loves me, I’ll never get married, divorce will be difficult, I’m all alone, I have no friends, sleeping early is difficult, next week will be hard, I don’t have enough time’ Write it ALL out.
And then go down the list and see which thoughts are factual and which are not. All the ones I listed up there are not factual. Every single one of those is not based on any hard evidence. You’ll notice when you do this activity that there are a lot of things going on in your mind that are not actually true.
Be conscious about your thinking and see how your life starts to change. Question your thoughts, especially the ones that are not serving you.
Until next time my friend,
Remember you got this because you have Allah.
Your sister,
Mariam
