There is one piece of advice that I wish I had truly embodied and repeated to myself every single day. This one thing could have saved me from so much heartache and pain. The one thing that by doing, I have become 10x more resilient. And that’s what I want to talk about in this blog.
A few months ago I found my best friend. The friend that we all need. The friend who’s there for you no matter what. They have your back. They keep their word to you. They support you in all your goals. They celebrate all your achievements. They’re available for you whenever you need a friend. They’re always there without you even having to ask them. They cry with you when you’re having a tough day. They listen to you when you need someone to talk to.
I found that friend. It took me 27 years to find her even though she was there the entire time.
Guess who that friend is, me. It’s me, myself. I am my own best friend.
I know that sounds a bit obvious or maybe even crazy. And I’m not saying this to say that you don’t need any other friends. In fact, I think we all need a few really good close friends.
But your absolute best friend should always be yourself. That’s the one person that will never leave you. It’s the only person you enter this world with and leave this world with.
It’s important to actually at times talk to ourselves as a third person. We need to be able to differentiate it so we can identify how we are speaking to ourselves. For some of us, when we talk to ourselves, we usually talk to ourselves as an enemy would. We tell ourselves all sorts of things like: you’re so ugly, you’re so fat, you’re a failure, you’re not good enough, you’re always crying, no one will ever love you.
We’re so mean to ourselves. For so many of us, that is our default and there are several possible reasons for this.
One of those reasons is our upbringing and past experiences. If someone grew up in an environment where they were frequently criticized or not given positive reinforcement, they might internalize these attitudes and reflect them in their self-talk.
Another reason for this is that the brain is trying to protect you. It is trying to tell you all these things so when someone else tells you them or makes you feel them, you’ve already been through it in the brain. Similar to how we try to predict the future and feel the emotions of the future. We want to protect ourselves from more pain. The crazy part is that the way we protect ourselves from pain is by causing ourselves pain.
Even though for some of us, self-talk has been programmed into us from our childhood, it can definitely change. There is a concept in neuroscience called neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is made up of 2 words, “neuro,” which refers to neurons, the nerve cells in our brain, and “plasticity,” which means the ability to be shaped or molded. So, “neuroplasticity” describes how the connections between the neurons in our brain can change, grow, and reorganize themselves. When you learn new things or practice skills, your brain forms new connections between neurons, and that’s like reshaping or molding your brain’s network. Our brains are not fixed and unchangeable; instead, it’s always changing and adapting, kind of like how plastic can be molded into different shapes.
We can change our brains. We can change our self-talk. How? By engaging in self-love. Self-love is the advice I wish I had implemented much earlier in my life. I had always been so hard on myself. I had always put other people in place of myself. I wanted other people to accept me so I would change myself. After I got married, I changed myself so much to the point that I legitimately did not recognize myself. My close friends and family did not recognize me either. In some ways, I changed for the better, and in some ways, I changed because of my insecurities.
As women, so many of us want validation from others, especially from the opposite gender, whether that be our dad, brother, husband, or even sons. We want to be validated. We want to be told that we are awesome, that we are beautiful, that we are smart.
The problem with that is inconsistency and unreliability. If we entrust our entire self-worth to someone besides ourselves, then we are signing up for uncertainty and disappointment. No matter how much someone tells you they love you, they deep down care more about themselves. And even us, even though we have so much negative self-talk, we deep down have the desire to protect ourselves first.
This however does not apply to mothers. When a woman becomes a mother, she legitimately cares more about the child than herself. She loves the child maybe even more than the child loves themselves. But again, we cannot place our self-worth even on our mother. Because mothers leave too. My mom passed away. And I know firsthand that I had attached so much of my validation to her. She was my cheerleader. She was my best friend. All the qualities I mentioned earlier of a best friend, my mom was all of them. But I lost her.
The only person you legitimately can never lose is yourself and Allah SWT (which we will talk about in a little bit).
When you become your own source of peace, then it can never be taken away.
So how do we do this? How do we incorporate self-love?
I’ll share 2 steps I personally took.
First, answer this question: What are your thoughts on being alone for 2 weeks with no contact with anyone?
If the thought scares you or makes you feel uncomfortable like it did to me a few months ago, then your self-love needs to be worked on.
The number one step I took for self-love was being okay with being alone. Being okay with just my company. Only depending on myself. Validating myself. Pushing myself. Loving myself so much, that I legitimately do not need anyone else.
It sounds selfish, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not. It’s extremely healthy. We have to be able to be fully independent. Be able to care completely for ourselves.
That is the only way we will thrive and reach true peace. Then no matter what happens in life, we will always have internal peace because we have ourselves. Imagine if you had the best kind of support 24/7. Imagine if you had someone who loved you unconditionally by your side 24/7. Imagine if you always had someone to hang out with. Imagine if you legitimately needed no one but yourself.
Once you get to this point, life becomes beautiful. I cannot tell you how much my life has changed in the past few months when I finally fully embraced being alone. I hit the point where I was forcefully completely alone. I was so uncomfortable and so scared. I had no one. I could only rely on myself. I had to learn the hard way but so many of us don’t. We can learn it before life teaches it to us.
So the number one step to self-love is being okay with being alone.
But guess what, as Muslims, we know that we are never alone. We always have Allah SWT. The journey of self-love is also the journey of loving Allah. When we start to detach ourselves from everything, we attach ourselves to our Creator. When we stop relying on others for validation and peace, we rely on Allah SWT. We rely on our Creator.
When I have been alone, that is when I have felt the closest to Allah SWT. When I relied on no one else, I relied heavily on Allah SWT. I turned all my reliance on Him SWT.
Allah says in the Qur’an in Surah Qaf, ayah 16:
وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ وَنَعْلَمُ مَا تُوَسْوِسُ بِهِۦ نَفْسُهُۥ ۖ وَنَحْنُ أَقْرَبُ إِلَيْهِ مِنْ حَبْلِ ٱلْوَرِيدِ (١٦)
“Indeed, ˹it is˺ We ˹Who˺ created humankind and ˹fully˺ know what their souls whisper to them, and We are closer to them than ˹their˺ jugular vein.”
Allah SWT is closer to us than our own jugular vein, the vein that is located in our neck. And so we are never actually alone. We have the support of our Creator 24/7. We have our Creator to talk to 24/7. We have our Creator to ask for anything that we want. Allah SWT loves us and that is why we must love ourselves. We love ourselves because we are creations of The Most-Great.
And that brings us to the second step for ultimate self-love: loving yourself as the creation of the Most-High, the Most-Great.
When you are starting to have negative self-talk, remind yourself who you are speaking to. You are speaking to the creation of Allah SWT. How dare you say such negative things?
Self-love is a journey and it can be difficult at times. As humans, we are wired for connection, so wanting to be around others is completely normal. The problem occurs when we want others to complete us. When we cannot complete ourselves. When we want others to validate us. That is when the problem comes in.
When you love yourself and you have filled your own cup, then trust me, you will experience life in a completely different way. You will no longer need to be around people, you will want to be around them. You will no longer need someone to support you, you will want people to support you.
The key is to not need any of your emotional needs to be fulfilled by someone other than yourself. This does not go for physical needs. I am not saying as women we should be responsible for physically caring for ourselves 100% in terms of money, roof over the house, etc. Which in today’s day and age, is not a bad idea to do but that’s another whole topic. Over here, I’m talking more in terms of your emotional needs. You should be able to fill your emotional cup to the top by yourself.
Now when I show up in my relationships, I have a giving and receiving energy. I no longer have a desperate and needing energy.
Life becomes so much more freeing and peaceful. All you truly need is Allah SWT and yourself.
Inner peace starts on the ‘inner’ level. It starts with you.
Love yourself before anyone else does. Loving yourself is where resilience comes from. You have your own back always. You love yourself always.
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Until next time my friend,
Remember you got this because you have Allah.
Your sister,
Mariam
