The Golden Years

It's kind of crazy that I've now been a stay at home mom (again) for a year now and I've literally never had a moment to blog. How does that even happen? "What do moms do all day at home?" (eyes rollin so hard)

Truthfully, I'm sure I did have moments where I could have found the time. I probably used that time to be lazy and catch up on Netflix binging or wasted time on my phone. AH WELLZ to that, but here I am now. And while I may not have been writing about it, my headspace for the past few months has been all about this topic; The Golden Years.

We (as in me and family) are in this amazing spot right now. We are finally past that stage of raising babies, although we still call them babies, our kids are now grown actual people who are (nearly) out of diapers walking and talking being their own selves demanding less of our time/energy. Yet at the same time, they aren't fully grown either. They haven't (totally) begun that stage of being sassy, smart mouthed know it all adolescents yet either. They still need us to prepare their meals, drive them to activities and actively want to spend time with us. I like to see it as though we have this small window where life is still busy as it always is, but it's easy too. Everyone is still eager and excited for family road trips, the kids are old enough to have their own sibling jokes, but not too old yet where they prefer their own time over family time. It's probably a tiny window of 5-7 years while we have this to make all the memories we can. So, how can I not call this the golden years?

For everyone who's still a step behind me rest assured this day will come for you too. I know you're living in survival mode right now, I was there for a (VERY) long time too. I too felt like it was never going to end and my sleep hating children had doomed my life forever. That look I see now on the faces of moms who have infants and toddlers is still too fresh from my own experience. (And we still get the occasional tantrum/meltdown to keep our feet on the ground too, don't wanna get too carried away there.) But I'm now in that stage where I can also recognize the glimmer in the eyes of moms who wish their kids in college would check in more often. I'm beginning to understand what it could feel like to no longer be needed as much as I have been for so long. And it's crazy, because all while you're in it you want it to pass quickly but once it's gone you wish it back. That's just how life works.

I see it now in my 4 and 7 year old's words. 'When I'm 10 then I'll be tall enough so I can...."  or "When I'm a teenager (its ALL about the teens right now apparently) I'm not going to have to do..." A lot of us grow up waiting anxiously to experience all that there is to see and do in life. I spoke about this to my husband and at first he didn't get it. He thought I was being depressive, but what I'm getting at is being mindfully in this moment.

All my life from childhood til marriage, then having children there was always something to look forward to. I've always been someone slightly dealing with anxiety because I couldn't stop focusing on the future. How would it all pan out, what could go wrong what could go right. But for the first time I'm at a plateau, I guess you can call it. I've done and seen everything on my life list. (MAJOR alhumdulillah to that.) The career, marriage, kids, vacations it's all ticked off (of course iA we will have more vacations because who ever says we're done to that?! But my bucket list ones are done.). All moments leading up to this was what made today possible. Maybe all my perfectionism helped make me check off everything sooner than others have. Who knows? What I do realize is that now I need to sit and bask in its glory, because it really truly is glorious this life. This life we've been given its here and happening now. For the first time I am actually NOT looking forward to the future. I know there's lots of exciting things still on that horizon too, like the milestones and achievements of my children; their colleges/marriages/careers. I'm not discounting any of that, but it's as though age has made me wiser.

I know now that the upcoming turn of life for me will also mean seeing my parents age and one day leave us too. That's not a stage I look forward to, at all. I do wish I had learned sooner to live in the present, to be content with whatever stage I'm at now. I don't regret how I lived, but I do think I would've been happier living in the present rather than the future. Even without things checked off on my list, life was still always amazing. We forget that when we're so forward focused.  I would've held those tiny babies longer, I would've been more carefree in college. I could have been more present in the conversations and relationships I had rather than unfocused and detached. Still, I do remind myself not to get depressive reflecting on the past, but I say all this to hopefully spark something in you my reader. This past year has been so great, and only so because I changed my focus. I prioritized the now. I made that shift that said I will be mindfully present here right now and nowhere else. It changes everything. Your relationships, your experiences. I hope reading this makes you reflect on whatever stage of life you're in right now and reminds you to be as present as you possibly can be.

Don't let your mind fly off into what else you should be doing or where else you need to be going. Life may be crazy, but life will always be crazy. It will always be awesome too. The chaos of today will be tomorrow's memories.  The things you're so hopelessly praying for today WILL be a reality and you won't even realize how easily that happen. Be as you are and be it confidently, happily and gratefully. Now you might ask HOW to do this shift? That'll have to wait for another post. Because I have to go live the NOW. 

Ehsan

The below definition is taken from Wikipedia (which I know is not always accurate, but in this case I can say I read through it and can agree it is).

Ihsan (Arabic: إحسان‎), also spelled ehsan, is an Arabic term meaning "perfection" or "excellence" (Ara. husn). It is a matter of taking one's inner faith (iman) and showing it in both deed and action, a sense of social responsibility borne from religious convictions.^[1] In Islam, ihsan is the Muslim responsibility to obtain perfection, or excellence, in worship, such that Muslims try to worship God (Arabic Allah) as if they see Him, and although they cannot see Him (due to the belief that Allah is not made of matter), they undoubtedly believe that He is constantly watching over them. That definition comes from the Hadith of Gabriel in which Muhammad states, "[Ihsan is] to worship God as though you see Him, and if you cannot see Him, then indeed He sees you". (Al-Bukhari and Al-Muslim).^[2]

At a recent gathering I attended this word was mentioned and it really stuck with me. Something along the lines of 'God wants us to constantly strive to be perfect. All of his creation is perfect. Man he created perfect also, but we err and make mistakes so we must continuously work to return back to perfection. That's what He wants from us.' I really love this ideology. Probably because I'm a major perfectionist myself. But it just makes sense! As parents, don't we want our kids to be perfect? We know and accept that they won't always be. In fact we are well aware they will make mistakes and we will love them regardless. Their mistakes will never change the immensity of our love, no matter how badly your child wrongs you if he sincerely turns to you and asks for forgiveness you know you will grant it. So while we know they will inevitably do wrong, don't we strongly believe they're capable of doing better and wish to see them doing that? No parent thinks their child is just mediocre or tells them to be average. Yes, we do say its okay if you don't always succeed, but try try again right? We push them to work past tasks that they struggle with because more than themselves we have faith that they can do it.

Now, anything can be taken in a negative light, even perfection. If you become too harsh with enforcing perfection it can be overbearing. But I find that encouragement is key. This week I enrolled Ali into a summer camp program which has a heavy focus on literacy. He's only 3.5 and the rest of the children in his class are already 4 or older plus many have been attending the school all year long while Ali was home so I knew they had an edge over him. It's cute seeing my shorty among all the other kids, he may be small but he's got a ton of personality. I was aware he might struggle in some areas but in others he would be fine (verbal skills, this kid can talk your ear off!) but if I didn't push him towards excelling higher then we would never know what he's capable of. Week One was a great success. Not only did he cry because he didn't want to leave school (please let this continue forever), he's already recognizing sight words 'see' and 'the' and letter tracing has also been less of a struggle. I'm so proud of you Ali, I know you aren't perfect. Some people may tell me I'm biased as your mama but to me you always will be. This week, like always, to see that when I push you to achieve higher you always surpass my expectations fills my heart with so much joy that words cannot describe!

Ali, as you grow older you will realize quickly that your Ammi will constantly push you to be better, to be excellent. I will not stop telling you to think about your actions and words before you execute them. I will repetitively remind you to think of others, to share your things (toys and time being just a few of them) selflessly and to reflect on where you did something wrong and how it can be done better. I will appreciate you and cheer you on when you do succeed. I will also hug and console you when you don't. But I will not stop encouraging you to do everything you do with Ehsan. Be it reading and writing today, but over time you'll see you will want to do it in every aspect of your life.

We speak a lot about good vs bad in our house, you are well aware of Prophet Muhammad and often ask about how he dealt with people who were not nice. How he used prayers, 'talking to Allah' to be a good boy and to win over the bad guys. In life, there are lots of 'bad guys', I hope I can arm you with the right tools to overcome them. One aspect I want you to focus on is prayer. Perform your prayer with Ehsan. This is something that perpetually throughout life you will have to work towards, everyone struggles with it. Everyone has some basic staple prayers we say as we rush to complete our daily 5 prayers among the other million tasks we have to do in the day. 'Please keep my family safe and healthy. Forgive us for our mistakes and help guide us on the right path away from harm and evil." Sometimes we say them so mechanically we lose the essence of what we're saying. Try, try and try again to not let your prayers become mechanical, focus on each word you are saying and truly mean it. I realize now as an adult, God is well aware that we will lose the essence when we're doing this 5 times a day, we may even stop doing the obligatory five times because we let life's demands (or laziness) get in the way. He will love us and be merciful regardless of it. But it's our job to keep striving for Ehsan, nothing will bring Him more joy than to see that.

**Alert: this may get long**
Before I end, I want to take something off my chest that really irks me. I hope one day Ali, that it irks you too. Because if it does that means I did something right in my life. There is this word 'bidah' I kind of like hate it and I know I encourage you not to hate anything but in this case it gets really hard. Bidah means innovation/change, and there's this whole group who says you shouldn't do anything that may be a change from what the Prophet did himself. (there's good change and bad change, but for fear of deviating from the right path people want to avoid bidah overall. Yeah its complicated and there's a lot more to it, but that's it in a nutshell) While I understand their fear of our posterity veering off away from the fundamentals of our religion if we add in all these supplementals I feel they're driving a lot of us crazy with all their 'bidah police-ing'. And in fact, this 'bidah' calling has stopped a lot of people from going further in their devotion, it's like no one wants to get extra credit anymore.

For instance, today is the 15th of Shaban (Islamic month, also called 'Shab e Baraat') and my family for as long as I can remember has a tradition where we stay up late and do supplementary prayers on this night. We ask for forgiveness for our year of sins and for guidance for the year to come. My mom would make special food and after dinner we performed our individual prayers or read Quran but we sat together as a family in one room. It's a wonderful experience and there are only a handful of nights in the entire year where we did this. Our parents let us know that this was a supplemental special night and while it was not a requirement if we did this it would make Allah happy to see us doing more than what is required of us. Now I just can't for the life of me see why this 'innovation' is wrong! Why would God ever not want us to go above and beyond the basic requirements? What is so wrong with supplemental; in school doing extra credit assignments was always a good thing! I'm not going to argue whether the Prophet did or didn't do it or if there is evidence in the Quran regarding it. I'm just asking you to use logic to think about it deeper, instead of letting fear misconstrue your thoughts on it.

Ali, I will not be around forever and I know after I'm gone you will forget many things I've taught you or stop doing them the way I did. I will always tell you to look in your heart and ask yourself if what you are doing is something that would please Allah. Whether it's honoring Prophet Muhammad's birthday or certain days of the year like 15th Shaban and 10th of Ashura by staying up all night to do extra prayers or cooking up a special meal that day or holding a Quran khani (event where sections of Quran are read in a group setting often done at funerals or auspicious occasions). Yes, this is all supplemental, not required and I will always encourage you to perfect obligatory practices before you focus on the extra credit, but my point is that I don't want you to discount the extra as not being worth attempting at all. I hope I have taught you well enough so you are capable to know better. In fact, if I had to choose I would rather you do this than anything else this world is full of that keeps you away from praying. Prayer is just a form to remember Allah, to truly love Him as He should be. So perfect your prayers, do them with ehsan and soon you will find that your heart will seek all ways to stay in constant remembrance of Him.

(Yes, that last bit is the Rumi loving, Sufi soul side of your mama!)

Sunshine on a cloudy day - Inspirational Monday

If I have learned only one thing about marriage it is this: 

Source: http://www.9quote.com/

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For my Girls

Via Pinterest

From articles my friends are sharing on Facebook here and here, to articles that pop up on my Google News Top reads here, this topic of Self Love and especially the effects of social media has been in my face constantly. And when I saw the picture below on my Tumblr dashboard I could no longer avoid talking about this issue that I can’t take my mind off.   

So girls, I fully anticipate that after you read what I'm about to say some of you will complain and talk to friends/sisters/Twitter followers how this random chick with a cheesy blog thinks she’s all high and mighty preaching to others. I am 110% including myself in the previous sentence of being someone who has done that. But what I'm going to say, I beg you to read with an open mind.

Women are by nature extremely kindhearted, emotional and loving/nurturing. But also, they are often keen on perfectionism, organization and competition. To me all those qualities make up a really wonderful person. But most often we women use these positive traits in the wrong way. 

 

The one common factor I’ve seen across all females regardless of culture or age is an incredible ability to protect and care for everyone else we love. But, often we neglect our own self to such an extreme that it becomes self-deprecating. We do this because we want to avoid being selfish but the irony is you MUST to love yourself to truly love another. And loving yourself is not the same thing as being selfish. If you are genuinely content in your existence it improves your attitude in life, which allows you to become a positive force in the lives of everyone else around you.

Due to our nature, we tend to fixate on having all elements of our life be perfect. When the reality is that we and our lives are far from it. All this perfectionism if not handled moderately begins to create an overcritical self-view. I am not saying it's a bad thing to hold yourself to a higher standard and not accept mediocrity, but be wary not to allow this notion to run so wild that it becomes detrimental to your wellbeing. 

Whether it’s physical appearance, academics or personal ability we can get very disparaging and just plain mean with ourselves! Especially when it is something we can’t totally control, it frustrates us even more. The most common mistake we make when frustrated with ourselves is that we become competitive with others. Competition and perfection are both great traits, in moderation. Women in their lack of self-love, take it to the next level.

 

Via Google Image

Time for some damage control: 

Can you truthfully tell me you have never looked at another girl’s Instagram/Tumblr/Twitter/Facebook/Blog picture and felt envious of her: body, kids, vacations, husband, career, home etc? Was that envy heightened and negatively affected you if those pictures were seen in a moment where you were feeling down about your own life? I’m not saying the blame is on social media because it prompts these feelings, I’m also not saying that social media is entirely blameless. I am saying that we control how much we allow it to affect us. It’s natural to feel envy. When you allow that envy to make yourself feel worse about your own life that is wrong. And when you allow that envy to turn into plain ol' evil that is very wrong! Don't allow the success of someone else to damper your own, use it as fuel for inspiration.

Do you like to ‘keep it real’ and be vocal about your honest thoughts about others all the time? Do your truthful words actually help bring any positive change; are they ‘honestly’ worth saying? If you have to wonder if maybe it’d be better to keep your honesty to yourself for the sake of not hurting another person’s feelings then you’re probably right. Even if it isn't hurting another person and it's just for the sake of conversation, all this critical chatter starts accumulating overtime and it affects your mindset and people's perspective of you. It creates a world where we are constantly scrutinizing each other and never celebrating. If someone is rocking an hairdo you aren't crazy for make an effort to ignore it."If you have nothing nice to say, it's better to say nothing at all." On the other hand find every opportunity to compliment something you DO like!

Do you allow life situations to stress you out? So much that you lose sleep or lash out at others in your life? Sometimes others instigate you, but other times it’s really just emotions that get the best of you making the situation worst. You are not your emotions. Your emotions are real and do occur, but they do not control you.  If you need a moment, take it. Breathe. B R E A T H E. it’s something so simple that has such a profound result. And it’s funny how often we forget to do it. 

Do you like watching reality TV, creating a love/hate relationship with characters portrayed? You can’t help but feel normal beside their catty/crazy personalities. Their lavish unattainable/ unsustainable lifestyles at times leave you wishing you had all that and how you’d handle it with less drama no doubt. Enter unhealthy envy, greed, bitterness, frustration with your own less than perfect life and of course judging other people. I used to be a religious Kardashians viewer. I even got hooked on Mob Wives! It was just too much once I truly saw the unconscious effect on my personality. We are lead by media to believe that an empowered woman is vocal about all her thoughts and lets all her emotions be put on display. Suddenly divas, drama queens and b*tches are words women are okay with using to describe themselves. I realized I no longer want media to dictate who I am to be. Not even the person who judges others for choosing to live differently. If something doesn’t agree with you, remove yourself from it.You will respect yourself for it and others will too.

This past December I participated in a hormone/mood study conducted online. For two months we had to keep a daily log of our mood and also any experiences that affected it. During this time the group leader would send out weekly emails with positive messages about being kind with ourselves, and when our emotions were roaring how we should repeat a mental chant of “I am not my emotions, I will not let this defeat me.” 

Personally, keeping the log didn’t show me anything new. (Yes, I’m more sensitive around my period, aren't we all?) What it did was make me more conscious of my actions. Sort like, "yes I have fluctuations in my hormones which affect my emotions. However, I will not allow my emotions to dictate my mood. I will not allow them to define who I am." Keep a personal journal, it promotes self-reflection. After the study ended, I felt besides being more aware of my emotions what really changed me was the moment I decided I needed to change. Half the task of change is realizing when it is necessary.  You won’t change yourself, your attitude, or your outlook until you resolve to do it.

 

It is so easy to fall into a rut of bitter unhappiness; especially with all the stories in the news thrown at us it seems almost impossible to avoid it. Social media plays a big hand in our perspective because of the immense amount of information it provides us with. But before we turn to it to judge, compete or hate, we need to make a promise to ourselves:

We MUST be merciful. 

We MUST accept our flaws and celebrate our victories. 

We must NOT bring down ourselves OR others. 

We must resolve to become promoters of happiness. 

Only another woman knows what it feels like to go through cycles of hormonal change and the pains that come with it. Only another woman truly understands the HOW strongly we feel emotions or the simultaneous joy/fear of motherhood. Only a woman. So then why do we judge, berate and hold malice towards each other? The only way we can teach our young girls about positive self image, respect and love is if we apply it first ourselves.

Via Tumblr

If only we could become aware of the immense amount of power our existence actually holds, we would be able to channel our competitive nature into a craft rather than weapon. Our perfectionism would drive out so much amazing work into this world that there would be no room left for hate, violence, and prejudice. Love yourself, love your sister. We all know the difficulties that come with life, make it easy on yourself and each other. Compliment, encourage, forgive faults and look past grudges. There is so much beauty to be brought into this life, leave no room for anything else.

I leave you with my absolute favorite quote of all time: 

Via Google Image

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