June 17, 2025 • 17 mins
The endless pursuit of achievement, validation, and perfection has become the silent struggle of many Muslim women today. We dive deep into a profound dilemma: the confusion between self-worth and value that keeps high-achieving women trapped in cycles of burnout and spiritual disconnection.
Your worth was never meant to be earned. Before your name, before your body, even before your first breath, your soul stood before Allah SWT and acknowledged Him as your Lord. That moment, not your accomplishments, sealed your worth forever. Yet many of us use "crutches" to hold up our self-worth: career success, perfect motherhood, flawless homemaking, or even our spiritual practices. These virtuous pursuits become burdens when our identities depend on them.
What crutches are you using to hold up your self-worth? What would change if you believed you were already worthy? Free yourself from the need to prove, perform, or please. Your worship, your work, your relationships can all flow from a place of inherent worthiness rather than desperate striving. This isn't just easier—it's sacred.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to Islamic Life Coach School Podcast.
Apply tools that you learn inthis podcast and your life will
be unrecognizably successful.
Now your host, dr Kamal Atar.
Hello, hello, hello everyone.
Peace and blessings be upon allof you.
Today I'm going to talk about ifand any crutch that you might
be using to determine yourself-worth, and I've talked
about this topic a lot, but Iwant to revisit it from a
(00:28):
different angle.
Every woman I coach and most ofthem being high achievers,
deeply spiritual, doingeverything quote-unquote right,
praying on time, volunteering,keeping up with the home,
meeting deadlines at work,planning meals, all of the
organizations related to thekids and yet still wondering why
don't I feel enough?
(00:48):
Why does it feel like I'malways chasing something?
For the most part, thefundamental error in the thought
is that she's confusing herworth with her value.
What she doesn't realize as aperson, and you might not be
realizing either, is that you'releaning on accomplishments,
your productivity, as crutchesto fulfill your self-worth, Not
(01:09):
because she wants to show off orimpress others and that's why
she's doing these things butbecause, deep down, she's
terrified that without thesethings, she won't matter Her
career, her kids, her cooking,her Quran and other spiritual
goals, her hijab, her emotionallabor or her physical labor.
All of it becomes a way to earnsomething that was never meant
(01:31):
to be earned and that is herright to feel worthy.
And I'm speaking directly toyou, because the hardest part is
that these crutches areinvisible.
They look very virtuous, theyare worship, motherhood,
discipline, ambition and all ofthese things look beautiful, but
when you use them to hold upyour identity and you feel
(01:52):
hollow or lost without them,they stop being blessings and
they stop being beautiful.
They start to become burdens,because then that's what weighs
you down.
And one way to identify ifyou're using any of these things
as crutches to your worth is ifyou try to rest, then your mind
gives you a guilt trip, yourmind.
(02:13):
It starts to whisper I'mwasting time, I should be doing
something else.
Even if you sit down for fiveminutes, your brain fires off a
to-do list and all of the thingsyou haven't done yet.
The voice says don't just sitthere, you'll fall behind.
And behind what?
Behind who?
That's the question.
It never asks and never answers.
(02:34):
What you've been sold sincechildhood is that your worth is
earned through productivity.
And especially when you're aMuslim woman, it tells you that
a good Muslimah serves non-stop,makes everyone comfortable, is
always on whatever is needed, isnever tired, doesn't question
she's useful.
She seems busy, but the ironyis that, behind all of this lie,
(02:57):
your worth was decided longbefore you had a chance to prove
anything.
Your worth was decided beforeeven your body was formed,
before your name was given as anidentity, before your parents
even taught you right from wrong.
And that's when your soul stoodbefore Allah SWT and Allah
asked Am I not your Lord?
(03:19):
And your soul said yes, you are.
I bear witness.
That is the moment where yourworth was sealed, not because of
anything you did Not because ofanything you promised to do,
simply because you wererecognized by your creator.
And that's the kind of worthI'm talking about here, the
(03:39):
worth that is not built, notearned, not achieved.
It's been bestowed upon you.
And the most confusing part fora lot of Muslim women is that
you don't even unlock or lockthat worth up with worship, you
don't boost it with goodbehavior, you don't lose it with
sin.
You were created with it intact, and the one who created it for
(04:01):
you is perfect.
And this is where so many womenget stuck.
Even the ones who love AllahSWT deeply have conviction in
their faith.
If worth always remains intact,then what happens to the
concept of sin and evil, andworship and good deeds?
What happens if someonedisobeys Allah SWT or lives
(04:21):
their entire life in worship andremembrance of Allah?
And the answer to that is verysimple for me yes, allah,
subhanahu wa ta'ala, loves thepeople that are striving in his
path, but you have to rememberis that you're not doing it to
become worthy.
You're doing it because youalready are worthy.
When you worship from a place ofunworthiness, your salah
(04:43):
becomes a transaction.
Your fasting feelsself-punitive when you're hungry
.
But when you worship from aplace of worthiness your dhikr,
your salah, it becomes presence,it becomes peace, it comes from
a place of love.
And this is the shift I wantyou guys to create, because
striving to be enough, tostriving from enoughness and
(05:07):
when you start seeing it thatway, everything softens.
Even if, despite of your bestefforts, you miss a prayer,
instead of spiraling into shame,you remind yourself what shame
was built for and that was builtfor you, to remember that the
door of tawbah is still open.
And if you fail at something,instead of collapsing into
(05:28):
self-hate, you hold yourselfwith compassion, knowing your
worth hasn't budged and everytime you drop a ball in your
life, you still have a chance tobe just as held, just as loved,
just as seen by your Lord,allah SWT.
Your worth is not on a slidingscale, it's not tied to your
(05:49):
ibadah log, it's not calculatedbased on how many people you
serve or how much you accomplish.
What does change based on thequality and the quantity of your
worship?
Is your value in front of Allah?
Your worth has always beendecided.
It was decided in the beginning.
It's a part of your worship.
Is your value in front of Allah?
Your worth has always beendecided.
It was decided in the beginning.
It's a part of your fitrah.
It's already written.
(06:10):
It's already being honored.
What I'm talking about thedifference between worth and
value is.
Even the smartest, mostself-aware women get confused,
and even I sometimes use thosewords interchangeably in a
casual conversation.
But that's actually not real.
That's not true.
For the sake of your healingand for the sake of my goal of
(06:31):
providing clarity through thisepisode for you, I want to hold
worth and value as differentconcepts.
Your worth is fixed,untouchable, assigned by Allah.
It doesn't go up and down.
Your value is flexible.
It changes based on what you'reoffering to the world or the
Akhira.
It is what you create, what yougive, how you show up, what the
(06:55):
intention behind your actionsis.
It can increase with the actsof worship and sincerity.
It can drop with heedlessness,hypocrisy and sin.
This is the thing you buildwith intention and discipline
and action.
Let me help you understand thedifference by giving a worldly
example.
(07:15):
Let's say there's a neurosurgeonand another one who's a
journalist.
They both have equal worth ashuman beings, but their value,
the thing they contribute to theworld, is different.
The neurosurgeon is paiddifferently, not because she's
more important as a person, butbecause of the value she
provides in the specific space.
(07:37):
Her training was hard, valueshe provides in the specific
space.
Her training was hard, her workis technically demanding.
And the journalist, on theother hand, while also deeply
essential in her own right,contributes a different kind of
value.
The problem arises when youstart believing that the
neurosurgeon is worth more thanthe journalist.
Everyone is equal in front ofAllah.
(07:58):
Everyone lines up in Salah,equally in front of Allah.
When we start mistaking ourworth with our value, that's
when we start to create burnoutby chasing goals in this world.
Yes, it is absolutely true thathigher taqwa raises your rank
in front of Allah, that moresincere intention carries more
weight, that a small deed donewith presence can be more
(08:21):
valuable than a larger one donewith arrogance.
And yet none of that touchesyour worth.
And the distinction betweenthose two concepts of worth and
value is extremely important,because when you realize your
worth is intact, you stopchasing, you stop using the
world as your crutch and youstart to heal.
(08:42):
When you stop confusing the two, your worship becomes cleaner.
Your good deeds don't staycontaminated with the desperate
need to feel like you matter.
Your business, your parenting,your dhikr.
They become an expression ofyour value, not an attempt to
fix something that was neverbroken.
You stop trying to earn yourplace in the world and you start
(09:07):
offering value to the worldfrom a place of deep-rooted
conviction, and that elevatesyour intention behind your
actions more than anything elsein the world.
So today, I want you to askyourself, more than anything
else in the world.
So today, I want you to askyourself what have you been
using as a crutch for yourself-worth?
Now, notice, I didn't tell youto ask if you're using something
for a crutch for yourself-worth, because I know for
(09:29):
sure that's happening somewheresomehow.
Just sit with this questionwhat have I been using as a
crutch of my self-worth?
What have you beensubconsciously saying, as long
as I have this, I am enough.
Is it the amount of books youread?
The people that are praisingyou at the dinner party that you
hosted?
How many dishes you served?
(09:49):
How many kids you've raised?
The size of your paycheck?
The compliments that you get atwork?
The quality of your wardrobeand how you dress?
The number of Instagram likes?
The fact that your husbandseems happy with you or he
complains, the way you neverstart a conflict and always keep
the peace?
What is the crutch that yourself-worth is hanging on?
(10:12):
Because, whatever you identifyit, as that is not related to
your worth at all.
You can stop chasing it.
It's just built to seem thatway by your brain to make it
feel safe.
But the most beautiful part isthat your worth was never in
danger to begin with.
So there's nothing to fear.
You are already worthy, alreadyacceptable, already lovable.
(10:36):
Your degree, your happymarriage, the carefully curated
image of being capable,competent and calm you don't
need those things to be enough.
You might want them and that'sallowed, and you can strive
towards all of that but youdon't need it.
Healing comes when you say I'mnot doing this because my worth
(10:58):
depends on it.
I'm doing this because I chooseto, because I want to, because
I want to contribute, because Iwant to love my children,
because I value higher education, because I want to build
financial independence, becauseI believe in excellence, because
I'm doing it for Allah.
Once you name your crutch andstop calling it the source of
(11:21):
your worth, you get your freedomback.
You shift your language from Ihave to do all of these things
to I want to do all of thesethings.
You go from this defines me tothis expresses me, and suddenly
the life that used to feel heavybecomes lighter.
What used to feel like pressurebecomes peace, and that
(11:44):
ever-moving goalpost ofachieving self-worth with action
becomes achievable andinternalizes.
And from now on, your actionsare rooted in value, intention
and purpose, not fear ofunworthiness and inshallah.
When you're able to do that,life doesn't just get easier.
With the same amount ofambitious goals, it becomes
(12:07):
sacred inshallah, it becomes alife of ihsan.
I want you guys to go from I'mproud of achieving to I'm proud
of doing to I'm proud of justbeing.
To be proud of being means youdon't tie your piece with your
checklist.
You don't earn your approval.
(12:27):
You're allowed to feel proud,even when you've coasted through
the day and you haven't reallyaccomplished anything, even if
you didn't contribute, even ifwhen you needed others more than
they needed you.
And this last one is especiallyhard, because most of you are
okay with being generous, butyou're deeply uncomfortable with
(12:48):
needing, with resting, withreceiving.
So when your body begs for restand your nervous system fights
it and guilt shows up, just takefive minutes to do nothing on
purpose and let that be enoughand be comfortable with it.
Let a quiet moment be a successin itself.
Do something that serves no oneelse but you and it might be
(13:12):
something you're already doing,but you didn't consider it just
to be for yourself.
Maybe it's reading a page of abook just for yourself.
Maybe it's making a page of abook just for yourself.
Maybe it's making tea.
Maybe it's dressing up, even ifno one's going to see you, and
write down three ways yourpresence alone is valuable.
The more you practice this, themore your mind will start to
(13:32):
trust that it's safe just to be,not to prove, just to be with
Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, asyour witness.
While that might look likelaziness to your brain in the
beginning, while it's naive,while it's trying to equate your
inherent worth with yourproductivity, this is far from
laziness.
This is the right approach tostriving.
(13:55):
For many Muslim women, childhoodwas a training ground for
performance-based belonging.
Childhood was a training groundfor performance-based belonging
.
You were taught that being goodmeans being quiet, compliant,
obedient.
That love comes when you pleaseothers, not when you honor
yourself.
When you were told to givesomebody a hug even if you
didn't want to, to say yes evenwhen your body said no, to smile
(14:18):
even when you were scared, tobe polite, agreeable, helpful,
especially if you were a girl,especially if others were
watching.
And all of that worked becauseit got you approval, it got you
attention, it got you love, itgot you the calm, belonging and
the peace that you craved as achild.
This became your survivalstrategy, and it worked so well
(14:39):
because now it brought you intoadulthood, only for you to not
realize that you're handing yourself-worth to all of these
things.
So here's I want you to know nowjust because it worked doesn't
mean it has to stay, becausewhen my clients tell me that I
feel ashamed for being a peoplepleaser, for over giving, for
overdoing, for masking my truevalues, for overgiving, for
(15:04):
overdoing, for masking my truevalues.
I always tell them don't shame.
That very skill that kept yousafe.
That version of you at a pointin your life was brilliant.
She did what she needed to do.
She got you here.
But also, you're not a childanymore.
You don't have to beg forbelonging.
You don't have to prove yourbelonging.
You don't have to trade yourtruth for approval.
Now, as an adult woman, you getto choose differently, not from
(15:25):
worth but from value, somethingyou choose to do.
You get to unlearn what madeyou invisible and relearn what
makes you whole.
The healing doesn't mean thatyou throw away the girl who
performed her way to safety.
It means that you thank her,you let her rest because she got
(15:45):
you where you are in your lifenow.
If I could gift every Muslimwoman who has survived this
conditioning a few sentences tocarry with her, I would say you
did what you had to do tosurvive, but now you're safe
enough to be seen exactly as youare.
You never had to earn yourplace, you were born with it, it
(16:07):
was just hidden.
You're not hard to love.
You're just used to lovingothers before yourself.
Anchor these in your mind andbody.
You don't need to prove,perform or please to be worthy.
You already are and now youjust get to live your life like
that.
With that, I pray to Allah SWT.
(16:28):
Ya Allah, remind me the worththat was written by you for me
before the world ever saw me.
Free me from the need to prove,to please, to perform.
Help me rest in truth that I'malready enough.
Replace the weight of guilt bythe light of your mercy and let
me live and achieve from theplace of being loved, not
(16:51):
earning love.
Ameen, ya Rabbul Alameen,please keep me in your duas.
I will talk to you guys nexttime.
Welcome to Islamic Life Coach School Podcast.
Apply tools that you learn inthis podcast and your life will
be unrecognizably successful.
Now your host, dr Kamal Atar.
Hello, hello, hello everyone.
Peace and blessings be upon allof you.
Today I'm going to talk about ifand any crutch that you might
be using to determine yourself-worth, and I've talked
about this topic a lot, but Iwant to revisit it from a
(00:28):
different angle.
Every woman I coach and most ofthem being high achievers,
deeply spiritual, doingeverything quote-unquote right,
praying on time, volunteering,keeping up with the home,
meeting deadlines at work,planning meals, all of the
organizations related to thekids and yet still wondering why
don't I feel enough?
(00:48):
Why does it feel like I'malways chasing something?
For the most part, thefundamental error in the thought
is that she's confusing herworth with her value.
What she doesn't realize as aperson, and you might not be
realizing either, is that you'releaning on accomplishments,
your productivity, as crutchesto fulfill your self-worth, Not
(01:09):
because she wants to show off orimpress others and that's why
she's doing these things butbecause, deep down, she's
terrified that without thesethings, she won't matter Her
career, her kids, her cooking,her Quran and other spiritual
goals, her hijab, her emotionallabor or her physical labor.
All of it becomes a way to earnsomething that was never meant
(01:31):
to be earned and that is herright to feel worthy.
And I'm speaking directly toyou, because the hardest part is
that these crutches areinvisible.
They look very virtuous, theyare worship, motherhood,
discipline, ambition and all ofthese things look beautiful, but
when you use them to hold upyour identity and you feel
(01:52):
hollow or lost without them,they stop being blessings and
they stop being beautiful.
They start to become burdens,because then that's what weighs
you down.
And one way to identify ifyou're using any of these things
as crutches to your worth is ifyou try to rest, then your mind
gives you a guilt trip, yourmind.
(02:13):
It starts to whisper I'mwasting time, I should be doing
something else.
Even if you sit down for fiveminutes, your brain fires off a
to-do list and all of the thingsyou haven't done yet.
The voice says don't just sitthere, you'll fall behind.
And behind what?
Behind who?
That's the question.
It never asks and never answers.
(02:34):
What you've been sold sincechildhood is that your worth is
earned through productivity.
And especially when you're aMuslim woman, it tells you that
a good Muslimah serves non-stop,makes everyone comfortable, is
always on whatever is needed, isnever tired, doesn't question
she's useful.
She seems busy, but the ironyis that, behind all of this lie,
(02:57):
your worth was decided longbefore you had a chance to prove
anything.
Your worth was decided beforeeven your body was formed,
before your name was given as anidentity, before your parents
even taught you right from wrong.
And that's when your soul stoodbefore Allah SWT and Allah
asked Am I not your Lord?
(03:19):
And your soul said yes, you are.
I bear witness.
That is the moment where yourworth was sealed, not because of
anything you did Not because ofanything you promised to do,
simply because you wererecognized by your creator.
And that's the kind of worthI'm talking about here, the
(03:39):
worth that is not built, notearned, not achieved.
It's been bestowed upon you.
And the most confusing part fora lot of Muslim women is that
you don't even unlock or lockthat worth up with worship, you
don't boost it with goodbehavior, you don't lose it with
sin.
You were created with it intact, and the one who created it for
(04:01):
you is perfect.
And this is where so many womenget stuck.
Even the ones who love AllahSWT deeply have conviction in
their faith.
If worth always remains intact,then what happens to the
concept of sin and evil, andworship and good deeds?
What happens if someonedisobeys Allah SWT or lives
(04:21):
their entire life in worship andremembrance of Allah?
And the answer to that is verysimple for me yes, allah,
subhanahu wa ta'ala, loves thepeople that are striving in his
path, but you have to rememberis that you're not doing it to
become worthy.
You're doing it because youalready are worthy.
When you worship from a place ofunworthiness, your salah
(04:43):
becomes a transaction.
Your fasting feelsself-punitive when you're hungry
.
But when you worship from aplace of worthiness your dhikr,
your salah, it becomes presence,it becomes peace, it comes from
a place of love.
And this is the shift I wantyou guys to create, because
striving to be enough, tostriving from enoughness and
(05:07):
when you start seeing it thatway, everything softens.
Even if, despite of your bestefforts, you miss a prayer,
instead of spiraling into shame,you remind yourself what shame
was built for and that was builtfor you, to remember that the
door of tawbah is still open.
And if you fail at something,instead of collapsing into
(05:28):
self-hate, you hold yourselfwith compassion, knowing your
worth hasn't budged and everytime you drop a ball in your
life, you still have a chance tobe just as held, just as loved,
just as seen by your Lord,allah SWT.
Your worth is not on a slidingscale, it's not tied to your
(05:49):
ibadah log, it's not calculatedbased on how many people you
serve or how much you accomplish.
What does change based on thequality and the quantity of your
worship?
Is your value in front of Allah?
Your worth has always beendecided.
It was decided in the beginning.
It's a part of your worship.
Is your value in front of Allah?
Your worth has always beendecided.
It was decided in the beginning.
It's a part of your fitrah.
It's already written.
(06:10):
It's already being honored.
What I'm talking about thedifference between worth and
value is.
Even the smartest, mostself-aware women get confused,
and even I sometimes use thosewords interchangeably in a
casual conversation.
But that's actually not real.
That's not true.
For the sake of your healingand for the sake of my goal of
(06:31):
providing clarity through thisepisode for you, I want to hold
worth and value as differentconcepts.
Your worth is fixed,untouchable, assigned by Allah.
It doesn't go up and down.
Your value is flexible.
It changes based on what you'reoffering to the world or the
Akhira.
It is what you create, what yougive, how you show up, what the
(06:55):
intention behind your actionsis.
It can increase with the actsof worship and sincerity.
It can drop with heedlessness,hypocrisy and sin.
This is the thing you buildwith intention and discipline
and action.
Let me help you understand thedifference by giving a worldly
example.
(07:15):
Let's say there's a neurosurgeonand another one who's a
journalist.
They both have equal worth ashuman beings, but their value,
the thing they contribute to theworld, is different.
The neurosurgeon is paiddifferently, not because she's
more important as a person, butbecause of the value she
provides in the specific space.
(07:37):
Her training was hard, valueshe provides in the specific
space.
Her training was hard, her workis technically demanding.
And the journalist, on theother hand, while also deeply
essential in her own right,contributes a different kind of
value.
The problem arises when youstart believing that the
neurosurgeon is worth more thanthe journalist.
Everyone is equal in front ofAllah.
(07:58):
Everyone lines up in Salah,equally in front of Allah.
When we start mistaking ourworth with our value, that's
when we start to create burnoutby chasing goals in this world.
Yes, it is absolutely true thathigher taqwa raises your rank
in front of Allah, that moresincere intention carries more
weight, that a small deed donewith presence can be more
(08:21):
valuable than a larger one donewith arrogance.
And yet none of that touchesyour worth.
And the distinction betweenthose two concepts of worth and
value is extremely important,because when you realize your
worth is intact, you stopchasing, you stop using the
world as your crutch and youstart to heal.
(08:42):
When you stop confusing the two, your worship becomes cleaner.
Your good deeds don't staycontaminated with the desperate
need to feel like you matter.
Your business, your parenting,your dhikr.
They become an expression ofyour value, not an attempt to
fix something that was neverbroken.
You stop trying to earn yourplace in the world and you start
(09:07):
offering value to the worldfrom a place of deep-rooted
conviction, and that elevatesyour intention behind your
actions more than anything elsein the world.
So today, I want you to askyourself, more than anything
else in the world.
So today, I want you to askyourself what have you been
using as a crutch for yourself-worth?
Now, notice, I didn't tell youto ask if you're using something
for a crutch for yourself-worth, because I know for
(09:29):
sure that's happening somewheresomehow.
Just sit with this questionwhat have I been using as a
crutch of my self-worth?
What have you beensubconsciously saying, as long
as I have this, I am enough.
Is it the amount of books youread?
The people that are praisingyou at the dinner party that you
hosted?
How many dishes you served?
(09:49):
How many kids you've raised?
The size of your paycheck?
The compliments that you get atwork?
The quality of your wardrobeand how you dress?
The number of Instagram likes?
The fact that your husbandseems happy with you or he
complains, the way you neverstart a conflict and always keep
the peace?
What is the crutch that yourself-worth is hanging on?
(10:12):
Because, whatever you identifyit, as that is not related to
your worth at all.
You can stop chasing it.
It's just built to seem thatway by your brain to make it
feel safe.
But the most beautiful part isthat your worth was never in
danger to begin with.
So there's nothing to fear.
You are already worthy, alreadyacceptable, already lovable.
(10:36):
Your degree, your happymarriage, the carefully curated
image of being capable,competent and calm you don't
need those things to be enough.
You might want them and that'sallowed, and you can strive
towards all of that but youdon't need it.
Healing comes when you say I'mnot doing this because my worth
(10:58):
depends on it.
I'm doing this because I chooseto, because I want to, because
I want to contribute, because Iwant to love my children,
because I value higher education, because I want to build
financial independence, becauseI believe in excellence, because
I'm doing it for Allah.
Once you name your crutch andstop calling it the source of
(11:21):
your worth, you get your freedomback.
You shift your language from Ihave to do all of these things
to I want to do all of thesethings.
You go from this defines me tothis expresses me, and suddenly
the life that used to feel heavybecomes lighter.
What used to feel like pressurebecomes peace, and that
(11:44):
ever-moving goalpost ofachieving self-worth with action
becomes achievable andinternalizes.
And from now on, your actionsare rooted in value, intention
and purpose, not fear ofunworthiness and inshallah.
When you're able to do that,life doesn't just get easier.
With the same amount ofambitious goals, it becomes
(12:07):
sacred inshallah, it becomes alife of ihsan.
I want you guys to go from I'mproud of achieving to I'm proud
of doing to I'm proud of justbeing.
To be proud of being means youdon't tie your piece with your
checklist.
You don't earn your approval.
(12:27):
You're allowed to feel proud,even when you've coasted through
the day and you haven't reallyaccomplished anything, even if
you didn't contribute, even ifwhen you needed others more than
they needed you.
And this last one is especiallyhard, because most of you are
okay with being generous, butyou're deeply uncomfortable with
(12:48):
needing, with resting, withreceiving.
So when your body begs for restand your nervous system fights
it and guilt shows up, just takefive minutes to do nothing on
purpose and let that be enoughand be comfortable with it.
Let a quiet moment be a successin itself.
Do something that serves no oneelse but you and it might be
(13:12):
something you're already doing,but you didn't consider it just
to be for yourself.
Maybe it's reading a page of abook just for yourself.
Maybe it's making a page of abook just for yourself.
Maybe it's making tea.
Maybe it's dressing up, even ifno one's going to see you, and
write down three ways yourpresence alone is valuable.
The more you practice this, themore your mind will start to
(13:32):
trust that it's safe just to be,not to prove, just to be with
Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, asyour witness.
While that might look likelaziness to your brain in the
beginning, while it's naive,while it's trying to equate your
inherent worth with yourproductivity, this is far from
laziness.
This is the right approach tostriving.
(13:55):
For many Muslim women, childhoodwas a training ground for
performance-based belonging.
Childhood was a training groundfor performance-based belonging
.
You were taught that being goodmeans being quiet, compliant,
obedient.
That love comes when you pleaseothers, not when you honor
yourself.
When you were told to givesomebody a hug even if you
didn't want to, to say yes evenwhen your body said no, to smile
(14:18):
even when you were scared, tobe polite, agreeable, helpful,
especially if you were a girl,especially if others were
watching.
And all of that worked becauseit got you approval, it got you
attention, it got you love, itgot you the calm, belonging and
the peace that you craved as achild.
This became your survivalstrategy, and it worked so well
(14:39):
because now it brought you intoadulthood, only for you to not
realize that you're handing yourself-worth to all of these
things.
So here's I want you to know nowjust because it worked doesn't
mean it has to stay, becausewhen my clients tell me that I
feel ashamed for being a peoplepleaser, for over giving, for
overdoing, for masking my truevalues, for overgiving, for
(15:04):
overdoing, for masking my truevalues.
I always tell them don't shame.
That very skill that kept yousafe.
That version of you at a pointin your life was brilliant.
She did what she needed to do.
She got you here.
But also, you're not a childanymore.
You don't have to beg forbelonging.
You don't have to prove yourbelonging.
You don't have to trade yourtruth for approval.
Now, as an adult woman, you getto choose differently, not from
(15:25):
worth but from value, somethingyou choose to do.
You get to unlearn what madeyou invisible and relearn what
makes you whole.
The healing doesn't mean thatyou throw away the girl who
performed her way to safety.
It means that you thank her,you let her rest because she got
(15:45):
you where you are in your lifenow.
If I could gift every Muslimwoman who has survived this
conditioning a few sentences tocarry with her, I would say you
did what you had to do tosurvive, but now you're safe
enough to be seen exactly as youare.
You never had to earn yourplace, you were born with it, it
(16:07):
was just hidden.
You're not hard to love.
You're just used to lovingothers before yourself.
Anchor these in your mind andbody.
You don't need to prove,perform or please to be worthy.
You already are and now youjust get to live your life like
that.
With that, I pray to Allah SWT.
(16:28):
Ya Allah, remind me the worththat was written by you for me
before the world ever saw me.
Free me from the need to prove,to please, to perform.
Help me rest in truth that I'malready enough.
Replace the weight of guilt bythe light of your mercy and let
me live and achieve from theplace of being loved, not
(16:51):
earning love.
Ameen, ya Rabbul Alameen,please keep me in your duas.
I will talk to you guys nexttime.
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