May 13, 2025 • 23 mins
I believe Allah's command to maintain family ties isn't about other people, its about your own emotional evolution.
This podcast is about high-frequency spiritual technology that transforms your difficult relationships. When Allah SWT instructs us not to sever kinship ties, He's offering us a divine curriculum for developing emotional intelligence and spiritual mastery. This is really far from trapping believers in toxic dynamics, this teaching provides a pathway to unprecedented personal growth.
The neurobiological benefits are profound. When we maintain family connections from a place of genuine love rather than obligation, our bodies respond by producing oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine, creating a feedback loop that heals us from within. Here we create important distinctions between boundaries created from love versus those arising from anger.
Real boundaries feel like peace and sovereignty; they don't require defending or explaining. False boundaries, often disguised in spiritual language like "he should know better", keep us emotionally hooked and energetically drained. Before setting any boundary, we must ask: "What is the emotional fuel behind this boundary? Is it exhaustion and revenge, or love and respect?"
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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 Aftar.
Hello, hello, hello everyone.
Peace and blessings be upon allof you.
When Allah SWT says, don't cutties of kinship, it's not about
other people, it's about you.
(00:25):
He's talking about youremotional evolution.
Allah SWT is handing you apersonal development curriculum
on how to love when love feelsimpossible.
You are not being asked totolerate abuse, which is how
most of these teachings arebeing misused right now.
You're being asked to develop asurgical precision in your
(00:47):
emotional responses, to learnhow to feel fury and still act
from faith.
To be surrounded by people whomisunderstand you, minimize you,
maybe even mistreat you, andstill choose boundaries over
bitterness.
All of that is not for them.
That's for you.
Keeping ties of kinship is foryour emotional and mental health
(01:10):
, and that's what I'm going todescribe to you today in this
podcast.
If you hold on to your dignityin a room full of people who
only want chaos, if you canstand in your values when
someone else is doing everythingin their power to make you feel
worthless, that's when you knowthat you're growing.
That's when you know youremotional intelligence is real,
(01:32):
not performative, not convenient, not Instagrammable, but real,
revolutionary, something that'sfor you In the Quran, surah 47,
ayat 22,.
It says so.
Would you perhaps, if youturned away, cause corruption on
earth and sever your ties ofkinship?
The Messenger of Allah said theone who severs his family ties
(01:57):
will not enter paradise.
A sahih hadith in Bukhari andMuslim.
When Allah says, don't cut ties, he is not trapping you into
toxic dynamics, which is ourbinary, black and white thinking
brain thinks.
It says.
Allah is refining you.
He is giving you the chance toaccess parts of yourself that
(02:17):
you've never met before.
And every time you choosecompassion over contempt, every
time you're not letting anyonewalk all over you, you're
proving that your soul isstronger than your ego.
You are refining yourself.
To define this soul refiningwork, I created a term, what I
call affectionship.
It's almost spiritualtechnology, a high frequency
(02:39):
kinship that's rooted inaffection, not performance.
When you choose to love someone, not because they're easy to
love, but because you aregrounded and elevated, connected
.
That's when you're enteringinto a state that upgrades you.
This is a state when your bodyis secreting oxytocin, serotonin
, dopamine.
Your nervous system learns toshift from survival to safety.
(03:04):
You're doing somethingrighteous and you're doing
something that's regulating foryourself, something that's
healing.
You might think that thisaffectionship is for their
benefit, but the realtransformation is happening
inside of you.
Your thoughts get clearer, yourheart softens, your sense of
self expands, and the irony isthat the more you love, the more
(03:27):
you receive.
The more affection you give,the more ease your body is going
to feel.
Affectionship is your divinefeedback loop.
You give out what you wishexisted in the world and in
doing so, you become the proofthat it exists.
This is why I believe Allahcommands you to keep the ties of
(03:47):
kinship, not to fix them, butto feel what love does to you,
what kind of healing it provides, and this kind of healing
especially happens when youthink the other person does not
deserve this affection.
Keeping ties of kinship isabsolutely an act of obedience,
of course, as we can see fromthe direct commandments from
(04:09):
Allah SWT, from the Prophet andthe Quran.
But it is also your curriculum,a divine syllabus on how much
love you can create for someoneinside your heart not theirs,
yours.
That's the real test, becausemost people think relationships
live outside of them.
They think that relationshipsis what someone else says about
(04:30):
you or what they do around you,but your relationship with
anyone your mother, your child,your spouse, your colleague is
inside of you.
It's a story, a thought thatyour brain is telling you about
them on repeat, and everyfeeling you have towards a
person that you are in arelationship with is
manufactured in your mind.
(04:52):
And as a consequence of thosethoughts that are manufactured
in your mind, you feel theemotions Love, resentment all
come from thoughts.
Disappointment, anger,closeness, warmth all of these
are thought generated and thesethoughts that build emotional
patterns get stored in yournervous system.
That's why, when someone youlove walks into the room, your
(05:16):
body responds before your mouthor your mind does.
And along the same lines.
If you want to improve yourrelationships with people, and
along the same lines, if youwant to improve your
relationships with people, stoptrying to change them.
Start changing your internalstory, your narrative, start
upgrading your thoughts, not fortheir sake, but because toxic
(05:38):
thoughts cost you.
They cost you your peace, yourpresence, your oxytocin, a very
healing hormone.
It costs you a lot more thanyou know.
When you change the quality ofyour thoughts about that person,
the emotional tone of yourrelationship also changes the
state that your body lives in,around them, when thinking of
them changes.
(05:59):
And all of this happens even ifthe other person never gets the
memo, even if the other personnever finds out what you're
doing.
This almost feels like magic,but it's not.
It's neurobiology, it's yourown spiritual mastery, because
in cases like this, you've gonefrom reacting to creating.
(06:19):
When you feel grounded in lovenot performative love, but real,
anchored love you gain accessto things that most people never
even know exist, which is cleanboundaries.
Boundaries that don't come fromanger, boundaries that don't
reek of punishment or control,boundaries that say I am
(06:41):
protecting myself.
This is why I'm doing this.
I am not doing this to punishyou.
This level of love andaffection does not mean you
excuse their disrespect.
It does not mean you condonetheir behavior.
It just means you don't lettheir behavior drag you down
into disrespect with them.
Because if you're standing inlove, especially if you're
(07:03):
trying to guard your own peace,when you speak and when you lay
your boundaries, you say if youtalk to me like that, again I
will leave the room, I willpause the conversation, and your
thought process behind this canbe that it's not to punish them
but to protect you.
You can say this out loud ornever tell them, it's up to you.
But that's the power, that'sthe clarity, that's the
(07:26):
self-respect and self-love inaction, which is why keeping up
ties of kinship is a divineorder.
All of this falls apart theminute your boundary turns into
a way to control someone else'sbehavior, a way to give an
ultimatum, kind of like if youdo this, then I'll make you pay.
This is not a boundary.
This is a game of weaponizingyour and their emotions, and
(07:49):
then you attempt to heal fromthat which is never going to
happen.
Boundaries from anger are justexplosions waiting for a target.
Your boundaries from love aresacred and they're very
architecturally sound.
They create safety, they teachpeople how to treat you and,
most importantly, they remindyou how to move into your own
(08:12):
growth.
So, no, you never let anybodyspeak to you in a disrespectful
way.
You never let anybody crossyour personal boundaries.
But you also don't burn thehouse down to prove your point.
You build a gate.
You let certain people walkthrough it.
When you truly realize thatboundaries don't require
(08:33):
punishment, but a certain sideof love, you realize how
energetically efficient it is.
That's exactly what happened tome in my life when I started
creating boundaries from loveand respect for myself and
humanity at large, it becameextremely easy.
When you create boundaries fromhate, resentment, judgment.
(08:54):
They are very expensiveemotions.
They burn out the person who'sholding them All the while.
If you're the one holding themand you think that it's going to
hurt other people, it does not.
You are the one who getsdepleted, trying to set
boundaries from the placebecause they turn into
punishment rather thanprotection.
(09:14):
I personally reserve this kindof emotional labor for the
people that are closest to me,and even then it's not out of
obligation.
It's because I've trainedmyself to choose love as a form
of clarity.
This energy of love is whatlets you create boundaries that
don't cost you your peace.
Now, before setting a boundary,I always ask what is the
(09:37):
emotional fuel behind thisboundary?
If it's exhaustion or revenge,then it's not clean.
But if it's love and respect,starting from myself and for the
other person, if it's a form ofaffection, then it's going to
be a very clean, strong boundaryand it's going to be
sustainable.
It's going to leave me with asense of well-being and, yes,
(10:04):
I've done this more than once inthe learning process where I
called something a boundary.
But if I'm being completelyhonest, it really wasn't.
It was just a silent ultimatum,a behavioral contract, a
subconscious rule that said ifyou don't change, I will suffer.
So I definitely need for you tochange so that I can finally
feel okay, and that I labeled asgrowth and boundary and healing
(10:24):
, but really underneath it wasstill an attempt to control All
of it, just dressed up in anicer language, in a
spiritualized way.
What helped me realize thetruth is that I was emotionally
hooked.
I wasn't free.
I was constantly checking fortheir response during my
boundary setting process,ruminating if they understood or
(10:45):
not, feeling resentful whenthey didn't act differently, and
it was completely exhausting.
This is the type of energy thatI'm trying to bring your
attention to Something that'sgoing to drain you versus
something that's going to upliftyou, empower you and help you
feel at peace.
Fake boundaries are so much moredraining than no boundaries at
(11:06):
all.
They keep you in hypervigilancebecause your peace still
depends on other people'sactions.
Real boundaries feel like peace.
You don't need to defend them.
You don't need to watch howthey respond.
You don't need to defend them.
You don't need to watch howthey respond.
You don't need to argue withyourself about whether you are
right in setting them or not.
You just know that this is whatI need for my own emotional
(11:28):
safety and I choose it from love, not from fear, not from
manipulation.
Some of the common thoughts thatare angry, that masquerade as
boundaries that you might wantto pay attention to.
He should know better.
I shouldn't have to explainthis.
She's old enough to understand.
These thoughts sound verymature and reasonable and
(11:49):
especially they sound justified.
But they are just resentment indisguise.
They don't come from love.
They're very energeticallycostly for you as a person.
They come from an innocentlooking belief that if someone
really cared, they would readyour mind and behave accordingly
.
And when they don't, or even ifyou verbalize what you want and
(12:11):
they still don't behaveaccordingly, you use that
disappointment as a license towithdraw, to snap or to hold a
grudge.
And then you try to call it aboundary.
And then you come to coachingand you say I can't set a
boundary.
I don't know what's wrong.
What you're doing.
There is not a boundary, it's apower struggle dressed up in
self-respect.
The problem with these types ofpower struggle boundaries is
(12:35):
that they come from thoughtsthat aren't necessarily untrue.
All your thoughts are truebecause they're there.
What makes your thought true isif you decide to believe it or
not.
So it's not about gaslightingyou.
All of your thoughts are validand maybe even correct,
depending on what you choose topay attention to.
The problem is that somethoughts shift your energy from
(12:57):
correction to control.
They create bitterness, andbitterness is expensive.
It drains your nervous system,it clouds your judgment, it
erodes your ability to set aboundary from love, because
you're already swimming injudgment, and judgment is not a
strong foundation of any action.
A real boundary does not soundlike.
(13:17):
You should already know this.
It sounds like here's what Iwill do to stay safe, regardless
of what you know or don't know,regardless of what you do or
don't do.
You don't have to wait for themto get it.
Through this curriculum ofkeeping ties of kinship,
creating boundaries from love,you are rooted enough to walk
(13:39):
your walk without needing themto change, because they are
going to be responsible to theanswer to their actions.
It's not your responsibility.
So keep yourself clean fromthat energy.
If your quote-unquote boundaryleaves you emotionally spinning,
ruminating or secretly hopingthat they feel bad, spinning,
ruminating or secretly hopingthat they feel bad, you are not
(13:59):
free.
You're still hooked.
Your freedom is the whole pointof this divine order.
So how do you feel love forsomeone, or affection for
someone who's disrespected you,without gaslighting yourself,
without pretending it didn'thurt, without dissolving into
people-pleasing or spiritualbypassing?
You do that by start tellingthe truth.
(14:20):
You don't minimize theirbehavior, you don't excuse it.
You name it clearly.
That was disrespectful, thatcrossed the line, that hurt.
You give yourself fullpermission to feel the pain of
it, because ignoring it doesn'tmake you stronger, it just makes
you disconnected from yourself.
But this is what the real shiftis.
(14:42):
You don't stop at naming it.
You also choose not to attachto it.
You don't victimize yourself init.
You don't make their behaviorreflection of your worth.
You don't use it as evidencethat you are unlivable or small,
because this is the trap peoplefall in after they acknowledge
(15:03):
the other person's disrespect.
You see their behavior for whatit is A wound in them, not a
wound in you.
And this is what most of myclients are missing.
Feeling love does not mean youdeny the reality of hurt and
danger.
It means refusing to be ruledby someone else's emotional
(15:23):
immaturity.
It means you can hold the fullweight of someone else's
shortcomings and still choose topee and still choose peace.
It does not mean you don'tretaliate if that's what you
need to do.
It does not mean you don't tapinto appropriate resources to be
able to hold them accountable.
It just means that you don'tlose your peace over it.
(15:46):
And this is not weakness, thisis spiritual strength.
This is the part of you thattrusts Allah to balance the
scales, regardless of how youwant to pursue the outcome of
their mistreatment and theirbehavior.
If you want to forgive, ifthat's available to you, or if
you want to hold themaccountable, do that through
(16:06):
clean boundaries.
And this is not you excusingthem.
This is you elevating yourself.
Sometimes what helps me is thatthis person is struggling.
They've forgotten who they are.
They're operating from pain,not from principle, and
sometimes these thoughts areenough to create some empathy in
(16:27):
me.
And with that empathy comes myemotional oxygen, just enough
for me to stay grounded so I canstart to take the appropriate
actions moving forward.
Maybe that enough emotionaloxygen is going to be you
remembering that their behavioris not evidence of your
inadequacy, it's evidence oftheirs.
And my favorite anchoringthought is that this has nothing
(16:49):
to do with my worth.
That one sentence shifts theentire point of view.
It reminds me that I canwitness harm without absorbing
it.
I can call accountabilitywithout internalizing harm.
I can respond from clarityinstead of reacting from pain.
And when I respond from thatplace, I don't just protect the
(17:11):
relationship, I protect mynervous system, my dignity, my
connection to Allah and myspirituality.
There's a big difference betweenexcusing somebody's behavior
and creating compassionateunderstanding around it.
Excusing says it's fine, itdidn't matter, I'll let it go,
it wasn't a big deal.
(17:31):
This is you gaslightingyourself because you don't want
to admit that this was hurtful,or you don't know what to do
with that hurt, or you're afraidof the consequences that the
other person will face.
If you do decide to followthrough, no matter how much you
try to gaslight yourself, yourbody will still know.
Your body holds the truth.
(17:51):
It will let you know at somepoint that you're engaging in
spiritual bypassing.
That's a survival mode dressedup in spiritual language.
But when you choose to lovesomeone while still holding the
truth that what they did waspainful or wrong, the most
radical thing that happens isthat your identity starts to
shift.
(18:11):
You become someone who doesn'tneed to erase the pain to hold
peace.
You become someone who can handpeople their emotional baggage,
hold them accountable withoutpicking all of that weight up
yourself.
You begin to trust your ownperception more than you're
trusting their interpretation ofyou.
(18:31):
You stop flinching at theiropinions.
You start walking with softness.
That's not naive, that's rootedlike steel.
Because love does not requirecloseness always.
It doesn't mean access.
Keeping ties of kinship doesnot mean physical proximity.
It does not mean that you haveto stay in the room if your
(18:54):
spirit is being crushed there.
Keeping ties of kinship meansthat you're elevating your
thoughts about the other personand in that case, sometimes,
especially in the face of abuse,distance is the most loving
boundary you can create.
And in that case, honoringAllah's command not to sever
ties of kinship means that youstay in prayer, prayer for
(19:17):
yourself, for them, to ask foryour forgiveness for theirs.
You try to create quiet empathy.
And if that happens when you'renot in proximity of the other
person, then that's not failure,that's not cutting ties of
kinship.
So if you've been listening tothis podcast for a while, you
already know that I don'tbelieve in shallow fixes.
(19:38):
So far in this episode, we'vecovered nervous system
regulation.
We've talked about how yourbody carries your boundaries
before your actions show it.
But I also want to give you areminder that might land
differently.
Your pause is more powerfulthan any pressure.
That moment of pause, rightafter somebody says something
(19:59):
triggering, dismissive ordownright disrespectful, your
nervous system will try tohijack you.
You'll feel the surge, the urgeto snap, to defend, to say the
thing that finally will makethem understand.
And you can do all of that.
But what actually protects youin the moment is not perfect
comeback, it's your pause, andthat five seconds sometimes is
(20:23):
all it takes for you to shiftfrom survival to sovereignty and
freedom.
That pause might be exactlywhat breaks the generational
cycle.
It might be what you need tocreate clean boundaries around
that behavior, just so thatdoesn't become another trauma.
Keeping your ties of kinship isa religious teaching, because it
(20:43):
is your emotional gym, a divinetraining program of mastery in
the self.
This is where Allah sends youthe exact same people who you
need in your life for thatemotional refinement.
This is not to punish you, thisis to strengthen you and
hopefully in this podcast so farI've made a case in point to
convince you of that.
(21:04):
This curriculum is to stretchyour heart, to widen your
capacity, to show you what itmeans to love for Allah's sake,
not for your convenience.
You, as a human being that isevolved and is working with your
soulful intelligence, does notcut ties.
Your ego cuts ties, and thisDean is not a path of ego
(21:25):
feeding.
It's a path of ego training, apath that turns this pain into
wisdom and even into profit.
Hopefully this podcast gave youenough material to turn
distance into your dignity andboundaries into worship.
When you commit to keeping tieswith whatever level of closeness
(21:46):
and physical proximity is safefor you, you're saying to Allah,
subhanahu wa ta'ala I chooselove over ego, I choose
elevation over explanation, andI choose you, o Allah, and that
is the real win.
With that, I pray to Allah,subhanahu wa ta'ala.
O Allah, soften my heartwithout breaking it.
(22:07):
Teach me how to love fromwholeness, not from obligation.
Let my boundaries reflect yourmercy, not my ego.
Ya Allah, when I amdisrespected, anchor me in
dignity.
When I want to cut ties, remindmy ego that you are refining me
, not punishing me.
Replace my bitterness withwisdom and create profit out of
(22:31):
this curriculum that willbenefit me in the afterlife.
Ya Allah, don't let my soul beheavy with unspoken pain.
Let my peace speak louder thanmy reaction and make my love as
a sign of your mercy around me.
Ameen, ya Rabbul, ameen, pleasekeep me in your da'as.
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 Aftar.
Hello, hello, hello everyone.
Peace and blessings be upon allof you.
When Allah SWT says, don't cutties of kinship, it's not about
other people, it's about you.
(00:25):
He's talking about youremotional evolution.
Allah SWT is handing you apersonal development curriculum
on how to love when love feelsimpossible.
You are not being asked totolerate abuse, which is how
most of these teachings arebeing misused right now.
You're being asked to develop asurgical precision in your
(00:47):
emotional responses, to learnhow to feel fury and still act
from faith.
To be surrounded by people whomisunderstand you, minimize you,
maybe even mistreat you, andstill choose boundaries over
bitterness.
All of that is not for them.
That's for you.
Keeping ties of kinship is foryour emotional and mental health
(01:10):
, and that's what I'm going todescribe to you today in this
podcast.
If you hold on to your dignityin a room full of people who
only want chaos, if you canstand in your values when
someone else is doing everythingin their power to make you feel
worthless, that's when you knowthat you're growing.
That's when you know youremotional intelligence is real,
(01:32):
not performative, not convenient, not Instagrammable, but real,
revolutionary, something that'sfor you In the Quran, surah 47,
ayat 22,.
It says so.
Would you perhaps, if youturned away, cause corruption on
earth and sever your ties ofkinship?
The Messenger of Allah said theone who severs his family ties
(01:57):
will not enter paradise.
A sahih hadith in Bukhari andMuslim.
When Allah says, don't cut ties, he is not trapping you into
toxic dynamics, which is ourbinary, black and white thinking
brain thinks.
It says.
Allah is refining you.
He is giving you the chance toaccess parts of yourself that
(02:17):
you've never met before.
And every time you choosecompassion over contempt, every
time you're not letting anyonewalk all over you, you're
proving that your soul isstronger than your ego.
You are refining yourself.
To define this soul refiningwork, I created a term, what I
call affectionship.
It's almost spiritualtechnology, a high frequency
(02:39):
kinship that's rooted inaffection, not performance.
When you choose to love someone, not because they're easy to
love, but because you aregrounded and elevated, connected
.
That's when you're enteringinto a state that upgrades you.
This is a state when your bodyis secreting oxytocin, serotonin
, dopamine.
Your nervous system learns toshift from survival to safety.
(03:04):
You're doing somethingrighteous and you're doing
something that's regulating foryourself, something that's
healing.
You might think that thisaffectionship is for their
benefit, but the realtransformation is happening
inside of you.
Your thoughts get clearer, yourheart softens, your sense of
self expands, and the irony isthat the more you love, the more
(03:27):
you receive.
The more affection you give,the more ease your body is going
to feel.
Affectionship is your divinefeedback loop.
You give out what you wishexisted in the world and in
doing so, you become the proofthat it exists.
This is why I believe Allahcommands you to keep the ties of
(03:47):
kinship, not to fix them, butto feel what love does to you,
what kind of healing it provides, and this kind of healing
especially happens when youthink the other person does not
deserve this affection.
Keeping ties of kinship isabsolutely an act of obedience,
of course, as we can see fromthe direct commandments from
(04:09):
Allah SWT, from the Prophet andthe Quran.
But it is also your curriculum,a divine syllabus on how much
love you can create for someoneinside your heart not theirs,
yours.
That's the real test, becausemost people think relationships
live outside of them.
They think that relationshipsis what someone else says about
(04:30):
you or what they do around you,but your relationship with
anyone your mother, your child,your spouse, your colleague is
inside of you.
It's a story, a thought thatyour brain is telling you about
them on repeat, and everyfeeling you have towards a
person that you are in arelationship with is
manufactured in your mind.
(04:52):
And as a consequence of thosethoughts that are manufactured
in your mind, you feel theemotions Love, resentment all
come from thoughts.
Disappointment, anger,closeness, warmth all of these
are thought generated and thesethoughts that build emotional
patterns get stored in yournervous system.
That's why, when someone youlove walks into the room, your
(05:16):
body responds before your mouthor your mind does.
And along the same lines.
If you want to improve yourrelationships with people, and
along the same lines, if youwant to improve your
relationships with people, stoptrying to change them.
Start changing your internalstory, your narrative, start
upgrading your thoughts, not fortheir sake, but because toxic
(05:38):
thoughts cost you.
They cost you your peace, yourpresence, your oxytocin, a very
healing hormone.
It costs you a lot more thanyou know.
When you change the quality ofyour thoughts about that person,
the emotional tone of yourrelationship also changes the
state that your body lives in,around them, when thinking of
them changes.
(05:59):
And all of this happens even ifthe other person never gets the
memo, even if the other personnever finds out what you're
doing.
This almost feels like magic,but it's not.
It's neurobiology, it's yourown spiritual mastery, because
in cases like this, you've gonefrom reacting to creating.
(06:19):
When you feel grounded in lovenot performative love, but real,
anchored love you gain accessto things that most people never
even know exist, which is cleanboundaries.
Boundaries that don't come fromanger, boundaries that don't
reek of punishment or control,boundaries that say I am
(06:41):
protecting myself.
This is why I'm doing this.
I am not doing this to punishyou.
This level of love andaffection does not mean you
excuse their disrespect.
It does not mean you condonetheir behavior.
It just means you don't lettheir behavior drag you down
into disrespect with them.
Because if you're standing inlove, especially if you're
(07:03):
trying to guard your own peace,when you speak and when you lay
your boundaries, you say if youtalk to me like that, again I
will leave the room, I willpause the conversation, and your
thought process behind this canbe that it's not to punish them
but to protect you.
You can say this out loud ornever tell them, it's up to you.
But that's the power, that'sthe clarity, that's the
(07:26):
self-respect and self-love inaction, which is why keeping up
ties of kinship is a divineorder.
All of this falls apart theminute your boundary turns into
a way to control someone else'sbehavior, a way to give an
ultimatum, kind of like if youdo this, then I'll make you pay.
This is not a boundary.
This is a game of weaponizingyour and their emotions, and
(07:49):
then you attempt to heal fromthat which is never going to
happen.
Boundaries from anger are justexplosions waiting for a target.
Your boundaries from love aresacred and they're very
architecturally sound.
They create safety, they teachpeople how to treat you and,
most importantly, they remindyou how to move into your own
(08:12):
growth.
So, no, you never let anybodyspeak to you in a disrespectful
way.
You never let anybody crossyour personal boundaries.
But you also don't burn thehouse down to prove your point.
You build a gate.
You let certain people walkthrough it.
When you truly realize thatboundaries don't require
(08:33):
punishment, but a certain sideof love, you realize how
energetically efficient it is.
That's exactly what happened tome in my life when I started
creating boundaries from loveand respect for myself and
humanity at large, it becameextremely easy.
When you create boundaries fromhate, resentment, judgment.
(08:54):
They are very expensiveemotions.
They burn out the person who'sholding them All the while.
If you're the one holding themand you think that it's going to
hurt other people, it does not.
You are the one who getsdepleted, trying to set
boundaries from the placebecause they turn into
punishment rather thanprotection.
(09:14):
I personally reserve this kindof emotional labor for the
people that are closest to me,and even then it's not out of
obligation.
It's because I've trainedmyself to choose love as a form
of clarity.
This energy of love is whatlets you create boundaries that
don't cost you your peace.
Now, before setting a boundary,I always ask what is the
(09:37):
emotional fuel behind thisboundary?
If it's exhaustion or revenge,then it's not clean.
But if it's love and respect,starting from myself and for the
other person, if it's a form ofaffection, then it's going to
be a very clean, strong boundaryand it's going to be
sustainable.
It's going to leave me with asense of well-being and, yes,
(10:04):
I've done this more than once inthe learning process where I
called something a boundary.
But if I'm being completelyhonest, it really wasn't.
It was just a silent ultimatum,a behavioral contract, a
subconscious rule that said ifyou don't change, I will suffer.
So I definitely need for you tochange so that I can finally
feel okay, and that I labeled asgrowth and boundary and healing
(10:24):
, but really underneath it wasstill an attempt to control All
of it, just dressed up in anicer language, in a
spiritualized way.
What helped me realize thetruth is that I was emotionally
hooked.
I wasn't free.
I was constantly checking fortheir response during my
boundary setting process,ruminating if they understood or
(10:45):
not, feeling resentful whenthey didn't act differently, and
it was completely exhausting.
This is the type of energy thatI'm trying to bring your
attention to Something that'sgoing to drain you versus
something that's going to upliftyou, empower you and help you
feel at peace.
Fake boundaries are so much moredraining than no boundaries at
(11:06):
all.
They keep you in hypervigilancebecause your peace still
depends on other people'sactions.
Real boundaries feel like peace.
You don't need to defend them.
You don't need to watch howthey respond.
You don't need to defend them.
You don't need to watch howthey respond.
You don't need to argue withyourself about whether you are
right in setting them or not.
You just know that this is whatI need for my own emotional
(11:28):
safety and I choose it from love, not from fear, not from
manipulation.
Some of the common thoughts thatare angry, that masquerade as
boundaries that you might wantto pay attention to.
He should know better.
I shouldn't have to explainthis.
She's old enough to understand.
These thoughts sound verymature and reasonable and
(11:49):
especially they sound justified.
But they are just resentment indisguise.
They don't come from love.
They're very energeticallycostly for you as a person.
They come from an innocentlooking belief that if someone
really cared, they would readyour mind and behave accordingly
.
And when they don't, or even ifyou verbalize what you want and
(12:11):
they still don't behaveaccordingly, you use that
disappointment as a license towithdraw, to snap or to hold a
grudge.
And then you try to call it aboundary.
And then you come to coachingand you say I can't set a
boundary.
I don't know what's wrong.
What you're doing.
There is not a boundary, it's apower struggle dressed up in
self-respect.
The problem with these types ofpower struggle boundaries is
(12:35):
that they come from thoughtsthat aren't necessarily untrue.
All your thoughts are truebecause they're there.
What makes your thought true isif you decide to believe it or
not.
So it's not about gaslightingyou.
All of your thoughts are validand maybe even correct,
depending on what you choose topay attention to.
The problem is that somethoughts shift your energy from
(12:57):
correction to control.
They create bitterness, andbitterness is expensive.
It drains your nervous system,it clouds your judgment, it
erodes your ability to set aboundary from love, because
you're already swimming injudgment, and judgment is not a
strong foundation of any action.
A real boundary does not soundlike.
(13:17):
You should already know this.
It sounds like here's what Iwill do to stay safe, regardless
of what you know or don't know,regardless of what you do or
don't do.
You don't have to wait for themto get it.
Through this curriculum ofkeeping ties of kinship,
creating boundaries from love,you are rooted enough to walk
(13:39):
your walk without needing themto change, because they are
going to be responsible to theanswer to their actions.
It's not your responsibility.
So keep yourself clean fromthat energy.
If your quote-unquote boundaryleaves you emotionally spinning,
ruminating or secretly hopingthat they feel bad, spinning,
ruminating or secretly hopingthat they feel bad, you are not
(13:59):
free.
You're still hooked.
Your freedom is the whole pointof this divine order.
So how do you feel love forsomeone, or affection for
someone who's disrespected you,without gaslighting yourself,
without pretending it didn'thurt, without dissolving into
people-pleasing or spiritualbypassing?
You do that by start tellingthe truth.
(14:20):
You don't minimize theirbehavior, you don't excuse it.
You name it clearly.
That was disrespectful, thatcrossed the line, that hurt.
You give yourself fullpermission to feel the pain of
it, because ignoring it doesn'tmake you stronger, it just makes
you disconnected from yourself.
But this is what the real shiftis.
(14:42):
You don't stop at naming it.
You also choose not to attachto it.
You don't victimize yourself init.
You don't make their behaviorreflection of your worth.
You don't use it as evidencethat you are unlivable or small,
because this is the trap peoplefall in after they acknowledge
(15:03):
the other person's disrespect.
You see their behavior for whatit is A wound in them, not a
wound in you.
And this is what most of myclients are missing.
Feeling love does not mean youdeny the reality of hurt and
danger.
It means refusing to be ruledby someone else's emotional
(15:23):
immaturity.
It means you can hold the fullweight of someone else's
shortcomings and still choose topee and still choose peace.
It does not mean you don'tretaliate if that's what you
need to do.
It does not mean you don't tapinto appropriate resources to be
able to hold them accountable.
It just means that you don'tlose your peace over it.
(15:46):
And this is not weakness, thisis spiritual strength.
This is the part of you thattrusts Allah to balance the
scales, regardless of how youwant to pursue the outcome of
their mistreatment and theirbehavior.
If you want to forgive, ifthat's available to you, or if
you want to hold themaccountable, do that through
(16:06):
clean boundaries.
And this is not you excusingthem.
This is you elevating yourself.
Sometimes what helps me is thatthis person is struggling.
They've forgotten who they are.
They're operating from pain,not from principle, and
sometimes these thoughts areenough to create some empathy in
(16:27):
me.
And with that empathy comes myemotional oxygen, just enough
for me to stay grounded so I canstart to take the appropriate
actions moving forward.
Maybe that enough emotionaloxygen is going to be you
remembering that their behavioris not evidence of your
inadequacy, it's evidence oftheirs.
And my favorite anchoringthought is that this has nothing
(16:49):
to do with my worth.
That one sentence shifts theentire point of view.
It reminds me that I canwitness harm without absorbing
it.
I can call accountabilitywithout internalizing harm.
I can respond from clarityinstead of reacting from pain.
And when I respond from thatplace, I don't just protect the
(17:11):
relationship, I protect mynervous system, my dignity, my
connection to Allah and myspirituality.
There's a big difference betweenexcusing somebody's behavior
and creating compassionateunderstanding around it.
Excusing says it's fine, itdidn't matter, I'll let it go,
it wasn't a big deal.
(17:31):
This is you gaslightingyourself because you don't want
to admit that this was hurtful,or you don't know what to do
with that hurt, or you're afraidof the consequences that the
other person will face.
If you do decide to followthrough, no matter how much you
try to gaslight yourself, yourbody will still know.
Your body holds the truth.
(17:51):
It will let you know at somepoint that you're engaging in
spiritual bypassing.
That's a survival mode dressedup in spiritual language.
But when you choose to lovesomeone while still holding the
truth that what they did waspainful or wrong, the most
radical thing that happens isthat your identity starts to
shift.
(18:11):
You become someone who doesn'tneed to erase the pain to hold
peace.
You become someone who can handpeople their emotional baggage,
hold them accountable withoutpicking all of that weight up
yourself.
You begin to trust your ownperception more than you're
trusting their interpretation ofyou.
(18:31):
You stop flinching at theiropinions.
You start walking with softness.
That's not naive, that's rootedlike steel.
Because love does not requirecloseness always.
It doesn't mean access.
Keeping ties of kinship doesnot mean physical proximity.
It does not mean that you haveto stay in the room if your
(18:54):
spirit is being crushed there.
Keeping ties of kinship meansthat you're elevating your
thoughts about the other personand in that case, sometimes,
especially in the face of abuse,distance is the most loving
boundary you can create.
And in that case, honoringAllah's command not to sever
ties of kinship means that youstay in prayer, prayer for
(19:17):
yourself, for them, to ask foryour forgiveness for theirs.
You try to create quiet empathy.
And if that happens when you'renot in proximity of the other
person, then that's not failure,that's not cutting ties of
kinship.
So if you've been listening tothis podcast for a while, you
already know that I don'tbelieve in shallow fixes.
(19:38):
So far in this episode, we'vecovered nervous system
regulation.
We've talked about how yourbody carries your boundaries
before your actions show it.
But I also want to give you areminder that might land
differently.
Your pause is more powerfulthan any pressure.
That moment of pause, rightafter somebody says something
(19:59):
triggering, dismissive ordownright disrespectful, your
nervous system will try tohijack you.
You'll feel the surge, the urgeto snap, to defend, to say the
thing that finally will makethem understand.
And you can do all of that.
But what actually protects youin the moment is not perfect
comeback, it's your pause, andthat five seconds sometimes is
(20:23):
all it takes for you to shiftfrom survival to sovereignty and
freedom.
That pause might be exactlywhat breaks the generational
cycle.
It might be what you need tocreate clean boundaries around
that behavior, just so thatdoesn't become another trauma.
Keeping your ties of kinship isa religious teaching, because it
(20:43):
is your emotional gym, a divinetraining program of mastery in
the self.
This is where Allah sends youthe exact same people who you
need in your life for thatemotional refinement.
This is not to punish you, thisis to strengthen you and
hopefully in this podcast so farI've made a case in point to
convince you of that.
(21:04):
This curriculum is to stretchyour heart, to widen your
capacity, to show you what itmeans to love for Allah's sake,
not for your convenience.
You, as a human being that isevolved and is working with your
soulful intelligence, does notcut ties.
Your ego cuts ties, and thisDean is not a path of ego
(21:25):
feeding.
It's a path of ego training, apath that turns this pain into
wisdom and even into profit.
Hopefully this podcast gave youenough material to turn
distance into your dignity andboundaries into worship.
When you commit to keeping tieswith whatever level of closeness
(21:46):
and physical proximity is safefor you, you're saying to Allah,
subhanahu wa ta'ala I chooselove over ego, I choose
elevation over explanation, andI choose you, o Allah, and that
is the real win.
With that, I pray to Allah,subhanahu wa ta'ala.
O Allah, soften my heartwithout breaking it.
(22:07):
Teach me how to love fromwholeness, not from obligation.
Let my boundaries reflect yourmercy, not my ego.
Ya Allah, when I amdisrespected, anchor me in
dignity.
When I want to cut ties, remindmy ego that you are refining me
, not punishing me.
Replace my bitterness withwisdom and create profit out of
(22:31):
this curriculum that willbenefit me in the afterlife.
Ya Allah, don't let my soul beheavy with unspoken pain.
Let my peace speak louder thanmy reaction and make my love as
a sign of your mercy around me.
Ameen, ya Rabbul, ameen, pleasekeep me in your da'as.
I will talk to you guys nexttime.
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