April 21, 2026 • 22 mins
“Strive harder” can sound holy, but for many Muslim women it lands like a weight on an already overloaded nervous system. I’m unpacking what striving for the sake of Allah really means, starting from a clearer definition: intentional, disciplined effort to align your heart and behavior with divine guidance, not simply doing more visible acts. When we ignore emotional bandwidth and biological limits, devotion can quietly morph into chronic pressure, hidden burnout, and a constant sense of spiritual failure.
We talk about the invisible emotional labor that keeps families and workplaces functioning: regulating children’s emotions, anticipating a spouse’s moods, preventing conflict, managing the mental load of logistics, remembering everyone’s needs, and acting like emotional climate control. Modern productivity culture rarely counts that as “real work,” so it’s easy to assume it doesn’t count spiritually either. I challenge that assumption and invite you to start counting your unseen labor as part of your striving when it’s done for Allah with sincerity.
We also name the damage of spiritual comparison and internalized ableism: judging yourself against people with different support systems, different responsibilities, and different starting lines. Striving is contextual. It can look like extended worship for one person and like patience, service, healing, or protecting solitude for another. The question I want you to carry forward is simple: is the way you’re striving bringing you closer to Allah or closer to burnout?
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_01 (00:04):
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 Akar.
SPEAKER_00 (00:16):
Hello, hello, hello everyone.
Peace and blessings be upon allof you.
Inshallah today we're going tobe talking about striving for
the sake of Allah.
In your acts of worship as aMuslim woman or otherwise.
Meaning also in the acts ofworldly gains.
Let's start with definingstriving first.
Because as always, you have tohave some grounds to build on.
(00:36):
Striving means using your energywith intention and discipline to
move closer to Allah and to liveaccording to the divine
guidance.
Striving is just not simplydoing more religious acts.
It's the overall effort to bringyour heart and behavior into
alignment with righteousness.
In Surah An Kibut 29 Ayah 69, itsays And those who strive for
(01:01):
us, we will surely guide them toour ways, and indeed Allah is
with the doers of good.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'alamake us of those who strive in
his path.
So now let's expand it to yourlife as a Muslim woman and what
it means to strive harder andwhat it has unfortunately
culturally become that takes atoll on your mental health.
(01:22):
What striving has become is acommand to create hidden
burnout.
While striving harder is done inthe name of elevating your
spirituality, all of yourexternal acts, but in the lived
reality of many women, itbecomes a command layered into
an already very exhausted narrowsystem.
(01:43):
So for this we have to putthings into context, which is
you are already doing invisibleemotional labor.
It is invisible because ofpatriarchal standards, not
because it's unimportant.
It is very important.
I can safely say that this typeof work is the most important
that a human being can do.
So women are simultaneouscaretakers and emotional
(02:07):
regulators of entire familiesand managers of invisible
household logistics and absorbeveryone else's stress to keep
them regulated.
So when the message of juststrive harder lands on that type
of a nervous system which isalready working at capacity, it
does not produce spiritualelevation.
(02:29):
It produces more and moreexhaustion.
This happens because you'reignoring the biological limits
of your nervous system.
You are already doing a lot inthe name of striving without
having it given that namevisibly, because your actions
are not fitting the traditionaldefinition of striving.
So without knowing thebiological limits of your
(02:51):
nervous system, what is meant tobe devotion becomes a slow
motion self-destruction.
Most religious conversationsabout striving assume a neutral
starting point, a nervous systemthat is healed and calm.
What is being assumed thateveryone begins their spiritual
journey with the same emotionalbandwidth, and this assumption
(03:13):
is false.
A lot of Muslim women areperforming constant emotional
labor that goes completelyunrecognized.
If you are regulating yourchildren's emotions, if you're
anticipating your husband'smoods to keep him calm, if
you're maintaining familyrelationships, you're managing
the mental load of running ahousehold and you're carrying
(03:34):
all of these responsibilitieswithout being recognized for
them.
And I don't mean recognized inregards to validation.
I mean recognized as beingrecognized that this is work
that you're actually doing.
This is not passivity.
You are actively involved inspending energy and time and
attention, which takes hugeresources on your part as a
(03:57):
human being.
It is a complex interpersonalregulation that occurs all day
long around you.
You are striving very hard inpreserving harmony of your
family.
So when spiritual advice ignoresthis reality, women are judged
as spiritually weaker when infact they're already expending
enormous psychological energysimply keeping the ecosystem of
(04:20):
their families or theirworkplaces functioning.
And yes, this invisibleemotional labor also happens in
workplaces, where even in thecorporate world women are
usually assigned the role ofpeacekeepers.
So this invisible labor thatmostly consists of mental tasks,
of holding ground duringemotional crisis, of
(04:42):
anticipating needs, of attuningto everyone, helping everyone
else maintain theirpsychological safety, being the
translator between two humansthat are not able to understand
each other, but you understandwhat they're saying, and you're
carrying that mental load ofcommunication.
All of the tasks and the choresthat are being done in
(05:03):
preventing conflict so that youcan anticipate a problem so it
doesn't happen.
And of course this is gonnacount as invisible labor because
how are you gonna account forsomething that didn't transpire?
Like a conflict that you wereable to prevent.
So overall, acting as theemotional climate control is
intense labor.
(05:25):
And this also includes mealplanning, grocery inventories,
keeping track of everyone'sappointments and their
nutritional needs and theirpreferences, household
logistics, coordinatingchildren's lives and drop-offs
and pickups and play dates, alsobeing the maintainer of extended
family relationships,remembering birthdays, buying
(05:46):
their presents, planningparties, understanding and
fulfilling everyone's lovelanguages.
And I mean I can go on and onand on.
Now mind you, I'm onlymentioning this mostly as it
relates to households, butagain, women take this invisible
labor on in workplaces as well,where they're working for money
(06:06):
and they're also working withoutmoney in this capacity because
they're carrying the mental loadof the extra logistics and not
getting paid for it.
So this leads me to talk aboutand recognize the productivity
trap in a woman's spirituality.
In a world where your worth ismeasured by productivity and
labor, what I just mentioneddoes not count as productivity.
(06:29):
Then everything a woman doesdoesn't count towards her
spirituality, which is a real,real shame.
Because a woman is alreadystriving when she's doing all of
these things for the sake ofAllah.
What I'm recommending in thispodcast is that you start
counting it towards yourstriving, in which case you
might start to notice that youare already striving hard, very,
(06:52):
very hard.
So if you don't clean thesedefinitions up in your mind and
you don't elevate your mindsetaround this, what happens is if
you hear all of your life thatyou need to strive harder,
you're going to interpret it assacrifice more and more of
yourself.
In the meanwhile, you're alreadyat the border of a complete
nervous breakdown and you'rebarely holding yourself
(07:13):
together.
But you want to strive harderbecause you don't think what
you're already doing counts.
And this leads to learning a lotof lessons around guilt trap
that you have around rest.
Because the most damagingpsychological pattern that you
might carry as a woman is theinherent belief that
self-prioritization, any kind ofrejuvenation or recovery is
(07:35):
selfish.
If you rest, to you it will feellike laziness, and if that's the
case, you're striving from amale predominant viewpoint of
spirituality, which is notinherently wrong or right in its
own merit.
It just doesn't apply to you.
If you don't heal around thislevel of spirituality, which is
(07:55):
very appropriate for women, andthat continues to happen long
enough, then your nervous systemis gonna start associating
worship with constant pressureand guilt rather than peace and
tranquility, which is what it'ssupposed to be majority of the
time.
And this is very, very tragic.
This is why I ask you not tostrive harder blindly, but to
(08:18):
evaluate your life of whatyou're already doing that is
considered hard work.
After listening to this podcast,I want you to start counting
your acts of invisible labortowards your striving.
Up until now you might havejudged your spirituality by
visible outputs, as in how manypages you have memorized and how
extended your prayers have been.
(08:40):
But you cannot possibly matchthis output of worship with
someone with much fewerresponsibilities than you.
And when you can't performspirituality at that level, and
you secretly start to believethat your spirituality is
inferior because so much of yourstriving is going unseen, then
striving harder is gonna turninto a rat race for you.
(09:02):
Maybe striving for you is theinvisible labor of healing
yourself, trauma recovery.
Continuing on your journey ofthe Skiathanops, start expanding
your definition of striving.
You have to start seeing that somuch of your daily life already
contains countless acts ofworship and sacrifice that are
immensely spirituallysignificant.
(09:24):
It is okay if they remainculturally invisible.
Me, you all of us are workingtowards making them more
visible, but other people'sacknowledgements of your
striving has nothing to do ifyou're striving harder or not.
And this is very lucky for usbecause this matter is between
you and Allah.
Culturally invisible striving,Alhamdulillah still remains
(09:47):
striving to Allah subhanahu wata'ala, because the command is
to strive.
It's not to make your strivinglook exactly the same as other
people or what they approve of.
And I especially want you toremember this because there is a
structural advantage that somepeople have that you might not
have access to because noteveryone has the support system
(10:07):
that you personally are creatingfor the people around you.
Not everyone is starting theirspiritual race at the same
starting line.
A lot of people have logisticaladvantages that allow them to
perform the visible acts ofprayer more easily.
And believe it or not, you arethe one who's putting that
structure in place that givesthem a clean home to return to,
(10:31):
a home with a prepared meal, allof the pre-planning that you've
done, and all of the forecastingon meeting the needs of
everyone.
Because you're just so good atanticipating all of the needs
that other people have that itcreates a scaffolding in place
where the rest of them canstrive harder while you're
striving to put the structureinto place that is going
(10:53):
completely unnoticed.
Their spiritual output mightlook like that it's more because
it's being supported byindividuals like you who are
performing the invisible labor.
So anyone who comes to a homewhen the home is clean, meals
are prepared, children are takencare of, and the environment is
right for them to rest andrecover their cognitive and
(11:15):
emotional functions, then theycan pursue extended studies,
they can pursue memorization andprolonged worship routines, and
no shade if this is what you'vechosen, meaning you provide this
level of comfort and service toother human beings, but then
also don't undermine yourspirituality just because it's
not being seen as typicalworship.
(11:37):
So what I'm trying to do isreframe for you what striving
means.
It is not a fixed formula.
It does not mean memorizingpages and pages and leaving the
home in search of spiritualeducation.
It does not mean constantnightly worship.
It might mean all of that, butit doesn't have to if you cannot
accommodate all of that.
(11:59):
You are welcome to mean that theextended worship is striving for
you if it is available to you,and you already have a structure
in place for yourself where youcan do it sustainably without
burning out.
It can also mean remembrance ofAllah while doing your daily
tasks.
The value of striving lies inthe sincerity and the
(12:21):
sustainability as a form ofdevotion, and if a type of
devotion is destroying yourpersonal well being, then simply
stay away from it, because youwill lose your religion while
trying to keep up with theJoneses.
Again, a big biological truththat the main spiritual
discourse overlooks is that anoverwhelmed nervous system goes
(12:43):
through burnout in the name ofstriving just because it cannot
access higher and higher statesof constant reflection and
presence.
Because a woman who's takingcare of others, a business,
family, pets, this state ofdedication might not simply be
available to you without thebrain shifting into survival
(13:04):
mode.
And then on top of this,associated with all of this is a
false heroism of exhaustion.
Because if you consider yourspirituality as the same as
being exhausted all of the time,your striving is going to become
very self punitive, and it'sgoing to take you further away
from Allah rather than closer toHim.
(13:24):
Allow yourself the striving thatyou are already doing and also
allow yourself the devotion thatreplenishes you, the one that
makes you grounded and peacefuland more connected to others and
Allah, the striving that takesyou towards tranquility and
peace, and out of chronicstress.
Best striving is the one that'ssustainable, even though when
(13:48):
it's going through cycles ofexertion and sustainable
practices and it respects therealities of your life, your
circumstances, your emotionalcapacity and your
responsibilities.
So one way you can start to askthe question is rather than if
am I striving enough?
Ask yourself is the way I'mcurrently striving bringing me
(14:09):
closer to Allah or bringing mecloser to burnout?
Because if you've learnedanything here, it is that
striving is contextual.
It is aligning with yourdevotion to a life that you're
given instead of replicatingsomebody else's routine.
Since human beings are notliving with identical operating
systems and they're not runningon same programs, striving must
(14:32):
exist inside your reality ofyour personal life.
Emotional labor being one of themost misunderstood forms of
human work is real neurologicaleffort.
It involves regulating your ownemotions while simultaneously
stabilizing everyone else's.
It involves rememberinginterpersonal details, managing
(14:53):
conflict, constantly processingcomplex social information.
The effort required to maintaingroundedness under these
conditions is rarely recognizedas striving.
Yet it is one of the mostdemanding forms of striving that
exists.
Modern societies measure valuethrough economic productivity.
(15:14):
If an activity produces goods,generates money, increases
measurable output, those are allconsidered labor.
If it maintains relationships,nurtures emotions, protects
psychological health, all ofthat is dismissed as just part
of life.
And this bias is what creates adangerous illusion.
(15:35):
Illusion that emotional labor isnot real work.
In reality, emotional labor iswhat allows productive systems
to function at all.
A person who is emotionallysupported and feels relationally
secure is far more capable ofperforming visible achievements.
Emotional labor is theinfrastructure beneath
(15:57):
productivity.
When this infrastructurecollapses, everything built on
top begins to fall also.
The danger of invisibility ofthis labor leads to internalized
ableism by Muslim women andspiritual comparison.
What that means is when youcompare your striving to people
that have more structuraladvantages than you, you are
(16:19):
internalizing a form ofspiritual ableism.
You assume that if you cannotmatch someone else's level of
output, it means that you areless disciplined or less sincere
in your faith.
And this is such a poisonousbelief system that women carry,
and it is far more common thanyou think.
I happen to believe that thoughtfor the longest time, and this
(16:42):
comparison creates a beliefsystem that punishes you for
having limits.
It assumes that everyone shouldperform devotion with the same
capacity regardless of theiremotional or relational burdens.
True spiritual insightrecognizes that effort must be
measured relative to a person'scontext, not against some
(17:02):
universal abstract ideal.
Which is why both solitude andserving in community are
different forms of striving.
Different nervous systemsrequire different environments
for restoration.
For some women, striving mayinvolve seeking community so
they can share emotional burdensand feel supported.
(17:22):
For others, striving may meanprotecting solitude because
their daily lives are saturatedwith social demands.
Neither approach is superior.
Both are strategies formaintaining equilibrium for your
nervous system in a way thatsupports you being able to
strive in the path of Allah.
Internalized ableism is when youdon't believe your efforts to be
(17:46):
efforts and you want to performat a higher level that you think
others are able to perform at.
I want you to become the radicalvalidator of your striving as a
woman.
When you are performing animmense emotional labor, you are
already striving.
You're striving throughpatience, through restraint,
through leadership, throughcaregiving, through maintaining
(18:09):
stability, because otherwise allof those environments would
easily become overwhelming if itwasn't for your labor.
And when someone with fewer ofthese responsibilities lectures
you about striving harder, theymay unknowingly be overlooking
the enormous effort that you'realready exerting.
The value of striving is notdetermined by how visible it is
(18:33):
or how easily it can bemeasured.
The value of striving lies inthe effort of your heart, the
discipline of your mind, and thesincerity of your action.
This is the definition that westarted with.
So then start asking, what formof striving allows my heart to
remain steady?
What allows it to remainanchored and connected while
(18:55):
honoring the responsibilitiesthat I already carry?
Your nervous system capacitydetermines the shape of your
striving.
Your mind and your body will letyou know what your striving
looks like, and your job is tocontinue to optimize it.
InshaAllah we all have thebandwidth to do more and more,
and inshaAllah you have thephysical energy and the
(19:18):
logistical support to wake upfor Kayamul every night, to
attend classes regularly, tomemorize large portions of
Quran.
And if that is the case,Alhamdulillah, and it is most
likely that your life alreadycontains structures and systems
in place that support thisrhythm.
When your nervous system is wellsupported, it becomes easier to
(19:41):
perform the forms of strivingthat otherwise are widely
recognized and celebrated.
But this capacity is notuniversal.
Your striving may not look likelong nights of uninterrupted
prayer.
It may look like maintainingkindness with colleagues when
sheer exhaustion would makeirritation much easier.
So your striving must bepersonalized.
(20:03):
Allow your striving to evolve.
As your life changes, as yourresponsibilities shift, as your
capacities grow, as you put insystems and structures in place
to support your striving,continue to create and evolve
through different forms ofworship that may expand.
And through all of that, thecommand of striving still
(20:26):
applies to you.
The call to strive remainscentral to spiritual life.
Growth requires effort, no doubtabout that, but it must be
directed wisely.
It should challenge you withoutbreaking you.
When striving is aligned withyour capacity, it produces
upliftment, and you feel closerto Allah, and every sincere
(20:49):
effort is fully recognized byAllah.
With that I pray to Allah, YaAllah, you know the effort in my
heart and the labor that no oneelse might see.
Accept my every moment that Istrive towards you, whether it's
in prayer or patience, serviceor solitude, give me wisdom to
(21:11):
strive in ways that bring mecloser to you without harming my
body and mind.
Protect me from comparison andburnout.
Let my striving be sincere andsustainable, and make every
hidden act done for your sakeheavy on my scale on the day of
judgment.
Amin Yar Bulal Amin.
Please keep me in your draas, Iwill talk to you guys next time.
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 Akar.
SPEAKER_00 (00:16):
Hello, hello, hello everyone.
Peace and blessings be upon allof you.
Inshallah today we're going tobe talking about striving for
the sake of Allah.
In your acts of worship as aMuslim woman or otherwise.
Meaning also in the acts ofworldly gains.
Let's start with definingstriving first.
Because as always, you have tohave some grounds to build on.
(00:36):
Striving means using your energywith intention and discipline to
move closer to Allah and to liveaccording to the divine
guidance.
Striving is just not simplydoing more religious acts.
It's the overall effort to bringyour heart and behavior into
alignment with righteousness.
In Surah An Kibut 29 Ayah 69, itsays And those who strive for
(01:01):
us, we will surely guide them toour ways, and indeed Allah is
with the doers of good.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'alamake us of those who strive in
his path.
So now let's expand it to yourlife as a Muslim woman and what
it means to strive harder andwhat it has unfortunately
culturally become that takes atoll on your mental health.
(01:22):
What striving has become is acommand to create hidden
burnout.
While striving harder is done inthe name of elevating your
spirituality, all of yourexternal acts, but in the lived
reality of many women, itbecomes a command layered into
an already very exhausted narrowsystem.
(01:43):
So for this we have to putthings into context, which is
you are already doing invisibleemotional labor.
It is invisible because ofpatriarchal standards, not
because it's unimportant.
It is very important.
I can safely say that this typeof work is the most important
that a human being can do.
So women are simultaneouscaretakers and emotional
(02:07):
regulators of entire familiesand managers of invisible
household logistics and absorbeveryone else's stress to keep
them regulated.
So when the message of juststrive harder lands on that type
of a nervous system which isalready working at capacity, it
does not produce spiritualelevation.
(02:29):
It produces more and moreexhaustion.
This happens because you'reignoring the biological limits
of your nervous system.
You are already doing a lot inthe name of striving without
having it given that namevisibly, because your actions
are not fitting the traditionaldefinition of striving.
So without knowing thebiological limits of your
(02:51):
nervous system, what is meant tobe devotion becomes a slow
motion self-destruction.
Most religious conversationsabout striving assume a neutral
starting point, a nervous systemthat is healed and calm.
What is being assumed thateveryone begins their spiritual
journey with the same emotionalbandwidth, and this assumption
(03:13):
is false.
A lot of Muslim women areperforming constant emotional
labor that goes completelyunrecognized.
If you are regulating yourchildren's emotions, if you're
anticipating your husband'smoods to keep him calm, if
you're maintaining familyrelationships, you're managing
the mental load of running ahousehold and you're carrying
(03:34):
all of these responsibilitieswithout being recognized for
them.
And I don't mean recognized inregards to validation.
I mean recognized as beingrecognized that this is work
that you're actually doing.
This is not passivity.
You are actively involved inspending energy and time and
attention, which takes hugeresources on your part as a
(03:57):
human being.
It is a complex interpersonalregulation that occurs all day
long around you.
You are striving very hard inpreserving harmony of your
family.
So when spiritual advice ignoresthis reality, women are judged
as spiritually weaker when infact they're already expending
enormous psychological energysimply keeping the ecosystem of
(04:20):
their families or theirworkplaces functioning.
And yes, this invisibleemotional labor also happens in
workplaces, where even in thecorporate world women are
usually assigned the role ofpeacekeepers.
So this invisible labor thatmostly consists of mental tasks,
of holding ground duringemotional crisis, of
(04:42):
anticipating needs, of attuningto everyone, helping everyone
else maintain theirpsychological safety, being the
translator between two humansthat are not able to understand
each other, but you understandwhat they're saying, and you're
carrying that mental load ofcommunication.
All of the tasks and the choresthat are being done in
(05:03):
preventing conflict so that youcan anticipate a problem so it
doesn't happen.
And of course this is gonnacount as invisible labor because
how are you gonna account forsomething that didn't transpire?
Like a conflict that you wereable to prevent.
So overall, acting as theemotional climate control is
intense labor.
(05:25):
And this also includes mealplanning, grocery inventories,
keeping track of everyone'sappointments and their
nutritional needs and theirpreferences, household
logistics, coordinatingchildren's lives and drop-offs
and pickups and play dates, alsobeing the maintainer of extended
family relationships,remembering birthdays, buying
(05:46):
their presents, planningparties, understanding and
fulfilling everyone's lovelanguages.
And I mean I can go on and onand on.
Now mind you, I'm onlymentioning this mostly as it
relates to households, butagain, women take this invisible
labor on in workplaces as well,where they're working for money
(06:06):
and they're also working withoutmoney in this capacity because
they're carrying the mental loadof the extra logistics and not
getting paid for it.
So this leads me to talk aboutand recognize the productivity
trap in a woman's spirituality.
In a world where your worth ismeasured by productivity and
labor, what I just mentioneddoes not count as productivity.
(06:29):
Then everything a woman doesdoesn't count towards her
spirituality, which is a real,real shame.
Because a woman is alreadystriving when she's doing all of
these things for the sake ofAllah.
What I'm recommending in thispodcast is that you start
counting it towards yourstriving, in which case you
might start to notice that youare already striving hard, very,
(06:52):
very hard.
So if you don't clean thesedefinitions up in your mind and
you don't elevate your mindsetaround this, what happens is if
you hear all of your life thatyou need to strive harder,
you're going to interpret it assacrifice more and more of
yourself.
In the meanwhile, you're alreadyat the border of a complete
nervous breakdown and you'rebarely holding yourself
(07:13):
together.
But you want to strive harderbecause you don't think what
you're already doing counts.
And this leads to learning a lotof lessons around guilt trap
that you have around rest.
Because the most damagingpsychological pattern that you
might carry as a woman is theinherent belief that
self-prioritization, any kind ofrejuvenation or recovery is
(07:35):
selfish.
If you rest, to you it will feellike laziness, and if that's the
case, you're striving from amale predominant viewpoint of
spirituality, which is notinherently wrong or right in its
own merit.
It just doesn't apply to you.
If you don't heal around thislevel of spirituality, which is
(07:55):
very appropriate for women, andthat continues to happen long
enough, then your nervous systemis gonna start associating
worship with constant pressureand guilt rather than peace and
tranquility, which is what it'ssupposed to be majority of the
time.
And this is very, very tragic.
This is why I ask you not tostrive harder blindly, but to
(08:18):
evaluate your life of whatyou're already doing that is
considered hard work.
After listening to this podcast,I want you to start counting
your acts of invisible labortowards your striving.
Up until now you might havejudged your spirituality by
visible outputs, as in how manypages you have memorized and how
extended your prayers have been.
(08:40):
But you cannot possibly matchthis output of worship with
someone with much fewerresponsibilities than you.
And when you can't performspirituality at that level, and
you secretly start to believethat your spirituality is
inferior because so much of yourstriving is going unseen, then
striving harder is gonna turninto a rat race for you.
(09:02):
Maybe striving for you is theinvisible labor of healing
yourself, trauma recovery.
Continuing on your journey ofthe Skiathanops, start expanding
your definition of striving.
You have to start seeing that somuch of your daily life already
contains countless acts ofworship and sacrifice that are
immensely spirituallysignificant.
(09:24):
It is okay if they remainculturally invisible.
Me, you all of us are workingtowards making them more
visible, but other people'sacknowledgements of your
striving has nothing to do ifyou're striving harder or not.
And this is very lucky for usbecause this matter is between
you and Allah.
Culturally invisible striving,Alhamdulillah still remains
(09:47):
striving to Allah subhanahu wata'ala, because the command is
to strive.
It's not to make your strivinglook exactly the same as other
people or what they approve of.
And I especially want you toremember this because there is a
structural advantage that somepeople have that you might not
have access to because noteveryone has the support system
(10:07):
that you personally are creatingfor the people around you.
Not everyone is starting theirspiritual race at the same
starting line.
A lot of people have logisticaladvantages that allow them to
perform the visible acts ofprayer more easily.
And believe it or not, you arethe one who's putting that
structure in place that givesthem a clean home to return to,
(10:31):
a home with a prepared meal, allof the pre-planning that you've
done, and all of the forecastingon meeting the needs of
everyone.
Because you're just so good atanticipating all of the needs
that other people have that itcreates a scaffolding in place
where the rest of them canstrive harder while you're
striving to put the structureinto place that is going
(10:53):
completely unnoticed.
Their spiritual output mightlook like that it's more because
it's being supported byindividuals like you who are
performing the invisible labor.
So anyone who comes to a homewhen the home is clean, meals
are prepared, children are takencare of, and the environment is
right for them to rest andrecover their cognitive and
(11:15):
emotional functions, then theycan pursue extended studies,
they can pursue memorization andprolonged worship routines, and
no shade if this is what you'vechosen, meaning you provide this
level of comfort and service toother human beings, but then
also don't undermine yourspirituality just because it's
not being seen as typicalworship.
(11:37):
So what I'm trying to do isreframe for you what striving
means.
It is not a fixed formula.
It does not mean memorizingpages and pages and leaving the
home in search of spiritualeducation.
It does not mean constantnightly worship.
It might mean all of that, butit doesn't have to if you cannot
accommodate all of that.
(11:59):
You are welcome to mean that theextended worship is striving for
you if it is available to you,and you already have a structure
in place for yourself where youcan do it sustainably without
burning out.
It can also mean remembrance ofAllah while doing your daily
tasks.
The value of striving lies inthe sincerity and the
(12:21):
sustainability as a form ofdevotion, and if a type of
devotion is destroying yourpersonal well being, then simply
stay away from it, because youwill lose your religion while
trying to keep up with theJoneses.
Again, a big biological truththat the main spiritual
discourse overlooks is that anoverwhelmed nervous system goes
(12:43):
through burnout in the name ofstriving just because it cannot
access higher and higher statesof constant reflection and
presence.
Because a woman who's takingcare of others, a business,
family, pets, this state ofdedication might not simply be
available to you without thebrain shifting into survival
(13:04):
mode.
And then on top of this,associated with all of this is a
false heroism of exhaustion.
Because if you consider yourspirituality as the same as
being exhausted all of the time,your striving is going to become
very self punitive, and it'sgoing to take you further away
from Allah rather than closer toHim.
(13:24):
Allow yourself the striving thatyou are already doing and also
allow yourself the devotion thatreplenishes you, the one that
makes you grounded and peacefuland more connected to others and
Allah, the striving that takesyou towards tranquility and
peace, and out of chronicstress.
Best striving is the one that'ssustainable, even though when
(13:48):
it's going through cycles ofexertion and sustainable
practices and it respects therealities of your life, your
circumstances, your emotionalcapacity and your
responsibilities.
So one way you can start to askthe question is rather than if
am I striving enough?
Ask yourself is the way I'mcurrently striving bringing me
(14:09):
closer to Allah or bringing mecloser to burnout?
Because if you've learnedanything here, it is that
striving is contextual.
It is aligning with yourdevotion to a life that you're
given instead of replicatingsomebody else's routine.
Since human beings are notliving with identical operating
systems and they're not runningon same programs, striving must
(14:32):
exist inside your reality ofyour personal life.
Emotional labor being one of themost misunderstood forms of
human work is real neurologicaleffort.
It involves regulating your ownemotions while simultaneously
stabilizing everyone else's.
It involves rememberinginterpersonal details, managing
(14:53):
conflict, constantly processingcomplex social information.
The effort required to maintaingroundedness under these
conditions is rarely recognizedas striving.
Yet it is one of the mostdemanding forms of striving that
exists.
Modern societies measure valuethrough economic productivity.
(15:14):
If an activity produces goods,generates money, increases
measurable output, those are allconsidered labor.
If it maintains relationships,nurtures emotions, protects
psychological health, all ofthat is dismissed as just part
of life.
And this bias is what creates adangerous illusion.
(15:35):
Illusion that emotional labor isnot real work.
In reality, emotional labor iswhat allows productive systems
to function at all.
A person who is emotionallysupported and feels relationally
secure is far more capable ofperforming visible achievements.
Emotional labor is theinfrastructure beneath
(15:57):
productivity.
When this infrastructurecollapses, everything built on
top begins to fall also.
The danger of invisibility ofthis labor leads to internalized
ableism by Muslim women andspiritual comparison.
What that means is when youcompare your striving to people
that have more structuraladvantages than you, you are
(16:19):
internalizing a form ofspiritual ableism.
You assume that if you cannotmatch someone else's level of
output, it means that you areless disciplined or less sincere
in your faith.
And this is such a poisonousbelief system that women carry,
and it is far more common thanyou think.
I happen to believe that thoughtfor the longest time, and this
(16:42):
comparison creates a beliefsystem that punishes you for
having limits.
It assumes that everyone shouldperform devotion with the same
capacity regardless of theiremotional or relational burdens.
True spiritual insightrecognizes that effort must be
measured relative to a person'scontext, not against some
(17:02):
universal abstract ideal.
Which is why both solitude andserving in community are
different forms of striving.
Different nervous systemsrequire different environments
for restoration.
For some women, striving mayinvolve seeking community so
they can share emotional burdensand feel supported.
(17:22):
For others, striving may meanprotecting solitude because
their daily lives are saturatedwith social demands.
Neither approach is superior.
Both are strategies formaintaining equilibrium for your
nervous system in a way thatsupports you being able to
strive in the path of Allah.
Internalized ableism is when youdon't believe your efforts to be
(17:46):
efforts and you want to performat a higher level that you think
others are able to perform at.
I want you to become the radicalvalidator of your striving as a
woman.
When you are performing animmense emotional labor, you are
already striving.
You're striving throughpatience, through restraint,
through leadership, throughcaregiving, through maintaining
(18:09):
stability, because otherwise allof those environments would
easily become overwhelming if itwasn't for your labor.
And when someone with fewer ofthese responsibilities lectures
you about striving harder, theymay unknowingly be overlooking
the enormous effort that you'realready exerting.
The value of striving is notdetermined by how visible it is
(18:33):
or how easily it can bemeasured.
The value of striving lies inthe effort of your heart, the
discipline of your mind, and thesincerity of your action.
This is the definition that westarted with.
So then start asking, what formof striving allows my heart to
remain steady?
What allows it to remainanchored and connected while
(18:55):
honoring the responsibilitiesthat I already carry?
Your nervous system capacitydetermines the shape of your
striving.
Your mind and your body will letyou know what your striving
looks like, and your job is tocontinue to optimize it.
InshaAllah we all have thebandwidth to do more and more,
and inshaAllah you have thephysical energy and the
(19:18):
logistical support to wake upfor Kayamul every night, to
attend classes regularly, tomemorize large portions of
Quran.
And if that is the case,Alhamdulillah, and it is most
likely that your life alreadycontains structures and systems
in place that support thisrhythm.
When your nervous system is wellsupported, it becomes easier to
(19:41):
perform the forms of strivingthat otherwise are widely
recognized and celebrated.
But this capacity is notuniversal.
Your striving may not look likelong nights of uninterrupted
prayer.
It may look like maintainingkindness with colleagues when
sheer exhaustion would makeirritation much easier.
So your striving must bepersonalized.
(20:03):
Allow your striving to evolve.
As your life changes, as yourresponsibilities shift, as your
capacities grow, as you put insystems and structures in place
to support your striving,continue to create and evolve
through different forms ofworship that may expand.
And through all of that, thecommand of striving still
(20:26):
applies to you.
The call to strive remainscentral to spiritual life.
Growth requires effort, no doubtabout that, but it must be
directed wisely.
It should challenge you withoutbreaking you.
When striving is aligned withyour capacity, it produces
upliftment, and you feel closerto Allah, and every sincere
(20:49):
effort is fully recognized byAllah.
With that I pray to Allah, YaAllah, you know the effort in my
heart and the labor that no oneelse might see.
Accept my every moment that Istrive towards you, whether it's
in prayer or patience, serviceor solitude, give me wisdom to
(21:11):
strive in ways that bring mecloser to you without harming my
body and mind.
Protect me from comparison andburnout.
Let my striving be sincere andsustainable, and make every
hidden act done for your sakeheavy on my scale on the day of
judgment.
Amin Yar Bulal Amin.
Please keep me in your draas, Iwill talk to you guys next time.
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