The Choices We Neglect (3/3): The Secret of Happiness

In this article, I want to mention a very important aspect about personal well-being. It is that one thing which can directly change your inner state from negative to positive.

Pleasure - A Human Need

Pleasure is a natural human need. It is the right of every human being to feel and experience pleasure. However, it is very often neglected, looked down upon and even misused. Sadly, most of the people are being unaware of the fact that one of the reasons behind the human need for pleasure, is for bringing more peace to the world. Many people might be shocked while reading this, but let's clarify this with the example of a delicious meal. When people gather to have a delicious meal together, the atmosphere is being uplifted drastically. Everyone seems to be more kind and more accepting to one another and people start giving more love to one another. The entire dining room will fill with peace and joy. And during that time, people want to forget about fights and arguments and they start to remember the blessings of life.

Pleasure has many benefits. Anything that is fun and pleasurable for you can drastically fill you with positive energy and make you feel great. There are many different ways in which a person can experience pleasure. Everyone has their own preference of pleasure, it is not always one and the same for all. So you need to find for yourself what it is that makes you have fun and experience pleasure. It can be anything; starting from enjoying a delicious meal, visiting beautiful places, getting a massage, swimming, playing games, to watching, hearing, reading, seeing or doing things that fill your heart with joy and make you feel good. 

Pleasure is often neglected because most of the time it is associated with immoral, harmful and illegal behaviour. This is the reason why people cut out pleasure altogether, without realizing that there are actually enough of pleasure sources in the world which are not immoral, harmful or illegal. The truth is that, if we don't allow ourselves to experience pleasure in the right way, our body and mind will subconsciously look for alternative ways for pleasure, which are often not very healthy. This results in illegal actions and destruction of the self, such as falling into addictions. Pleasure is a human need. If we don't allow ourselves to experience pleasure, we will get trapped into the wrong ways for experiencing it. Therefore, if we look for ways to experience pleasure in the right way, we will not only stay protected from the wrong and unhealthy means for pleasure but we will also be able to fill ourselves with powerful, positive energy which will in turn make us a magnet to more positivity in life. 

Another misunderstood aspect about pleasure is that of being a time-waster. Someone might say that doing things that give you pleasure is unproductive and a waste of time, and in order to have a successful life we have to spend our time in doing good deeds and being productive. The answer to this is that, when we always work and neglect our natural human needs and desires, we will become weak and exhausted soon. We will lose and fall short of good energy and our progress will slow down. We will even end up losing motivation and inspiration to do good deeds. And when we continue forcing ourselves to work, regardless of how we feel, we will end up like a robot or a machine, being numb and "lifeless". The work that we do will no longer come from an internal drive and passion. This will result in a decrease of the quality of our work. But when we fulfill our human needs, such as that of pleasure and fun, then we will fill ourselves with fresh, positive energy. This will help us to do even more good deeds and being even more productive. This will also enhance the quality of our work. Basically, every extreme is damaging, wrong and harmful - be it work or enjoyment. There has to be a balance and moderation in everything we do in life. 

I conclude by saying that every good thing (thought/word/action/emotion/feeling) is coming from a place of peace and love, and every bad thing (thought/word/action/emotion/feeling) comes from a place of fear. Peace and love are the opposite of fear. One can either experience one or the other, but not both at the same time. So once you live a life of peace and love, you will attract more good into your life and your positive vibes will serve as a protective shield against negativity. In the same way, when you live a life of fear, then this negativity will develop into an illusional wall, which will blind you from positivity, and you will only be able to see and find more negative things in your life. 

About the Author

Sumayah U.R. is the Chief Executive Officer at Inspired Living Counselling enterprises. She is the author of the book The Relationship between Islam and Modern Science. She has a BA in Islamic Studies and a Certificate in Education from the Islamic Online University. 

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The Choices We Neglect (2/3): Choosing Peace over Fear [Islamized Version]

If we want to live a life that is beneficial for us and for the rest of the world, then we have no other choice but to be positive from the inside, because only then the world can change from negative to positive. This is especially true for the people that we care for; if we want them to be happy and in a good state, we shouldn't continuously hold on to fears about them. So often we fear them to get sick or to fail in life, or we fear to lose them, even if they are in a good state and even if they are with us. But due to our constant fears and negative emotions, this fear will slowly manifest itself and become reality. This is why most people say, "I knew that this was about to happen." The truth is that they themselves have given birth to this situation with their daily thoughts and emotions. They have chosen the negative instead of the positive. They have chosen feelings of fear and confusion over calmness and peace. The choice was still theirs. It is much easier to focus on the positive when everything is good, than to focus on the positive when everything is bad due to your fears and negativity having already manifested into reality. But it is never too late and we still have the choice every moment of life. We can either choose the good or choose the bad. The choice is ours. 

On this note I will share with you a prophetic narration by the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), in which he said, "None of you should die except while assuming the best about Allah." (Sahih Muslim, 5125) 

There are many different interpretations and explanations out there for this particular narration, but its main theme is that of thinking positive and to have good assumptions.

When it comes to your personal lives and goals, if you want a positive life, you must choose to select the positive every single day. For this, it is so important for you to know what it is that you can do that will help you to feel more positive, and you should choose to do those things every day, so that your internal state becomes positive. This is how your reality will change and improve. One very important concept is to always take care of your resources - which are your body, mind and soul. To know more about how to take care of your resources, read my article The First Step towards Peace of Mind: Storing Your Resources.

It is important that you observe your internal state and look at your choices throughout the day. Also look at what makes you feel good and what makes you feel bad. Find out what makes you happy and what makes you sad. Start to choose only those thoughts, feelings, words, actions and emotions which make you feel good and make your internal state positive and avoid those which make your internal state negative. This is the only way to success for us all. When we overcome our fears and choose the good, we will also become more courageous to do things which we would otherwise never do due to our fears, and this way we will start moving towards success faster.

In the 3rd and last part of this article, I will share with you an oft-neglected human need, which is mostly being intentionally neglected and looked down upon by the society due to a number of false beliefs and misconceptions that we have developed about it. I will share with you what that need is and how you can use that to drastically change your inner state from negative to positive. I will also write about the misconceptions and misunderstandings about it and how we can resolve them.

About the Author

Sumayah U.R. is the Chief Executive Officer at Inspired Living Counselling enterprises. She is the author of the book The Relationship between Islam and Modern Science. She has a BA in Islamic Studies and a Certificate in Education from the Islamic Online University. 

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How to Forgive (2/2)

In order to forgive in an easy way, it is important to follow the correct strategy. To make forgiveness easy is to change your perspective towards forgiveness. There is one common perspective which many people have, which is often ineffective on the long run, and which makes forgiveness so difficult.

To say, "It's OK what they did or do to me. No matter how much injustice is being done to me, I give in, I forgive, and I humble myself down because I am a good person, I have a big heart and I shouldn't get angry or over-reactive."

The problem with this way of forgiveness is that;

• you make yourself down
• you give others the permission to hurt you endlessly
• you are feeding your mind with a self-damaging and harmful belief that "getting hurt                  and being oppressed is part of being a good person"
• you are settling for lesser than you actually deserve

All of these points are a big threat to your ego. It forces your ego to defend itself and to stop you from forgiving. Here, even if you try your level best to fight against your ego and to pull through with this strategy, on the long run, the effect of such an inner war will unfortunately lead to more harm than good. 

What is the result of maintaining this strategy?

Unresolved trauma and unprocessed rage. This creates pressure inside of you and gives you feelings of anger and depression which will kind of "explode" or show up during the most unexpected moments where you don't have any control over it. And very often, this type of an emotional explosion can lead to even more broken hearts and more broken glasses than if you wouldn't have tried to forgive at first place.

Seriously, what is the use of this drama? Ain't nobody got time to relax?!

So instead of the above, there is another strategy that is much more effective and which will not only make forgiveness easy but it will also raise you above the pain and the hurt. Now this is what makes you a real good person, right? So keep reading...

This is what you should be thinking while trying to forgive someone;

"Whatever they do, has no power over me without my permission. Whatever they do is never meant against me. It is a reflection of their own weakness and suffering. They deserve mercy from me due to their low state. They don't need my revenge and anger because by doing what they do, they harm themselves the most.  They are the ones who are the most hurt. Whatever pain or damage their behaviour has caused me, it has happened for a valuable reason and it has to teach me an important lesson. I will take it as a learning experience for my own good. I allow this experience to improve my own life and to become wiser, stronger and more successful than before. So I learn my lesson, I forgive and I let go."

May you, the reader, become free from all your pains and live a life of joy, prosperity and eternal peace!

About the Author

Sumayah U.R. is the Chief Executive Officer at Inspired Living Counselling enterprises. She is the author of the book The Relationship between Islam and Modern Science. She has a BA in Islamic Studies and a Certificate in Education from the Islamic Online University. 

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How to Forgive (1/2)

Many of us find it difficult to forgive people. Very often we wish we could just forgive and then let go of that negative and disturbing feeling existing within us towards those people, but when we try then there seems to be a part inside of us that doesn't want to let go. It seems like wanting to hold on to that negative feeling. Why is it so?

It's often because we fear self-harm, which is why we can't forgive easily. Whereas in reality, not forgiving others is what actually harms us the most. But why do we relate forgiveness to self-harm? It's because deep inside we have this false belief that 'when we forgive others and let go of what they did to us, then we are giving in and allowing injustice to be done to us without defending and protecting ourselves'. It is a natural human instinct to defend oneself. If it wasn't for self-defence, the human race wouldn't be able to survive and develop any further. This natural instinct of self-defence, together with the false belief of forgiveness being self-harming, is what makes forgiveness so difficult.

Now in order to rise above the level of incapability and become able to forgive easily, we must first identify and acknowledge our underlying beliefs and instincts towards forgiveness. Then we must replace our false, disempowering beliefs with powerful beliefs about forgiveness, ourselves and about other people.

It's important to know that people harm you not because of you, it is because of them. Just as the common quote says, "Hurt people hurt." Those who hurt others are often the ones who are badly hurt themselves. And no matter what others do to you, they and their actions don't have any power over you until you allow them to control your feelings and until you allow their actions to make yourself suffer. Therefore, you must first stop harming yourself by stopping to allow everyone's behaviour to control your feelings. In order for you to stop harming yourself, you must let go of whatever feeling, emotion or thought makes you feel bad. Now it's not about what happened or what others did, now it's about your reaction, and about how you perceive things and how you make yourself feel and think about them.

The more you allow people, things or thoughts to make you feel bad, the more you hand over power to them and thus make yourself powerless. When you let go of every feeling, thought and emotion that doesn't make you feel good, then you are taking the power back and become an unshakable person. This is what makes you highly confident and strong.

In order to forgive easily, it is important to follow the correct strategy. To make forgiveness easy is to change your perspective towards forgiveness. There is one common perspective which many people have, which is often ineffective on the long run, and which makes forgiveness so difficult.

To know about this failing way of forgiveness and learn a new and effective strategy, which will not only make forgiveness easy but will also raise you above all pains, read the second part of this article How to Forgive (2/2).

Happy reading!

About the Author

Sumayah U.R. is the Chief Executive Officer at Inspired Living Counselling enterprises. She is the author of the book The Relationship between Islam and Modern Science. She has a BA in Islamic Studies and a Certificate in Education from the Islamic Online University. 

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The Choices We Neglect (1/3): Reasons for Failure in Life [Islamized Version]

Disclaimer: This article is about making certain choices which allow us to live a life that is filled with joy, success, love, happiness and positivity most of the time. After reading this article, some readers may get questions in their mind like, "but a life without problems and living in constant happiness seems too unrealistic because we all know that life can never be happy and smooth all the time." My answer for these types of question is that it is true that life can never be happy and smooth all the time because sometimes there are rainy days and sometimes there are sunny days. And we can't do anything about it. The truth is that, we need rainy days in order to value the sunny days and vice versa. Polarity and change are necessary for progress and advancement in life. Therefore, sometimes even if we try our best to live a positive life, we'll still experience negative situations every now and then. And it is totally fine, because only through negative situations we can learn how to be more positive and only after facing negativity we can embrace positivity and experience more of it into our life. Especially when we embark on a journey towards a good and positive life, we will get to experience sometimes really hard times but when we look closely, we'll find that these hard times are actually benefitting us on our journey towards our goals and dreams. The more positivity a person is aiming for, the more negativity they have to experience and learn from. At the end of the day, we are not our own God. There is a higher source which knows better than us, what is right for our best progress and advancement. And that higher source is always helping us to achieve our best lives. So our biggest challenge and duty in life is to focus on the positive even when times get tough and to always trust the progress and remain positive and hopeful through every situation. I swear that the results which you will experience after maintaining a positive mindset through hard situations, will be a real triumph and success. Once you experience that, it will further empower and encourage you to be more positive and to choose even more of the good in life. Hereby I encourage you to read my article Need for Speed or Need for Problem?

Now let us jump straight into the main theme of today's article: one of the biggest choices in life that is so often neglected by us is the choice for the good. By the good I mean everything that feels good, sounds good and looks good - every positive emotion, feeling, thought, action or words and everything that is based on peace and love. The truth is that the good and all its attributes is not something that one can achieve through luck. But it's a choice. It is a choice that we all can make every day. We all, no matter which part of the earth, no matter which circumstance in life, we always have the choice to either choose the good or choose the bad. And since our outside world is very often a reflection of our internal state, when we make our internal state good - such as through good thoughts, feelings and emotions, then our outside world will also change in a positive way. Hence the most well-known verse and statement: "The condition of people will not change until they change what is within themselves." (The Quran; Chapter 13, Verse 11)

This is the biggest truth. And this is also the reason why bad things happen to good people. It is because these people are holding on to fears, doubts, worries and different negative thoughts and emotions. Their internal state remains negative and therefore, their external world becomes a reflection of that. This is why some good people are living a life in which whatever they are afraid of will come true and manifest in their world. But the good news is that we have a choice. We are still given the choice every single day to fill ourselves with positive thoughts, emotions and feelings. And also to say things that are positive and to surround ourselves with positivity - such as positive people, and a beautiful environment.

Once you understand this concept, your whole life will change. 

In the 2nd part of this article, I will share with you how you can start living a life that is filled with more joy and happiness. The Choices We Neglect (2/3): Choosing Peace Over Fear

About the Author

Sumayah U.R. is the Chief Executive Officer at Inspired Living Counselling enterprises. She is the author of the book The Relationship between Islam and Modern Science. She has a BA in Islamic Studies and a Certificate in Education from the Islamic Online University. 

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