Recently, I posted an Instagram Q&A story. The overwhelming theme was about struggling with tawakul, staying the course when it gets tough, when to let go and when to move on. In the online world of ‘instant manifestation’ and romanticised lifestyles, it’s easy to lose yourself. Like hellooo, why isn’t your life catching up? Why does nothing seem to change? When is it finally going to work out for you?
All this external noise distorts your sense of time. Miracles happen every day. Allah can make the impossible happen overnight. Your duas are enormously powerful. But I want you to know that those closest to Allah, the Prophets and righteous were tested with years upon years of patience. Some, even decades.
All this to say – a delay in your duas is not a denial of your duas. A delay in your duas doesn’t mean you’re missing out. The absence of your duas can be meet with the fullness of your life. You’re not lagging behind and that is what we’re going to discuss today, creating calmness and steadfastness in the journey. Feeling enriched in Allah’s decree instead of feeling deprived. Let’s begin!
1) How long is too long?
For 18 years, Prophet Ayyub (alayhi salam) endured illness so severe that his wife, Rahma, described him as “hanging between life and death.” Yet through every moment of pain, he expressed his gratitude to Allah.
Prophet Yusuf (alayhi salam) stood before the king and explained his dream that foretold 7 years of abundance, followed by 7 years of famine and hardship.
Despite his old age, Prophet Zakariyya (alayhi salam) never gave up hope of having a child. Though his bones had become weak and his hair had turned grey, Allah answered his dua with the miracle of a son, Yahya – a name chosen by Allah Himself.
This is where ‘manifestation’ gets it wrong. Trials and hardships are not always a sign that you’re doing something wrong. It doesn’t always mean you’re out of alignment. How long a dua takes to happen rarely matters in the end. When you understand that hardships are apart of life, you stop taking it personally. It’s not a moral failure if you’re struggling right now.
If anything, hardships and trials are apart of life. I don’t say that in a pessimistic way but to realise that life rarely goes as planned. It’s not meant to. And Allah is still above every limitation and setback that you can think of.
2) Your Point Of Attraction
Your point of attraction is the centre point of your dominant thoughts and feelings. Have you ever started your day on the wrong foot and everything seemed to get worse? Have you ever forced your way into making a dua happen only for it to backfire? Does every road feel blocked?
This is a call to tend to your inner world. The resistance and ‘failure’ you receive out there is often a nudge to look within. It’s learning that your actions alone does not bring forth an outcome except with trust and hopefulness in Allah. Your point of attraction is reflected in your attitude and outlook. If you’re feeling stuck in the trenches, check in with your heart. Are your thoughts becoming too heavy? Are you on the verge of breaking down? As you tend to your inner world, your point of attraction changes. You’ll feel lighter, you’ll radiate joy and you’ll attract better opportunities. You give more goodness to the world and your days will be filled with barakah.
3) Stay Away From Sinning
“Nothing repels fate except supplication and nothing increases one’s life span except righteousness; and a man may be deprived of provision by a sin that he commits.” (Sunan Ibn Majah)
Ibn Qayyim writes ‘… Just as piety is a reason for attaining provisions, abandoning it is a reason for poverty. The provisions of Allah have never been gained by anything as powerful as the abandonment of sins.’ (The Disease and The Cure)
What do you want now?
But what do you want most?
Anytime you sin, you’re indulging in the present moment and giving into your nafs. Your nafs is attracted to immediate gratification and temporary distraction. Meaning… deep down, you don’t even want that sin for yourself anyways. When you sin, you become flaky in your desires. It’s like settling for droplets, when your heart is yearning for the ocean. A sin is a temporary distraction at best.
This is between you and Allah. If you know that a sin could be blocking your rizq, commit to letting it go. Don’t beat yourself up over it but stay the course and fight the good fight.
4) Regulate Your Nervous System
The tricky thing about regulating your nervous system is that you can think you’re fine until you’re not. You can be okay 90% of the time but if a single trigger causes you to spiral to a dark, heavy place, there’s healing to be done. This is why staying busy and distracted rarely works long term. Staying busy and staying aligned to your heart are not the same.
There is so much out there on healing your nervous system. I wrote an entire post on healing trauma, which you can read here. The most important part is to actually heal the wound. Everyone on social media is dancing around the wound – breathwork, honest conversations, spending time in nature, mediating, even traditional therapy are great tools but until you sit down with your heart, feel and address the wounds (why your brain is dysregulated in the first place), nothing else will work long term.
How many practicing people do you know that are mentally struggling? Because taqwa and iman is the foundation, you still have to tend your mind.
5) Wait Without Anxiety
If you go deep into the manifesting world, there’s a whole spiel around not waiting for your desires. Living as though you have it – there’s some truth to that. Tapping into the energy of what you want attracts it to you. You tend to your inner world, creating shifts in your thoughts, feeling and beliefs that aligns you to your heart’s desires.
But it’s so obviously not here yet. If you take it too far, it can become a little ridiculous. Like of course you’re waiting for your duas. How could you not?
Noticing the absence of your duas is not a lack mindset or scarcity based thinking. However, noticing the absence of your duas and then spiralling, creating negative dialogue from it, doubting Allah’s decree, questioning the how, tying your worth to it… that is negative thinking which can slow everything down.
Embrace the wait. Wait without anxiety.
You can acknowledge the absence of a desire and still live a very full life. Perhaps, the delay in your duas is to teach you to decentre your worth around this worldly life and back to Allah. The things that you’re longing for – security, love, connection, happiness can be found in this moment too. When you decentre your desires, there’s a shift in your identity. You’re no longer chasing and passively hoping but fully knowing that Allah is your sole provider.
6) Seek Out Support
A life coach/mentor can see your blindspots. Sometimes, you’re so emotionally clogged up that you can’t separate your thoughts from reality. A coach will help you untangle your beliefs and work through emotions that keep you stuck in the past. A coach will anchor your focus, instead of floating through life hoping that it’ll work out, you’re aligned, sincere in your intention and positive in your action steps.
Build for yourself a tribe of women that you can rely on again and again. You don’t have to do this alone, reach out to your friends and family and also seek out proper support. A life coach will hold you to a standard that your friends may not. You need a space where you can be completely open and vulnerable – that’s how we get to the root of transforming your life.
7) Increase In Ibadah
When you are tested in this life and inevitably things don’t go as planned, come back to Allah feverishly. With haste and earnestness, like your life depends on it. Do not let this worldly life fool you – I get it, everyone is busy with increasing their income, planning extra activities for their children, renovating homes, fun holidays but that is not the purpose of your life. Tend to this life because Allah has given you this magnificent blessings of life but never let it consume you.
Your inner state in Islam matters so much. Time and time again, there are plenty of ayahs and hadith which call you towards sincerity, eagerness to worship Allah, taqwa behind your actions. Your physical ibadah is crucial and so is the purity of your heart. Are you going through a rough patch? Time to laser focus on your ibadah more than ever. It’s you and Allah, let every other concern of this life be secondary.
“If you were to rely upon Allah with the reliance He is due, you would be given provision like the birds: They go out hungry in the morning and come back with full bellies in the evening.” (Sunan Ibn Majah)
8) Create Art
The woman who feels too much needs an outlet to channel her emotions. If one part of your life feels too heavy, pour that pain into creating some form of art. With pen to paper, write to express your heart, cook for self-love and nurturing others, bake for the joy and warmth it brings, perfect your tajweed and recite quran beautifully out loud, expand your curiosity into a varying of topics and physically transmute that grief into art. There’s something about putting your hands to work that becomes so freeing.
9) Create Space
There’s something about cleansing your heart, decluttering your life and stripping away that creates space for the things that you truly desire. If your heart is yearning for love and deep connection, what are you focusing on? That you don’t have it? Then tell me, how is love going to enter a closed off heart? If you’re longing for a child, have you cleared out space for when your child will inevitably come? Are you nourishing your body in preparation of carrying your baby?
What would it be like to have your deepest duas come true?
Have you given your mind the space to beautifully conjure it up? To long for it without feeling deprived? Look into your environment, your daily habits, your dominant thoughts and assess whether these parts of your life are propelling you to the next stage or keeping you stuck where you are. Even down to the way you dress at home or the way you eat. Is it self-sabotage or are you priming your mind for the next step of your life?
10) The Readiness In Your Heart
Follow all the suggestions above and it will amplify the feeling of certainty in your heart. The certainty that Allah is here and He will provide for you. It will come and you don’t have to worry about timings and delays. It will come to you and you won’t have to hold on for your dear life. The readiness in your heart is a state that you keep coming back to. It’s not a permanent state – you’ll dip in and out.
The readiness in your heart – you’ve abandoned sinning, your heart is obsessed with worshipping Allah, your days are filled with barakah, life is in full bloom and Allah will provide for every one of your needs and more.
P.S. The woman you’re becoming isn’t created by consuming more but through inner embodiment, healing, intention, and the courageous choice to grow.
If you’re ready to heal the patterns that have kept you stuck in the past, strengthen your tawakul, create a life that feels deeply aligned with Allah’s decree and your deepest duas and desires, book a free 20-minute coaching call. I’d love to hear from you xx