Addiction, Stress and Life's Challenges by Sh. Saad Tasleem | 877-Why-Islam

I said I am alaikum warahmatullahi but I can't do it, so now we are talking about

addiction

and

stress

, one of the things I want to talk about before we get to the main topic here, which is the topic of

addiction

treatment. and we

stress

that we as Muslims see addiction as 'and stress and problems in general in

life

as symptoms of a bigger problem or a bigger issue; However, that does not mean that the symptoms should not be treated, sometimes the symptoms do need to be treated and one of the things we understand as Muslims is that Islam emerged as a complete and perfect religion and therefore sometimes there are problems They may be symptoms, but that does not mean that we leave those problems aside when a person reaches a state of let's say clinical depression or their stress has become like a disease or addiction that has reached the state of disease, we do not leave that aside and say you know what you need to fix your connection with God and that's the only thing We'll fix it or solve all your problems, we treat the real problem or the symptom itself, sometimes it requires medication and sometimes it requires therapy, sometimes it requires counseling , etc., as Muslims we do not leave that aside. the prophet salallahu alaihe said that they said inna llaha Angela da ones Ella Dawa that Allah Spano T Allah has sent the diseases and Allah has also sent the Fattah dellwo of the cure, so look for the cures, so it is part of being a good Muslim and part of being a practicing Muslim religion is that we don't have this blind kind of trust in Allah span to Allah, proper trust in Allah Spano tiada involves putting your trust in Allah, but also taking the means and if you look at the

life

of the from the prophet Muhammad until he sends them and from almost all the prophets, you will see that this is a lesson that Allah taught all the prophets, so if Allah wanted to give victory to the prophets or make their message well known, Allah could have done it. that very easily, but throughout history with each and every prophet that came, Allah always made them take the means and they went through difficulties and they went through - they went through trials and they went through many tribulations and all that and it was in that a sorrow lost on earth was teaching us a lesson that as Muslims as human beings we were going to have problems and we are going to have problems and yes, a big part of that is trusting in Allah and seeking His help. and trust in Allah and have strong faith and strong Iman and do everything possible to worship Allah spano Allah, but that does not mean that you do not take the real means that you have in front of you for these types of diseases.

For example, we don't leave aside the cures or we don't leave aside the treatments and say: you know what I'm just going to pray to God and God will solve all my problems. Yes, one ball from Allah has the ability to solve all our problems, but God Allah spent on I wants us through our difficulty to get closer to God and part of that is taking the means and as Muslims we believe that even when we take the means , even when we seek the cure, that It is Allah who puts the utmost care in that care, so, for example, if you go to therapy or whatever or you go to a psychiatrist because you are dealing with anxiety or stress or clinical depression or something like that, we think so in the advice there.

There may be a cure for the problem that someone is facing but at the end of the day it is Allah who will put the cure in the counseling and in everything that you are looking for now, that being said as a society and as human beings when you look. When you look at stress and you look at addiction, you look at those problems as Muslims, we believe that they are actually symptoms of a bigger problem and these are symptoms of a bigger problem, so if you were to break stress and addiction and this is not like that. just an Islamic perspective, but when it comes to addiction specifically, if you've ever attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting or if you've ever attended an NA and Narcotics Anonymous meeting, they usually take care of the problems, oh, it's not just of the specific addiction itself. but in terms of the bigger picture, I have a list of similar root causes or larger issues that generally surround the issue of stress and addiction in the first place, and this is probably one of the biggest issues that lead to stress, addiction or depression and that is a lack of inner peace, then a person is going through internal turmoil, they feel empty inside or they may feel very conflicted inside or they may feel that their life lacks any kind of direction or any kind of purpose and it depends a lot.

You even know the video they just played right now, the question they asked people is very interesting, they said what is your main goal in life, what do you want to achieve before you die and spend a lot, which caught my attention. was the girl who said I want to make it to the red carpet before I die, as if that was my goal in life and subhanAllah. I thought, "Okay, once you get to the red carpet, what happens after that?" our different goals for some people it's like you know I want to make a million dollars or I want to be famous I want I want this I want that or I want to live the American dream or I have my own house two kids a beautiful wife but all that kind of stuff, but the point is what happens after that and the Pat Allah of some people when they set, sometimes we set these goals for ourselves and in our minds they are like the end goals and we assume that once we achieve them goal, we will be completely happy in all our internal turmoil and internal problems and internal struggles that are somehow going to go away, like when you finally buy your five hundred thousand dollar house or whatever, or you finally have a house in the suburbs, or you finally make it to the red carpet. or finally, whatever your specific goal is in this life, somehow that inner turmoil is going to magically disappear and to panel us as Muslims we understand that part of being a Muslim is that we live for a greater and higher purpose, not that we don't We have goals and ambitions and all that in this life, but it is all part of a greater purpose and that is that we believe that Allah created us as four hits for his worship and that through his worship we achieve happiness and satisfaction not only in this life. life, that is, if our life is empty of that spirituality, that connection with our Creator, that worship of Allah, we are not going to feel that inner peace and, therefore, when we worship our Creator. worship the one who gave us life and takes life from us and provides us with some sustenance, all of that then we not only seek the happiness of this life, the true inner happiness, but also the happiness of the afterlife, which is a life eternal, and so on.

There is a lot of this topic of submission and the topic of you know, I know that many times people translate Islam as peace. Ryan, did anyone hear this before peace echoed, yeah, anyone, yeah, okay, I hope most of you heard this right. Islam equals peace in In a way, as Muslims, the word Islam goes back to peace in the sense that yes, Muslims are peaceful people, but also to the fact that in submission to God, in Submission to Allah is where true inner peace is found. A lot of times, like I said, we're dealing with this internal struggle, these internal problems, these internal problems and sometimes we fail to diagnose these things, we tell you things like I saw, but like I said, sometimes we tell ourselves things like the reason why I am.

I'm not really happy because I don't have my dream job yet or I haven't met my soulmate or the love of my life or whatever, whatever our goal is, when in reality that's not the real problem. The real problem really is that a person may be dealing with that internal struggle or what we call something known as spiritual emptiness where, as we know, Allah created us with different needs and different desires, part of those needs is the need to eat and drink. and being social beings and all that, but part of that is what we as Muslims call our fifth law and that is our natural disposition, which means that God created us to be spiritual beings and we are not really going to be at rest and peace and be calm until we are fulfilling that part or that part of our life also yes other things are important relationships are important living a comfortable life it is important to live safely that is important to have a social life yes that is important it is part of being a human being we have social needs but along with that you also have your spiritual needs and without those spiritual needs if you keep ignoring your spiritual needs if you keep telling yourself keep telling yourself that it is everything but my spirituality that sooner or later you will it will lead to a crisis that sooner or later you are going to have a problem and I hope it is while you are alive and while you are living at some point in your life and I went through this personally and I am sure many Muslims and many people have gone through this .

Through this, hopefully, is during your life where you realize or ask yourself the question: What is my life really about? What makes me get up in the morning? Why I do what I do? I wake up in the morning. Go to work. either I go to school, I spent eight hours there or I go to this job, and you know, okay, it's great, but I guess I spend a lot of my time watching cat videos on YouTube or something, but I go to this job and Everything I'm doing in life is fine and great and excellent, but at the end of the day, what is it really about and what is it all about?

And this is something that even psychologists often talk about on the topic of big oops! That big oops basically when you get to the end of your life and you look back on your life and you wonder what that was all about because I woke up every day at 5am. in the morning to have traffic to get to this job. Like I said, maybe you like it, maybe you don't like it, and you know I was in this turmoil every day, I worked so hard every day and now I'm sitting on my death bed and what was all that for at that time? and in that moment. when a person doesn't address that problem or ignores it and let's face it, it's very easy to just ignore that problem, it's very easy to say: I don't want to think about it, I just want to get on with it, it's more convenient to just live the life that I'm living and just maintain this pattern that I have for myself and that's why I often, when I talk especially to young people, I often ask young people this question.

I think a lot of young people don't like it. When asking this question, many Muslims sometimes tell the younger generation that you need to be a better Muslim, you need to pray, you need to do this and that and all those kinds of things and we never talk to them about the big questions. the biggest issues in terms of like okay, what is your life really about? What do you hope to achieve at the end of your life? What do you expect at the end of your life when you are sitting on your deathbed? and if God gives you that. opportunity where you actually have a moment of reflection, a lot of people don't really take advantage of that opportunity, some people die in a way where they don't anticipate the diet and Allah is in control of that, but that question of do you know if you are? on your deathbed and Allah has given you the opportunity to look back on your life, will you have an answer as to what your life was really about and really to find that purpose?

In Allah is where we find that inner peace and, as Muslims, part of our lives. al-qaida part of our faith part of our belief system part of our Creed is that the more we unite our hearts to the Creator the more free we feel that at the end of the day if our life is only about worldly things if it is only about money and generally let's be honest and bright you get off just a couple of things a few things or it's family, you know if you marry the perfect person, you have kids, blah blah, or it's money, or for some people it's fame or popularity, but it simply unravels a couple of things if in the end what you will surely do is a kind of shackle that you are putting on your soul and it is truly that when you really submit to Allah you submit to the creator when you really You will feel free and that is why if you have ever talked to a new Muslim or someone who is accepted, it is not recently, they often describe this experience of feeling immensely free and it is about you that would seem like something very contradictory when you know that there may be someone who lives a life basically doing what they like or the problem or living a lifestyle where you tell yourself if I feel good I will do it or so the Fae Irish pub that says: eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow you'll die, right, that's a life goal for some people, right, but if you move past that kind of lifestyle where you're pretty much, quote, unquote, free to do whatever you want.

If you feel good do it if you enjoy life do it you go from that to now praying five times a day not eating pork not drinking alcohol and all those other things how come you feel free? It is because that freedom is true. freedom is freedom of the heart it is freedom of the soul and that is why we as Muslims understand that difficulty is not the same as stress, difficulty has nowhy be equal to stress and anxiety, difficulty is part of everyone's life for the most part. part will go through some kind of difficulty it may be difficulty or difficulty of the body it may be difficulty of the mind it may be difficulty of medical difficulty or poverty or whatever it may be you may go through something in your life and that is part of life but that is not It means that you have to live in a state of anxiety or stress and it is really the heart that needs to be free and in this way, if you look at the Companions of the Prophet Muhammad, he said I send them and you will discover that they led incredibly difficult lives, incredibly difficult lives. in which they were constantly persecuted, constantly tortured, constantly had to fight even to survive and in a life like that you would imagine that they were happy, no.

So, you know, the kind of happiness where you are like it's a superficial happiness, it's a deep inner happiness where your heart really feels like you can soar and fly and it feels truly free and somehow as you you do. the story of the banana or how much I earned this fellow who is being tortured and you and the heat and they would take him there, lay him down in the middle of the desert at 140 degrees and put a burning rock in his chest. and he is his, his flesh would burn with how hot this rock was and I want you to think about how in that state, the banana, the assigned Iran felt truly free, felt truly at peace and truly at ease, and for us As Muslims that is the goal that no matter what life throws at us, no matter what we are going through, no matter what is happening around us, whether it is problems in our home, whether it is community problems, whether it is problems in society, whether politicians. issues whether it is natural disasters whether it is difficulties this and that loss of life diseases no matter what is happening in our life yes our body may be in our body may be uncomfortable our body may be facing some difficulty our body may be in pain but our The goal is for our hearts to be free and our hearts to be free in the submission of a lost Panther and that is why the Companions often spoke of how they were freed from the shackles of submission to this life or the things of this life and were free from the submission of God, the submission of a Lost Planet to Anna and as I said, that is something we all are as Muslims, it is our goal and that is what we want. for everyone else too and that's why subhanAllah, one of the things you often find is that new Muslims or people or Muslims who first practice their Deen are very, very active in calling other people to Islam.

Why isn't it because we as Muslims? Ratana takes over the world or anything, it's because you feel this immense freedom, you feel this immense ease and if you've been in that situation, you know what I'm talking about and you say, I want everyone else to feel like this. too and you feel like you've lived a life where you're basically blinded or chained only by your worldly desires, your Bain desires to eat, drink, eat, drink, have sex, have fun, that's what life is all about and now . you have a higher purpose, even if adalah, like I said, if you go back to if you look at like meetings and narcotics awareness meetings, one of the things they tell you in those meetings is that you have to have a higher purpose in life and obviously They don't define it, since they don't tell you what your highest purpose should be, but one of the points is that you need to live for something beyond yourself and beyond this moment. or this moment that you're living in because of the problems that you're dealing with these issues that you're dealing with this constriction that you feel like your life surrounds you and it surrounds your circumstances, but life is so much bigger than that and when you look at life and think about a higher purpose and seek to find purpose and meaning in your life, that is a way to free yourself from that type of restriction or those feelings that keep you held back. chained to your desires or your addiction or the stress that you're feeling, that's the first thing, the lack of inner peace and like I said, that's probably the biggest problem here and that's how I think it's one of the things that solves many problems, many issues for many people, if they let the life they seek be the one they are in, at least if they have not found inner peace, they are really trying, they are really working.

It is difficult to find that inner peace and we, as Muslims, basically, when a person reaches that state where he seeks that greater purpose, he seeks the true purpose of the luminous life, which for us is his fifth aura, it is his natural disposition. . tearing off all the covers that have been placed on him, and since the problem is how many subtleties I send to them, he said that each newborn child is born in his fifth aura, each newborn child is born according to his natural disposition to that natural one. Their disposition is to want to worship only God, they want to worship only Allah and it is their parents that change that make them Jews or Christians, whatever life they choose or whatever religion or lack of religion they choose after that, It is due to the influences of their parents, but deep down we believe that each person has that adjustment, goodness, they have that natural disposition to worship their Creator and, as I said, they are basically capable of scratching and seeking the tranquility of the worship of Allah.

They cover data and that is why you notice how even in the Quran, in the child of the person who is worshiped, it is often referred to as a very peaceful state of loss. Panetta said Allah be the Killa, he thought it was the almighty Naraku Lube, which is indeed true that it is by the remembrance of Allah that hearts find rest and that is not what we frozen Muslims that is the goal for us to find. that peace and that rest and the prophet said oh, I would rarely say balad all the love that I gain Balad would make the Adhan that would begin the prayer that would say bring us some peace of mind with this prayer bring us some rest and some comfort, that is , this life, yes, all the things that we are doing in this life, it is falling on us, but give us a little relief with this prayer, this prayer, this higher purpose that is what will bring us true, true, true relief and true comfort of the heart, secondly, another cause of stress, anxiety, addiction or any of these problems is fear or fear of the unknown, so sometimes people look at their life and are afraid of what is going to happen and they are afraid of what can happen or what will not happen and that fear sometimes chains us and that fear sometimes manifests itself in things like addiction and, again, as Muslims, the point It's that we don't fear the unknown because we know that these issues go back to a loss of panna cotta and then to part of our act. is that a path of loss that enacts matters that on their surface may seem harmful to us, they mean they may seem quote unquote evil to us, but there is some good there, there is somewhere there and, although, again, this we never fear to the unknown or we never fear the unknown, yes we prepare for the unknown we work hard to protect ourselves but we never fear the unknown and fear is where those problems really begin and another of the big problems is loss and sometimes, it is possible that Have you also noticed this and if you know someone who has been in the case of suffering from addiction or depression, something like that, sometimes what triggers that is a loss, whether it's a loss or sometimes it's like a monetary loss. someone was doing very well in their life and suddenly they went bankrupt, lost their job or something happened and completely lost their wealth or loss of health, sometimes people suffer from a terminal illness, may Allah protect us or um . some, some other type of illness is something that they are afraid of losing or they have a loss of their health and that leads them to this type of depression or sometimes it is the loss of a loved one, which subhanAllah is incredibly incredibly powerful and it is so powerful. that even the profits weighed a lot on the profits losing a loved one if you look at yourself poop I said I'm Jacob when he lost his son Yusuf it caused him so much anguish that he almost went blind he went blind with the anguish he had for the loss of his son and then at the end he said in them theories of kuba and he got Allah, he said.

I only turned to Allah. I only turned to my god with my sorrows in my anguish and for him once again. As I said, the loss of life is losing a loved one is a very, very powerful thing and that is one of the things that generally or can lead a person to, like I said, depression, anxiety or stress and everything that the Prophet Muhammad said Allah. to send them he went through what is known as Amin Rosen or the year of sadness and in this year's panel all the prophets that I sent to them lost his wife, who was everything to him, his wife Khadija held her up, she He was like the rock for the prophets that I send to you when everything was falling on him when everyone seemed to be against the silhouette of the Prophet he knew that he had his wife with him she was there she supported him from the first day from the first day the message was sent to the process, send them, he ran, he ran to who, he ran to his wife and his wife was there for him and that support for him, he lost her and he lost his uncle, who once again was that that strong support for him and then That loss affected the prophets that Allah said that I am very heavy and that is why we see sadness as something that is normal and it is something that is very powerful, but your faith, your Iman and your submission to Allah, so panatela It's what helps you overcome those

challenges

.

It is what gets you out of that and makes you move on and overcome those tests and trials and that is why when we as Muslims when someone dies we say in Elijah and it has been found that many Muslims simply say this statement simply out of habit someone dies, they don't come in 1990 Arjun, okay, what's next? In allahi wa inna ilayhi Raj, yours is an incredibly powerful statement. I lost Pantera in the plan, she says well, but she will know Dean, who gives good news to patient people. It leads them to be patient in that time of hardship and loss of life and all that, the belief is not just a statement, but the belief that Nana na was in Los Angeles here alone, that we certainly belong to Allah and We will return to Allah and This is life, this life is temporary and Allah is in control and yes, it is sad to lose someone, yes, it is difficult and yes, we feel sad and we cry and it hurts, well, it hurts to lose someone, but at the end of the day, we know that these people were given to us by Lost for Tata, no matter how dear this person is to us, that person belongs to Allah Spano Tata and even that statement itself turns out to be very significant if we really think about it. singular statement of saying that we belong to Allah and we return to Allah which is an incredibly powerful statement it is really not the same as I said it is a way of life it is part of our Creed part of our hockey which is part of who we are ultimately and my times a little short but a lack of control for some people which leads to stress which leads to addiction and anxiety and all of that is a feeling of lack of control where they feel like they are not in control of their own destiny. and they don't know where their life is going and they don't know how to overcome that and we as Muslims paddle and accept the fact that we are not in control and I often give the examples pat allah and you may have also heard and given this example before, but the example of a paper cut or the analogy of a paper cut, the paper cut for paulo, if you think about a paper cut, there are many lessons To learn from paper cutting, I will tell you how the Paper cutting teaches us that it is really Allah who is in control and not us.

Why do you first think about the last time you got a paper cut before you get there? Let's say we encounter an extraterrestrial life form, right, let's say we encounter an extraterrestrial life form and we've never been to Earth before, they've never met human beings, but they know our culture, they know who we are and we met this extraterrestrial life. shape and we say this alien life form say and we tell them you know yesterday I got a paper cut and it was painful and this alien life form will tell you this a paper cut you had pain through the paper this this material you can just cut like this , that's what caused you so much pain and you'll say, yeah, okay, that's the first thing, the second thing, what happens to you every time you get a paper cut, a couple of different things, first of all, you always say to yourself maybe after something explicit if maybe you are right you say to yourself I can't believe they caught me again true and then you say to yourself I will never be right again I will never let that happen to me again true, I was so careless that I let a paper cut out the music how to get to Los Angeles.

I can't believe that happened to me and then you tell yourself never again I'll never get it and then for the next maybe a few days or weeks every time you turn the page. It's very carefully, you're aware of the paper cutting and you say, okay, I did it right, I'm in control here, right, the paper isn't in control, I'm in control, like that.that you turn the pages very, very easily, they cut off. until a month goes by, six months go by, a year goes by and you're just flipping through the papers and the book, they cut the paper again and I can't believe it happened, what a shame it's a sign from Allah Spano Tata that at the same time end of the day you are not in control, no matter how much you think you are in control, no matter how much you feel you are in control, at the end of the day it is Allah Spano for Idaho decrees these matters even in some wayBy law, the other example I use give is the stub on the toe, right, it's very interesting, we spit a lot about how we always stub our toe in exactly the same place every time, and even spamela, sometimes we stub our toe, so we are honest yell at the table or something, our spouse or someone like that, whoever likes, why did you put this table here?

The tables have been there for five years, you just dip your toe in and then say, pick up the table, put it aside somewhere else. and then once again you forget that a lot of time passes, but we stub your toe again and let's face it, it's incredibly painful, incredibly, and you're like cursing ball things, but once again you have no control , but we accept it and in that we find peace and comfort, that the one who is in control, the one who really is in control, is the one we worship, the one to whom we have submitted, that is the one around whom our life is based and That is what brings us that peace and tranquility.

Finally, I will leave with this enchilada my last two points and this is like a small summary but remember that number one, remember that the closer you are to your fifth law, your natural, your natural disposition, your innate, your inner need to worship your Creator, the closer you are to that, the happier you will be and happy not only in this, as I said, superficial happiness, but in this deep inner happiness, as I said before, your your body can feel pain your body may be uncomfortable your life may seem very stressful but within your leadership you live a very peaceful inner peace in a life that has inner peace so the closer you are to that filter, the closer you will be to it Natural disposition to worship to your Creator, the happier you will be.

Lastly, difficulties do not have to equal stress and loss. Panther knows best what-ho Darwin on earth allah rabbul aalameen hello hotel ceremony, come to the here.