 What are realistic baby steps we can take to getting closer to God when you feel terrible about your spirituality effort and your relationship to God? one of the important things that I Think many of us Underplay is how much individuals can impact how we feel about ourselves in our relationship with Allah's panawata Other so if you are as a child, we're constantly hit to read the Quran Or maybe you had a teacher who spiritually abused you in some way and dr. As the expert on this may Allah bless her when you have a relationship with Islam That started with parents who used hellfire to threaten you to get you to go to bed on time Like when Islam has been used in these ways, which is not from the revelation It's not from the Sunnah to teach Islam in these very Literally painful ways a lot of times as an adult you can have an aversion may Allah protect us to prayer to Quran and I've I've encountered so many people who ask me this like how do they process Wanting a relationship when the beginning of the relationship started with a very painful experience And the first thing to recognize is the fact that you want a relationship Speaks to how strong your love is for Allah that despite what you've gone through you haven't said Islam That that some Halla may Allah protect us all I've met many people who have made this statement That they don't they don't want to associate I mean the fact that you want to as a sign of The strength that you want your Eman to be you want it to go in that direction The second thing is realize that sometimes we project the way that we feel about ourselves Onto Allah's panel to Allah so if I don't like myself if I loathe myself if I can't get over a sin I committed five six seven years ago months ago weeks ago And I'm constantly making toba and I can't can't can't even imagine Allah's coming to forgive me And so I assume that because I hate myself so much. That's how Allah's panel to Allah sees me So then I've met people who say that they feel embarrassed to pray because they don't think Allah's coming to Allah would want them to Pray because they're not righteous enough for prayer for every type of worship Someone has said this whether it's a lot or hijab or walking into a message space Verses Allah's panel it's either keeps telling us that anytime we go back to him We are sincere in our repentance. He accepts and he forgives and that we do good deeds to wipe out the bad So realistically look at yourself and think about where does this feeling stem from some of us are really just caught up in life? We're caught up in life. We're impacted by social media. We're just caught up in the dunya That's very human but for others. There's some reason why Examine what that is for you and work on Healing yourself from a spiritual place with the help of Allah's panel to Allah So what that looks like is a for example Working with the Muslim therapist if you've actually gone through trauma The second thing is creating you experiences with worship You don't let someone who raised you or who not raise you like a parent But like maybe they were your Islamic school teacher teacher Someone who when you were 13 who did something so horrific you never told anyone They don't get to say whether or not you're gonna pray when you're 27. Don't give them that power You have the power by Allah's panel what's out is will to choose to pray today don't give anyone that level of of of of Importance in your head when Allah's panel to Allah is the one who can help you overcome everything So you choose it's gonna be your relationship with Allah's panel to Allah and you build new experiences with that relationship So let's say when you used to read Quran. It was in a very you know in a very particular room Choose to read Quran on the beach read Quran at a cafe read Quran taking a hike Re-establish new experiences with the Quran so that your brain makes new neuronic experiences with That that worship and make sure you have very consistent worship Obviously, we have Salah and we have the total is but beyond that Number one read the Quran every single day. I didn't know Arabic. I read it in English the Quran changed my life Changed my life in English until I learned Arabic So every single day take a certain amount in whatever language you can understand if you can read Arabic to do it Even if you're super slow do it every day one verse five verses one page Consistently, that's the first thing the second thing. There's a very beautiful book on seerah. It's called Muhammad man and prophet Peace be upon him. It's by Adil Salahi Adi. I L S a L H I it's like over 800 pages But it's so beautiful about the seerah I really recommend going to that book for the seerah and for a Quran translation I recommend Mustafa Khattab. Dr. Mustafa Khattab has a beautiful new translation Masha'Allah and the third thing is work with mentors Find sisters mentors she thought that you can study with because a lot of times you're gonna go to a random Islamic website to ask About a woman's question and you're gonna walk away from there going How do I process that answer? Instead seek mentorship with real people who have institutes you can study with Dr. Heffat like how honorable is that Masha'Allah with a set of the side with antsy sosen with with doctor With Dr. Rania with a set of Nina these are people these are women who are really here if you're here to support your process Insha'Allah so make sure that you know that you don't have to go through this journey alone and that anytime you doubt yourself remember if you doubt yourself and you wonder where are you with Allah? It's because you care about Allah so now what do you do you reevaluate yourself? I'm here. What can I do to get to a higher place until you reach that place? What can I do to get higher and higher and higher insha'Allah? Insha'Allah