 Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wa Salatu wa Salam ala as-sharafi al-anbiyaa wal mursaleen. Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in. Allahumma al-lamna ma yinfa'una wa infa'na bima al-lamtana wa zidna al-man. We've been talking about the nafs. Today we go back to talking about the nafs. So we discussed in previous sessions that the nafs goes through stages. So al-nafs al-ammara, then al-nafs al-lawama, then al-nafs al-muthma inna. We've been talking about al-nafs al-ammara. So the nafs that drives us to unhealthy behaviors. Now we move on to talking about the next stage, which is al-nafs al-lawama. So first there is a stage where we recognize that our nafs is driving us to behaviors that are unhealthy. Then there's a stage where we become more and more aware of that and we start to censure that nafs. We start to push back. The nafs al-ammara is pushing us one way, the nafs al-lawama pushes back and then eventually we achieve balance and the nafs al-muthma inna. So al-nafs al-lawama, the first point I wanna make is that there's a sense of intensity, mubalagha in al-nafs al-lawama and al-nafs al-ammara. This isn't just that the nafs al-ammara drives us to unhealthy choices once and the nafs al-lawama drives back once. It's that the word al-nafs al-ammara has in it this idea of intensity, that there's this repeated drive. So in order to match that intensity, the nafs al-lawama has to have the same amount of intensity and more perhaps to push back. So when we think about these tools that we set out to learn, it's important to recognize the nafs al-ammara, its tricks, its intensity, become aware of them and then meet it with the same intensity. So if we try some of these tools and they help but not enough, that's a great sign. It's a signal that we need to add more tools or we need to master those tools in order to hit back. The general rule with behaviors, strong habits and addictive behaviors is that the strength of your treatment and intervention and pushback needs to meet the intensity of your addictive behavior. And once you reach that threshold, it's a number, it's a graph, once you meet that threshold, then that's when you start to get traction. And the sooner you can get to that, the better. So two things that can really help with that is number one, being convinced that the tools that you use work. So being convinced that the tools that you use work. And when you are able to understand the tools, perhaps see other people use those tools and be successful with them and then maybe understand the science behind the tools. Like see that they've been studied in large populations and shown to be effective. That can really give us the confidence to then go ahead and implement those tools effectively as opposed to sitting in this great area of, does this really work? Is this gonna work so on and so forth? So number one, having that belief in the tool and then number two, having the belief in ourselves that we can change. So studies repeatedly show in laboratory animals and humans that when people have a belief in themselves as they can change, that's one of the number one predictors of success. So your belief in your ability to change is one of the number one predictors of success. So again, matching the nafs al-amara that drive within us to unhealthy behaviors with the similar strength of intensity of treatment and then just getting to work with it. If it's not here, then we move it up here. It's not here, we move it up here. Through trial and error process until we get there and then not falling for the pitfall of does this really work or not? By the way, what we're learning here, it's not a way, it's a set of tools. And what you wanna do is use those tools that work for you and stay open to tools that perhaps don't work for you. Maybe it's just a matter of mastering them. And then also there'll be tools outside of here that we learn in other places as well that we can go ahead and implement. And so putting all of these things together are important to increase our chances of success. So we talked about in the past, how do we push back the nafs al-amara? So we talked about Imam al-Ghazali. He talked about the nafs that's arrogant and wild with arrogance and out of control with arrogance. So we won't rehash that, but a point I wanna make with that is when we talked about that Imam al-Ghazali, when he talks about how to push back on the nafs, he talks about it with several different strategies. So he takes this nafs al-amara and he has a intensity of strategies that he uses in order for us to then push back on that. And you can divide and he uses the akal. So the nafs al-amara is a drive within us and then we use our akal to push back and censure that drive and push back. So we talked about how Imam al-Ghazali says that the person that is nafs is out of control with arrogance. It's because they see themselves as better than others and it's because of this belief that they're better than others because of certain things about themselves. So now you can break up this behavior into three things. There's a trigger, there's a thought that arises and then you put that thought on trial. So number one, Imam al-Ghazali talks about how a person they can go into certain environments where they see other people that they generally believe to be themselves to be better than. So they see somebody younger than them and they see that, by the way, this is in Bida'at al-Hidayah. They see that person as younger than them and they find a way to feel better than them. Then they see somebody older than them and they're triggered and they find a way to see themselves as better than that person, so on and so forth. So there's the trigger, then there's the thought, I'm better than this younger person because I'm better than this older person because, so on and so forth. And then there's the trial, there's putting those thoughts on trial. So then what Imam al-Ghazali says is, I'm paraphrasing it, but he's essentially saying, put those thoughts on trial. When you see that younger person, are you better than them because they're younger than you or has this person, or is it the opposite? Has this person had enough time to sin as you have or as we have? When you see somebody older than you, are you better than that person? Hasn't this person been able to worship a lot longer than you? When you see somebody that's more knowledgeable than you, there's other thoughts that you can come up with when you see somebody that's less knowledgeable than you. There's other thoughts that you can come up to put that thought on trial. Somebody less knowledgeable than you, that person sins and they're not aware of it, whereas we sin and we're aware of it, and then so on and so forth. So much content on how to push back on this one thought of I'm better than others. One thought of I'm better than others and so many different, so much ammunition given to how we can put that thought on trial. So point number one is this idea exists within our tradition of recognizing certain situations, number two, recognizing certain thoughts, and then number three, putting those thoughts on trial and pushing back. Point number two is that the intensity of pushing back on that enough needs to be as strong as the intensity of that enough pushing back on us. And with that, we'll go into the text on chapter six. It talks about how we've come to a point where we've looked at our triggers. We've looked at different thoughts or red flag thoughts that these triggers come up with a result in. And then we've taken a look at some errors in thinking that make us prone to want to engage in our addictive behavior. So triggers, thoughts, and those thinking lead to our addictive behavior. Now that we thoroughly understand this concept, again, because we don't wanna think about this in a superficial way, like it's some sort of intellectual, stimulating thing, we wanna look at this like we need to master this in order to really overcome these problems that sort of aren't going away despite our best efforts. So now that we've thoroughly understand how this works, how triggers convert to cravings or urges, now it's time to develop a toolbox of skills that will enable us to get through the cravings and the urges to engage in this addictive behavior or any behavior that we're dealing with. This is the time, like we are in a dopamine rich environment. It's not, do you have an addiction? It's what addiction do you have? This is the time where there's digital addictions, there's chemical addictions, and it's less about like, is this pertinent to us? It's more about have we reached a stage where we're aware that this is pertinent to us. As we practice these new skills, you wanna pay attention to which ones are most useful to you. So you don't wanna focus on one that just seems really foreign or odd or bizarre or just kind of not in line with something we're used to. And then miss a bunch of skills that you may be open to. So, and you wanna practice and see which ones kind of like fit with me or which ones are the low hanging fruit that I can start implementing. Implement those and start implementing them now and really building up your skills with it. And try to stay curious about the other ones. From this chapter forward based on our observations and reflections about our experiences trying out these different techniques, from this chapter forward, we'll start creating our own customized plan for our own addictive behaviors. So we've talked about our addictive brain, our nafs al-amara, and how in strategies we can use to defeat it, specifically by making our rational brain stronger, specifically by training our akhal. The red flag thoughts that we've identified in previous sessions are byproducts of that nafs al-amara, that addicted brain that drive within us. This is the part of us that finds ways to justify going back to our addictive behavior, to feed those uncomfortable urges. With practice though, we can censure these thoughts. We can challenge these thoughts and we can outsmart our lower addicted brain. We can outsmart our nafs al-amara. When you do that, when we repeatedly outsmart it, our rational minds start to become the new normal. Like basketball, you can dribble with your right hand. If you're right-handed, it comes easy. Dribbling with your left hand, a little bit harder. Soccer kicking, if you're right-handed, maybe kicking with your right foot, your dominant foot is easier. Kicking with your left foot is harder. Same thing with any sport or writing. Writing with your right hand, if your right hand dominant is easier than writing with your left hand. Now, let's say you are in a situation where you now are a professional soccer player or a professional basketball player. You no longer have the luxury of just using what you're comfortable with naturally. Now it's time to utilize every part of you, dig deep and utilize every part of you in order to overcome this new challenge. Same thing with addiction. We have ways of thinking that are comfortable for us, but now it's important to develop new ways of thinking. And as we develop those new ways of thinking, it's gonna feel abnormal, bizarre at first. Just like writing with your non-dominant hand or dribbling or kicking with your non-dominant limb. But after a while, after you go through that process of struggling, then it becomes normal because now you've wired your brain and it operates in the same way you check out and can dribble with your dominant hand, now you can check out and dribble with your left hand. And that's where we go from nafs al-amara to nafs al-awama to nafs al-muthma inna, where now we have this tranquil, balanced self, which is able to regulate itself automatically. So there's this period where we have to train, challenge, do things, step out of our comfort zone and just do it essentially until it becomes normal. And that's what fake it till you make it comes in. You'll hear in the rooms of recovery. Not that you're being inauthentic, what you're doing is you're going through the motions. And although it doesn't feel real, you keep going through those motions until it becomes real. So if it's abnormal for you to think about your emotions or talk about your emotions or talk about your thoughts or do the psychological stuff, it's a lot of times we come to this simply because we're sick and tired of our old ways and sick and tired of being sick and tired and we're just ready to try something, not necessarily because we're eager to rush into these new ways of doing things. So once we're able to just go through the motions, then they start to become a normal part of us. Same thing with re-engaging in the Dean. A lot of times we start coming around the circles of knowledge, the circles of remembrance, coming to the mustard. And part of us feels like, do I even belong here? Am I an imposter? If people figure me out, then they'll run me out of here. And a lot of that is simply just doing things that we haven't perhaps been accustomed to for a while. And if we can just get over that and fake it till we make it or just put ourselves in those places, amazing things can happen, amazing things can happen. So now we're on the subsection of thought challenging. As you learn to outsmart your addicted brain, the most powerful cognitive technique you will use is the skill of thought challenging. Like you have this red flag thought that's pushing you to do something that you don't wanna do, then you challenge that with another thought that's thought challenging. This doesn't just apply to overcoming addiction or cravings. It applies to coping with other problems that stem from irrational thoughts like depression, anxiety, emotional difficulties. You learn to understand and change your behavior by being scientific, being logical, being real and sticking to the facts. What does that mean exactly? It means a few things. Number one, to become scientific, you need to practice observing yourself. Any scientist makes observations and they'll even note these observations down. Every scientist has a method to observe the phenomena that they're studying and note it down. This is what changed on this day. This is what changed on that day. This is what changed on another day. So to become scientific, you need to practice observing yourself, monitoring your thoughts and cravings because this is the phenomena that's interesting to us. What is this bizarre thing where I wanna stop but I can't? So we get curious about it and the first step is to observe it, track it, monitor it and learn about it. So number one, observing yourself. Number two, to become scientific, you need to practice questioning whether your thoughts are rational, especially those that are related to our addictive behavior. Thought challenging is the process of questioning your thoughts about your addictive behavior. By asking yourself, do I have evidence that they're true? Finally, the third point, after you've questioned the evidence for your thoughts, if you find that you don't have evidence to support what you're thinking, then you will identify more rational, evidence-based ideas you can tell yourself instead. These new healthy and balanced thoughts will help you make the behavior changes you set out to accomplish in your plan to change. Okay, so let's just, all this theoretical stuff, let's put it to an example and then we'll wrap up in cello. So imagine a person, they have a strong urge to engage in their addictive behavior. The first skill that the employee is on a scale from zero to 10, they rate their craving and they rate it as a seven. They think about it and they realize that it's related to the environment that they're in. So now they're in an environment that usually triggers their addictive behavior and now they've made that connection that this environment leads to a seven on the craving scale. Now that person can try thought challenging by following three steps. Number one, you can think of this as the three T's. Number one, the triggering situation, identifying the triggering situation. Number two, the thoughts. Identify those thoughts that are being produced about the drinking or the using or the pornography or the food addiction or the digital addiction. Identify the thoughts that are pushing you back to the addictive behavior. What is the nafs al amara? How is that driving us? Number three, put those thoughts on trial. Put those thoughts on trial. So number one, this person was in a triggering situation. So the first T triggering situation. Number two, what are the thoughts that are coming that are driving that person? Let's say this person says, if I just engage in my addictive behavior once, it's no big deal. I can control it. Then number three, they put this thought on trial. They examine the evidence for them. So here's some questions to figure out whether the nafs al amara that's driving this, if they're rational. So to figure out if it's the nafs al amara that's driving these thoughts or if they're rational thoughts. And then the honest answers that you come up with. So for example, putting the thought on trial and examining the evidence. Number one, is one time okay? The facts. Yes, one time engaging in your addictive behavior is not gonna be completely destructive. Number two, can I control my addictive behavior enough to stop after one time engaging in that behavior? The facts. It's been too long to even remember the last time I stopped after engaging once in my addictive behavior. So the likelihood of that is extremely low. And what they find out, what this person finds out is the idea that they could have just one time with their addictive behavior is exactly the kind of thought that the addicted brain produces to feed that urge to engage in their addictive behavior. Okay, so now they put it on trial that this thought is coming from a nafs al amara that the addicted irrational brain. So now we know this is an irrational thought. We all experienced these irrational thoughts whether they're about the addictive behavior or something else. The important question that follows is how can you respond to the thought? When you respond, your goal is to get your mind back on track to get that nafs back on track, to line it back up with your values and your goals. And of course, with reality, reality short-term, reality long-term. And the way you do that is by challenging those thoughts. So you can use an arsenal of thought challenges like for example, number one, for me in the past, this way of thinking has led me straight to a full-blown relapse into my addictive behavior. So one time engaging my addictive behavior is a big deal. Another thought is there is plenty of evidence that I practically never stop after one time engaging in my addictive behavior. And I'm not able to control myself once I start engaging in that behavior. And there's more, and inshallah, we'll go into more. But the important point is that you have to meet it with that same intensity. And just like Imam al-Ghazali gives us a whole slew of tools and thoughts that we can use to counteract the nafs al-amara. We have to build up a toolbox of thoughts and skills in order to counteract our nafs al-amara. So inshallah, with that we can start with questions. Then after questions, we'll go ahead and break up and do the check-ins, inshallah.