 So as we all know, the topic of our learning circle is breaking the stigma of mental health, or most of the men's mental health. I guess just to kind of round us this month is June is men's health month. And why we find this learning circle to be so important and pivotal to our community is really understanding the statistics of right one in 10 men who experience depression or anxiety. Less than half of them will receive treatment, more than four times as many men as women die by suicide every year. More than 3 million men in the US have panic disorder, agoraphobia, or really any other phobia. And men have a higher death rate from the most leading cause of death, also including suicide. So it's really important that we continue to talk about these, this important topic to provide resources and to provide a space where we're able to ask questions inshaAllah. And so with that I'm going to go ahead and pass it to Sheikh Suhail inshaAllah to talk to us about the particular difficulties of seeking mental health care or the difficulties which exacerbate mental health care particularly to Muslim men and his own experience in his line of work inshaAllah. All right. Nice to be with you all on this I guess afternoon for me maybe evening for others. And I appreciate being invited to this important discussion on men's mental health. And so I think I'll talk a little bit about men's mental health in the realm of the university setting and then men's mental health in the realm of marriage. And because there's definitely some overlap but there's some particularities between how Muslim men navigate or don't navigate mental health support in these different spheres of life. So you know one of the big and I'll talk about challenges right and the and barriers difficulties reasons why men maybe don't step forward. And one of the things that you know I've seen over the years working at on the university level with young Muslim men is that there is just there is a lot of difficulty in terms for young Muslim men to find mentorship on university campuses to find you know perhaps older Muslim men or big brothers so to speak those that can work with them at this important transitional phase of life. Going into university for you know oftentimes we forget it's a huge transition for a lot of young men. Some of them are leaving home for the first time. Some of them are living alone for the first time. Some of them are just navigating basic life functions for the first time let alone the academic rigor that comes with going to you know universities that have their own demands and so forth. And so and then not having the support that they may have had in their communities maybe their local imam their local youth group leader their uncles whoever it may be that supported them there are many young men are stripped from that and so you know finding that voice of guidance in a time when they need it most is lacking with a lot of young men and so that becomes that there's a gap right and I mean I'll tell you this and this is just straight up real talk. I'm a social worker and graduated you know 25 years ago with my masters that was 25 years ago back 25 years ago in this field in particular you know men who were in the field of social work were there are some question marks around their manliness so to speak and I'm going to be again real talk. Now it's fast forward 25 years social work by and large is dominated by queer men and that that is a challenge for if there's young Muslim men that want to go into this field in particular and you know perhaps other fields as well other fields in the humanities where that's especially challenging for Muslim men who want to maintain a level of integrity as it relates to their their understanding of their dean and wanting to live that and so you know that that's a challenge so university can be a tough place in terms of finding that role model the other thing that you know experienced or heard from many young Muslim men in the university setting is the fact that it is difficult for them to find within the resources that they have even if they want to access mental health support which those young men that are brave enough to take that step there's a lot of challenges there you go to university counseling services and you have you know it's hard to find somebody that looks like you it's hard to find somebody that understands you there is almost no one in the field in academic settings and by the way so for example I was at you I've been at UCLA for a number of years and they're what they call CAPS counseling and psychological services department is massive they have about 70 therapists on staff 70 therapists but there's not one that can speak to the Muslim experience authentically not one let alone a Muslim man which is more rare a Muslim male that works in the field right so finding people that can really that they can align with and and get that support that they need without having to do I created this term you know Muslims in the field of who seek mental health treatment do have to do a lot of back explaining they have to explain who they are to the person that they're seeking help and guidance and support from so that that person can understand their world and without that back explain they they don't they don't get us right and so so that's that's a huge challenge for many um and then just just the general pressures of trying to conform you know in in the university world the university experience which oftentimes can be so antithetical to the moral being of what a young Muslim man who you know grew up in a let's say in a mischid community um uh and that's all they knew and now they find it themselves in this world where they're navigating um alcohol drug substances being pushed into um relationships um you know uh that don't conform or don't align with who with their Muslim identity and so forth right so and then and then oftentimes the the other barriers standard barriers are just having a lack of support of home um where immigrant especially in immigrant families as sons of immigrant parents fathers who maybe just struggled it out they worked hard to set up life in this country um they never saw their father being able to express weakness they never learned that level of emotional um uh you know openness um in their family setting and and then they carry that with them right so there's all of these all of these things in the in the university so then you look at then you look at men in in the realm of marriage like you you know to take on that last point I just made about um Muslim men are often not taught emotional intelligence or don't have live models in front of them there's dynamics in Muslim households where there's very poor communication between mom and dad between you know there's a very oftentimes a parental dynamic that they don't take young Muslim men don't take um what they should from home that's not always a case by any means but in in many households that's the case and and so um now you're married now you're supposed to be supportive of your wife you're supposed to know how to navigate the emotional ups and downs of marriage you're supposed to do all of these things but you've never you've never seen that in action if that's the case right again it's not always the case but if that's the case well then what do you do how do you do where do you go who do you turn to right and and then just the just the just the simple fact that is tough on the ego and men typically have a bigger ego than women and you know why do I need to go to someone else to tell me how to treat my wife why am I going to open up about um I had a young I had a man that was with me the other day and opening up about some matters um in his in his home and in how he's treated his wife and it's a person in leadership and broke down crying because you know I I don't I it was so hard for me this is him sharing it was so hard for me to get to this point to open up myself to allow myself to be vulnerable to um admit to myself that I needed the help and the support right and and so um it's just it's you know it's just it's a general challenge amongst men um and I think even there's more particular um difficulties in Muslim men stepping forward we also have in the Muslim community this important technology there's a lot of generational trauma especially in immigrant communities and in native communities um where um again how the the the the image that young men today now who are in who are now married and who who are now supposed to have it figured out they never not only did they not see a a full portrait at home um of what an emotionally grounded and um you know connected husband and father look like but oftentimes they saw the opposite because of the fact that um perhaps their father came from from a place where there was uh where there was war there was poverty there was um uh you know serious societal uh dysfunction that of course then feeds into the individual homes that are that are part of that society and and so and we're just really in many times one generation removed from that and we've seen that in you know I don't want to name particular communities ethnic communities or anything of that sort but but that is the case in in many uh uh Muslim communities um and then you know of course that leads to the fact that there was there was a lack of role modeling oftentimes in our homes where um you know just men being open with our with their feelings and just being able to express themselves um in a way that is um uh actually that Islam uh advocates for and what maybe we'll talk about later on about how the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam navigated emotions and such um we don't see that in our homes and therefore now we we find ourselves in a marital situation where there's challenges that we never expected we never realized that marriage is about unifying a vision for for a family um marriage by itself in and of itself naturally it is ideally it's supposed to be something that uh unites but the reality is that in its essence it's conflictual it's two different people who come from two different backgrounds who have their own world views and perspectives and this is how I think the world should work now I have to merge with this other person and I have to give and take and I have to learn how to um you know capacity what this person is bringing to the table and and if we haven't seen um you know a in iteration of that in our own lifetimes it's hard to do it's hard to just instinctively know how how to do that and um you know just um and I've seen we do I do a lot of work in in the realm of marriage we do these muslim what we call the muslim marriage rejuvenation retreat and we've been doing this for the last three three years now my wife and I um uh you know these are opportunities for couples to to explore and to learn about best practices in marriage is pretty much what it is and um and you know I see up up close and and personal the difficulties that um uh men have in terms of just uh navigating um many aspects of marriage accepting influence you know allowing my wife to um help guide me as opposed to just me feeling that I'm the man this concept of this is a quranic concept that men are the maintainers are protectors they have a certain uh responsibility that they hold in marriage but that's not a that's not a trump card that's not a you know I am in charge of everything I am the sole um voice of leadership in my family it's a joint leadership model with me and my wife and how we raise our children and and so um you know if we don't have that understanding um as many men struggle with about allowing their wife to influence them and and then and then the other thing is you know I know I'm jumping a lot here but I'm just putting all this stuff out on the table right um we have uh in many relationships where uh many couples that come forward to seek help um they've done that after they've been down a long road and oftentimes they go and they seek help when it's late in the game and that's a problem in the Muslim community and the reason why it's a problem is because when you seek help it's never too late but uh but there's challenges with with going in late and one of the biggest challenges is that well oftentimes the marital relationship has been a so stretched uh one person has emotionally distanced um themselves from the relationship just to be able to survive and to live and and so now they they've they've recognized that okay we need help and now the and it's usually the man who's the one who hesitates okay now I'm ready because he sees his his marital reality and shambles on many levels and so now he steps forward and he's ready but what's happened there's all of the there's this emotional injury emotional pain these grievances that are there on the other side with his wife and he's saying well I look I'm ready to work now and now you're being resistant well the reality is that there is so much pain that's there that really needs to be overcome in the process so you know I mean all of these realities that really make um that that we find in the community um and um and I could go on and on but I think I'll I'll I'll stop here um just for the purpose of um being able to keep it concise exactly I think that's a great segue um into brother Edmond's portion inshallah talking about how you were saying sometimes when people actually seek help it is too late and our brother Edmond will talk about how the the necessity of talking about mental health care and really understanding when it is time for support from a younger age into marriage inshallah I'll pass it to you thank you for having me so refreshing you speak my language so much knowledge and you could tell tons of experience and working with with married couples um I wanted to like we have to definitely talk more after this uh zoom inshallah so uh talking about starting from young so I'm doing now we have a lot of a lot of developing material out there now when it comes to at least in public schools and so I think for the Islamic schools we really got to pull some of this in because uh there's this recognition that um along with what started off probably about 20 years ago in character education in schools they've now they realized that like okay some of some of the things that were taught through religious institutions growing up whether the church or even the mosques um or the synagogues aren't isn't necessarily happening at home so they were starting to teach those values in school whether it's you know being good to your neighbor you know sharing and these kind of things serving your community and so now what they're what there's an emphasis on in public schools is social emotional learning and so there's they're all kinds of books it's big industry right now and essentially what the aim is it's to equip young people with a large vocabulary of words that describe their emotions you know rather than just the simple ones like what the that movie I don't remember what it was it was like a disney movie it was like sad happy mad there was like five words that describe yeah emotions and so um and so now there um there's this thing called a mood meter that came out of Yale and it there's there I can't remember how many words but it's probably at least like 50 words that can describe your mood or your emotions and so for they're starting to use in grade schools and trying to help kids understand okay what color are you in right now and really what it's doing is it's creating a self-awareness and and this is huge when it comes to us as Muslims you know I always like to mention that you know that the word the phrase in Arabic kif halik right like or kif hal right like really literally translated so like how's your state or what's your state right and so this idea of being conscious of your state is not new to us as Muslims and if we just actually paid attention before we answer that question like how how am I right now and so that's what's happening this self-awareness in public schools in America is like trying to help kids become more aware of what's the state I'm in what can I do about it um you know can I shift into another state can I make other people aware of the fact that I'm in the state and I need a break or whatever it is and so we do that all the way into high school now for a lot of a lot of high schools and um and and that's just one of those efforts out there to try to address mental health from an early age the other thing that's that's going on when it comes to social emotional learning is bringing more awareness around mental illness and you know the stat that you had in the beginning of the slideshow was one in 10 men I think you said start from depression or anxiety and I think it's much higher than that actually um maybe that's a clinical diagnosis um but one of the things I like to tell people especially young people is that it's not whether it's not what it's not whether or not or you're going to be you're going to struggle with depression or anxiety it's when you're going to struggle with depression anxiety at some point in your life at some point in your life you will be depressed period right but what are you going to do about it so whether it's because your mother passes away or your dad dog passes away or whatever or you don't get into medical school whatever it is and sometimes those depressions last for three days and sometimes it lasts for a long time but then that's where the education comes in at what point you need to seek help you know is it just a conversation with your mom or your brother about it and that might be enough or at what point is it more of a clinical issue where you're stuck and you need some professional assistance to help get you out of that state because you all have the potential to get in that state one example I'll give people sometimes is you know I do a lot of public speaking and um and I love it and and I especially when it's a topic like this that I love talking about and educating people on and one time I was at the high school that I work at and I was getting I had to get on the intercom and give an announcement and in the middle of the announcement my voice started to shake and I started to like lose my get disoriented I'm like okay wait what was I going to say and I was like what is what's going on with me and when I evaluated that afterwards I had to realize that I went into that speech at a high level of stress already so whenever you public speak or do anything publicly there's there's a little increase in anxiety that's life that's how it works but you know what I realized is that I had a lot going on at that time in my life and so my level of stress was really high so when it came to adding just that little bit of extra it was a tipping point where it's it was affecting me physiologically right and that's another thing for us to consider is it when it comes to seeking help and we'll talk about that later but you know there's one a lot of ways we evaluate that as social workers or as therapists and one of them is you know is it affecting your health in any way is it affecting your family your relationship is it affecting your job and for young people that's school so when I do premarital counseling one of the things I talk about with young with people that are about to get married I said I would say the purpose of this is not for you to decide whether the person is good for you or not I'm hoping that that's been decided already and you're just here to kind of maximize the happiness and the you know the calmness and peace in your marriage and and I say premarital counseling is kind of like watching the news in the morning before you go to work it helps you kind of figure out what the weather is going to be like or before that picnic or whatever it is the weather is going to be like and when the traffic is going to be like neither of you of them you have power over you can't change either but at least when they come when you hit that traffic jam or when the thunderstorm comes you're like oh here it is and you're prepared for it and you have less of an emotional reaction to it so when you hit that roadblock with your spouse in marriage it's like oh okay here it is Edmund talked about this in premarital counseling and I guess a lot of couple struggle with this so now it keeps me from saying my wife is such a bad person or my husband is such a whatever because we're hitting this roadblock so really that's the way we got to think about teaching young people and getting him talking about mental health and having these conversations from a from a young age it could start when they're five my son it started for me with my son when he was writing read him a bedtime story and we'd say our sorrows we always say the cool's right like you know let's say your cool's right and and so we say the source and then um when he's laying in bed I would say okay now take a really deep breath and up until this age he's 17 now mashallah if I walk by his room at night I notice he's still up and it's late and he's laying in his bed I'll say take a deep breath as I'm walking by and I just walk into my room and it's just a reminder that we can control our body through other things taking deep breaths and we'll talk more about that but you know as adults and going in later into life you know one of the things I was thinking about um that she could say I wish I shake I'm celebrate yeah yeah so hell shake who's who hell was saying is that you know like when um when it comes to going to a therapist he talked about backspinning I love that term um and that's one of the things that the black community in America's realizes that it really benefits from that benefits them if they go to a black therapist because they don't have to do that back explaining and they've realized that recently because especially recently because you know in kind of the the the paradigm that we have right now no thanks to social media is this idea that if somebody is making you upset eliminate them out of your life you know um they're toxic and there's all these names for them and it's a reason just get them out of your life and and it makes you America a lot of therapists have no problem saying don't talk to your parents anymore they're bad for you they're toxic they do this they make your body react this way and there's a place for that in very few cases but I talked a lot my therapy my my clients about okay you can create space without eliminating people out of your life and so when you you tell a black person that you talk about muslim okay eliminate your parents out of your life when they have such a strong connection to responsibility to their mom or their dad especially their mom in the muslim community and in the black community and the latino community a lot of immigrant communities it's it creates a huge dissonance within themselves and and a lot of shame that creates other problems in their lives and so you know going to somebody that understand your cultural background I've had people come to me muslims come to me after seeing a therapist for years and and I'll ask them the most famous one was a a gentleman came to my office and he was standing in the middle of my office with gloves on and he moved from out of state and I said I thought you were seeing a therapist for a long time he said yeah for two years and I said okay well what did you guys do and he said uh well um I don't know but he was awesome and I was like why was he so awesome and he's like he was an expert an expert in fiqh by the time we got to finish working together and I'm like so he basically just used you to educate him on this concept of fiqh in Islam that was so foreign and blowing his mind he's like whoa there's that many rules that he was feeding your anxiety right and so so so I you know we really need to think about that either somebody either has to have been raised around muslims and connect very connected the muslim community knowing them I could tell you so many stories like that um and or you know a muslim themselves and and have a great understanding they don't even have to be a scholar or anything like that but just to understand that experience the cultures that fall within our faith and in this country but then also the religion and how that you know dictates our whole paradigm and worldview and everything else um let's see here I wanted to say one more thing before my time is up uh yeah so oh so the other thing I want to talk about really quickly when it comes to men is it one of the experiences I'm seeing now and I don't know if it's in other cities but um so in Chicago and I think you see it on social media too is that for men for for a big part when it comes to teenage years we all know everybody talks about teenagers and the hormone changes that happen with teenagers and for then then men have this big break in their life where they don't have to really deal with fluctuations of hormones until they're the late 30s and early 40s and all of a sudden you start seeing a drop off testosterone and a lot of men really struggle with that because it can make them feel a little bit less energetic affects them with intimacy and all these other things and then and sometimes they feel mood swings sadness like out of the blue where they've never felt that before and so the answer to that in America because commercialized is little boys that say are you struggling with low tea let's basically give you test steroids and then you have these men who go on steroids who are 45 50 years old and they start getting all huge and jack and they start having problems in their marriage because guess what they also have like Roy rage and they become temperamental and then their wife's like what's wrong with you and then they're not they're not now on the same page in life with their wife going through life's changes because they now interviewed medically in a way that's potentially harmful to couples and definitely the individual because then they'd come dependent on it what do you do then when you're taking Roy for a long time and all of a sudden if you stop taking them then what guess what you have to go back to change getting old again so I'll stop there inshallah we'll move on to the next questions thank you it's like you guys planned this before you got here that's a great segue into sheikh suhael's next part inshallah about prophetic examples of trial and how what are the prophetic examples of coping and how can we have healthy coping styles and inshallah we'll move into more of a similar topic with brother admin as well after inshallah I'll pass it to you sheikh suhael inshallah my brother admin I don't know how we haven't crossed past man yet but we have inshallah we have definitely some some notes to to to share and and such love hearing you talk and and hearing about your experiences in the in the community which are so which seem to be so deep inshallah so you know one of the things I think that's such an important starting point for this discussion about prophetic resiliency coping dealing with life's trials and so on and so forth is understanding who the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam was in in terms of how he understood himself to be a man as it relates to how he carried himself emotionally and what there's a beautiful example that speaks volumes to me about our Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam that I think is so important for us to to understand there was an incident one time when the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam in one narration it said that he's bearing his son in another it said that he's bearing his grandson and and as he is at the grave site and of course the community is there with him the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is crying and when there are tears coming down his face one of the sahaba saad he says to the he says he says and he says and you oh messenger of Allah in other words as if he's saying and you oh messenger of Allah if anyone knows that death is coming and death will come when it's due to come it's you if anyone knows that life is full of trials and tribulations it's you if anyone understands that we have to accept what Allah has given us no matter how difficult it is it's you so and even you oh messenger of Allah like you're crying look at what the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam he says he says the eyes they shed tears and the heart it feels sadness as if the Prophet is telling saad he's saying don't try to regulate my emotions don't try to stop me from expressing what I need to express this is a feeling this is a human emotion that Allah has placed inside of me and I am a man and I cry and I display sadness and I display happiness and I display anger and I display frustration and I and I have a whole myriad of feelings just like others do do yes how we navigate those emotions and how we display them in a way that is befitting to how a Muslim should carry themselves is important but the you know to put a to put a plug or to put a cap you know a lid on my emotions who why who who said that who said that and you know like it's a lot of times in for example in marriage or in general in life you know when when kids are kids they're told don't cry don't be sad don't be mad don't be this don't be that we don't learn how to to have emotion and then for it to be carried out in in a and oftentimes we tell people these things why because we're uncomfortable as the receiver on the receiving end it's uncomfortable to me to hear or to to see you display these negative emotions sadness anger anxiety so I just tell you stop right and it's it's it's such a problematic perspective from you know how the one who's you know they're listening to this other person it's such a problematic way in which to engage people rather the Prophet ﷺ he's teaching us like like be who you are express yourself the way you need to express yourself and at the end in the next line the Prophet ﷺ he says but we don't say anything that's displeasing to Allah I'm going to show an emotion but I'm not going to say why Allah this is horrible my life is miserable I can't believe that you put me in this pain and this difficulty that's no that that we don't that we don't go we accept what Allah has given us but to display the emotion I need to have that emotion to be balanced otherwise what I'm I'm going to put a lid on this and what like how am I even you know that that emotion that needs to come out is going to come out in other ways that are unhealthy that are dysfunctional that are poor coping methodologies or mechanisms so I think that's a really important you know sort of starting point when we talk about prophetic coping you know just understanding emotions and brother Edmund made some reference to to you know how how we navigate emotions and and the the the proper way by which we do that too and then if you look at you know some other aspects of the Prophet ﷺ I mean the Prophet ﷺ was a beautiful example for us in every area of life that our Prophet ﷺ he he understood what the purpose of marriage was marriage for the Prophet ﷺ was his internal support mechanism when when his wife Sayyidah Khadija when she passed was extremely heavy on the Prophet ﷺ why because if you look from day one when the first revelation comes the Prophet ﷺ he comes to whom he's he comes to his wife after he gets the revelation he's extremely distraught and he says like I'm afraid for myself I don't know what's going on with me and what does his wife do she consoles him in the most beautiful beautiful way that Allah will never forsake you you help people you support the poor you carry the burdens of the week etc and she validates him so the Prophet ﷺ he navigates or he leans on he leverages his wife in a way that's very healthy and in all of his marriages you see the Prophet ﷺ you know he's incredibly open in his relationships and and what an important support mechanism that is that we have he's open to the advice of um salama you know when they when they go to and there's they're sorry when they go to umrah and they're prevented from making umrah and you know and the Prophet ﷺ he says we're done with our umrah and the Sahaba like what are you talking about and they don't listen to him the Prophet tells them to take off their ehram and to shave their heads and they don't listen who does he go to he goes to his tent and his wife um salama tells him tells the Prophet ﷺ just go out and do what do the action yourself and they'll follow he takes the advice of her and there's numerous examples of that um how the Prophet ﷺ has this you know beautiful supportive relationship with his wives and he takes from them and of course they take from him the Prophet ﷺ he has very healthy social connections he's the Prophet of God um but that doesn't mean that he's free of social needs that doesn't mean that he doesn't need companionship uh Abu Bakr is his best friend and his closest companion he has an intimate relationship with Umar um and and you know so he has these relationships that are so meaningful to him in his life and that's an important thing for us that we have meaningful social relationships we have intimate friendships um within our home and outside of our home one thing that's lost in the social media world is is oftentimes you know deep relationships people know a thousand people but they don't really know one person on any level of any depth right so having deep social relationships is so important and then the Prophet ﷺ has a very intimate relationship with his creator with Allah swt right so he has he has this full life engagement on all of these different planes of existence outside of his home inside of his home in his own private in his deepest private uh personal relationship with Allah swt he has complete trust of Allah his patient upon life's trials when they come to him um and he has this you know he expresses it once so beautifully right when the Prophet goes through one of his most difficult experiences being run out of ta'if um when they chased him out of the city and and they uh they threw stones at him and and his blessed feet are bleeding and he goes and later he makes dua right this famous dua that he makes a lot of events happen but this this one dua that he makes and one this one line in the dua that he makes he says he says yeah if yeah Allah if you're not upset with me as long as you're not upset with me and i'm doing what i need to do and i'm living i don't care everything else i can deal with life i can deal with the difficulties and so i'm not saying that it's always that easy right like yeah we just well they look man just man up and deal with deal with your stuff i'm not trying to say that right like it's that simple but i'm just i'm i'm just showing an example of how the Prophet SAW had these extremely important relationships and these different aspects of his life that carried him and so we take a great example from him in that regard so much more to say i mean about about this subject right so much more to learn particulars to pull from the Prophet SAW's life but we'll suffice with that Shallah that was amazing and those examples are so so relevant to what we're talking about today inshallah we'll press it to brother Edmond to talk to us about tangible ways that we're able to seek support mechanisms that we're able to use to support us in our in our journeys in accessing mental health and coping with any sort of trial inshallah there you go okay so um i love that story from taif because um that story always reminds me that you know that our Prophet peace be upon him also had low points you know had we you know you know attempted something to do good and was and was punished for in this world so it's felt to him um he suffered for i should i guess should be the phrase i should use um and so that it's a reminder to me that sometimes in life you could have the best of intentions to do something and it could it could go far really flat and and maybe also cause a lot of a lot of discomfort and pain to you so um so one of the things that you know i want us to think about when it comes to seeking help and i think i'd first like to start off with the prevention part of it and as adults and that is that you know there's some research coming out now talking about the child-centered marriage and how people of my generation um who are in their maybe 40s and 50s now um they we were too child-centered in how we raised our kids to the point that we were so consumed by putting our kids in 20 different activities and all weekend was wrapped up and running this event and that event in this event that we weren't focusing on our own emotional physical health the health of our marriage our relationships and or our friendships which shake who sell to see how he talked about so like we what this is something that i always felt strongly about and i ask my clients the one of the things i'll say is that you need to look at it as if you know we've all heard of this term like you know how full is your bucket that kind of concept but you got a picture like a bucket in your life and most muslims know what a pressure cooker is and thanks to the instapot most america does too now but you know we we had a picture both of those things in our life we have to have things for our bucket that make us feel alive that bring us joy a sense of adventure whether that's travel trying new food going fishing taking a hike whatever those things are that that make you feel alive laughing with friends i like to tell a story to a lot of my young couples how i have four brothers three brothers are in a sister and i went to my family's house early in my marriage and we you know when you grow up with brothers you all tease each other and so we were like teasing each other we were laughing so hard and we were leaving my wife was really quiet and i said and she's i said you know what's the matter and like most wives she said nothing and then i said no honestly what's going on you're quiet and then she said well you never laugh with me like that and i just sat there for a second and i said you know what i don't and that's okay i don't think i expect that from you i don't know if i'm ever gonna laugh that hard to the point of tears maybe for maybe inshallah for marriage for 20 years plus but i have 25 years with my brothers inside jokes and teasing and a rhythm that we're only six months into and so what we got to understand the message behind that is that your spouse can't be everything to you in this world when it comes to relationships and a lot of Muslim couples make that mistake they get married and they disappear maybe they see each other's families but then they don't even they don't necessarily see friends or or anything else and so we can't put that pressure on our spouse to be everything to you because they'll fail and so understanding that we need those different relationships in our life to make us feel alive sitting you know you could have a certain level of comfort with different relationships in your life and then the pressure cooker is more about what calms you what releases tension that could be running or some kind of exercise it could be sallah whatever is in times we know you know there's expansion and contraction when it comes to spirituality and so sometimes you're praying and it feels really good and then sometimes you're praying and then you finish and you're like i don't remember if i did all four or whatever and so it just you weren't really into it and that's life and so understanding that we need i actually had a co-worker recently said to me you know she said something about doing yoga and she goes you know you have like that prayer thing you do she's like but i don't have anything like that so like when i go to yoga i don't even see it exercise i just want to like clear my mind you know and that's why you're seeing yoga centers everywhere in america now and in mindfulness centers these kind of things meditation centers because people are craving for what we already have if we just understand that these things all have a place in our life and it's important to maintain them so when it comes to seeking help like i mentioned earlier uh it's important that we when it comes to ourselves or somebody that we live with our family members it's important that we understand that um if it's interfering first of all one of things i like to say is if it's lasting longer than a month your sadness or your anxiety and your noticing that you probably should get some help for it and what people need to understand is that going to see a therapist doesn't mean you're committing to seeing them once a week for next year sometimes it might help if you just have three sessions and like i was saying earlier with the premarital counseling sometimes just hearing that some things are normal oh yeah that's a normal reaction i had a woman who came in and she had her son had passed away about six months before and she came in she goes i don't know if i'm going crazy but i just don't want to go back to work yet and she's like and people are telling me i should be over it by now and i said and how many of those people lost a son zero right so sometimes just hearing that your experience of this life event whatever it is is a very normal reaction to somebody who loses their son unexpectedly it's devastating and most people aren't going to understand you and so just to go to see a professional who's probably dealt with this before and can normalize some of that for you and sometimes just three or four sessions can be really helpful and then maybe you see them once every couple months for the next year just to kind of see how things are going and then you obviously have situations where it's really significant mental illness the chemical imbalances like bipolar or schizophrenia which again you know you see times where it hits in life like in 17 18 and then there's another time that that kind of hormonal change i was talking about late 30s where it hits people as well and again the earlier you can intervene for those you're much better off because otherwise it's hard to get people on medication for those if you wait too long most communities in america and alhamdulillah have a local county health department so i'm not from california but i know that you do have the 98 98 8 hotline now you know instead of calling 911 98 8 is just a hotline for mental health they just present to somebody the challenges that you're having and they can refer to you to a resource in the community if somebody's reached out in the past year they probably have been very frustrated because in the past year was very difficult to find any openings with any experienced therapist in the community but i could tell you that within the past maybe like three months it's opening up again so you're having a lot more openings for experienced mental health professionals and then also there are text options out there so a lot of you just got to kind of you know we have google available to everybody and you can just ask you know for crisis hotline and there are people that are that are experienced dealing with crises and they can kind of give you some guidance on those things but a lot of times you know seeking out somebody like anybody else if you know a cousin or family member that's been to a therapist it helps if you have somebody that you trust that you know does good work because that's important like i mentioned earlier there are some my dad actually he used to work for a labor job for the phone company back when we all had landlines and he used to tell me he said he'd say you know admin there are bad you know doctors there are bad therapists or bad phone men he's like you just gotta find the good ones um and and it's true because he'll tell you stories of doctors he went to he's like can you believe what this guy told me to do so you know it's important that you find somebody that's reputable and and that that somebody else has experienced him and worked with um the other thing i want to say is that you know when it comes to like my example of the book and i was gonna wrap it up wrap it up with this but um we gotta you know seeking knowledge for some people is an adventure and it's something that can make people feel alive and it's like i'm gonna go back and get this degree or i'm gonna go study um and and it's it's a bit of adventure there's something exciting about it there's an element of accomplishment with it but we gotta see mental health as seeking knowledge of the self that that's it's not about fixing a mental problem but about just gaining gaining an understanding of why do i do the things i do and what and then how can i maximize my happiness my calm my peace whatever it is you're looking for in life um how do i fix some of this dysfunction that's happening in my life if you know you've been trying to you know be calmer with your children or calmer with your spouse and you can't do it okay let me try to gain some of that and ultimately that's what is on is like this concept of you know acting and gaining knowledge in a way that would as if Allah is watching you to perfect yourself to work on yourself and that's really what it is um just like all these people all these videos out there are people exercising now here's the best way to do curls and here's the best way to do this and work on your legs whatever i mean we need to focus on our our mental health because at the end of the day it doesn't matter how fit you are if your mental health is in shambles you're going to be extremely unhappy so um i'll stop there thank you so much brother edmund and jizak al alshad so with that we're going to move into our question and answer session inshallah for folks listening please go ahead and send any questions or comments you may have there should be a box at the bottom of the screen which allows you to submit i do have one question that was sent to me um which is anyone second the question is as is saying that we've been talking about you know mechanisms and tools as to ways that we're able to you know self-regulate and and coping mechanisms for ourselves and the ways that we're able to seek support but um how are we as community members as family members um as partners able to support whoever it is in our life that is struggling through um any sort of mental health problems or any sort of depression um to that extent well i'll start um so uh it is hard with family members sometimes because it's it's hard for anybody when you want to tell them like i think you should get help for something um as long as we always start with a message of care and love and concern and that as a uh it's where you're um from a perspective of we're trying to fix something about them um sharing that you're invested in their happiness as a person and their their calm and their peacefulness their peace in their life um or their relationships uh and a big thing you know for when it comes to how you can support somebody in your life um outside of getting them help is really just listening listening and affirming it's kind of like uh sheik who said suhail keeps saying that sorry i apologize for sheik suhail said earlier um you know when it comes to validating people's feelings a lot of times we tell people you know the example that we'll give sometimes if a kid falls in the playground you know the mistakes that parents make the first one is like you're fine it's okay it doesn't hurt get up it's okay you know and then that's denying their pain and the second one is like oh my god come here let me see i can't believe this playground so dangerous and you take them from the playground the first one tells them their pain isn't real and their experience isn't real and the second one says oh this playground's big and bad stay away from it life is dangerous stay away from it and the third one the third more appropriate approach is like wow that much really hurt let me see it yeah it hurts when you get scrapes like that probably stings right affirming their tears and their pain and then let's bandage it up and then we'll rinse it off some water it's gonna sting a little bit but then you'll be ready to get back in there and play and you let them know that it's gonna be fine yeah life life is tough but we can get through it and i'm gonna help you with that and then you're gonna move on and you're gonna be fine so um a big part of is affirming what people are going through listening and not not trying to um you know there's actually some brené brown has some videos out there about difference between sympathy and empathy and they're pretty good they're cartoons and it just talks about like the things that you could say to try to help them through that thank you anything to add on to that she has to help sure um the only thing i would just say i would uh echo everything my brother edmund said and and he talked about listening and you know so for some people listening comes naturally and for others they need to learn how to listen and so just learning a bit of active listening skills which are very basic and very um you know a little bit of a skill set that needs to be if you have someone in your family that is struggling with their mental health that perhaps even has a mental health disorder um then it would behoove you if you have a very good relationship with them but you don't feel like you know how to listen to them or you feel like you're always compelled to give advice to them and to fix them or whatever it is just learn these active listening skills which as brother edmund said is you know basically learning how to validate their feelings um how to let them know that you hear them and then there is a time in a place when you ask them um is there anything you want from me is there anything i can help from from you do you want me to listen or are you looking for some actual guidance in this particular matter if there is a parental authority sort of relationship there or even a peer relationship um and you ask them you know you're you're sharing this information with me and it sounds like you're going through a very difficult time and i'm i'm so happy i'm so happy that you trust me and i'm i'm more than willing to listen to you and um but are you also do you want something more from me you know with our kids for example um a lot of fathers i had a father one time um one of the you know one of the marriage retreats we did and he says well isn't my job as the dad to just give advice like to tell everybody in my family what to do with my wife my daughters and i was really shocked by his sort of take on you know on life that you know like this is his charge in life i'm just supposed to be this rock and just dishing out here you go here's advice this is how you need to fix this problem this is how you need to fix this problem no man your daughters need you to listen to them they need you to just be there your wife just needs you to validate her when she's had a rough day and not tell her well you know if you had done this well that wouldn't have happened so so you know just that fine tuning that that listening a skill set is really important especially if you don't have it naturally thank you so for our next question um it says you uh we've addressed struggling with awkwardness and embarrassment um but and all of these are important issues but kind of uh shifting to the area of stigma how would we relate stories in hadith or of sahaba of people who are very ashamed or in extremely shameful circumstances were able to slow down digest mentally their emotional turmoil and how the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam validated their stress or walked them through it that prophetic example of dealing with stigmas or shame so i'll i'll take this um if i if i if i understand the question correctly um how did the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in essence uh provide an open environment a safe environment where people could come to him if we're talking about him sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to freely share and and you know and open up in in such and and how do we replicate that in our lives i think that's what's being asked in essence right um the prophet was such a beautiful example of that you know and there's so many there's so many um uh scenarios where we see that so there's for example the young man who comes to the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and he says oh messenger of god um give me permission to commit zina to fornicate to engage in some sexually inappropriate act and all of the other companions they're they they're saying you know they're saying ma ma like be quiet what are you saying how dare you and the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam just you know gently he says bring him close he didn't make him feel shame for asking the question he didn't shut him down in fact he pulled him towards him himself uh and he allowed himself to express himself uh he allowed him to share about what's going on with him even though the young man knows that what he's proposing is not good but that's but he's but he's going to a source to get help and so I think that's the exact point right that um this young man he knew what he was asking is not right but he felt comfortable enough to bring this to the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and and so he didn't do anything yet and he's trying to navigate well I have these feelings I have these urges I have these desires I don't know what to do tell me what to do right that's in essence what he's saying and and so the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he says and he doesn't shame him and doesn't even quote Quran on him he doesn't you know this the word spiritual bypass I think it's careful how we you know how we kind of maybe just freely throw that word around sometimes but but he didn't in this case spiritually bypass him and just start um you know quoting Quran and quoting quoting things and saying don't you know Allah says wa la taqrabu zina you shouldn't go close to zina he didn't take that approach with him because he knows the boy knows but rather he used a different sort of reasoning tactic with him do you wish that for your mother would you want that for your mother would you want that for your sister in the book in the young man he says no way out of surah right so creating that open atmosphere um um allowing people who that we are close with to uh to feel safe with the conversations that they can have with us and for us not to instantly jump on and blame and you know put down and um you know this there is another example of when um uh there is a man who was an alcoholic and he drank once and they were he was punished he drank again and and in the one time uh you know he was he was being punished this was a sort of reformative punishment to help him refrain from his from his drinking and um while this man is taking this punishment one of the companions that's there that's there he says you know he says you know may Allah curse you and the Prophet ﷺ he tells him in essence he tells the southern man how dare you say that this man he loves Allah and his messenger he says don't help shaytan against you don't help shaytan over your brother like support him he has admitted that he has done wrong he admits that he's struggling he's going through a rough time don't kick a man while he's down right but rather be there to support him um in that moment of struggle so that I think that you know um is is really important again especially for parents um not just when your kids open up to you that is such a a blessing when your kids open up to you so something wrong that they've done it's such a blessing a lot of times we blow it and we start criticizing Jen didn't I tell you so I told you never to go there I told you never I told you not to deal with that person they're coming to you because they feel bad and they need you to say that no I'm sorry that you went through that and I'm sorry that you know um you had to experience that and I I'm I'm glad you came to me right rather than because if you shut them down they're not going to come to you again so keeping that openness and that you know that sort of safe space is so important for the sake of time we will move on to the next question inshallah um I'm going to combine two of them um I hope it doesn't reduce one or the other but uh one of the questions is about somebody's father or elderly father recently moving here after war has broken out in their country he's facing stress and depression um and has critical medication that he has to take but due to the stress and depression you no longer wants to take the medication and seeing a therapist is out of the question for him so the question is um you know what are ways to either support him through this support him and try should they be supporting him in trying to take his medication um and how to move forward that if there is any advice on this question inshallah yeah I can start on this one um one of the beautiful things about our community is um kind of the village perspective on how we support each other and one of the things I learned you know I'm a convert come to Islam and so coming into Muslim community I and then being a therapist in this community I've seen how um it could create challenges with the Mesh families kind of like stepping on each other's toes a lot but then also in events of crisis like this um where the family can become really supportive and so one of the things that um you can consider doing in this scenario is one of two things does he have an older brother or sister that's alive that can possibly influence him um and or just a group of of peers meaning in the family with his siblings um that can get together and express concern and or does he have respect for a locally mom with a masjid that maybe you can set up a meeting with them to at least start there um so that you don't have to feel alone through this and then the last um effort would be his kids all of his kids getting together and saying not necessarily that they have to get that he has to get mental health treatment if he's gonna that's gonna cause a fight but at least talk about the medication and your take the loving approach that we're babbo we're concerned about you abu we're concerned about you we want you to be here for many years for for your grandchildren you know can you consider taking this medication this is what doctors are saying and then and then this is where we also um mashallah i'm having this experience with my mother-in-law it it becomes back to us having to actually give them the medicine every day um not not necessarily because of refusal sometimes they just forget and so just like you would and this is what's so beautiful about islam is the responsibility towards your parents this is why it's so emphasized because the fact that you know this is it's it's all the full circle because it's like having my five-year-old six-year-old back in the house again i have to remind them go brush your teeth you forgot to brush teeth and that's not what i have to remind her but it's other things right and so um so part of it is is taking advantage of the cultural models that we have we went on sometimes throw those out the window sometimes because they can be frustrating but there are very strong benefits to it and i found the the the one especially in the daisy community in the indopak community you know with uh the older brother can really be a powerful one um our older sibling that can influence the younger sibling because the reverence is so strong so i don't know that that person's scenario but i think i think you said the war turn area so it probably wasn't this community but either way trying to find um a sibling that kind of influence and or other family members does that go ahead for that um response i do have a couple of more questions and inshallah we can get through all of them i think this one is quite timely considering next week is arid inshallah um so the the question is it starts with a statement saying that um this person always goes into severe depression during like around the time of raid my family doesn't their family doesn't do anything um they've tried everything they feel as if they've tried everything they could but going to any events alone not knowing anyone is a struggle um so if there's any advice around this i'll share one piece of advice and and i imagine a brother edmund would have um something to add and i think so one thing that comes to mind is you know it can be very it can be very lonely um coming into a muslim community and not knowing anyone maybe as a convert maybe somebody read you know with the renewed commitment to islam maybe you had a muslim family but they never practiced whatever it was um and it can be very difficult navigating these happy times aid in particular and christians have the same challenge during christmas you know and and if they're uh if they don't have family and such but for us as muslims one thing i think that one person should consider doing is is becoming their own advocate and taking um some forward steps of their own and what i mean by that is um you know aid is one point in time but your life in the community uh is is you know is their year round and so if you develop strong ties in the community if you become an active participant in the community um you're connected to whatever committee or group or you know function of the local masjid or the local muslim community and you involve yourself you go and you volunteer you'll make friends you'll be connected um and it's not easy it's not difficult to get connected in muslim community there's so many opportunities if you're a good cook cook some good food and people and you're in if you're a good something you know you have a good skill set go and contribute and you're in it's it's not as difficult as sometimes we make it and so that way when it comes around you're there you're part of the community and if you're not and if you know and and you may even have to take one other step and and tell one of your friends say look you know it comes around and you know you all have your family gatherings you have your extended family you get together and you do this stuff and but i don't have anybody can i come hang out with you guys on eat and it's it's and i'm i'm serious it's just a simple ask and if you're already connected they just a lot of people just don't realize they don't know right they don't know that they don't know that the person sitting next to them doesn't have the support system and the structure that i've taken for granted my whole life because i come from a muslim family and we have our deep roots and whatever um so but but it takes some work right on your end to be connected and then and then if it needs that extra layer of asking straight up no big deal and and muslims will once you once you're in and once you're and then you're in for life right anything to add to that brother admin before we wrap up i would just agree being a convert myself i've had some of those experiences early on in my life and i know what that feels like it's one point where i had no idea how how packed the must should got during eat prayer there's one much i was going to go to and so i didn't even make the eat prayer because i caught like the last 10 seconds of it because i got caught in traffic and then i was praying and then people started leaving the muslim and i got trampled during after the eat prayer so not hurt or anything but people were kicking me and stuff i was trying to finish my prayer so um so yeah so i understand that experience and that's exactly yeah and actually that's one of the things i did was i i started volunteering in the community and made some friends i would get invited to people's houses during ramadan and that kind of thing and i've also worked with clients who have gotten divorced and maybe they moved here to marry their spouse and so now they don't have any family here and then ramadan comes eat comes and they're just they struggle so that's one of the things that they do is they'll start volunteering in the musty it or just getting involved in the community in some way and just creating a finding their people basically so yeah i would agree thank you so we are at about time i do have one more question that i would like to just ask if that's okay inshallah um so somebody i know earlier we were discussing about or brother edman you were saying that now a lot of us talk about you know removing ourselves from situations where we're not comfortable removing ourselves from the harm that is happening um thanks to that extent so a question i have is that if somebody knows that um their parent has abused sexually or otherwise someone in the past um they've gone through this experience like what what is um like is there a right to cut them off or how do we engage that that situation particularly from the islamic perspective of cutting that person off or that parent off and maybe we can start with you sheikh suhail okay bismillah so um i have we deal with this a lot in the community and um islam said or Allah says that i should show ihsan to my parents um well ihsan is needs to be contextualized based on what you as an individual are going through and so if i have a parent and i'm not speaking to this exact scenario but i'm giving you the the general principle um if i have a parent that um and we've you know we've faced many we've had many cases of this somebody who who has narcissistic personality disorder um not only is a narcissist but he's a true narcissist in the full sense of the word and then nothing i ever do is good enough it's always about him i'm hurt in every single interaction that i have with them etc etc well what do i do i am and they're getting old and they have needs and what am i supposed to do how do i do that if um if by you engaging them you are giving them space to hurt you and in essence they are uh piling up their evil deeds their say yet because you you're carrying on your relationship with them and the and in turn they're abusing you they're doing things that are hurtful and so forth then in essence you're not doing ihsan you you follow what i'm saying you supposed to treat them well and you're supposed to make sure that they also that you are also a doorway for them to be in a good in good standing with Allah but if you're giving them space in your life by which to abuse you then they're not doing right by Allah's panawata Allah so you're not doing ihsan with them um and so you know you take that principle and you apply it to your situation if there is uh uh and and so and i tell clients this all the time um or people at different stages of life um in islam we're not allowed to cut off relations relations that's a red line that we're not allowed to do so if you have if you're the relationship between my myself and my brother edmund for example i should have my door wide open because i trust him he's a beautiful brother and i i love him for the sake of Allah and and we want to have you know we want to have a relationship where it's just open between the two of us but when i have a relationship with someone who's put bringing harm at me i need to close the door a little bit it's still open but i open it uh you know it's still open but they need to knock right to fully come in for me to open up the door um it's not wide open for them to just come in and ram ram you know down my down down my throat things that are harmful to me you know i mean um so so and then if you have somebody who's very hurtful and abusive towards you the door is still open it's just barely cracked but it's you didn't cut the you don't don't say that i will never talk to them again maybe you don't have to talk them but for once one time a year right and so that's how you balance out that sort of that directive islamic directive of not of not cutting off family ties but at the same time applying ihsan in a way that is appropriate and not harmful or hurtful to yourself yeah i think um yeah when i mentioned that that earlier um i would agree 100% with sheikh suhail and what he said i mean the the challenge there's a difference between somebody who you argue with because you don't get along that well and somebody who actually has caused physical or sexual harm to you or somebody you know and um then that's just that's just enabling them if you put them in that situation again and so you don't want to be somebody that's how i think what sheikh suhail was saying when you're you know you you almost allow them to do their sin then so um definitely in those cases that you first you know it's when it's in islamic law you know first remove harm is one of the the main maxims like if this person causes harm and instead of the cause harm to people it's different if somebody just a little selfish every now and then and they don't you know aren't that friendly with you when you go to their house and that kind of thing but when they've actually committed abuse to people that's a different scenario and we need to protect ourselves from them and and our loved ones from them as well and i didn't see the question by the way i just read read now the question and um and i apologize i framed it in sort of general uh general framework but you're talking about actual sexual abuse um do you know and and so i would say the same thing that i said before but that door is is you know it's closed to the absolute maximum because you need to protect yourself and that person needs absolute permission from you to be able to step into your world so we're going to go ahead and close it off there um i'm going to ask sheikh suhail to close us up on a dua inshallah and then i am asking folks to stick around we do have a feedback form inshallah we're always trying to improve these learning circles and healing circles so everyone can benefit to the maximum inshallah i want to think again brother edmund and sheikh suhail for sharing your knowledge with us um it has been such an informative session i myself have taken so much out of it so jizakullah khid may Allah reward you for your efforts and your time spent with us today inshallah ask Allah to make us from those who hear the words that were said today and to take what is best from it we ask Allah to bring healing to the hearts of those that are dealing with all sorts of life struggles we ask Allah to give uh to bring happiness uh to the sad hearts and we ask Allah to give stability to those hearts that are that are wavering and that are anxious and we ask Allah to mend the wounds that are there between us uh in our relationships and we ask Allah to strengthen the bonds of friendship and love and brotherhood and sisterhood between us and we ask Allah to bring our hearts together always for his love always for his sake