 How are you? I'll be quiet, but I'd love if you can just get your your your background is so extensive. I'd love if you could just give a quick, you know, one to two sentences on your background so people know where you're coming from when giving this information. Sure. Sure. Yeah. So, um, so professionally speaking, I'm a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Stanford University. And there I direct the Stanford Muslim Mental Health Lab, which is basically the academic home for the topic of Muslim mental health in the country. And also, I direct the Khalil Center here in California, which is a Muslim counseling center that integrates Islamic spirituality into the care. So that's my professional work. And you probably know before that I did dean studies, Islamic studies. So, you know, I've taught, I'd say to in a college for about a decade or so. So I try to bring the two worlds together. Let's get started. The topic today is on hope and, you know, just a man just overall hope and dealing with anxiety, you know, bringing that spiritual mental emotional wellness to Ramadan, but also this really trying time that we're all going through in quarantine. So if you can give us a broad understanding of hope first, and then kind of battling that anxiety in, you know, whether it's spiritual and Ramadan or layered with this quarantine. Definitely. I think for me, hope is one of those emotions that I really honestly that I hold on to personally. And I'm hoping, hoping that everybody else will too. Mashallah. So in the Islamic understanding of Rajat or hope, it's a really wonderful explanation. He describes this being like a bird, the two wings of the bird and the head of the bird. So explain what he means. He basically says that one wing should be hope or Rajat. And the other wing is fear or hope. And in the middle or the head of the bird that kind of like leads the bird through was love. And so all three together are really important. And what he basically explains is if you don't have one of think of a bird, if it doesn't have one of its wings, it's going to crash and fall. So if you have too much hope, kind of what we would call like vein hope or unrealistic hope, it's often going to cause failure. And if you have too much fear as well, it's going to kind of crash and fall and not really get you to where you need to be. So the believer is always somebody who's balanced between the two emotions between hope and fear. And they're always they always have a, you know, some amount of hope and some amount of fear to keep them very balanced. And that is guided then by love. So that's a really important thing. Because I think for so many of us, we tend to be taught Islam from a place of fear. Or we tend to really think about, you know, our relationship with God as very much a, you know, do and don't have a very transactional relationship. Whereas whereas really it should be love, you know, that's guiding the whole story. And love interestingly enough is something that sustains itself, whereas fear eventually extinguishes. Like think about the fight or flight response. It's a natural response God gave us, right? To like fight off or, you know, flee from something we're scared of. But eventually over time in, you know, neuro neurologically speaking, it basically extinguishes it kind of diminishes it goes down over time, and it can no longer sustain you. So in the long run, even if you taught yourself or your kids to do something to pray or to fast or to give charity or do something out of fear, eventually that's not going to last very long. But hope on the other hand actually will and that love sustains it. Do you know what I mean? So that's kind of like that Islamic understanding and allowing us to really hold on to basically describes it. They know Roger, you would hope to be between hope and fear constantly balancing between the two, right? And where do you cultivate that from? How do you, if you're lacking in the hope department, maybe you're over indexing on fear, how can you work to balance that? Where do you get that from? Do you mind turning off your sorry? It's all good. We have all kinds of coworkers in our background. Yeah. So where do you where do you find that? How do you develop it? How can you work on having more of that hope? So this is so basically there's a couple of places you can really work on this. But first, let's just talk about like regular normal life circumstances. You know, think about how you're when you drive, right? None of us really hold a steering wheel directly straight, or at least you're not supposed to. You know that it's like a little bit, you know, it always like tilts a little bit. Or if you think of a plane, you know, that if you've ever watched a plane flying the two wings, you never see that it's like also directly straight. It's always calibrating little by little constantly, or maybe even easier for some people to think about if you've ever walked in the sand. And you think you're walking straight, but the reality is if you ever looked back at your footsteps, you actually find that it's a little bit zigzagged a little bit, you know, as though you think you're walking straight. And all of that is to say that it's a constant recalibration constantly. So you can never be it's never a perfect straight line. It's always a little bit of a give and take. And what that means is, you know, there will be days where it's a little bit low and days where it's a little bit high. And the average of which should allow you to go straightforward. Does that make sense? So I really want to tell people that these emotions, like what we always call negative emotions, like anxiety, like fear, there are actually something that God created, just like he created happiness and joy, just like he created hope, right? He also created these other emotions and they're meant to balance us out. So part of cultivating it is actually knowing how to bring all of it, like accepting all these emotions as real emotions that God gave us that have a purpose to them and not trying to like just kick them out, actually use them to better calibrate yourself. That is so interesting and really helpful for those who are feeling a flood of emotions with just the quarantine that we're going through. So how can we use those emotions to our benefit to help us through this journey forward? Definitely. So let's first talk about, like, why do we have anxiety right now? Like, where is that coming from? Where is this fear coming from? And honestly, it really makes a whole lot of sense because if you look at it from all dimensions, right, there's a dimension of the fear of the unknown. This virus is very much one that we're not sure what's going to happen. And we keep hearing of people getting sick. We hear about people, you know, unfortunately, actually even passing away my low breath and the highest levels of gender. And we hear about, and there's always that fear, we're washing our groceries, we're, you know, we're staying quarantined inside, we're covering our faces with masks, I mean, all these things that are happening. So there is a fear and panic related to that. That's only natural. Then you add to that. It's been many of us who are caretakers. So think about, you know, the younger generation for those who are parents, think about the older generation for those who have elderly parents or grandparents or elders in their family. Think about those who have, you know, compromised or sick people in their family or they're worried, right? They have all these worries about what's going to happen to all my loved ones, especially those who are more at risk than others. And then add to that, the caretaker thing, add to that in addition to it, you know, the fact that we as Muslims, honestly, this is what I really feel, I write about this topic of Islamophobia quite a bit and its effect on our mental health. But so many of us, we have been carrying communal trauma, not just individual trauma, but like communal trauma from all the difficulties we face, you know, we're talking as a, hey, job company today. I'm like, you know, being a visible Muslim, what does that mean sometimes? Or just even having a visible Muslim name or presence? And then thinking about all the things, I mean, whether it's a barbaric shooting just the other day and murder, whether it's, you know, just a year ago, this time, the New Zealand shootings that happened, right? There's just so much communal trauma in that way. So we carry all the stress that sometimes we don't even realize we're carrying. And then a pandemic breaks out on top of it, suddenly you're quarantined with family who maybe you get along with, but just the fact that you're stuck, you know, that feeling of not having your typical routine and the people you normally see and the things you normally do. And then maybe there are circumstances where family it's actually a tough situation, it's not a healthy situation, and you're sheltering in place with them. So all of these together, you bring all of this together and you realize how much you're carrying anxiety, but you may not even have realized you're carrying. And then it comes out in all kinds of strange ways, right? People are more short tempered, they're irritable, they're not sleeping well, even though they're not going out, but they're still not sleeping well, right? And then not that Ramadan should add to the difficulties, but it's a month of lots of exertion, right? You're fasting, you're up and praying, you know, so your sleep schedule is kind of off as well, right? There are just, it's a different pace of life in Ramadan. And so all of these together could actually kind of bring up these feelings within us. Absolutely. And I know everyone here listening can certainly relate to from start to finish, although that flood of emotions that we're feeling, but what I'm hearing from you is that it's quite natural and we're all going to feel this way and that's okay. But it's, you know, it's the how we deal with it, but I think we're all kind of struggling with and trying to ask ourselves, is it enough just to say, Tuakilalallah, have trust in Allah, pray to him and you'll, that's enough. You know, I know people express frustration when they are battling certain issues, whether it's anxiety or depression and, you know, talk to different people in their community and are met with, well just pray to Allah, and oftentimes that's not enough. And so can you tell us the distinction between the two and how our deen and hope and Tuakil plays into all of this? Absolutely. You know, think about it. So basically, think about it this way. People often go straight to faith and it makes sense, you know, why? Because you're, you're kind of holding on to and certainly a lot of the research, by the way, that's coming out right now about COVID is that even people who had no interest in faith before or religion even before are turning to it because it's so overwhelming, the sheer overwhelming nature of this pandemic that people are like, I need to hold on to something much bigger than myself, right? And for those who already are faithful, you know, they're also holding on. So it makes sense why people immediately go to faith. But the hadith of the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is clear. And the idea is that you have to al-Qud, which basically means tie your camel, right, and then Tuakil and then rely on Allah. And that tying the camel is really important. I think we just skip over and go directly to reliance. But both, both are important here. And what that tying the camel looks like, at least in this pandemic, if you will, are really taking the measures to make sure that you're reducing that those anxiety in a certain amount, like we said, is healthy and important. But it's the unhealthy anxiety. It's the extra that pops up that actually we need to do work on. We need to do our tying the camels up. So let me give you a couple examples of what to do, like practical examples, if you will, right? So I've categorized these as five steps. And I really think that the steps are hopefully, you know, I've heard from at least some of the people I work with directly that it's been helping. But the first is really to make sure that you're talking to those who you trust. And if you can't find someone who you trust, or, you know, then this might be the time to actually talk to a professional, right, like a counselor, a therapist, and so on. The talking is really important, because I feel like a lot of us bottle up quite a bit, and we bottle up, bottle up, bottle up, and then it just explodes, right? And that happens to everybody, even those who think that they're being strong for someone else, they just end up exploding. And right now, it's so overwhelming that you can't just hold this all in, right? So talking and then the flip of the coin of that is listening. And by listening, I really think it's important too, because think about our elders who are isolated completely alone, or think about our younger, you know, the young people in our lives who are feeling quite a bit of emotion too, but nobody's actually tuning into them and saying, how are you doing? And that's important too, because they're carrying around anxiety and kids manifest anxiety differently than adults, and they get very cranky and irritable, and you can't figure out why, but part of it is all of this that's happening and no one's really checking in with them, right? So talking, listening, and part of that talking listening, which is all number one is also being able to tolerate the uncertainty. That's a really key takeaway today, right? It's tolerating uncertainty. In Islam, we have this concept of like, all the affairs of the believer is good, are good. You know, like that, like a, it's wondrous, the affair of the believers, because everything for them is good. And what that means is, and the Hadith goes on to say like, if they were to be patient, that's good for them. But if they were to be harmed, because some of us are going to be harmed by this in one way or another, right, then it's also good for them, because in that ability to thank Allah for what they do have and show patience for what they've lost, is good for good, right? All right. So that's number one. Number two is really being able to make sure that we're not being overstimulated by news. And I know too many people, honestly, too many who are just constantly plugged in. And even though we'd say, you know, it's Ramadan, it's, you know, don't just fast from eating and drinking, try to fast from all that news consumption too, right? All the extra news because, and some of the questions that came in actually said, you know, every time I read something or I listen to something, I'm just flooded with anxiety again. And my strong recommendation is, look, if it's really urgent and really important, somebody's going to tell you about it. So just unplug at this point. You don't need that overstimulation, especially for someone who already has anxiety at baseline, right? So this would be an important time to really do alternatives to that. And those are the number three, which are basically your healthy practices. And the healthy practices are essentially taking time for yourself to grow and get better both health wise so physically, right? So we talk about healthy eating and dieting and healthy exercising and making sure you're sleeping well. And I know it's Ramadan, but we can still maintain, you know, good practices and habits, even at Ramadan, right? And then comes the spiritual part. So the spiritual part is really important here too. And I think especially the month of Ramadan to really grow spiritually, this is part of the self care. And it's all I'll share with you guys a little bit about that as well. Like what are some of the techniques to be, to be connected, right? That are very healthy. But honestly, I can't tell you how many people don't really take the time, especially women, especially women, because they're always giving, giving, giving, giving, and never really taking. But then we become like the cars that are running unempty, right? With no recharge. And that recharge and fuel that we need is actually our spiritual needs. But we don't often like take the time to actually do that spiritual growth again. So I hope and shall we have the time to talk about that melody. But I'm going to finish number four and five, which basically, you know, for number four is being actionable, taking action. And this has helped a lot of people's anxiety, both adults and kids. And yes, I really think kids should be involved in this because they can be brought into help. And for both adults and kids, when you do things for someone else, when you're kind of taking your anxiety and putting it towards the service of someone else, it helps actually feel like you're in control. And that reduces anxiety. So what I mean is like, think about that this is Ramadan and there are people out there and COVID and there are people out there who don't have enough to eat and food shortages, right? So setting up meal trains, setting up food packages, being able to, even if it's charity wise or actually the actual materials to make care packages, putting that empathy into action, right? Even when you come to one of my teachers will always say when you come to give charity as a family, whether it's your zakat, or your salaqa, either one, that call all the family members, even the little ones, and say, okay, we're going to have a family meeting about how we're going to give charitably this year. And let them hear you actually discuss this organization and that organization and this need and that need and help let them hear that because it actually cultivates in them being charitable and actionable people when they get older. And it really helps because then you start to feel like you're doing something in the, in the, in your sheltered in place world that you can't, you feel so confined and you're not helping anybody, right? It actually helps you feel like you're helping someone else. And that brings anxiety down to. And then lastly, I have to say, you know, I am as a psychiatrist and a mental health professional, right? I have to say that if all of these things don't, you know, if they don't help the anxiety enough, then it probably is time to talk to a professional, right? And I think it's really important to get that help and care and not let your fear or the stigma against mental health stop you. This is May is mental health awareness month. So yay, right? Mental health awareness month. And also, um, that there's some great resources out there, especially Muslim ones these days, you know, the Khalil Center, for example, is all throughout the US and we've moved all of our offices to web therapy. So we're more accessible than ever before. But there are others as well, all throughout the US who are both Muslim and practicing mental health care. So please do reach out to them. And I think that's going to be really important. This was so incredibly helpful. And it really once and for all, for me, helps answer the question of why isn't Muslim data enough? Or, you know, for people who feel really frustrated that they're not getting the answers that they need, which is, okay, go, you know, tie your camel, go through these actions. And if it's still something you're you're really struggling with, talk to a professional and see professional help. And I think the lines between when you need to do that and when you don't are really blurry. And a lot of people don't understand. But going through this and then being like, Okay, clearly, this, you know, I can't get over this. So I need to seek mental health help, professional help. You touched on that stigma really quickly. And, you know, for me and my family and my my circles, certainly the stigma is not, not very strong. However, I know that's not the case for a lot of Muslim families. So if you could just talk about that and try to demystify, you know, any type of taboo around this, so for people out there who are listening and feel like, Oh, I could never do that, I would never go speak to a professional, I would never seek a therapist or a psychiatrist or whatever, or take medicine or whatever that is. You know, if you have a skeptic listening, what would you say to them to help alleviate some of that fear of stigma? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I really want to say that, in short, I hope in this new era. So look, this is what I want, what I really want to speak from the heart. Shalom. I'm going to tell you something as a Muslim, especially as a Muslim, mental health should be nothing new to us and nothing that we're fearful of. I know there's this concept of like, and this is honestly one of the passions of why I went into the field. Everybody around me when I was growing up was very much like, and that's not for us. We don't do that. We don't hear our journey laundry. We don't talk about our issues outside of our home. You know, and very much, you know, that's a Western construct that has nothing to do with us Muslims, et cetera, that kind of rhetoric, right? But then honestly, I think it was actually my dean's studies and having gone into like the traditional classical texts and really studied. And then I would come across all of us as Muslims. We're so proud of like our Islamic Golden Age, right? Like the medicine and the, you know, the humanities and all the demands and so science and over and talks about the advancements they made in mental health. And it turns out, and now I'm going to, and this is, I'm going to get out of my, I'm going to be on my soapbox for a little while. No, truly, I'm so, so passionate about this. And some of the research we do at my lab at Stanford, the Stanford Muslim Mental Health is exactly this, some of the historical understandings in mental health. And you should, you would be amazed like this quarter I'm teaching a class on Islamic Psychology and my Stanford students just had their midterms and each of them were assigned an Islamic mental health hospital to research and talk about. And you can imagine how amazing and how advanced that we were, right? I mean, we're talking about in what otherwise was dark ages of Europe. That's the same timeframe, right? So we're talking about, you know, whole institutions that cared for people, not just physically, but also mental health wise, super humanistic. You know, there was the idea of like, this is not just faith, nor is it just a secular issue, but it's both together. And it shows in their treatments and shows in the treatment team. So what do I mean, like they had their physician, they had their nurse, okay. But then they also had the person, and I love this, the person who's like today we would call a social worker who basically used to make sure that while they were in the hospital were taken care of like food and, and clothing and wise, but then after they left to get this, they didn't have to pay for that treatment because it was all from Zakat money and all by the Islamic government, but when they left, they were also given money. So, you know, two did hums basically to gold did hums to make sure that they could get back on their feet and three more to set up their own business and integrate them back into society. Like that's our tradition, right? And if you look at all the treatments and I write about this quite a bit of like, you know, that we definitely were the people who discovered, you know, whether it's obsessive compulsive disorder or phobias or all these different illnesses and not just, not just discovered them, but classified them, diagnosed them, treated them. And when you look at the treatments, and I love this, I read a lot about a man named Belchi from the ninth century. And he, and he honestly, you know, even medical, even like the medical society where I present these in the journals that I presented them in, they're blown away and sometimes they're just like really resistant because I'm saying, this is ninth century. And you're telling me that OCD was discovered in the 19th century by some, you know, European guy. No, it was discovered by Belchi a millennium earlier. And not only that, but you look at his treatment and it's three things. He talks about basically talk therapy. Can you imagine? Talk therapy was discovered by the Muslims, right? And it's still, so if anybody goes, I don't know about this therapy thing, you know, you're welcome to give them my Belchi papers. And then he talks about herbs or basically compounded herbs, which today we would call medications, right, if needed. And thirdly, he says about the religious log. So basically giving religious advice, and all three together need to be part of the treatment. And that's what we do today at the Khalil Center. We basically integrate modern psychology into and integrate into Islamic teachings to bring the two worlds together. And one if needed, you know, medications, right? So that's like our tradition. That's what the Muslim tradition is. So anyone who's kind of like, I don't know about this, right? This is our heritage. Like out of all people, we should be most proud of. So a couple of places you're welcome to access the Stanford Muslim Mental Health website, which is, you know, on Stanford's site. And also, I know a lot of these publications are like in medical journals. So some of the more academic work is there. We have a really great book that's coming out this summer in July. And it's actually in conjunction with the Khalil Center. And it's introducing Islamically integrated psychotherapy is the title of the book. And in the in the chapter on history, which I think is the third chapter of the book, I go into what we go into a lot of details about who are all these people and what did they discover. And so there's a couple of really great resources people are welcome to read into. And I'm hoping to once, you know, I know we do a lot of academic writing, but I'm hoping to also in time, also kind of bring it out to, you know, the general public in the world as well, because I think it's so powerful this this work, you know, how people are experiencing such a range of emotions and quarantine. And one of the questions is how better to ride that wave of emotions? One day you're like happy, the next you're sad, the next you're agitated and irritated. You know, how can we battle better handle all this, this flood of emotions we're dealing with in quarantine? Definitely. And I think welcome the flood of emotions, welcome the up and down know that it's part of our natural response. It's again, back to that like idea of calibrating, where like you're going to have some days that are good and some days that are bad, but the average should be pretty good. So basically, we talk about, especially within my work, I talk about, you know, the small dips, small ups and downs are welcomed. It's the big dips, whether definitely down, but even up, you know, are problematic. And that's where, you know, working with a professional would be really important. But the little ones, the little bumps are meant to be kind of a not nobody's exactly a straight line. It's always like a little bit of a bump up and down. So welcome that in. And the two things, the two main things about, you know, having, having tolerating uncertainty is a really important kind of concept. And the second one of being between hope and fear, I think is really, really important to, you know, it really helps us, Beno Rajati would hopefully helps us stay calibrated as much as possible through this quarantine, because we don't exactly know there's all these theories about what it's going to be over and not and whatnot. But, you know, what's important here is that if you are, you know, having too much hope or too much fear, that's where the problem is. But some of that, some of both of those can actually see us all the way through this, inshallah. And that's so helpful to hear you say it's so validating to hear from a professional to hear, okay, it's okay, feel those things. Yes. And again, emotions are a creation of a loss of talent. He gave them to us. He didn't mean for them to be, you know, annexed out of our life, right? We're supposed to actually have them to healthy amounts, right? All of them, including when we think about the fight and fight response, the natural kind of autonomic system response where you, you need, and I'll give you an example, when all of this stuff happened, remember when everybody was running outside, trying to find the groceries and, you know, the crazy hoarding that was going on and all kinds of things going on. And so a little bit of that fear. So imagine if you were like, I'm going to be okay. I don't need anything. And you just sort of sat quarantine in your home. You would have nothing, right? But the extreme of that of like the price gouging and the hoarding that happened is another extreme. So a little bit of that anxiety helped us all get like organized, figure out how we're going to work from home and balance kids at home and all of the really chaos that ensued thereafter, right? And you are very best with it, despite the difficulties, right? And that's the most important thing to our best despite difficulties. And best might look like a job half done, or a school year half completed. But guess what? Every other kid has their school year half completed too. You know, it's not just you, Subhanallah. So that's a really important concept. And for the other extreme, which as Muslims, I love how we were like, yeah, we're not too worried about all the toilet paper because we have a water that we use. It's lovely. But really, honestly, it's that we don't want either extreme. We want to take both emotions and make the best of both. I love that. I want to pivot into another emotion, which, you know, we're taught to really do our best to stay away from and that's despair, especially despair and al-as-panaqtala. And somebody asked, how do you deal with moments of despair during this crisis? So despair and Arabic is the word yes. And the ayah and the Qur'an that talks about that word specifically is actually beautiful. And it says, you know, لا تيأسوا من رحمة الله, right? Do not do not despair from the mercy of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. And I think, sorry, sorry, I said it wrong. لا تيأسوا من روح الله. And so don't despair from, you know, Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala. And I think there's actually, it shows up in other places too, this concept of despair. And what it basically, we want to really guard against is never going so far into that too much fear turns into despair, right? Like the extreme of the emotion fear is despair. So that's kind of like going too far out. And what it means is you have to bring it back to a healthy amount of fear. Like we talked about that balance, a healthy amount that you actually just prompts you and kind of gets you up every morning and goes, okay, I need to figure out working kids in school and groceries and all of that. And my bad schedule of Ramadan, all of that, right? But too much of that, yes, is basically like the person think about it this way to bring it closer to people. For those who have ever interviewed for a job or prepared for a job, you know that if you had too much fear, you might actually just not even go interview altogether or apply to that school or that job or that whatever it is altogether. I don't think I could ever get in. Even though that might be like your dream school or dream job, right? And the person who has too much fear may either just give up altogether. And the person that has too much hope on the other side, right? Too much confidence. It's kind of, it's a little bit of an arrogance, right? They might go into that interview totally unprepared. So you don't want either extreme because the middle allows you to what have enough fear, right? Of like making sure that you, you know, work hard and that you get ready and you prepare and you get your resume together and you do hard work, you know. And the hope allows you to still, you know, quiet that voice in your head that goes, you can't, this is not for you, because you're not good enough, right? To quiet that terrible little voice, right? That keeps kind of undermining us. So again, it comes back to the balance between the two. First, there were a lot of questions on this where people were saying, I have abusive parents or, you know, really toxic in-law situations or, you know, maybe, you know, issues with spouses. What's your advice on in that regard? So, you know, I like to talk about this as the bell curve. So basically think about if you can remember back with me this idea of the bell curve of like normal relationships, everything under the curve is kind of what we could consider to be a normal situation and any of the extremes are considered to be extremes, right? So I want to make sure that I'm answering this question addressing both because there are situations that are, again, after being quarantined with even a person that you typically get along with and typically love quite a bit, but after like, you know, what are we at, eight, nine weeks of this, at least in California, we're in our third month now of quarantine and, you know, it's hard, you know, but for those who the relationships are otherwise normal and healthy relationships, know that it's only normal to also feel like I need to get away from this, right? And so part of that is taking that member number three, which is taking self-care, self-care, taking time for yourself. And sometimes all that means is like taking a corner in your room for a little while and like literally, and I love, I'll tell you what, you know how like as Muslims, we got on our prayer rugs and even young kids when they see that a lot, but they know, they start to know not to disturb, maybe not the little ones, but as they get older, right? They know. And so at least tell people, give visual cues to your family members. Let them know that you need some time and if they are not respecting those boundaries in that space, do something that makes it very obvious, like sit on a prayer rug and most people are like, what? And it's like, no, seriously. And, you know, as woman, and this is me going into my like, member, I talked about like spiritual self-care tips. So one of them that I have is doing Attica or basically spiritual devotional seclusion at home. And for women, we can actually do it at home. We don't need to massage it because there's that opinion that allows women to do Attica at home. But here's where it ties in. First of all, it helps us recharge. It's that fuel to the empty gas tank I was talking about, right? And it's super simple because all it means is you're taking a corner of your room, or maybe it's your home room, but just one part of your house and you're making intention that that becomes your message. So the intention is very simple. It actually says, no way to Attica. I intend to Attica will have a message. So I intend to Attica and this, whatever area you choose, this is my message. And then it transforms into your message space. Okay. So why am I saying this? Because when you're in your message space, you're basically on your prayer rug and you're not always just praying. You're also making du'a, doing vikr, but you're also doing what I call Islamic meditation, which otherwise is contemplation to Fakr, right? This very beautiful concept that we've lost. We go straight into secular meditation and don't think about that Islam has its own indigenous, you know, practices that helps bring anxiety down. Well, the Fakr is one of those, contemplation. And there's a whole process to it. It's really beautiful. And or to dub food, which is pondering the quran or the meanings of quran or the pondering, what a lost content means by all of this, right? The point is all of this can be done in your prayer space, your Attica space. And that Attica space, it gives a visual cue because you're actually sitting in a certain place on a prayer rug, okay? And it gives this visual cue to your family, oh, they're doing worship, especially at Ramadan. This is perfect, right? But you can do Attica all year long, even outside at Ramadan. And that was the Sunnah, the Prophet Salafi, Sunnah. You did Attica all year long, but you go into your space and you have that self-care time to grow. But it also gives you a space a little bit from the family members around you, even those that you love, okay? Because you do need to kind of break a little bit in the action. What about the extremes on the other end, where they're unhealthy? So, we recorded an entire session on this topic with the Khalil Center and because of Save the Time, I won't go through the whole thing. But I will say that we'll make the link available, because we go through very practical steps of how to deal with toxic relationships when they're in your very close quarters like that. So, two resources. One is going to be that video, and the other is the Khalil Center's YouTube channel that actually goes, we have one, it's a large YouTube channel, but one of the channels specifically is on COVID resources. And we have all these like tips, they're small tutorials of how do you deal with all different parts of this pandemic? So, I hope that's going to be helpful to all your viewers, inshallah. Totally, and I will share that after this. I'll share both of that for those of you who may be experiencing that, so you can get a deeper insight into some answers on that. One question is, how do you stay uplifted when you're not doing enough of a bad death as a result of that? And that can also apply to those who have very demanding jobs or demanding family situations with, you know, maybe they live with their parents or in-laws. And so, how do we deal and stay uplifted when you feel like you're not doing enough? Absolutely. I mean, think about, like you said, it's exactly right that whether they're children, like your own, or whether you're a caretaker in some other capacity, think about all those right now. I keep thinking about all those that are on the front lines, right? And they may have both going on, or think about those that have elders in their family, or those that have all the above happening, because upon Allah, I mean, it's a lot, right? And then you have Ramadan, and it's a month where we're supposed to exert ourself and do the best and do our most. And it's true. I mean, I'm not going to take that part away, because it's true about Ramadan that it really is a month of, you know, and my teachers would often say, and if this helps, I'm going to give you two things that I really have learned a lot from my teachers and benefited. One of them is Ramadan is supposed to be a month of exertion and exhaustion. So for anyone who's like, I'm so exhausted, I don't get it. It's upon Allah, you're doing it right. It turns out it's like the marathon runner, not the sprint, right? Not the sprinter. It's the person who actually is day in and day out doing, even if it's little, but steady. So some amount of prayer. And guys, you don't have to do all 20 of them if you have young children, right? That's not all we have minimum is two, okay? Better more, okay? And but if you can't at least try to say to yourself, okay, before I go to sleep tonight, I'm going to get two in just to or when I wake up for Sahud, I'm going to get two in, right? You've done it. You're good, right? And there's this whole thing about like, let's read the entire Quran from cover to cover. If you can, mashallah. But guess what? Any amount of Quran you read is going to be more Quran that day than not, right? So like setting very realistic expectations and goals. And it ties into the second part when you ask about moms. And my teachers have this thing where they talk about the 10 or some will say the 20 year excuse. I love this. What it means is, and depends on how many kids you have and how many years it is that you're rearing them, child wearing, and they're very young years until they're kind of dependent, self dependent. And the 20 or 10 year excuse basically means before you have them, you're doing all this work and you're supposed to like really exert yourself a normal bond. And if you're single, really taking that extra time that you don't owe anybody else, right? To your own self care and growth. But once you have somebody depending on you, now you get that break. And what that break means is it's not a complete break, mind you, but it's a 20 year or 10 year excuse. So 10 year if you have just like one kid, right? Or maybe just a couple kids, but 20 might be if the person who has multiple one after another after another for many years, right? They're going to need that excuse. And it just means that like the volume gets turned down and what the expectations are. Because all the rest of your work is being put into nurturing that family and taking care of it. And in that, the za'ibata, in that is a worship, in that is, and perhaps that is more accepted from Allah than you locking your door, reading two juzus of quran and neglecting the kids who are causing mass chaos outside, right? And there was no barakah or acceptance in that amount of reading of quran. Because really where Allah wanted you is with the two kids that drive you kind of, you know, up the wall a little bit, yeah? But that's where, that's where the barakah is, right? That's where the acceptance is. So, you know, we have to reframe things a little bit. And I can't tell you after I learned that from my teachers, my spiritual teachers, who mostly were women, by the way. And I think that really helped to see women in action is, you know, women scholars in action. And to see their own homes and their own families and to see how they did this. But that's how you maintain sanity through all of this, right? Is realizing that Allah does not burden a soul more than it can bear. And he knows what he created. So he knows he created us as caretakers of other people that in those years of our lives, right? Other responsibilities are tuned, that they're turned down the volume of it, right? And then when you don't have those anymore, we're still a habidah lilahi tada. We're still servants to Allah, right? So when those stages of our life finish and they're off at college or they're doing other things, we don't go into emptiness syndrome. We as Muslim women don't do that, right? We just turn the volume back up to whatever Allah swt wants us to be doing. For me, I feel a lot of guilt, a lot of time that I spend so much time, you know, working when I should probably be off doing other things. Do you think that same thing applies for me and all the rest of the women out there who are like me? Absolutely. Absolutely, Mel. I think if you think about how those who have the very demanding jobs and especially in the service industry or just trying to keep things afloat. I mean, the reality is, again, Allah knows what he created. He knows your situation better than anybody knows, right? And this is where we don't judge each other and we don't say, hey, you're, you know, you don't have kids. What's your deal, right? No, SubhanAllah. You don't know what that other person is holding and what kind of burden they're carrying for other people. So maybe you're, maybe you do have the kids, but you only have those kids to worry about, whereas that person who didn't have the kids has on their shoulders hundreds or thousands of more people that they're carrying behind them in the work they're doing, right? So this is where we're really careful not to, you know, cross compare. So we're taught in our religion to be really careful from doing that, looking at that other person. And I know in this, you know, we're both on social media, Instagram here, right? But I know in that social media age, it's so easy to look into somebody else's life and just assume something. But we don't really know the realities of what's happening. Islam, you know, can be condensed down to justice. That is what it means to be a Muslim is to stand for what's just and what's right. And, you know, seeing what's been happening in the news recently, and you brought it up with Ahmad or Ahmad Arbri and how difficult it is to see and how helpless we feel. And this is just one example in the slew of examples we've had over the course of the last five years. You know, how do we help from becoming helpless and to just to say this question, to word it in a different way from this person who said, how do you alleviate that sense of helplessness when seeing so much injustice in the world? You know, I love that question because I think it's what we're all carrying around with us. Honestly, it's so hard. Here we are in the middle of Ramadan and dealing with the death of our brother and the murder of our brother, I should say. And there's so many other injustices. I mean, if you open up that can of worms, there's no closing it. It's just it's too much, right? There's no closing it. And you're right about Islam being a religion that is absolutely one that stands for justice. I think what I want to see here is a really important point. It goes back to the earlier point of balance of making sure that and this is where we find with social activism. And I know because I'm inclined to this way too. I'm all about, you know, I'm constantly writing about Islamophobia and working on these topics. But I find that if you get on the social justice network and kind of the work and you again, it's same like the mother, you give, give, give, give without taking back in, you end up depleting yourself. And I worry about that because then what is meant to be, you know, I love this line of poetry in Arabic that says, you know, and translates into every vessel can only spill out what it contains. And so you can't give what you don't have, right? So if you have a certain amount of, you know, calm and a certain amount of social justice, that work of justice and that work and ability to help change systems, which is long and tedious work, it doesn't happen overnight by fist pumping, right? It takes a lot of work little by little and if you have that ability, then absolutely you're meant to be in that and to do that, but to make sure that you're also taking back in refueling if you will spiritually. Because I think in the line of work that I'm in, whether it's in counseling, helping other people or whether it's actually in taking care of the social justice issues that we keep seeing around us, I find that some people times, sometimes they get, it's so overwhelming that they get depleted and after a while they can't do it anymore or they get so cynical and the world seems so bleak in front of them, do you know what I mean? And that's where it's like modulating. So remember Allah created situations. He also created the people, His people that are going to come and help those situations. It's not just us. So thinking that it's just us is also a good of an arrogance that we have sometimes to remember that if you need to turn off and go do to care of your family or to care of something else, that cause that you were working for. If it's a noble cause, Allah will send someone else. That's a really important thing. It's very humbling to us, right? That we can be replaced and we will be replaced, right? And that's a very important concept. So all while we can, we'll do so and do the best of it. But when we need to do self-care and take care of family or other issues, right, Allah will send people to fill that cause, whether it's a social justice kind of cause or whether it's, you know, your local Islamic school that needs extra help or your local Islamic, you know, whatever, local humanitarian effort, if it's noble cause, Allah will send His people. And I think that's a really important reframing negative experiences you've had in your life that may be taking control over your present and how to think through those things and create some positivity from that rather than having them drag you down. Yes, the silver linings, right? The reframing. Yeah. Thank you for the person who asked that. I think that's really, really key. This idea of taking every situation, like look at this quarantine. I'm going to use the quarantine as an example, the shelter in place, because it is a difficult circumstance, right? And for many, it's been a negative circumstance. There's been loss of life. There's been loss of wealth, right? Financial stability. There's been a loss of, you know, normalcy. And we don't know what the new normal exactly is going to be. So let's take that as an example since it applies to all of us widely, right? So silver linings. I can't help but honestly, I can't help but think about how Allah quarantined us in our homes, right? And in doing so, we look to the earth and the world outside and it's actually healing. Like without us meddling in it so much and transgressing, actually it's a transgressing. And I think about how Allah said that we as human beings are khulafa. We are the Khalifa on earth, right? We are the caretakers of this earth. He has made us the caretakers of earth, right? And how instead we're transgressing so much. And when we sit in our homes, it actually heals. The oceans are healing. The skies are healing. The earth is healing. Everything's healing so powerful without us in it. And then you think about what does it mean for us to be home? And maybe it's also time of healing for us too. Like sit yourself down and do that spiritual kind of like regrowth and tuning inwards. And I think that's a really key thing too to think about silver linings. I think about other silver linings, how like for example, you know, we and I'm seeing them everywhere and I think this is really key. Like for people who are thinking how do I refrain? Always look out for the silver linings and something. Try to turn something around and look at the cup half full versus half empty, right? That very cliche statement. But I think it's so key, right? Turn the issue around and say, okay, what am I getting out of this? Well, for some families, they're having a really hard time. And maybe in some relationships, it's become clear that those are people that need to separate from each other. And for other families, actually, and I've actually had this in some of my own, you know, patients that I work with, but the very issue was that they were such a fast-paced life, especially here in Silicon Valley, such a fast-paced life that what they didn't have is each other. And as they quarantined at home together, they got that. And they realized, oh, that was the issue, we weren't tuning into each other, and we weren't giving each other their rights, right, in terms of time and love and energy, right? So how do I answer their human, right? So there are disruptions for some and there's healing for others, right? Think about the other silver linings about this Ramadan especially. And you know, this concept of like the distance makes the heart grow fonder. I can't tell you how many people have taken our massages, the imams for granted, the Islamic knowledge for granted, or it's not all the way for granted, or I eat prayers for granted. I mean, everything really, we've taken, we as humans, we do this, right? We take things for granted. And when we don't have them anymore, suddenly we're like, no, hold on, but shalom. And we want them back. Well, part of that is the distance makes the heart grow fonder. So I'm really hoping by the time we come to next year, this time, and shalom things are better and we're back and stable again, but that we're much more cognizant. All the men, for example, that never really knew what it meant for to not pray, Sarawih that the woman that were, I had this whole rant, the other day on Instagram about how I'm so thankful. My biggest silver lining is all the women that are not cooking up these massive thoughts and all the societal pressures, right? Of having to like, you invite me, I invite you, you invite me, and I invite you. And then this is like, and then she spends her whole Ramadan in the kitchen, literally. And it's like, that's not the point of Ramadan, right? And you can just help break someone's fast by like, a date, right? Something small and simple. So anyhow, back to the silver linings, all that extra time, you can connect with your creator, a lot, right? So I keep seeing all these silver linings everywhere in terms of the quarantine. And similar to all different issues in our life, all difficulties to say, okay, was there something that a lot saw and knows is actually worse for me? When I lost that job, or I lost that position, or this person left my life or that friendship ended? Was there something I'm being protected from that I couldn't see? So immediately I was really mad at it and upset with it. But actually in the long run, it was better for me. Or it helped me grow, growing pains, right? Or actually, it was something that's going to be a positive thing later if I just patient up to wait for it. What about those who are feeling crippled by their own sins that their hands brought to themselves? Anything to their grappling with those negative experiences as a result of their own sinful actions, adds this complexity to the this the issue of, well, it's my fault. I'm not going to grow or fixating on it so much that it's blocking them from growth. Absolutely, yeah, Allah. You know, Mel, that there's this beautiful hadith or the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, it's a hadith kutzi. So it's Allah SWT speaking in the hadith. And he basically says, and I'm going to give a synopsis of it, he basically says, oh, son of Adam, or daughter of Adam, right? If you were to come with, come to me with your, with sins so high that they reach the skies, the clouds in the skies, but you were to turn and ask me for forgiveness, I would forgive you, right? And, and, and the hadith goes on, it's a beautiful narration about like how Allah forgives everything. And there's this one other hadith where the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is sitting with his companions and talking about this concept of forgiveness, because we are actually in the days of forgiveness. So this is a perfect timing to talk about this upon Allah. The second third of Ramadan is for some, the slump, but for others, you know, it's actually our second chance. It's our chance of asking for forgiveness and getting it fully, completely, because Allah forgives more people in this year, in this month than ever in the entire year, right? SubhanAllah. So this, and so this other hadith where the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says Allah forgives everybody except from one and the companions are like, well, who's the one? Who's the one? Right? They want to know. And then it's interesting and you may not necessarily think about it, but it's beautiful how he says it. He says the person who doesn't ask for forgiveness. So it, so even if you feel shackled by everything you've done, even if it's like, and like the hadith says, even if you pile it up and it seems like it's going to the sky, it's so high, right? Right? Nothing is bigger than Allah's pan-atana. And no person is bigger than Allah's pan-atana. And no boss is more of Fura'un, right? That Fura'un, you know, Fura'un is kind of like, you know, complex that we give some people and go, whoa, you know, that we're scared of them. Nobody, every Fura'un has Allah's pan-atana on top of them, right? So don't ever make your own sins or other people so big, right? So, so massive that you don't feel like you can turn to Allah. And I'm going to, you know, the last thing I'll say on this is, is the ayah where I love, SubhanAllah, I love it. We were talking about it in the Qiyam last night, you know, which is, you know, say to my servants, Allah's pan-atana is instructing the Prophet to say to all of us. And it says, to all, say to my servants that have transgressed against their own souls. So he knows that we as human beings, he created us, he created us as insan, the word is nesiyah, the one who forgets. So we're going to forget, we're going to mess up, we're going to fall, we're going to stumble, but then we're going to get back up and we're going to pick ourselves back up. And Allah's pan-atana is going to help us through that. And the ayah continues to say, you know, tell my servants who have transgressed against themselves, don't despair, there's that word again, don't despair from the mercy of Allah's pan-atana. He is all forgiving, most merciful. And I think that's where we really need to hold on to. Like, Allah doesn't want harm for us and he doesn't want difficulties for us, but he does want us to turn to him. And he said, if we were seamless people that never made mistakes, he would replace us and bring another people, another group of people that did sin so that they could ask for forgiveness so that they could be forgiven. Right? And so just to remember that ar-Rahma, that mercy that Allah has and that forgiveness that he has, I think it's so key, but we somehow lose sight of it in the midst of it all. Ya Allah, that was so beautiful and so, so, so just amazing. You know, I have so much, I have so many blessings that Hamd and I have so much around me, but I still can't shake this feeling of emptiness inside. I still feel sad. And you know, without assuming too much about the people who are asking this question and just in terms of that void, that emptiness, how would you best advise this person? So emptiness always comes from somewhere. It seems like a void, it seems like it's coming from nothing, but everything comes from something, subhanAllah. And I really would recommend for that person and honestly for everybody and anybody who's feeling that way to dig deeper. And sometimes it's really hard to dig deeper by yourself. You might be able to, like you're holding a journal right now, Melanie, and like when you actually write out and really think about where is this coming from? Sometimes you can reach those conclusions on your own, but sometimes you actually need that extra help. And that person and whoever it may be that feels the same way, I would really recommend that you consider talking to a counselor, a therapist, a psychologist, somebody who can actually help, you know, look, I'll tell you, at the Khalil center, we named the executive director that named the center Khalil center. This comes from the Arabic word Khalil, which basically think about Khalil. Where do you know that word? You know that word probably from Sayidina Ibrahim, Khalil Allah, the friend of Allah, right? The Khalil is meant to be the friend or the companion. And it's not just any companion. It's the one who walks along the path with you and helps guide you on that path. That's how we see therapy. We have the Khalil center about Riyadh Muslims like that's in Muslim therapy. That's how we see ourselves as somebody who's there to help guide that person, reach their own conclusions with a little bit of help and guidance along the way. And sometimes you need that new that that new set of eyes, that neutral person who can hear out the situation and help you figure out why you feel that way. And what are the roots? What are the root causes of how you're feeling right now? So I really emphasize getting that kind of help, inshallah. This question is about dealing with and addressing when doubt starts to creep into your heart. And I, I'm assuming when they're talking about doubt, they're talking about doubts when it comes to our Dean about al-as-mata'ala, just those pinpricks of doubt that can sometimes enter our heart and how we deal with that. Yeah, definitely. You know, here I'm going to actually reference a partner organization that I really think very highly of and have worked closely with now, and that's the Yaqeen Institute. The Yaqeen Institute, maybe you guys have all heard of it, but I really, if you haven't, please do check them out. They're on social media, of course, but they also have their website. And Yaqeen is exactly for that purpose. It is the institution, the Islamic kind of research academy institution that is really focusing on the concept of doubt. Specifically, Islamically speaking, like Dean wise, like you mentioned, but other forms of doubt, too. And I think whenever it creeps up, it's really helpful to have the resources, whether they be things you listen to or things that you're reading. They have both articles and videos, but it's super helpful. And I know because we're running short on time, so I'll just, you know, kind of just reference you there because I think that they've done a phenomenal job and are doing a phenomenal job. So inshallah, I myself actually have spoken for the Yaqeen Institute and have some material coming out very soon for them as well. So do reference that resource. I talked about the concept of Islamic meditation contemplation and the how to, the steps of it and what to do exactly. So the good news is I actually recorded that for Yaqeen Institute and I have a larger, longer one that's happening for the Khalil Center. So folks can reference both of those if they're wondering how do you do that thing that she was saying to like calm herself down inshallah, they're both theirs. And the final question, and you know, this relates to all of us because we all have somebody in our lives, we know who is dealing with this and what is the best way to help others who are suffering or dealing with anxiety, mental health issues, depression and the like? Yes. Look, I'll tell you, and I'm going to go a little bit academic here, but I'll tell you in my lab at the Stanford Muslim Mental Health Lab, what's been really interesting, every single study that we've ever done so far on Muslim mental health. And Alhamdulillah, we actually done the largest study on Muslim women's mental health, interestingly enough, which had a large number of women in that study. I think it was like 1300 women. And interestingly enough, over and over and again, we keep finding the same thing. Every time we ask people this question of who would you go to first, second and third, if you felt like you had a concern or an issue? The number one group of people is always seems always to be family. And if it's not family, it's friends, those two tend to be close one and two, you know, first and second. Interestingly enough, number three tends to be religious leaders. And that differs on a personal, whether they have a close relationship or not to a religious leader or have one near them. But very far down the line comes like the actual professionals. And so that's a really important thing. And my message to everybody here is whether you are directly experiencing any sort of, you know, emotional kind of disturbance of any sort, or whether it's your friend or family member or a loved one near you. The reality is you're in your lifetime, you're going to be the first line for somebody. You're going to be that first sign responder for somebody, right? Whether it's your friend or family or whether it's for other people, you're going to be the first sign responder. So what that means is you have to know this for yourself and for others to know when you've reached your limit. So if you've reached a point where you are, you can't do more, like you feel like you, your level of expertise as a friend, a family member, a loved one is capped. Know your limits too. And no one to refer to those who actually can help. And I think that's what trained professionals do. We spend years and years and years in schooling and in training to have that kind of listening ear and to know professionally how to actually help that person. And of course, at the very beginning, you said how it's really helpful to have Muslims now who are able to understand culturally or religiously how to actually work with our community, our people, right? So I'm sure that's all I hope that helps because that's going to be key to all of us going forward. Oh, May Allah s.w.t. report. Immense barakah in the work that you're doing. It is so necessary. And may He send you so many supporters and soldiers in your path and in your cause to help everybody who needs this. It's so important. I know even here at the Khadil Center, it's hard to get in because there's so many people who are suffering and have issues and want to talk things out and prefer a Muslim mental health professional. Why shouldn't they have that? So may Allah s.w.t. just increase you and your work and thank you first for everything you're doing. I literally could cry. It's just amazing. I'm really interested in spending this time with all of you. And yes, thank you, Melanie, for the kind of the words of support and really to support it. This is Ramadan, of course. So we need that support. So please do. Hopefully it just grows and grows from here. And where can we all find you? What's the best way to continue learning from you? So inshallah, I, you know, I post regularly on my Instagram and Twitter accounts and I have the Stanford mental health Muslim mental health website and the Khalil center.com also is a wonderful resource with its own blog and its own YouTube channel. And if you're looking for the Islamic resources, I direct the Rahmah Foundation, which is a woman's nonprofit educational foundation, which we have a lot of we have a weekly halakha and we have our PMs during Ramadan. And then we have all kinds of programming that happens. So do follow them as well and get on both mailing lists so that you're able to the Khalil center and Rahmah to be able to know what we're up to inshallah.