🌴Praise be to Allah Almighty
De-Clutter
*Your Mind... 1of2*
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A key part of being productive, is about focusing your mind on what’s beneficial and de-cluttering it from unproductive thoughts.
If we can record our inner thoughts and replay them to ourselves each day, we’ll be shocked at how much junk there is and how much brain power we waste on futile things that neither benefit or harm us. These thoughts can be in the form of replaying old “movies” in our heads of things that happened to us in our past or (going to some extreme) future dreams that are never attainable nor part of reality, or keeping thoughts which we’re not happy to reveal to anyone, even having doubts back-biting about people which we needn’t have... all these thoughts need to purged if we want to relieve ourselves and de-clutter our minds.
How do you know if you have so much clutter? Notice your actions and speech. If you recognise them to be very focused, very productive, very thoughtful, and containing less gossip, then your mind is probably more de-cluttered than others! If not, and you see yourself all over the place and your tongue out of control, then your mind surely needs a cleanup exercise.
Unfortunately, we pay little attention to our thoughts and what goes on inside our mind, even though it’s crucial to our well-being, productivity and ultimately how we behave as Muslims. Ibn Al-Qayyim has a profoundly powerful statement in his book Al-Fawaid, referring to negative and sinful thoughts, he said:
*_“You should repulse a thought. If you do not do so, it will develop into a desire. You should therefore wage war against it. If you do not do so, it will become a resolution and firm intention. If you do not repulse this, it will develop into a deed. If you do not make up for it by doing the opposite thereof [the opposite of that evil deed], it will become a habit. It will then be very dificult for you to give it up_*
*_“You should know that the initial stage of every knowledge that is within your choice is your thoughts and notions. These thoughts and notions lead you into fantasies. These fantasies lead towards the will and desire to carry out [those fantasies]. These wills and desires demand the act should be committed. Repeatedly committing these acts cause them to become a habit. So the goodness of these stages lies in the goodness of thoughts and notions, and the wickedness of these thoughts lies in the wickedness of thoughts and notions.”_* (Al Fawaid, Ibn Qayyim)
May Allah be pleased with him! A deep insight into something so subtle. We should all memorize these words and use it whenever we feel unable to control the tsunami of negative thoughts that overtake our minds.
To be Continued.... In shaa Allah
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