In the name of Allah, the Most-Merciful, the All-Compassionate

 

"May the Peace and Blessings of Allah be Upon You"

 

 

1) Disciplining Thoughts

 

Imagine a man who goes to a counselor complaining of a number of issues that are negatively impacting his life. He tells the counselor that he has obsessive thoughts about being in an accident and feels that these thoughts are getting out of control. *     Obsessive thoughts

 

*    Inability to make decisions, complete tasks, accomplish goals

 

*    Difficulty staying focused and maintaining concentration

 

*    feeling tense much of the time and unable to relax or get a restful night's sleep

 

 

Most interesting is that they all involve the thinking process, the quality of the thoughts, and one's ability to govern his/her thoughts rather than feeling dominated or even oppressed by those thoughts.

 

Disciplining of thoughts, however, is not about a rigid control or suppression of thoughts. Disciplining of thoughts is about:

 

 

*    learning how to observe the fleeting thoughts that run through the mind day in and day out

 

*    taking an inventory of the habitual thoughts that operate as representations of one's self-concept so as to recognize and discard those which are no longer functional or supportive of health, happiness, and success – in this life and in the Hereafter

 

*    learning four functions of the mind that optimize decision-making, task completion, and goal-setting and achieving; practicing the simple and enjoyable techniques that increase focus and concentration

 

Imam Ibn Qayyim said in his great book, Al-Faraa'id, "Watch and control the khater (and here he is referring to negative fleeting thought fragments); if you don't, it becomes a thought; and control the thought because if you don't, it becomes a strong desire; and control the desire because if you don't, it becomes himmah and azeemah (determination and resoluteness); and control the himmah and azeemah because if you don't, it becomes action. The point made here is that being unaware of the inner dialogue which grinds away in our minds every day, all day long, can lead to many problems such as obsessive thoughts as mentioned above, troubled relationships, self-destructive habits or addictions. At the third session of counseling we talked about the inner dialogue and it was suggested to her that she observe her inner dialogue at various times throughout her day. The following session she shared the not-so-surprising news that every time she focused on her inner thoughts, she found them to be negative, cynical, and without hope for any relief or improvement in her life. She was astounded when she realized that she spent most of her day thinking depressing thoughts.

 

Disciplining the thoughts is central to living a self-aware, self-governing, and moral life.

  

Disciplining thoughts is also at the core of our happiness, health, and success.

 

In fact, fleeting thoughts and the inner chatter, when left undisciplined, control our moods, keep us busy thinking about vanities, framing issues in a negative way, or jumping from one thought to another without articulated intention, purpose, or will to action.

 

Imam Al-Subki puts the fleeting thoughts and inner dialogue in perspective by categorizing them in a hierarchal ranking of the will.

 

 

2.   Khater (plural is khawaatir) - this is a fleeting thought which quickly fades away.

 

For our practical consideration in this article, we are concentrating on the third level - hadeeth an-nafs, the conversation or internal dialogue of the self with itself. These inner thoughts can be positive or negative, and form the basis for how we view ourselves and others, life in general, or any particular situation or event.

 

The power of how we frame things in our minds is illustrated by the story of a child referred for mental health services through the school district. The Behavior Specialist told the teacher privately some of what this child was dealing with in his home situation. The change in his behavior that this different approach produced was extraordinary. The catalyst and cause of the behavior changes were how the teacher viewed this child and his challenging behaviors, and how she talked to herself about this boy.

 

 Consider the amazing hadeeth, "Part and parcel of right and good worship of a person is his good thought." (Al Jame'a Al Sagheer) And in another hadeeth, "Had they had good thoughts, indeed they would have had good actions."  These two hadeeth demonstrate the foundational importance of good thoughts.

 

To further understand the power of thoughts, consider this hadeeth, "If any one of you would like to know his rank with Allah SWT, he should look at the rank of Allah with him; indeed, Allah SWT puts the servant where the servant puts Allah in his soul." (Al Hakim) This hadeeth and the power of thoughts is elucidated definitely by a verse in Qur'an,

 

"And that thought of yours which you thought about your Lord has brought you to destruction, and you have become of those utterly lost." (Qur'an 41:23)

 

So if the quality of our thoughts can bring utter ruin in the most ultimate sense of being lost and brought to destruction, what is the power of thoughts to make our daily lives miserable or joyful? Isn't it therefore imperative to become aware of the inner thoughts, the dialogue that courses though our minds day and night? How else might we become aware of negative and destructive thoughts? Or distorted thinking that keeps us imprisoned in habits of behavior that only bring us pain and disappointment. Negative thoughts are often expressed as self-limiting beliefs that keep us from self-discovery and growth in our daily lives. These self-limiting beliefs are nothing more than negative thoughts about ourselves that stand as obstacles to our health, happiness, and success. A good example of a self-limiting belief is "I can't change, I am who I am."

 

At first the young elephant will attempt to pull free from the stake and rope, but over time, after numerous attempts, he gives up and accepts his captivity. The elephant could walk away at any time, but his self-limiting belief keeps him captive for the rest of his life.

 

Human beings also internalize self-limiting beliefs while they are young and vulnerable. The self-limiting beliefs are established by inaccurate or insufficient information, formulating the basis for problems that appear later in life. In order to realize our destiny as human beings, we have to be willing to break these self-limiting beliefs as they adversely affect every aspect of our lives, whether academic, marital, professional, or recreational. British athlete Roger Bannister broke through a self-limiting belief in 1954 when he broke the four-minute mile barrier. Self-limiting beliefs are blinders.

 

Today neuropsychology explains the human tendency to find all the evidence he needs in the world and in his experience to support and perpetuate his self-limiting beliefs. Based upon our beliefs about the self and its potential or lack thereof, or goals, or any consciously held priorities, the RAS filters out the seemingly irrelevant data and let's in, and alerts us, to that data which is consistent with our priorities, even if that includes negative beliefs like:

 

• "Allah SWT will never forgive my sins, they are unforgivable."

I have no control over my time."

• "If I enjoy life, I'll lose all my money."

• "I'll never learn to focus and concentrate in my prayer."

• "If I speak my mind, I will be rejected."

We become experts at finding the evidence in our experience to support our self-limiting beliefs. And then our negative self-talk seals the deal with things likes, "That always happens to me." The RAS and our limiting self-talk form a seeming comfort zone. For some people the idea of taking an inventory of their thoughts in order to discover negative, disempowering, or self-limiting beliefs, is just too much of a struggle. Or that the struggle will never result in achieving the goal. But we now know that this too is just a self-limiting belief. Re-framing that belief about struggle with a new empowering belief is the beginning of the journey toward transformation of self. A powerful image to imprint in the mind is helpful. The man watched for several hours as the butterfly struggled to push itself through the small hole. The butterfly emerged easily, but its body was swollen and its wings small and unextended. The man watched, waiting for the body to contract and the wings to expand and strengthen. It never happened! This butterfly would never fly. It spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.

 

Our self-imposed limitations are like the cocoon. Too often human beings use the Reticular Activating System and their negative defeatist self-talk to filter out any evidence contrary to their comforting self-imposed limitations. We can either accept the challenge of a struggle to emerge from the cocoon, using that struggle to purify ourselves from all unwholesomeness, from all distortions in our thinking, from destructive habits of behavior. Or we can maintain the cocoon as a self-imposed prison, to insulate ourselves from the reality of our human challenge. If we try to sneak out of the cocoon without the properly ordered and proportioned struggle, it is likewise nothing but spiritual ruin - like the butterfly with swollen body and shriveled wings. (Qur'an 91:7-10)

 

Order and proportion are the underpinnings of organization and system, evident at every level of the creation – atom, cell, tissue, organ, physiological system, organism, community, ecosystem, solar system, universe. When we strive to discipline our thoughts we are organizing our mental faculties in a way that promotes thinking that is free from self-deception, fallacy, distortion, misconception, inconsistency, and prejudice.

 

Allah SWT warns us many times in Qur'an about delusions of this world, and these delusions do not refer only to the external world. (Qur'an 3:185)

 

It is amazing that this individual will say with conviction in the counseling session that his/her anger is "because my child (my wife, my husband) pushed me beyond my limit." If we are determined to live a life of good thought, good worship, good action, good relationship, then we must become aware of waswaas (the whisperings from the lower self or Shaitan) and khawatir (the fleeting thoughts, positive or negative.)

 

Imam Al-Ghazali said, "Indeed, action and deed stem from the khawatir." Imam Ibn Al-Jawizy wrote an entire book called,Hunt the Khatir (the fleeting thought)!

 

Becoming aware of one's thoughts, of the never-ending inner dialogue with one's self, is the first step in increasing one's self-knowledge. And Imam Ibn Qayyim has said, "Whoever does not know himself, does not know Allah SWT." Once we are well aware of the significance of disciplining the thoughts, there are techniques that we can use to engage in this profound discipline.

 

Become aware of your inner dialogue

 

For one week, catch yourself 3 or 4 times a day in the midst of this chatter and observe neutrally (without judging yourself) if it is positive and supportive of your efforts to attain health, happiness, and success, or if it is negative and undermining that determination.

 

What are some examples of faithful thoughts? Thoughts that express gratitude, patience, contentment, courage, humbleness, enthusiasm. And examples of unfaithful thoughts – ones that express intolerance, envy, anger, resentment, arrogance.

 

Let's say that you become aware several times during this week of observing your thoughts that the following thought fleets through your mind, "It's just useless trying to please my spouse. This thought reveals a number of things to you. First that you have an issue to deal with in your marital relationship. You can use a checklist to evaluate this thought. That means, have you spent time exploring how to address this issue? Have you discussed this issue with your spouse? Is your thought a realistic assessment of the dynamic or does it exaggerate some aspect or aspects?

 

It is extremely helpful during this week of observation to write down in a journal the thoughts that attract your attention because they express some negative attitude, motive, feeling, or aspect of your self-concept.  Take each thought item that you have written in your journal during the week of thought observation, and for some minutes (some individuals will do this in five minutes, others in 30 minutes; the time taken is unimportant) compose an affirming, heartful, faithful thought process to replace the negative one. Taking the above example of the woman's thought expressing frustration, resentment, and hopelessness about her marital relationship, we could compose a replacement such as:

 

Having gone through this process of replacing the counter-productive thought with a faithful thought process, an individual has traveled forward a good distance on the road of disciplining his/her thoughts. However, being human, one will most likely find some negative thoughts fleeting now and again through the mind. Then we can compose the replacement thought process.

 

The following technique is extremely useful in dealing with persistent or obsessive thoughts.

 

 The second week, every time you become aware of negative thoughts which are undermining your determination, STOP that thought with a superior, stronger, healing thought. One can choose from countless profoundly inspiring and supportive verses. "To Allah we belong and to Him is our return." *     Allah places no burden on any soul greater than he can bear - see verse 2:286

 

*    With every difficulty there is relief - see verse 94:5-6

 

After reciting whatever verse, hadeeth, and/or your own healing thought (one that resonates deeply with you) to interrupt the negative thought, it is important to do take one further step so that one lets go of the negative thought rather than suppressing it. Psychological studies have shown that when an individual tries to suppress or consciously forget an uncomfortable or negative thought, it can then rebound with greater energy, and become a recurring or obsessive thought. So after reciting whatever verse, hadeeth, and/or your own healing thought to interrupt the negative thought, take one minute to visualize in your imagination enclosing that negative thought in some object and letting it go. However you choose to metaphorically let go of the negative thought is a therapeutic way to surrender the thought rather than suppress it deep in the mind. The fact is that reciting a verse from Qur'an or a hadeeth as the negative-thought interrupt is itself a surrendering action. It is emblematic of one's surrender to Allah SWT, turning over the counter-productive thought process to Him and letting His Power and His Wisdom take care of it.

 

The negative thought has met its match!

 

INTERRUPT IT….RELEASE IT TO ALLAH SWT…..COMPOSE AN AFFIRMING, FAITHFUL THOUGHT TO REPLACE IT

 

This is a powerful tool to stop a negative inner dialogue so that those counter-productive thoughts do not develop and grow and control us. Positive and faithful inner thoughts become a virtuous habit, just as negative inner thoughts become a harmful habit. The four practical exercises described above teach us how to observe the fleeting thoughts that run through the mind day in and day out; and to take an inventory of the habitual thoughts that operate as representations of one's self-concept. It is in this way that we can recognize and discard those thoughts which are no longer functional or supportive of health, happiness, and success – in this life and in the Hereafter. Parts 2, 3, and 4 of Disciplining Thoughts are available in the Intelligent Guidance service. Those articles explore how disciplining the thoughts includes knowing and utilizing four functions of the mind that optimize decision-making, task completion, and goal-setting and achieving; also the use of disciplined thinking for optimal focus and concentration; and the importance of learning to quiet the chattering mind in order to enjoy optimal relaxation and rejuvenation following effort, striving, and/or achievement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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