Hard Reset.

Bismillah.

Good morning everyone! As some of you may know, yesterday marked the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan! If you aren’t familiar with what that is, it’s a 30 day period in which Muslims fast(go without food and water) from Sunrise to Sunset. Along with the fasting we’re called to pray five times throughout the day as well as commit good deeds. I’ve been a practicing Muslim for just shy of two years and I’m constantly asked, “What drew you to Islam?”. My response is very simple, “The discipline.”. Like most religious you have all sides and all perspectives. Some take them very seriously and then there are those who pick and choose when they want to follow the script so to speak. And then there’s me…somewhere in between. At heart I’m a very spiritual person but I also understand that Islam had provided me with a very deep sense of discipline that I didn’t know I had nor needed. You devout Muslim is an extremely disciplined person, as well as a very clean person both inside and out! And that is most certainly one of the things that’s kept me engaged. There’s little to no room for mistakes, which of course we know as humans we’re going to make them. But that constant push to be a person is always in them and is always shown. I made my full conversion back in 2018, but it was after Ramadan passed. Now I had the option to kind of do my own 30 days of fasting or wait until it came around again. I chose the latter.

Going into Ramadan in 2019, I figured I was a pretty disciplined cat so it wouldn’t be too hard right? WRONG! I got through maybe the first 3-4 days and broke fast! Not by eating but allowing negative thoughts to enter me and shift my whole mood. I had done this over and over, which then turned into me eating before sunset. And I eventually kept telling myself it was ok to do so. I’d lost my discipline that fast and didn’t even know it. Granted I felt horrible every time I did it, but I couldn’t stop. Now, I could blame on my working environment or even the people I was around at the time but I won’t. Just for the simple fact that a majority of those things I could control but chose not to. That break down in set the tone for the rest of the year surprisingly. My work out schedule was erratic, my diet was all over the place, I’d lost financial discipline. All of this because I kept saying “it’s cool…this time.” As it turned out “this time” kept turned into a whole year of stuff to fix. So my first task for myself was to make time to actually sit down and map out what needs to be done and educate myself on how to do it. Which led to an entire different approach to Ramadan this year.

First thing I did to prepare for it this time around was take leave from work. Being as though that was the main source of bad energy, I knew needed time away to keep my fast as pure as possible. Granted I didn’t take the full 30 days but the 21 I did take made a world of difference. Now, if someone was to ask me I’d say this pandemic was a blessing in disguise(strictly my opinion). Why? Two reasons, the first being a change in my work schedule which gave me more me time and the second reason being it slowed the world down. Once my leave was finally approved I knew I could finally shift into full go mode and face Ramadan head on. As I was told the first week or so was definitely the toughest. Waiting until almost 9 at night to eat after you hadn’t eaten since 5:30 that morning was crazy! But after about 7 or 8 days of it my body started to get use to it. And I could feel the difference in spirit as well, things that normally would’ve set me off or drawn an emotional reaction didn’t anymore. I also felt a crazy wave of creativity as well. There was always an impulse to write or I’d find myself thinking in rhyme which I’d never experienced before! But instead of questioning it, I rolled with it and let it flow. I guess it’s something about having a clear mind and clean body that allows certain things to happen. Now I never had an expectation to come out of this a totally different person but I did tell myself that we’d be better at something. I think I’ve accomplished that, there’s something about this momentum that feels unusually good. Maybe it’s the sense of accomplishment or maybe it’s that restoration of self…who knows. I’ll take either one!

Asalaamu Alaykum.