When you face difficult challenges and crises, you tell yourself to stay positive. You try not to think about the painful events you are experiencing so you can focus on your goals and your life. Things seem to move forward despite the challenges surrounding you, and you keep walking ahead. Yet you feel that you are not moving with your natural weight, as if you are carrying heavy loads wherever you go. As challenges pile up and you continue insisting on positive thinking, you walk with mountains on your shoulders without realizing it, because you are determined to stay positive and keep progressing in life. Then you begin to ask yourself: Why do I feel that I am not enjoying life? Why do I feel that my physical health and energy are declining? Why? If this describes you, then you are someone who has entered the cage of negativity in the name of false positivity. What Is Meant by Toxic Positivity? The term positivity is often misused. You hear phrases like stay positive, be positive, keep being positive, without enough awareness of what positivity truly means. It then becomes an anesthetic that allows toxins to accumulate inside us while we refuse to look, feel, or think. Three Steps to Protect Yourself from Toxic Positivity First: Allow Yourself to Feel Negative Emotions It is natural to feel sadness, anger, or frustration. Do not ignore these feelings just to appear positive. Allow yourself to express them in healthy ways. Remember that Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, cried and grieved, and he had an entire year known as the Year of Grief. Healthy ways to express your emotions: Writing in a journal Speaking with someone you trust, and not your children Confronting the person who is hurting you Setting boundaries with those who harm you Seeking a mental health specialist if needed Second: Understand and Name Your Emotions When your negative emotions rise to the surface and you recognize them, you can begin to understand their causes and work toward real solutions. Examples of emotions that may need to be named: Loneliness Psychological pressure Feeling unvalued Accumulated anger Fear or anxiety Patience does not mean ignoring what you feel. It means acknowledging your vulnerability with faith and continuing to strive forward. Third: Set Clear Boundaries in Your Relationships If your struggle is connected to people around you, learn to set boundaries. Do not justify hurtful behavior under the excuse of kindness or the desire for peace. True positivity includes self-respect. Phrases that help you express yourself and set boundaries: It is my right not to be insulted and to feel respected It is my right not to have decisions made on my behalf It is my right to have others stay out of my private matters It is my right that the person I speak to truly listens to me Also use this simple structure: I feel… and I need… Examples: I feel discouraged when you mock me, and I need you to encourage me I feel lonely when you do not reach out, and I need you to call me every day I feel exhausted, and I need you to work with me Conclusion Life will continue to shift between its seasons. Some moments call for gratitude, and others call for patience. Accepting your different emotions and growing through them is part of living a true and full life.

When your principles in life are noble and your goals align with these principles, you will respect yourself in proportion to the greatness of the principles you believe in. And the more your actions match these principles, the more your self-respect grows and the higher your self-esteem becomes. When a person speaks about believing in noble principles yet acts in the opposite way, he loses his self-respect to the same degree as the gap between his principles and his behavior. Some people may think it is clever to deceive others by wearing a mask that makes them appear to hold great principles, when in reality they are deceiving no one as much as they are deceiving themselves. They do not realize that they are igniting a voice of self-contempt deep within, a voice that corrupts their positive feelings toward themselves at every moment, leaving them without self-respect and without any sense of their true worth. For this reason, the people who despise themselves the most are the hypocrites and the narcissists who live in continuous deception, while Satan adorns this deception for them and leads them to believe they are the cleverest of all, when in truth they are only the most contemptible before themselves and before those who see through them. To respect yourself and value yourself means to be genuine, not false. It means your words align with your actions. And if you slip, and your actions contradict your words and principles, then nothing will restore you except repentance, which brings you back to your true self, closes the gap that has formed within you, and returns you to honesty with yourself in the most beautiful way. O Allah, return us to You in a beautiful return.

Five Steps to Become the Original Version of Yourself Are you the original version of yourself? Or are you a copy of what those around you pull you toward, whether people, media, or the countless external influences scattered everywhere? Perhaps this is the most difficult era in which to remain authentic, because external influences that pour into the space of our inner world accumulate inside us in complex and rapid ways. They conceal our true selves from us and lead us toward feelings of confusion, loss, constriction, and perhaps even the illness of our age, depression. So how do we uncover our true selves and feel worth, confidence, contentment, and happiness? Five Steps to Being Authentic First In order to know your true self and gather yourself around it, you need to ask the most important question in your life: What are my highest values? What do I believe in? Second You need to ask yourself the second equally important question: What do I want? Third Your goals must align with your highest values so that your efforts flow toward achieving them, bringing you together with your true self. Otherwise, you will remain in loss and exhaustion, living a self that is not yours, a self shaped by external influence or by fears these influences have cast upon you, driving you to run confused and far from your own essence. Fourth You need to build life plans that stem from your highest values and simplify them into daily goals that you live for, because you chose them and because you are moving toward what you want. When you find that what you do flows into your highest values, you will feel comfort, tranquility, and contentment. Yes, without doubt all of us are tested, suffer, and show patience. Yet storms will not harm us as long as we sail in the vessel we chose and hold firmly to. The storms will pass and we will remain standing. But how exhausting those storms become when they strike us while we do not know where we are and never choose where we want to be. Fifth We need to pause for moments of inner reflection throughout our day and ask ourselves: How do I feel right now? What am I thinking about? What am I doing? Are my thoughts, feelings, and actions flowing toward what I want? Or am I scattered and lost? If you find yourself absorbed in a tiring internal dialogue about something that happened between you and someone else, gather yourself again with the following questions: Does what I am thinking help me move toward what I want? If not, choose to think about something that serves your goals. If you go through a difficult or discouraging experience, stop and ask yourself: Is there something I can learn from this that will help me move toward what I want? Learn from what happened and return your focus to what you want. And if something catches your attention because the media glorifies it or people praise it, pulling you away from yourself, ask yourself again to return safely to your foundation: Is this truly what I want? Where am I going, and what do I want? It is natural to get distracted from our path at times. That distraction will make us feel constriction, and then we return with love and longing to what we truly want. It is also natural to sometimes forget and be pulled toward what we do not want. We will then feel lost, and so we return to stand with ourselves in a moment of inner exploration and ask: What do I feel? What am I thinking? What am I doing? What do I want? Through this, we regain our awareness and return to our true selves, the selves that know what they believe in, where they are heading, and what they desire. We feel contentment and happiness because we are on the path. This is the wisdom in the fact that we have been granted free will. Allah honored us with the ability to choose. We will never find true happiness unless we possess freedom of choice and freedom of decision, living our lives as people who are guided, not dragged. Some people live their entire lives never discovering their highest values and never knowing what they want from this life. Many of them remain lost. Others discover their highest values and know the goals connected to those values, yet spend their days elsewhere, hoping to find meaning in illusions and images drawn for them by others. Those are the inauthentic ones. And there is a small group who know their purpose in this life and strive to make their days and their every moment a reflection of what they believe in. These are the ones who truly believe. These are the authentic ones. We ask Allah to make us among them, to make His pleasure our greatest concern, and to guide our thoughts, feelings, and actions every day toward His love and His pleasure, free from anything else. O Allah, Amen.

How do you deal with your child's mistake? Do you frighten him? Do you punish him out of anger? Do you leave him without correction? How did the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, deal with mistakes? Did he frighten the person? Did he frown at him? Or did he correct with gentleness and mercy? Muawiyah ibn al-Hakam al-Sulami, may Allah be pleased with him, said: "While I was praying with the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, a man among the people sneezed. So I said, 'May Allah have mercy on you.' The people stared at me, so I said, 'May my mother be bereaved of me, why are you looking at me like that?' And they began striking their thighs with their hands. When I saw them signaling me to be silent, I fell silent. When the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, finished the prayer, by my father and mother, I have never seen before him nor after him a teacher better in his teaching than he was. By Allah, he did not scold me, he did not strike me, he did not insult me. He said: This prayer is not fitting for any speech of people. It is only tasbih, takbir, and the recitation of the Quran." Narrated by Muslim. Where did we get the idea that we must frighten our children and make them hate themselves in order to correct their behavior? Does discouragement and fear correct behavior, or does it raise slaves? Fear raises cowardly slaves. Trust, gentleness, and good faith raise free and courageous individuals. So which are you? A nurturer of slaves or a nurturer of the free? Correct the mistake without frightening your child.

A child is born full of energy, eager for knowledge and discovery, natural and free from pretension, innocent and free from hypocrisy. Then he begins to grow, and parents start to see him as the most important vessel for their dreams and ambitions, one that must be as perfect as possible in order to reflect their greatness. So parents begin mapping out the exact steps he must follow through constant guidance, praising him when he follows them and scolding him when he does not. Day after day he walks this path, rarely given the chance to express what he wants, what he desires, or what he loves, because of the final image he is expected to fulfill and because he is still young and does not yet know what is good for him. His personal will gradually fades under the weight of our will and our control over him, and the child begins to lose his sense of psychological freedom. Suppression begins. A child needs to feel capable of choosing, capable of expressing himself, and capable of experiencing autonomy. He needs to feel that he is a distinct being from us, with his own uniqueness and identity, his own opinions and thoughts, and his own feelings and personal needs. When the child grows and becomes a young man on the threshold of university, having never been granted psychological freedom, and you ask him: "What do you want to study at university?" he answers: "I do not know, it depends on my grades. But my parents want me to become an engineer." When a child loses his sense of psychological freedom, suppression begins. When suppression begins, Self-confidence declines, Self-esteem diminishes, and self-awareness retreats. He becomes less aware of what he wants, what he loves, and what he truly enjoys doing. Creativity declines, because creativity only grows in the light of the belief that I can choose, I know what I want, and I love what I do. It grows only in the light of autonomy. Scientific studies indicate that all creative individuals who contributed something truly innovative to their societies were raised in families that provided them with a sense of autonomy and psychological freedom, granting them freedom of expression, freedom of thought, and freedom of choice. We may deprive our child of freedom of choice out of fear that he will make mistakes. But he will make far more mistakes in the future because he never had the chance to develop the skill of decision-making, which only grows through practice. A child needs to take initiative, succeed at times and fail at others, and learn from his mistakes so he can grow and develop. If he fears making mistakes, he will only act within very narrow and conventional limits, becoming a person who fears taking initiative unless the outcome is guaranteed one hundred percent. He loses the spirit of adventure, the ability to embrace challenges, and the capacity to climb the ladder of personal and societal development. Let him take initiative without fear, and let him learn that new mistakes are the path to growth and creativity. This freedom is often misunderstood because we fear it may lead to religious laxity. This fear is misplaced. We must plant faith, belief, and values in our children, and then allow them freedom of expression and freedom of choice in matters that relate to their own lives. For example, when we force a child to eat what we want, he feels oppressed and suppressed. Yet we can offer him a choice and explain that it is good for him to eat a small amount of this food because it is full of goodness and gives him strength, and then he can eat what he loves afterward. So how do we balance maintaining parental authority with granting psychological freedom?

Losing Well-being means losing happiness and balance, feeling intense jealousy toward the success of others, experiencing rapid discouragement, being unable to build a peaceful marital relationship, being unable to form warm social relationships, struggling continuously at work, and suffering from depression, which is a psychological illness that grows more prevalent day after day. There is no doubt that families play the primary role in raising individuals who do or do not possess Well-being and Emotional Stability. And this unbalanced child may be the top of his class, or he may be at the bottom. A school grade is not a measure of Well-being, as some people believe. So what is the most widespread cause found in families that strive for distinguished parenting, who believe they are doing something good for their children, while this very method leads to the loss of Well-being and exposes children to real suffering in the future, with most parents completely unaware of the mistake? What Is This Harmful Method? In this article I will discuss an approach that many fathers and mothers follow, believing it will lead to distinguished parenting, while in reality it destroys their children's Well-being and Self-esteem. It is the approach of trying to improve behavior through exaggerated praise and harsh negative criticism for mistakes. Exposing a child to harsh negative criticism when he makes a mistake, whether through direct words or a cutting look, and praising him excessively when he performs a desirable behavior, believing this will shape him into what we want, is one of the primary reasons our children lose their balance and Well-being, as studies indicate. It may even lead to personality disorders that do not appear until after the age of eighteen. Unfortunately, this approach of harsh criticism and exaggerated praise is widespread in many families. It makes a person captive to the approval of others, intensely sensitive to the success of those around him, and quickly discouraged when he makes a mistake. What Is the Alternative? First: Separate the behavior from the person. Do not say "You are selfish." Say instead "This behavior shows selfishness." Second: Praise the effort and intention, not only the outcome. If he made a sincere effort but did not succeed, say "I liked your attempt and how seriously you approached it." Third: Teach him how to evaluate his own behavior rather than waiting for your constant approval. For example, ask him "What do you think of what you did?" With this approach, we build within him a living conscience capable of self-evaluation. We free him from unhealthy dependence on the approval of others, and we make his Self-confidence come from within, not from applause or humiliation. Well-being is not built with words. It is built through the daily way we treat our children.

There is something inside us that drives us to strive and move. Powerful forces push us to act, in our mornings and in our evenings, as if we are searching for something we long for. There is something deep within us that we need. Yes, we move throughout our day for many reasons. We may be striving for success. We may want to feel strong. We may long for distinction. We may desire to appear beautiful and perfect in the eyes of those around us. But have we ever asked ourselves about the true nature of our motives? What lies behind our actions? Do we desire these things for their own sake? Or are they a means to fulfill deeper needs hidden within us, inside us, in the depth of our depths? I asked myself again and again. Then I searched and examined. I felt that we desire something else. Something beyond success, distinction, and beauty. Something that these achievements bring to us. I saw that much of our striving comes from wanting to feel accepted. We act because we thirst for appreciation. We excel because we desire love. We want to feel loved, and we want to give love in return. For our souls cannot rest except through love. They are thirsty for love, and nothing quenches them except love. Ah, I feel the heart of every human being longing for love, calling out: “Where are you, O love? Where can I find you? I need you, and I see no happiness without you. Comfort me, O love. Tell me where I can find you, for I am tired of running and searching and striving for your sake.” How often I see in people’s eyes the thirst of their hearts for you, O love. How deeply I feel their need for peace and happiness. I now hear a gentle whisper, a tender call, murmured by the heart of a human being speaking to love: “I searched for you, O love, among people. And whenever I thought I had reached you or felt a trace of you, you would disappear. All I found was an illusion. Tell me, O love. I am exhausted. I am close to losing hope that I will ever find you.” Love heard the heart’s call and answered: “You want me so your heart can beat? Your soul longs for me to live? Yes, for I am the essence of happiness and the purpose of existence. Whoever finds me has arrived, and whoever loses me becomes constricted and loses his life and effort.” Love continued: “You search for me among people? Perhaps one day you will find me there. But you will never find my true essence. What you will find is only a faint glow of me, shining at times and fading at others. People love you for themselves, not for you. They may hurt you while you try to do good for them. They may deprive you or withhold from you. They may misunderstand you and cause you sorrow. And in those moments my glow fades.” “Well then, tell me, O love. Where do I find you? Tell me and bring me peace,” the heart asked with longing. Love answered: “You want to enjoy me through a human being? Yes, if that relationship is lawful you will find a form of me, otherwise your heart will burn after the initial warmth. You will find me through lawful love, yet even then I will shine at times and dim at others. Human beings make mistakes. Weakness touches them. They cannot bring benefit to themselves nor repel harm from themselves, so how can they bring it to you or repel it from you? You may not find them with you one day. You may not find them for you every day. For they are human, and weakness is woven into their nature.” “Then where do I find you, O love? I am weary from seeking you,” the heart sighed. Love replied: “O heart, you will find me. Yes, you will find me. And you will find my true essence, not my fleeting shadows. You will find me when you taste true beauty. I will move within your depths when you behold perfection. I will shine between your ribs when you witness true goodness. But remember, I will not remain or settle within you unless you taste eternal beauty that never fades, perfection untouched by weakness or deficiency, and goodness that never ceases.” The heart said: “O love, I want you. I want you to come, to move, to shine within my depths. You are my life, my longing, my joy. Guide me to the path of your dwelling place. Guide me so I may find you and be happy.” O heart, contemplate. Love said: “O heart, have you reflected upon yourself? Have you contemplated your states? If you truly saw yourself, you would know your Lord, and love would flow through you. For love is closer to you than your own heartbeat!” I depend on Your power and Your care. “O heart, awaken. O heart, attach yourself to the One who created you and cares for you, in your days and in your nights. He strengthens you. He illuminates your path with understanding. By His provision you live and continue, and without Him you fade and vanish. Your life is through Him. Your return is to Him. O my Lord, how deeply I love You, the One by whom I live and in whose Hands all my affairs rest.” How delightful is Your goodness. “O heart, pay attention. O heart, reflect. With every sip of water that quenches your ribs, with every delicious bite that satisfies your hunger, with every recovery after illness, with every mercy after pain, see Allah’s giving enveloping you, and His love filling you. O my Lord, how I love You, You who feed me, give me drink, care for me, and heal me. Yes, I love You and I love You. Day and night I live in the sweetness of Your generosity and goodness.” My Lord, I sleep and then awaken, and I find Your mercy preceded my awareness. My soul returns flowing through my limbs, my consciousness is restored, and my emotions are renewed with hope. I breathe in the promise of goodness. I rise and strive through Your mercy, I move through my day through Your care, a human being honored by You beyond measure, my soul a breath from the Spirit of Allah. How tender is Your care. How Your generosity is renewed every day. I adore Your deep compassion. Sometimes I feel burden overwhelming my being, discouragement shaking my core. Then You send me, my Lord, a glad tiding that lifts my sorrow, or a gentle hand that wipes away my sadness, or even sleep that lightens my heaviness, and I awaken to find my worries diminished and small, replaced by a smile of hope glowing in my heart. How delicate is Your closeness. How great is Your care. I love You and I love Your comfort and Your profound tenderness. I make mistakes, and You are patient with me and forgive much. I persist, and You bring me back to You with a trial that purifies me from my wrongdoing and raises my rank and station. Life becomes burdensome, so I flee to You and call upon You. Then You take charge of my affairs, and You decree for me what is good. Wisdom and Mercy are woven into Your decrees. Glory be to You. How just is Your judgment. How great is Your help. How sweet is Your tenderness even in hardship. I shine with Your love when I see compassion and love in the hearts of those around me. I am full of flaws, yet You show people only my strengths and talents. How gentle is Your covering. How generous is Your giving. I love You for the magnificence of Your tenderness. I became attached to Your eternal beauty. My heart longs to taste beauty, to fill my senses and soul with its sweetness. My heart becomes attached to…

When one of our children takes initiative and expresses an opinion, or asks for permission to go somewhere, or enroll in a course, or buy something for a particular purpose, or wishes to have a pet, and we tell him “no” and make him feel guilty for asking, we close the windows of life before him. Dr. Daniel Siegel says in his book The Yes Brain: “The word ‘yes’ is more than just a word. It is an expression of our very being with our children and of the way we communicate. It is the gateway to positivity, optimism, curiosity, courage, flexibility, and personal growth for our children.” There are many positive actions and expressions that our children display which we must pay attention to and respond with “yes.” There is a wide space in the life of our son or daughter where we can agree with them without crushing their spirit. We can agree with them on many choices that cause them no harm when we say “yes,” including many permissible things, or even sometimes disliked things they lean toward or choose. If you are not convinced by their request, avoid saying “no” immediately. Engage them in gentle dialogue so they can express their needs and thoughts. If you want to refuse, refuse gently while conversing with them to convince them. Let your refusal be the exception among the many times they hear the word “yes” in their life with you. “Yes, I agree with you,” said with a smile, encourages them to discover the world and discover themselves, nurturing their growth and personal brilliance. Remember that oppression and suppression are the two main causes behind all negative behavior. Suppression teaches our son or daughter to rebel against us and lose the ability to distinguish between rebelling against what is wrong and rebelling against what is right, including rebelling against our religious, cultural, and moral system. Then we wonder why our son refuses to listen to us, or why our daughter does not want to wear the hijab, and why, and why. We should not say “no” simply because we heard it repeatedly from our own parents, or because we imagine that saying it gives us value in their eyes. Be mindful of your reaction, for the price of unawareness will be high. Follow along and share with us: How many times did you say “yes” today? And how many times did you say “no”? Toward a positive character. Written by A. Maha Shehadeh