Moments pass that test us… not by what we know, but by how we feel. When a sound is heard in the sky, a child does not wait for an explanation. He waits for a reassuring look. He does not ask "What is that?" but searches in his mother's eyes for safety. Each age has its own way of expressing itself, and every soul receives events differently. The little one seeks a warm embrace, a calm voice whispering "Allah is with us," a familiar toy, a story told with a loving tone. The older child begins to ask questions. He does not want every detail, but needs clarity filled with serenity. To say to him with confidence: "There are honorable men who stay awake to protect us. We are safe now, and Allah is closer to us than anything." As for the one whose mind has grown and whose awareness has matured, he does not seek an answer as much as he seeks respect for what he feels. He may fall silent, contemplate, or voice his questions with hesitation. What he needs is a heart that listens, a word that validates, and a conversation that opens a door to deeper understanding, not one that shuts his feelings away. In such moments, a mother is not required to erase the event or provide complete answers. She is called to be a mirror of tranquility. Anxiety is understandable and fear is natural, yet serenity is contagious, just as disturbance is. And what a mother's face conveys settles in the child's heart before any word is spoken. Protecting our children does not only mean distancing them from frightening sounds. It means bringing them closer to Allah, to themselves, to our love, and to words that warm the soul and plant trust within them. It means teaching them that life is filled with varied moments, and that whenever our hearts cling to The Most Merciful, they find peace. In every difficult moment there is an opportunity to affirm a value, strengthen a relationship, and build a lasting inner sense of safety. Let our presence with our children be a harbor of stability, not an echo of fear. And let us teach them, with love, that peace begins within, and that Allah is closer to them than any passing sound in the sky.

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.

Your child cannot find true happiness when he grows up unless he succeeds in his relationships with the people around him, whether within the family, at work, or among relatives and friends. To achieve this, he needs to develop one of the most important skills of Emotional Intelligence, which is the skill of compassion. What Is Compassion? Compassion is defined as awareness of the feelings of others, the ability to imagine oneself in the place of someone who is suffering, feeling empathy for what that person is going through, and offering help when possible. It is important for parents to make the most of the childhood years to develop the skill of compassion, as it is very easy to nurture at a young age due to the high plasticity of the brain. How Can You Develop the Skill of Compassion in Your Child in Five Steps? 1. Recognize Emotions Introduce your child at the age of three to four to simple emotional words and their meanings, such as happy, sad, upset, afraid, and angry. When he grows older and reaches seven, introduce him to deeper emotional words such as frustrated, anxious, jealous, embarrassed, and shy. 2. Identify the Feeling When your child sees his brother or sister, or anyone else, feeling upset, sad, or afraid, ask him: Do you know how he feels right now? 3. Understand the Cause Ask him: Why is he upset? Let him discover the reason and say it aloud. Encourage him to figure it out if he does not know. For example: He is upset because he wants my toy. 4. Find the Solution Ask him: What does your brother need in order to feel better? Let him come up with solutions to his brother's problem. Encourage him to discover the answer if he does not know. For example: I can give him another toy, I can give him a hug, I can let him play with my toy. The older the child, the easier it becomes for him to think of more solutions. 5. Apply Ask him: How can you help him right now so he can feel better? Let him answer and choose from the solutions he came up with. Then say to him: What do you think about helping him now? Let him help, and then thank him for being a kind and caring person. Showing appreciation is important because it creates feelings of happiness linked to the desired behavior, which helps reinforce it and encourages its repetition. Apply the same steps with your child when he himself experiences a negative emotion. Let him name the emotion, discover its cause, find a solution, and then act on it. This develops the skill of Emotional Self-Regulation. Developing the skill of compassion at a community level leads to the formation of a compassionate society and a compassionate Ummah. A lack of compassion signals a disturbance in character and leads to the development of a narcissistic personality, which is becoming more prevalent every day due to weak skills among those raising and educating children. Developing the skill of compassion is not an intellectual luxury. It is a foundation in raising our children.

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.

In recent years, the concept of spiritual intelligence has spread globally. It is a sensitive concept due to its connection with creed and the purpose of human existence. For this reason, every nation needs to develop its own definition that aligns with its philosophy and spiritual values, while sharing many universal principles that relate to human nobility and the elevation of the soul and character. What is spiritual intelligence? Stephen Covey mentions in his book The Eighth Habit that spiritual intelligence is the center and foundation of all other forms of intelligence because it becomes the guiding source for the others. Covey defines spiritual intelligence as the search for meaning and connection with the Eternal, meaning connection with something greater and more magnificent than ourselves and our lifespans. Marsha Sinetar, in her book on spiritual intelligence in children, links spiritual intelligence with the development of innate disposition. She defines spiritual intelligence as the intelligence of fitrah. Kristján notes that what distinguishes individuals with high spiritual intelligence is awareness of others, the ability to question and feel reverence, sensitivity to what is spiritual, wisdom, foresight, and a deep sense of the presence of Allah and responsiveness to reminders of Him. Dana Zohar defines spiritual intelligence as the essential foundation for activating the functions of both rational intelligence and emotional intelligence. She describes it as our ultimate human intelligence. What are the dimensions of spiritual intelligence? Emmons defines spiritual intelligence through five dimensions: • The ability to transcend and elevate the self • The ability to build spiritually meaningful relationships free from personal interests • The ability to enter high states of spiritual awareness • The ability to use spiritual resources when facing daily problems • The ability to act with virtue, such as forgiveness, gratitude, humility, compassion, and wisdom Is spiritual intelligence innate or acquired? Spiritual intelligence consists of several abilities. These abilities are both innate and acquired. Spiritual intelligence is the intelligence of fitrah. A human being is born upon fitrah, but his parents either help him rise spiritually and morally or cause him to fall. After that, a person continues his path in life, making decisions that either elevate him or lower him. Do people differ in their spiritual intelligence at birth? Yes, people differ in this. Even within the same household, one child may show strong indicators of high spiritual intelligence from a young age, while it may not appear in the same way in his sibling. Defining spiritual intelligence in the light of Islamic creed Spiritual intelligence is connected to the purpose of human existence. These purposes differ according to belief systems, and thus the definition of spiritual intelligence is influenced by the goals a person believes in. The more sound the creed, the more it offers its followers a real opportunity for complete spiritual elevation. Therefore, believing in a correct creed and following it with sincerity leads to the highest development of spiritual intelligence. What is the relationship between spiritual intelligence and sound creed? A sound creed is the fitrah creed. It is the belief in one God, the Creator and Sustainer of this universe, without any partner. All matters return to Him alone.

To build our self-confidence, we must free ourselves from the unconscious mindset of comparison and from seeking people’s approval. Self-confidence is not built from the outside. It grows from within, through self-knowledge and unconditional self-acceptance, with all strengths and weaknesses, and through the desire to improve without waiting for any external emotional or material reward. In the first article, we explored the causes that lead to low self-confidence. In this article, we look at the steps to healing: Free yourself from comparing yourself with others, and focus on your true value so you can grow and flourish. First: Your value is high because Allah has honored and chosen you, regardless of the negative messages you may have heard. You are among the most honored beings Allah created, and among the most beautiful and noble. The angels prostrated in honor of your father Adam, and in honor of you who came from him. You were created with this honor so you may fulfill the purpose of your existence, which is to be a khalifah on earth. Your value is elevated by this Divine selection. To preserve this honor, you must walk toward the purpose for which you were created: worship and contributing goodness to the world. What you are required to do is always within your capacity and abilities, so you may please Allah and thank Him for His blessings. You are not required to achieve what is beyond your human ability. Free yourself from comparing yourself with others, and focus on your true value so you can grow and flourish. Second: The mindset of comparison is a network of mental patterns that grew stronger with repetition until it became a fixed way of thinking. Healing requires the creation of a new mental network that replaces the old one through specific exercises. This takes time, yet it is the solution. You will feel increasing comfort, strength, and self-confidence as these new pathways deepen in your mind. Be patient and persistent. Third: You must accept that you experience negative emotions toward yourself or others when they arise. Allow these emotions to surface clearly before your eyes. Seek forgiveness and show compassion toward yourself so you can move away from self-blame toward solution-building. This develops your self-awareness and helps you notice when you feel weak, and when and how you fall into negative comparison, so you can address the problem. Fourth: If comparison is part of your environment, it will weaken your attempts to grow. Speak kindly with those who use this approach with you, explain its harm, and ask them to stop. When they forget and repeat it, use a gentle hand gesture and a smile to remind them, then step away. Continually remind yourself that their behavior is wrong and does not reflect your true value. Try to avoid competitive or negative people because they pull you away from your positive focus on yourself. Fifth: Free yourself from the illusion of finding your worth through people’s eyes. People’s approval is something that can never be fully attained. No one is perfect. Human beings were created weak, full of flaws, moving through life only by the generosity, help, and protection of Allah. They shift between blessings and trials. The mindset of comparison contradicts Allah’s wisdom and perfect justice in His distribution of gifts. Allah created us with different strengths and levels of intelligence, wealth, abilities, beauty, families, and interests so we may complement one another, practice gratitude, develop patience, and reach His pleasure. Allah, the All-Just, gave everything with fairness, but in diverse proportions as a test. Wisdom lies in focusing on what Allah gave you and using it to move forward, without wasting energy noticing the blessings of others with pain or resentment. To grow positively, establish this mental principle within yourself: Focus on your abilities. Be grateful. Do not compare. Sixth: When you catch your mind comparing negatively, shift your thinking immediately and pray sincerely for the person you compared yourself to, asking Allah to bless them and make them beneficial to this Ummah. This is essential for building a positive mental association and interrupting the unconscious comparison pattern. Remember that the angels will pray for you in return. The more you pray for others, the more you free yourself from comparison. Prayer is a powerful healing method; keep it among your priorities. Seventh: When you find yourself comparing, ask yourself: Is there something positive I can learn? Is there an area in which I would like to grow? Ask yourself these questions with positive feelings toward yourself and toward the person you are learning from. Negative emotions suppress learning and block wisdom. Every human being is unique with their abilities, emotions, and circumstances. What suits others may not suit you. Not every admirable trait is something you truly need. Free your interests from the pain of wishing and from unconscious imitation. Eighth: Healing the comparison mindset requires positive focus on yourself and your goals. Begin by truly discovering yourself, something you may have missed due to the lack of psychological freedom in our upbringing and the widespread use of conditional acceptance. We do not blame our parents; they believed these methods were the best ways to help us grow. They did not know the psychological effects of such approaches. This was the best they had. Now is the time to walk a healing path, address what those years caused, and release their impact from your inner world.