Embracing Chaos for Personal Development

By Azadeh Weber

Within the human being, homeostasis can occur on a physiological or psychological level. Homeostasis refers to a system’s tendency towards equilibrium between interdependent elements and equilibrium is a state of equal balance between all interdependent parts. An example of homeostasis on the physiological level is when a person becomes cold and starts shivering to develop heat in order to restore his or her body temperature to normal range.

Physiological homeostasis can also have negative implications, such as when a person is unable to lose weight beyond a certain point, despite best practices. On a psychological level, homeostasis may have negative or positive implications as well. The purpose of this article is to describe some of the negative implications of psychological homeostasis, so as to begin to harness the growth potential in chaos. A cross country runner is familiar with the notion that for every uphill battle, there follows a time to coast downhill.

This being said, our emotions may operate automatically via homeostasis. If a person is feeling sad or angry the person may automatically distract themselves with something pleasant in order to return to the emotional state he or she is accustomed to as normal. This drive towards enhancing pleasure is based on the pleasure principle, rather than the reality principle. With regards to anger, the inability for anger to ground itself due to near constant distraction prevents a person from sublimating aggressiveness into assertiveness, leaving the person to experience anger in a dissociative state when it does arise. When in a dissociative state a person’s thoughts are disconnected from their consciousness. This means the person’s thoughts are split off from the person’s heart center and the person may become prone to cruelty.

There are times when homeostasis prevents the person from being able to sit with an uncomfortable emotion long enough to properly actualize the growth potential within each emotion. When an uncomfortable emotion is not grounded the risk is it may come up again in the future and interfere with a person’s ability to align their values and behaviors. A case in point is when a person has unprocessed trauma and as a result, experiences anxiety whenever he or she encounters an environmental cue associated with that trauma. In turn, the anxiety may impair the person’s attention to detail and lead to various mistakes. This happens quite suddenly and often at a below threshold level of awareness, catching the individual off guard. For example, if at the time of trauma, the air was cold and dry, now the person may get triggered by experiencing that climate in the future. The body starts to relive the trauma and the autonomic nervous system activates into fight or flight mode. The air and temperature can trigger a stress response in the individual and he or she doesn’t know why. Once the trauma is processed the environmental trigger and “existential anxiety” start to dissolve. Associated symptoms of anxiety such as impaired attention, difficulty focusing and lapses in executive functioning also start to dissolve.

According to the notion of Homeostasis, families also develop recurrent patterns of interaction that maintain the stability of the family, particularly in times of stress (Becvar & Becvar, 2009). This is referred to as systemic homeostasis and it becomes problematic when families act in ways that maintain a problem rather than change it for the better. An extreme case of this is when a family enables a member’s drug addiction by making excuses for this member and assuming the responsibilities of the member. Overtime, without responsibilities the member further loses meaning and purpose in their life and numbs the pain with more drugs.

An antidote to falling into a cycle of unproductive homeostasis is developing the inner resources, tools and social network to thrive in times of chaos. Embracing chaos is important because every step into positive change is experienced as the unknown. The unknown is unpredictable in the same way as chaos. For many people, this is antithesis to the pleasure principle. The unknown, the unpredictable and the mysterious may arouse fear within the rigid personality structure, causing the individual to distract themselves from the undesired emotion by returning to homeostasis, rather than embracing the mysterious and shifting into a flow state towards positive change. By all means, structure and order are important. However, strength of character develops in response to unpredictability so the value of chaos, wherein the mysterious lies, cannot be understated.

A sign of maturity is a person who has replaced the pleasure principle with the reality principle. In his book, “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, “ author Nassim Taleb (2007) explains the value of thriving in times of chaos. According to Taleb, resilience is the ability for a person to return to a normal state after the disaster. Returning to normal state after disaster is a positive presentation of homeostasis. Nonetheless, Taleb points out that there is a more preferable state to resilience and that state is anti-fragility. Anti-fragility is a preferred state to resilience because an anti-fragile person doesn’t simply return to their previous state after a disaster, he or she grows and thrives due to the chaos. Of course, perpetual chaos is not what we are after and we certainly don’t want to instigate chaos to benefit from it. Yet, chaos is unavoidable.

An effective life strategy is to have some psychological tools, namely emotional and social skills to leverage chaos when it shows up in our lives. One such strategy is calling out to Allah when we are feeling vulnerable, so as to draw closer to him. In this way we may consolidate our inner resources and reconnect to our strength and patience. Certainly, gratitude for everything, for all things are from Allah, is a blessing.

Taleb, N. N. (2007). The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Becvar, D. S., & Becvar, R. J. (2009). Family therapy: A systemic integration (7th ed. ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Coping Skills: Know Them, Use Them, Enjoy Them.

By Monique Hassan

What do drugs, exercise, deep breathing, overeating, journaling and chocolate cake all have in common?

These are all examples of coping skills, albeit they are not all healthy coping skills (I do not condone some of those), but none the less they are all utilized by people as coping skills. What are coping skills you may be thinking, I am glad you asked!

A coworker at a behavioral health hospital once told me the difference between us (the staff) and the patients was one critical element, our coping skills.

A coping skill is essentially a method an individual employs to affectively minimize, control and handle stressful situations (or triggers, see more information on those here). You utilize coping skills without even realizing it, but to truly hone in on our coping skills enables us to have strategies to control our behavioral and psychological reactions to events. As my Mother likes to say, “it is not what happens to you that matters, it is how you react to it”.

We have all seen the clique movie scene where the heartbroken person listens to sad, depressing music and eats a pint of ice cream. This my friends is not a healthy coping skill, however, there are much worse that people utilize. Many drug addicts began abusing drugs to numb their pain instead of handling it. A young girl cuts herself in an effort to try and make her chaotic emotions manifest physically and signal to the world “I need help”. A man becomes aggressive at the stranger who accidentally bumped into him and wants to fight him, all because he had a bad day at work. A woman drinks herself into a drunken stupor to cope with the fight she just had with her husband. These are all examples of people using very negative and destructive coping strategies.

Maladaptive coping skills are not only dangerous to the individual, they can be dangerous to those around them, add stress to relationships, deepen emotional pain alongside guilt and create worse situations which lead to more negative coping skills.

An affective coping skill for me may not be as beneficial for you. We must identify our unique coping skills that suit our needs. During a stressful situation or trigger, the first step is to recognize and validate your emotions. It is okay to feel sad or angry, what is not okay is to lash out at others or yourself. Remove yourself from the situation if possible, take deep breaths and feel your emotions instead of running from them.

Look at what is upsetting you and try to see the bigger picture. Sure, it is upsetting for your car to be totaled in a car accident, but if you are alive then you have something to be thankful for. It is difficult to deal with a divorce, but this may open the door to a better marriage in the future and saved you from more heartbreak. If an exam comes back with a bad grade, look at the weakest subject areas and determine a better studying plan for next time.

Do you see the pattern here, look for the positives and focus on optimistic thinking. Become a master of positive self-talk and combat those irrational, negative thoughts with positive self-affirmations (hitting on cognitive behavioral therapy here).

After the immediate need to stabilize emotions and essentially self soothe, a variety of coping skills can come into play. This is a list of many positive coping skills, try to find a few in this list that can be beneficial for you or come up with 2 more of your own.

• Painting

• Read a book

• Walking in a park

• Exercise

• Journaling/poetry

• Listening to Quranic Recitation or Biblical quotes

• Working with one’s hands on a DIY project

• Yoga

• Deep breathing and/or meditation

• Prayer

• Looking at pictures of favorite memories

• Drawing flowers

• Go for a drive somewhere scenic

• Hug a friend

• Aromatherapy

• Perform a random act of kindness for someone else

Let me know in the comments below what coping skills work best for you.

Will We Be Sexually Compatible After Marriage?

11/27/17

Originally published on About Islam

QUESTION

As-Salaam Alaikum. I am a 34 years old Muslim woman who recently divorced. My friends have introduced me to a practicing Muslim guy. Since that moment, we really get along with each other. We have spoken about marriage and our expectations, and we both want similar things. After my very first meeting with him, I had a very strong feeling that this was the guy I was going to marry. I prayed istikharah and felt good. But then I felt the guy started drifting from me. Although I really liked him, I put my trust in Allah and prayed for Him to do what is best for me. He still kept contacting me regularly but was distant. I was really confused because anytime I prayed istikharah, I felt good about this engagement. After two and a half months, he finally told me what the problem was; he said he really liked me and really wanted to marry me, but because we had not had any physical contact (as we are both practicing Muslims), he was scared what if we got married and did not connect physically. He is praying istikharah as well, but this now has left me feeling really confused. Can you give me any help or guidance on this? Jazakallah.

RESPONSE by Karim Serageldin

As-Salamu ’Alaikum Sister,

I identify two major concerns in your question: 1) the istikhara 2) No physical contact with the man you might get married.

First of all, you must know that Istikhara is a du’aa’ in which a person prays to Allah to guide him to reach a right decision. The point of Istikhara is not to invoke miraculous signs or dreams about the correct choice to be made, but it is instead an official “letting go” of attachment to any particular result or choice in a matter. Often times, we pray Istikhara, but it is trite, insincere action because we have already decided what we want to do, even though Allah and His reasons may be indicating a different course of action.

Second, to make an Istikhara does not mean that a person abandons all other necessary inquiries. A person must carry out all efforts necessary to reach a correct decision, even after making Istikhara. If you only follow the Istikhara results and do not make other required efforts and investigations, your decision might be mistaken. With that said, the reason for your confusion is because you are focusing only on the results of Istikhara, and when you felt that he was distant (for an understandable reason), you started to doubt if you should marry him or not.

Use common sense, sister. Alhamdulillah, you got two positive answers from people you trust which is a great sign, and on top of that and equally important, you feel right about this brother. As you said, you both share expectations and have feelings for each other. Besides the answers from your prayers, you both seem to want the same thing, and I don’t see why you both aren’t taking the steps to get to know each other more and then take a decision.

Regarding his fear to marry you without any physical contact, the first step to connect physically is having connection emotionally. As I said, it is understandable that he is scared; getting married is a lifetime decision and requires many things to succeed, such as feelings, intimacy, comprehension, respect and so on.

I could not see your question if you both ever met in person. If not, it is not against Islam to do so. You should get to know each other more than 2 months before doing the Nikah. The main goal of the courting process is to see if there is compatibility and attraction and check the spiritual understanding. I would strongly recommend you get your families involved and create safe space for you both to meet.

We all know that the only relationship between family man and woman are allowed to have is marriage. If you are serious about taking this step, it is very important that you and he have more than the religious beliefs in common, which I believe you do, considering your good feelings about this bother. Make sure you are marrying him with more connection than his religion. Are you likely to sustain and succeed in a marriage where there is no compatibility beyond sharing a similar theology and ritual practices? We cannot live a true path of spirituality if our attempt to follow Islam lacks sincerity, wisdom, and deep reflection on our context and ourselves.

In conclusion, take your time to talk to him more, have few meetings with him in person in a safe space, get to know his family, and let him know yours. I strongly advise you to keep your du’aa’ and let God lead your decision. If everything seems easy in order for you and him to get married, it might be a strong sign that Allah is in agreement with this relationship. Remember that your Istikharah must be sincere, and it is not a superstition or a means to fortify what you already decided. Use your intellect and look for evidence that this brother is the right man for you, and advise him to do the same.

My last advice is to take some compatibility tests or even try pre-marital consulting if you feel that you need more certainty of your decision. It is very important to talk openly about expectations in the relationship. I don’t think you and him have to worry about physical contact after marriage now. If you have compatibility and chemistry to spend a life together, I am sure that the intimacy won’t be a problem.

Potentializing Prayer

Obviously, prayer is an important part of everyone’s spiritual journey. For a lot of people salah becomes this religious obligation that they must fill. This construct of "I must pray" or "I have to pray." The problem is this turns prayer into a chore.

When you get a new job, you get a contract that stipulates the job description; according to the CEO you are obligated to do those things. Whether or not you do them is your choice. If you do the job well, you are likely to succeed. More importantly if you love what you are doing, not only will you fulfill your work obligations but you will enjoy it and benefit more.

Many people approach prayer in a similar fashion. I have to pray to get that golden ticket to jannah because I'm fulfilling religious obligations. Technically speaking you have to pray because you signed this contract when you became Muslim, but existentially speaking you don’t; Allah (swt) doesn't NEED our prayers.

“I do not want from them any provision, nor do I want them to feed Me. Indeed, it is Allah who is the [continual] Provider, the firm possessor of strength.

إِنَّ اللَّهَ هُوَ الرَّزَّاقُ ذُو الْقُوَّةِ الْمَتِين . مَا أُرِيدُ مِنْهُم مِّن رِّزْقٍ وَمَا أُرِيدُ أَن يُطْعِمُونِ

[Quran 51:57-58]

Yes, we must pray from a religious-legal standpoint, but how far does this take you. It is Allah(Swt) who is the continual provider and the one who possesses invincible power and strength.

 Steps to Improving Prayer

How we talk about prayer in our heads will influence our moods in salah. Imagine approaching salah with genuine love.

1. How we feel about and approach salah is the first step. Think about your relationship with Allah (swt). I have found in couples work there is a lot of interesting parables between romantic relationships and our relationship with Allah (swt). Reflect on these parables below.

• Proposal/Shahada. If a man loves someone he confirms his love with a marriage proposal. The proposal is like the shahada, when we propose we are bearing witness and testifying to the truth of our love.

• Engagement/Wudu. Engagement is the prep phase before marriage, before the connection. Wudu is the prep phase before salah, the way you make wudu connects to how you pray. Take your time with wudu, turn on the water just enough and that small amount of water will feel more spiritual.

• Marriage/Salah. The actual salah is a means of connecting to the divine, the marriage moment, intertwining with the ultimate.

1. Take some deep breaths before prayer; make it a self-care process. Sit in the place of worship to clear you mind and ready yourself, then begin. You'll be more present from the beginning.

2.  Once you start the prayer visualize something that will anchor you. I like to visualize myself from a bird’s eye view, I see myself in my home, neighborhood and that keeps going to space. Your breathing while reciting and movements help to reintegrate mind, body and soul.

3. We need to know what we are saying. Many of us can’t translate Al-Fatihah in a way that has meaning. A simple translation is not enough, we need to know what the words mean in a deeper sense.

4. When in sajdah, sit another 30 seconds. Free talk therapy, no insurance needed, he always responds. He communicates and manifests his decisions through the creation.

Think about your salah not as a chore, but as something you want and need. Work on understanding your relationship with the divine with all the same analogies of what does it mean to show commitment, love and service in marriage. All of those principles apply.

 Final Thoughts

You can’t expect a marriage to go far if you don’t communicate. Just as you can’t expect to grow in your spirituality if you are too busy 5x a day when you are invited to communicate with Allah (swt).

If we are in a divine loving relationship with Allah (swt) and we want to cherish this connection, then prayer is not a chore. It will be something we want because we don't feel complete unless we connect.