#046 Overcome The Struggle to Getting Married

We’re unpacking relationships in this article. But it’s more about the relationships that you want to build.

It might even be the ones that you have, but you’re struggling to turn them into something that you enjoy.

A lot of the time we struggle with our connection to people because we think it’s them, we think it’s the circumstance, we think is what’s going on in our lives. 

But actually, very often, one of the main causes of us staying put and staying stuck in relationships, or having a lack of a meaningful relationship, is a mental block that keeps you stuck in a feeling. 

We think we can’t get past it and it’s actually so important to understand.

FINDING YOUR RIGHT PERSON 

Finding that perfect relationship, finding the person that you’re going to spend the rest of your life with, finding your other half, whichever way you put it, whatever that idea is in your mind.

If you’ve been through some sort of traumatic experience where you felt let down and extremely sad, then finding that ideal person can be challenging.

Something happened in your life. Maybe you went through a divorce. 

Maybe you’ve never been married before, but you’ve had bad relationships, and you’re always doubting yourself and doubting whether or not you can actually connect to people. 

Actually, I hear it a lot. 

At the Muslim Life Coach Institute, we work on mental health and wealth. Wealth, in the sense of abundance in your life.

We work on how to actually create wealthy relationships. 

Relationships are the foundation of everything. It’s the foundation of your connection in life to everyone around you.

And it’s also the foundation of a business. 

So if you’re a coach or a therapist, and you’re reading this, you know what I’m talking about, because we’re in the relationship business.

How to relate to people, how to understand people, and how to actually help people through that understanding is the business we’re in.

So, if you’re struggling with relationships, or you’re struggling to find the right relationships, my opinion, based on my experience working with hundreds of people, is that people stay stuck, because of a mental block. 

Because of a previous experience that they’ve had. 

Think of it like this.

Maybe it was childhood trauma or bad upbringings, bad relationships, or just generally some bad experiences, which you feel hold you back. 

So the feeling that’s generated is coming from your desire to avoid these previous problems.

That feeling generated this feeling of wanting to stay away from problems. You don’t want to feel those feelings anymore.

It’s like your mental block is the desire to avoid those feelings or have those experiences again.

So the desire to avoid those problems keeps you stuck. 

You’ll understand this if you’ve been looking to find the right person, or if you struggle to connect to people around you.

Often, we think that we’re just being safe by avoiding certain situations where we have to actually connect to people. 

Or where you have to communicate with people, actually put yourself out there, and maybe even connect to new people. 

What happens automatically is that you have this inbuilt thing or a feeling of wanting to keep yourself safe. That wanting to keep yourself safe is the mental block.

The desire to keep safe becomes a mental block. And what’s actually happening is that we get caught in the wanting-to-stay-safe feeling.

And you get stuck in this no man’s land, where you keep trying to progress, and you get close to progression.

You get close to finding the right person or repairing a relationship, or you get close to forming a relationship. 

Then all of a sudden, you find yourself sabotaged. 

And get this, sabotaged by YOU.

THE INVISIBLE WALL 

The desire to keep safe is like an invisible wall.

Think of your thoughts. They’re an invisible wall. You can’t see them but they’re solid. Only solid because you believe them. 

So you believe them but it’s actually an invisible wall.

You might think it’s just a way of thinking or just how things are, just a matter of fact, it’s reality and you can’t really do anything about it, you can’t really change it.

But having those thoughts is the invisible wall that keeps you stuck. 

So even if you feel like you’re progressing, you come up against the invisible wall. Every time that happens, you don’t feel like you can go any further.

You have all these bad feelings and you start sabotaging yourself by pulling away from opportunities. 

You start having these funny feelings in the pit of your stomach. And you think it’s just the answer to your Istikhaara – Your Dua for Guidance.

But this invisible wall of yours that you keep coming up against is the feeling or the desire to stay safe. 

That feeling sets off these alarm bells.

Every time you get close to progress, every time you get close to actually finding someone or even embarking on a journey to find the right person, these invisible walls come up.

These thoughts and ideas appear in your mind about how you need to stay safe and not put yourself in jeopardy’s way.

When that happens, more ideas appear of what it’s going to be like if it fails, or if the past reoccurs and you don’t want that to happen again. 

It sends you into a state of panic. This happens in relationships when you’re looking for someone, and in parent-child relationships too.

This also happens in business relationships. 

I deal with my clients in their business relationships where it’s happening and they can’t see it happening.

And often it’s the destroyer of opportunity. 

This is why I call it the invisible wall because you can’t see it.

You think it’s a matter of fact, you think it’s just happening, and you can’t see it.

But it’s preventing you from progressing, and it appears in your life as a safety measure.

This feeling of caution appears as if it’s just looking after you, but actually, it’s sabotaging you.

Most people don’t realise that they can change it. 

The key is you have to be willing to look at it. You have to be looking to actually see it. 

If you’re reading this right now as one of my students or one of my clients and you’re going through the Nafs Life Transformation programme with me, go to the course library and look up the lessons and the classes on awareness and beliefs. 

Go through those classes because it’s going to help you to identify and start making those changes happen. 

Do the exercises. Take action on working through this. 

The reality is most people stay stuck because they don’t know. They think it’s just the way life is.

Many times I hear people say stuff like, ‘It is what it is. And, That’s just life, time will tell, time will heal it.’

Listen, time doesn’t heal anything. Allah(swt) heals. 

But if you want it to heal, you need to take the steps to find it and actually do something about it. 

That’s the action you need to take. 

Many times people get offended when I talk about this stuff , because they feel like I’m telling them what to do. 

I’m not telling you what to do. I’m telling you to take a look at yourself. Take a look at the things that are blocking you.

Allah (swt) has given us the faculties, the abilities, and the things we need to actually make those changes happen.

But unless you’re willing to take a look and do something about it, you’ll get stuck at the invisible wall.

Your invisible wall, that desire to feel safe, and the thinking that comes along, out of the blue, just to save you, just when you’re about to progress. 

I’ve done it many times myself. We all do this, it’s human nature.

This is psychology.

Obviously, this is the Nafs psychology. This is what we understand from the Quran and Sunnah.

This is how we work as people, as humans. 

If you can get that and take the steps to find the challenges and actually do something about it, you can change it. You can go beyond that.

You can change it and create the relationships that you want.

You can go out and find the people that you want. If you want to find your other half, your life partner, you have to get over the past. 

FIND THE MIND BLOCK 

Find out what’s blocking you.

Now, it’s really important that we don’t just do this mental exercise in understanding stuff because that’s just mind work. It’s just one part.

You’re just sitting there doing a mental exercise. And that’s not going to make you stronger. 

Just doing the mental work is like wanting to get fit, so you think about working out. 

You think extremely hard about doing press-ups and sit-ups and pulling out the dumbbells and the kettlebells, and you add in a bit of running. 

You think so hard, it tires you. 

But then you don’t do anything physically.

What will the outcome be? 

Nothing will change. Thinking does not create change. 

You’ve got to take action, and the action is in the real world. So take this stuff out of your mind, and you actually want to do it. 

THE ACTION PLAN FOR SUCCESS

This is where it gets fun. Grab a pen and some paper, and do the exercise. If you’re not on the programme with me, here’s what you want to do.

I want you to do this exercise just to see what’s going on for yourself. Take it seriously and focus because it’ll help you to actually find the problems.

Ok, now that you’re ready I want you to think about your life, and where you feel like you’re being held back.

Pick one thing. Don’t do everything, because when you try and fix everything in one go, it’s difficult.

So just take one thing at a time and focus on that. 

I’ll use the example of marriage.

But you pick anything you like.

When you think about marriage, and wanting to get married. 

Do this now. Say to yourself, I want to get married, I’m going to get busy finding someone. 

What runs through your mind right now when you say that?

The minute you think about marriage, what runs through your mind? Every time you embark on the road to finding someone, what goes through your mind?

Take your pen and paper and write down everything that comes to your mind. Be super honest. No one needs to see this, just you. 

Write down everything that goes through your mind.

Pull out everything that’s going on in that mind of yours. 

Once you’ve done that, look through it and ask yourself a really important question.

Is this a thought? 

Or, is this thinking conducive to a good, enjoyable search process? That sounds a bit formal but say it however you want.  

Is this conducive? 

Is it helping me?

Is it empowering me?

Is it making me happy to be on this route to finding my other half? 

Am I excited about this adventure of finding my spouse?

You’ve got to ask yourself that question. 

Next question. Does the prospect of having to do this search scare the daylights out of me?

Ask yourself the question. Ask yourself, what is the feeling that you have when you ruminate on all of this stuff that’s going on in your mind? 

Now sit there and think about it, and actually feel it. See what’s going on for you. 

My guess is it’s going to be something negative, a disempowering thought and feeling that’s coming up in your mind.

If you’re getting that, you’ve just found the obstacles.

You think everything out there is an obstacle. You think it’s the websites, all these matchmaking apps, and the events you attend.

You think they’re the problem. 

You think that all of the men or the women out there are the problem. 

But I want you just to look at what’s going on in your mind. And ask yourself, is it conducive to a good search? 

Is that going to help me find the right person? And there you go. That is probably your invisible wall.

This process of finding your invisible wall can be used to find your problems in any of your relationships, in your business, coaching your clients, in your therapy practice, or in anything that you’re feeling stuck in.

A lot of people have this problem and it’s directly related to procrastination, behavioural issues, and so many things. So I want you to get busy with this.

If you can figure this out, it will help you to change your life. And that’s no tall order. 

That’s actually very realistic. Don’t forget>>>>you can’t change what you can’t see. 

But if you can see it, you can take hold of it, and you can do something with it. If you can’t see it, it’s like the invisible wall. 

You keep knocking into it and you don’t even know what you’re knocking into. And you think it’s just a matter of fact.

It’s just the way life is. 

But it’s not. You can actually do something about it.

So get busy doing this, and hopefully, Insha’Allah, if you do this in any area of your life, you’re going to find solutions.