Don't neglect emotional health

[Aalia]

Assalamualaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

I've been writing in my journal for quite some time, just my own reflections. I hope to post some of my entries here over the coming weeks. Enjoy.

2/24/10

Last night, I discovered another example of my own arrogance and stupidity.

I had fully believed that the people who have authority over you should never be disobeyed or even questioned as long as your physical and spiritual needs are being met. As long as I had food in my stomach, clothes on my back, and a roof over my head, my physical needs were being taken care of. And as long as I wasn't prevented from praying, fasting or reading Quran, my spiritual needs were being met. Beyond that I thought I was owed nothing, and I should ask for nothing.

It turns out that there are two other areas which need to be taken care of: mental health and emotional health. Mental health, I can understand. A person needs adequate intellectual stimulation to keep their mind sharp. But what in the world is emotional health and how do you know when you have achieved it?

It's not like anyone sits down and teaches you this sort of thing, so either learn by trial and error, or by reading through the educated guesses of mental health professionals. Meaning as of right now, there is no concrete answer (as far as I'm aware). On top of that, every individual's emotional needs are different, and they must discover for themselves what their needs are, by knowing what they are comfortable with.

What do I mean by emotional need?

• Social interaction, both on the level of acquaintances, and the level of close friend or confidant.
• Solitude, to whatever extant is necessary. This could be five minutes in the bathroom everyday, or four hours locked in your bedroom.
• Privacy in terms of your thoughts and secrets. Just because you have nothing to hide doesn't mean your life should be broadcasted.
• Caring about others, being concerned about them
• Need to feel important, worthy, accepted loved, trusted, etc.
• Empathy, support, encouragement, etc
• Self respect and self esteem while balancing humility (look up Yasir Fazaga's lectures on Youtube for more info on this one.)

And the list goes on. For each area, one must find out how much they need. There is no "one size fits all". And only an arrogant, pigheaded, immature fool would impose their idea of what emotional needs "should be" on someone else.

That brings me back to the case of a person who has authority over others. That individual must ensure that he or she is not causing psychological damage to others by preventing their emotional needs from being met. If they do not do so, we must ourselves take our health into our own hands and fight for our rights to make sure we retain our sanity.

[faiso]

subhanallah! I wanna read more can't wait for the next entry insh'allah.

[Kaltham]

Assalaamu alaykum wa rahmatulahi wa baraktuh,

Jazaki Allah khair Aalia for sharing this with us... I've been writing in a journal ever since i was 14... i stopped for a while then i started again last year... subhanna Allah, just in the past year I learned so much more about myself by reading my journals and reflecting on my emotions and the causes for them... Spiritual and Emotional stability are extremely important... without them, it does not matter how stable you are in your physical health and in your intellectual health, something big will be missing... Sometimes we find ourselves physically healthy but subhanna Allah missing gratitude and contentment... other times we will be tested with difficulties and sicknesses, and we are not able to be patient with this temporary difficulty that it leads some to suicidal thoughts... All obviously depending on our level of Eman! We might be on the low end of being grateful to Allah... however if one recognizes this as a shortcoming and one is sincere in wanting to get better, Allah will gradually help us overcome the shortcoming... this is when you realize that Allah talks to you... either that, or you are crazy! I'm sure this applies to all the other emotional negativity we might find ourselves struggling with, like insincerity, arrogance, jealousy and envy, sadness and depression... you name it, we have the cure for it within ourselves and in the Quran and Sunnah. May Allah protect us all and make us of those who are steadfast in their Eman. Aalia, I'd love to have a cup of tea!

Fi Amaani'Laah