Tea Stories: Be-Tea 🐿️☕🕊️👶🏽🫖🦋
Tea Stories: Be-Tea 🐿️☕🕊️👶🏽🫖🦋
44:59 'So be on the watch, for they, too, are on the watch.'
Allah SWT instructs the Prophet Muhammad pbuh to be on the watch for their destruction just as they watch for yours. ⚡
Having 'enemies' is hard. 😔
The pain centre for physical pain and the pain of rejection is the same. Rejection is designed to hurt us because belonging ensures our survival. So rejection physically hurts. When we are rejected we need extra love, it gives rise to feelings of shame and frustration. We need to be held. Each and every time. That love helps us to keep striving and not give up. ❤️
When we are up against an adversary there is a threat that we will be hurt and ousted from the group. That we are not valued or worthy in that person's eyes and potentially in the eyes of others because of what they may say about us. It's all quite messy. 🫣
However, you know what's not messy? You! You are not messy! Just because someone throws daggers does not mean we have to catch them! ⛔
We have to cultivate a graceful way of behaving. This is a good time to learn that. Prophet Muhammad pbuh was not given God's help because he was being angry, shouty, revengy and irrational. The opposite is true. We can choose peace, patience, and forbearance. We can follow the best of examples. 🩷
Michelle Obama famously said "When they go low, we go high." ☺️ let's try -
My own formula for dealing with rejection (after dealing with a tonne of rejection over the years) goes as follows -
1. Observe - look at the situation from a neutral perspective so you can get a fairly unbiased view of it all. Perhaps even go through it with a friend (there will of course be some bias but you want to remove as much as possible). That way we can extract the lessons and learning for ourselves. 👍🏼
2. Depersonalised - oftentimes when people around us are being unpleasant it has very little to do with us. Here's some logic - if you are genuinely annoying someone, they ought to tell you and be clear. If they are not telling you, or being clear and are just trying to hurt you, then they are being aggressive and that's not personal. So depersonalise what you can. If you need to change a behaviour in you, do so (this is learning too and is not about blame), otherwise appreciate that this is not about you.
3. Projection - notice that there may be some delusion involved and there may be some twisting of the truth. You don't need to justify all, or any of it. If you can hold on to yourself, your truth, then that's enough and it's time to bear patiently. 💪🏼
4. Protection - the above verse is Allah SWT telling Prophet Muhammad pbuh to protect himself. Not to take any steps but just to keep one eye open and draw some boundaries. At the same time there are efforts to comfort, be compassionate, honour and regard oneself to soothe the pain. Now is a really good time to turn to God. 💚
5. Self-acceptance - in this step we accept ourselves as we are. This is the point at which we say, "this is me, if you don't like it there's the door." We stop trying to fit in and we go where we belong. We are standing in our truth. This is the point at which we see that the door that closed, allowed a better one to open. SubhanAllah such is the beauty of life. 💚🩷🦋
6. Re-direction - we take that energy and we convert it into something beautiful. We find our tribe. We create beauty. We share with others. We open our hearts again. We increase our self-regard. We vibrate differently. We find our peace. 🌟
You see, peace is not something we are handed on a plate. Peace is something we draw boundaries for, change our standards for and strive for. 🙏🏼
'This is a subtle truth. Whatever you love you are.' - Rumi
Love Peace. 💚
