An Honest Reflection

I haven’t been writing as much in recent days and there are a number of reasons for that.  I get so much encouragement and love from sisters who read this blog and that means a lot to me alhamdulillah.  When I started out on this journey I felt isolated and different to everyone around me.  This blog helped me to find my voice, find sisters who understood me or were in a similar situation to me.  It allowed me to be honest about some of the challnges in my life.

When I started out on this journey, my children were also small and it was easier to be honest I think.  In the last year or two, there has been so much change in my life: redundancy, new job, career growth, dealing with strong willed teens, ageing parents and in-laws, struggling financially a little. Hubby has been super busy with work and the management of the local masjid and it has made me feel a little clingy and down, something I am only just realising and dealing with.

Some of this has been harder to talk about than when the kids were little or even quite get my head around.  Work has also been super busy. When I started blogging, I was bored and under-challenged at work, blogging let me use my brain and offered opportunity to introspect and reflect.  My job at the moment is so full on, from 8am to 4pm, I only get up to pray. Every day has something new to research, plan or solve and I have had the best work year of my life. But I am also left mentally drained and exhausted on many days and just need to do something physical – like housework, or brainless – like looking at rubbish on Instagram to wind down.  I have spent the first few days of this week’s break from work cooking and cleaning and de-cluttering until my brain has climbed down from the roof and things make sense again.

In the last few years, I have heard a lot of debate around whether blogging is dead and whether there is any point in maintaining blogs.  This was a little bit discouraging, but I realised that this blog is the platform that hosts my content, but it can still be shared on whatever the latest social media or platform is trending at the moment. I also think long form content is valuable in a world full of super-fast minute-long or even seconds-long content across social media that sometimes has no space for reflection or deep thought.

Finally I have been reading like crazy. I have piles of books everywhere and I am trying to counter the lure of Instagram and twitter which are oh so fun, but rarely very productive (half an hour of silly videos anyone?)

So now I have had the chance to think on these things and clear some mental space, I feel good about writing. I feel brave enough to share again. I am looking forward to connecting with sisters. I want to document my growth because so much happened last year and I feel it has set the foundations for so much more next year (Post to come on work and the beginnings of community engagement insh’Allah).

Most of all, I want to do things more consciously, rather than just because it’s easiest when I am tired, or on auto-pilot.  I want to manage my work so that I have energy left for life. I desperately want to improve the quality of my worship, improve my iman (faith) and be confident in living my faith.  I hope you say with me for this journey insh’Allah and continue to share your stories, teach, guide and advise me insh’Allah.

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