Allah SAYS, DON’T STRESS TOO MUCH

This world is associated with feeling anxious, this world, every step every single part of our journey, every day, every week, every month, there's something else that's going to bring us anxiety and grief.

It is so important that we understand and we tackle head-on the reality of stress and grief, and we make us make it a part of our daily discourse, that it is nothing wrong to feel anxious, you don't have to feel guilty for feeling stressed out.

Realize that the Quran tells us that people of piety, can stress people of taqwa, and feel anxious the fact that you're stressed out doesn't mean you have bad iman, weak iman, or lack of iman, no this is wrong, people of taqwa and people of iman also feel stressed out look at the Quran.

Exclusive we learn in the Quran, that Yakub was stressed out, in fact, he was so stressed out that anxiety caused him to lose his sight because of anxiety, his eyes did not work the way they were supposed to and Yakub is a prophet. is anybody going to accuse Yakub of not having faith not having iman why are you stressed out don't you have iman in Allah, feeling stress and iman are not mutually exclusive you can have both together.

Let not that stress becomes a source of stress you get my point here, let not your stress itself cause you to be more stressed out that's why am I feeling stressed it's okay to be anxious it's okay to be worried you have iman.

Don't feel anxiety don't feel grief Allah is consoling the nabi (SAW) because he is hurt his chest is in constriction because of rumor-mongering words. feeling anxiety and stress is normal it is natural it's a part and parcel of not just being Muslim, but being human every one of us is going to feel anxiety at times of tension and we also need to look at it from a biological and a psychological standpoint, this is Allah's mechanism to put us on our guard imagine if we didn't feel stressed and we're losing our money that would be a problem imagine what happens when you're stressed out you focus, that's the purpose Allah blessed us with the mechanism of stress we all know when adrenaline flows. For example, our perception changes our focus changes it is a gift from Allah which yes, has its own negatives we have to deal with but overall if used properly stress is a part of a gift that is used for our survival and for our protection that we start thinking and focusing. You know when we're stressed about something we're constantly thinking about it why we need to get a solution, if we didn't get that stress why would we think about it so we have to understand that stress anxiety grief at some level is totally normal and it is a part and parcel of not just being a Muslim but being a human.

The second point that this leads me to is that as a Muslim Alhamdulillah we have tools to minimize stress we have tools to help us overcome stress one main tool in the Quran to battle against stress is our belief in qadr in predestination we believe that "everything happens by the will of Allah and the decree of Allah" and in that, we should feel a sense of calm a sense of protection the believer uses qadr to feel a consolation for anything that has happened in the past qadr is used to console the past something happened

Nothing is going to happen to me except what Allah has decreed will happen to me and he is my mawla (protector) he is my protector whatever Allah has decreed I put my trust in him, the one who put me in the situation will also help me get out of it the one who gave me this reason and this cause of feeling anxiety will also give me the tools to cope with that anxiety, and to eventually overcome that anxiety we firmly believe that anxiety and stress are a means of attaining Allah's reward if we channel it to connect with Allah.

Any pain and stress that we feel our prophet SAW said no Muslim is afflicted with any grief or stress or pain or anxiety or suffering six adjectives, he gave six different things to describe every possible state no pain no anguish no grief no worry no physical pain not even As-shauka a thorn that pricks him and he is patient except that Allah will give him the ajar that stress and grief.

Faith does not eliminate stress but faith allows you to cope with it and deal with it in a way that Insha Allah you can live a life as normal as possible and then meet Allah SWT.