Assalamu Alaikum, Najwa Awad here from Yaqeen Institute. Today we're going to
be talking about the common thought everything is my fault.
Unexpected surprises can knock the wind out of us. When we have aspirations and
things we're really looking forward to it's almost like part of us is living in
the future. And we have really high hopes for things panning out. And when those
hopes are crushed and things don't go as planned it can be a really traumatic
feeling and a traumatic event in a person's life. When you married someone
that you thought would be the only person you spend the rest of your life
with and it doesn't work out or you worked years to try and get this job
that you want and you weren't able to the promotion goes to somebody else, that
hope is that hope being taken away can be very soul-crushing
and you might start to wonder, you know, that everything is your fault. I'm trying
my best. I'm making dua. I'm doing everything in my power to try and make
things go right. But there must be something about me that's not making
things work out. When something bad happens we are wired for survival
purposes to ask why? Why is this happening and who caused this? Reflecting
on what goes wrong is essential for well-being. When you're accountable and
you can reflect on things that you did that might not be right or things that
could have been prevented then you can save yourself from future pain. You can
also readdress people that you might have wronged. Accountability is one of
the most important attributes that a person can have. A healthy minded
individual engages in accountability really for self-protection and to make
themselves and the world a better place. This is much different than self-blame.
Self-blame is when you criticize yourself and you are just focusing on
the negative for no reason other than to make yourself feel bad. Over time self
blame can be very dangerous. It contributes to poor mood. It can be a
major factor in depression. It can even lead you to one of the biggest sins in
Islam, which is despairing in the mercy of Allah. While self-blame happens to
everyone, in my practice I feel like it really
happens to a lot of women. And recently I was meeting with a client and we were
talking about guilt and she told me this really awful
saying. And the saying goes like, you know, beat your wife every day and if you
don't know why she will. And it's awful because anyone would think that but it's
it's awful because a lot of women actually do engage in that level of self
blame in which they take responsibility and feel bad for things that really have
nothing to do with in themselves and this is one of the worst kinds of
oppression because it's not only taking accountability from the person who
should be accountable. But it's almost like a dhulm on the self in which you are
inheriting almost like someone's sins and you are blaming yourself and feeling
bad for something that really has nothing to do with you. Sometimes bad
things happen to us because of our own wrongdoing but we also know that
sometimes distress can be the result of a bigger picture things. Things that
we don't know about. The unseen. So while it's good to always do istigfar and
seek nearness to Allah in that capacity we also need to remember
that just because something bad happens to us it doesn't necessarily mean it's
because we did something wrong. Many people who experience self blame can
trace the thoughts that they have back to a critical caregiver. Someone in
their past that might have had good intentions in trying to redirect them or
trying to help them but used feeling guilty or used blame as a motivator
instead of growth and looking at things from a strengths perspective. You can go
back and reflect on your early childhood and think the voice that I have now does
this sound like someone that you know a teacher or a parent or some kind of
caregiver, does it sound like someone who used to say things to me before that
made me not feel good? What happens is when we're children we are very
vulnerable and the things that people say to us eventually become a part of us
so the negative thoughts in your head and
script of self-blame might really be from someone in your past. We also know
that Shaitaan uses this trick to make us feel bad and want us to not want to seek
nearness to Allah out of shame or feeling that we're not worthy. So in
addition to, you know, reflecting on people in your past that might have have
inadvertently hurt you this way. It's also important to realize that this is a
tried-and-true trick from Shaitaan to try to get you to despair and think
that you're just not good enough or worthy to be with Allah and be a good
Muslim. Getting rid of thoughts of self blame that everything is my fault, or if
I had done this this could have been prevented. It becomes habitual and it
becomes a way of thinking that's very hard to break out of. So it sounds very
overly simplistic but if this is something that you struggle with in the
morning and in the evening you can take a journal and you can write down some of
these self-blame thoughts. And once you're finished to cross them out with
red or something really darken and thick. And then replace those unhealthy
thoughts with more healthy thoughts positive things and reflect on how those
things that you were blaming yourself for had nothing to do with you. Your
child having a disability has nothing to do with you.
Your marriage falling apart- sometimes it might have something to do with you.
Sometimes it has nothing to do with you. Again it could be part of a bigger
picture. So when we look at it from that framework then we can really
rework through some of those things. Even if we had that negative voice in our
head from our past. The more you practice, the easier it becomes over time. For more
tools, insights, and reflections on self blame check out our series your Lord has
not forsaken you on YaqeenInstitute.org.