Your Mind Attracts What You Focus On
Have you heard of the phenomenon in psychology, where once you buy a car, you all of a sudden see that car everywhere? The idea behind this phenomenon is that once something holds value to you, you are noticing it more and more happening around you.
It’s not that all of a sudden more people bought that car when you bought it too. The car has been around you all the time, yet you rarely noticed. Once your attention got fixed on it, you saw it driving around you more often.
My idea of writing this post is the same. It’s not just with cars or other material things that once you have it, you see it more often around you. It’s equally true for non-tangible things like the ideas in your head. The energy that you choose to carry. The thoughts that you decide to entertain.
From an Islamic point of view…
Let’s look at this idea from an Islamic point of view. In Islam, dua’a is worship. This is clear from the hadith where the Prophet(saw) said: “Supplication itself is worship.”
I have long been fascinated by our gift of making dua and have put quite some time into researching what the right way of making dua is. One of the items in the “recipe” of accepted dua’as is to have yaqeen. In our hearts, we are supposed to have full faith that Allah(swt) WILL answer our dua’a.
In other words, if we want our dua’a to be answered by our Creator, we have to focus our heart and thoughts on the fact that our dua’a WILL be answered. We have to have positive thoughts about our dua’a being answered.
Focusing on the negative…
Before I give you practical steps on HOW to focus on the positive, I would also like to shine the light on this: If your mind attracts more positivity when you choose to focus on the positive aspects of your life, then it’s also true that your mind will attract more negativity if you choose to put your focus on the negative aspects of your life.
Notice I am saying “focusing on the negative aspects of your life”. Which means, none of us have the life on this earth, that has been promised to us by Allah(swt) in Jannah. (May Allah make each one of us worthy of His Jannah, ameen ya Rabb!)
In one or another way, each one of us is dealing with a hardship.
If you have a friend who seems to have no problems…it’s not true. Just because you don’t know about her struggles, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
If you see someone on social media who seems to have it all together, wrong. You just see what you see on a screen. You don’t see the behind the scene part of their life. They too have struggles. They too fall short from time to time.
Life is not about getting rid of our struggles and being perfect. Life is about living with contentment DESPITE our struggles and working on ourselves day in and day out to become a better version of ourselves with each day that passes.
But how?
- You might want to tell me now, sis: “So if life is not without struggles and we are not perfect in our abilities, HOW IN THE WORLD are we supposed to focus on the positive?”
I’ll tell you. Here are some guidelines first…
If a struggle falls outside of human power, like an illness that you or a family member has to deal with, or dealing with your children who are still little (or have gotten to the teenage years;), or your financial situation at the moment… this is where you can put all your effort into counting the little blessings that ARE there.
Believe me, I understand sis, sometimes pain and difficulty can be so heavy on us that our heart and mind are tired. And all it can sense, feel, and count is the suffering. It is in these times that you have to put intentional effort into finding the positive in life.
- However, if you’re struggle is something that IS within your power to change it, then WHILE you are counting your blessings and focusing on the positive, you can work on changing the situation, with the help and guidelines from Allah(swt).
For example, if after self-reflecting, you realize that there is a characteristic or habit in you that is really not serving you well, it is time to make a plan and step by step help yourself in overcoming this negative habit or characteristic.
If you are dealing with a toxic person in your life, then WHILE you are counting your blessings, it is time to learn healthy boundary setting for the sake of your well-being (and in turn for the sake of the well-being of the people that will be immediately impacted by you.
Ways to count your blessings…
So regardless of the nature of your struggle, it is important that you focus on the positive in order to attract more positivity in your life, insha Allah.
- Make sure your basic needs are met: enough sleep, healthy diet, some exercise in your day. Lack of any of these or a low quality of them, will increase the amount of stress. When stress is elevated, your mind is more prone to see everything through a negativity lens.
- In order to help your mind see positivity, notice it, and appreciate it, so you can attract more of it in your life, insha Allah, it is important to learn some ways of noticing all those positivity around you. How do you do that?
I’ll teach you two simple ways you can immediately implement in your life.
- First, have a small notebook or notepad, in which you write down every day in the early morning 3 things that you are grateful for to Allah(swt).
When I initially started this practice, it seemed very superficial, lacking deep thought and meaning. I would write down really basic stuff like “Thank you ya Allah for giving us a home to live in.” Or “Thank you ya Allah for my healthy children.”
While these all can be beautiful statements of gratefulness to Allah’s blessings, I wasn’t feeling anything when I wrote them down. The more you practice though, the more you can dig deeper and truly search for the not-so-obvious blessings from Allah.
- Another way you can bring conscious mindfulness regarding your blessings in life, is doing the adkhar and dhikr after every salah with consciousness.
Sis, please don’t get right up after salah. Take a few moments. This is SO important on SO many levels.
First, it is the sunnah. And there is always hikmah behind the sunnah.
When you take a few moments after salah to read the adhkar and make dhikr of Allah(swt), first you are giving your mind and body the time to relax and your soul to further connect with Allah(swt). WHILE you are reading your adhkar: 33x subhan Allah, 33x alhamdullilAllah, and 34x Allahu akbar.
If you have not put this sunnah in practice yet, or you go through it quickly. Try pausing and start with at least thinking of a blessing of Allah(swt) with each time that you say “alhamdullilAllah”. Even if it is something small.
To summarize…
In this post, I wrote to you how focusing on positivity, will insha Allah, bring you more positivity in life.
We looked at it from an Islamic point of view and from a psychological point of view.
I mentioned to you how our focus is not to get negativity OUT of our life. Struggles are part of life and can be caused by things outside of our abilities or by things that we CAN change.
Regardless of the source, we can put practices in place that will help your mind slowly get into the habit of looking at life in a positive way.
I pray to Allah(swt), dear sis, that your mind is filled with the search for positivity in this life and that Allah(swt) blesses you with an abundance of it because of your sincere efforts.
My course UNSTUCK, which will help you as a mother feel empowered and equipped with the right mindset, tools and strategies, will open for registration on February 6th, insha Allah! In the mean time, if you would like to join a waitlist, click here. I will contact you as soon as registration opens, insha Allah!
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