Inside the
Recovery Community Issue 5
My Healing, Your Healing Spotlight Member: Isa
Interview with Hakim
February 2015
Inside the Recovery Community Copyright Š 2015 by Purify Your Gaze
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system. The articles in this newsletter are for general educational purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice or instruction. The information provided should not serve as a substitute for professional medical care. Published by: Purify Your Gaze, 27525 Puerta Real STE 100-333, Mission Viejo, CA 92691 Website: www.PurifyYourGaze.com Email: info@purifyyourgaze.com
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Contents February 2015
Editorial
3
Removing Our Masks
4
Laith Returns: Emotions Are Human
5
Adventures In Recovery: Morning
7
My Healing, Your Healing
11
Interview With Hakim
15
Adventures In Recovery: Motivation
18
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Editorial Zeyad Ramadan CEO & Founder of Purify Your Gaze
Bismillah Al-Rahman Al-Raheem Repeat with me, “Progress and NOT perfection.” Ok, say it again, “Progress and NOT perfection.” Ok ten more times and out loud! This was exactly what I did with one of the coaching members this past month where he was plagued with a case of “perfectionitis” where if he had some sort of setback in his day, related or unrelated to his sexually acting out, he would drop all his commitments and effectively fall into the “stop living life” rut. I had him repeat this mantra over and over again on our call, with his assignment being that he had to say this out-loud every time he had any sort of setback, “progress and not perfection” and immediately focus on that next opportunity to make things right. There is a common belief that “if I can rebound back up so quickly after a setback, a mistake, or a sin, then I would be downplaying the gravity of what I have just done”. This particular brother in his “stop living life” rut would binge on junk food, miss all his prayers, ignore important phone calls, relapse some more, and most recently even led him to missing two days at work! 3 Purify Your Gaze Inside the Recovery Community
I think it is understandable to not expect to act as if everything is okay, and move on as if nothing has happened. What is in question is, the attitude of wallowing and self-pitying where it perpetuates more of the relapsing back into the sins and self-sabotaging behavior. They can never get to progress itself because in their wallowing they are too consumed in feeling bad about themselves that they do not learn from their setbacks or in all honesty, do not feel bad about their sins which is how they shut-off and carry on as if “everything is normal”. It’s either wallow and self-pity or pretend nothing is wrong and don’t feel bad at all. Both are different sides of the same coin, feeling completely inadequate or feeling god-like and perfect. Both sides lead to gloom. The middle ground is in being able to doing both: feeling the guilt AND realizing that your setback is not a death sentence but an opportunity to self-correct and make good with your actions. Wallowing is self-serving, feeds your misery and fits the old 12-step adage of “poor me, poor me, pour me a drink” whereas feeling remorse is about self-correcting, and doing the right thing. So repeat with me again one more time and out loud: “Progress and NOT perfection!”
Panel Discussion Sister Iqra
with
Br. Sal
PYGSam
Members Only Replay A conversation about how our panelists took that leap of faith and broke isolation about their addiction to their friends and family, and finally removed that mask that they had been wearing for so long. Prepare to be enlightened, inspired, and relieved about the process of breaking isolation, and also humoured by this wonderful group discussion.
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Laith Returns!
Emotions Are Human After a long drought, we finally hear from brother Laith and his breakthrough in the area of having a healthy relationship with one's emotions. Here we read his forum comeback. As-Salaamu Alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh my dear PYG family! I probably hold the record for the lowest number of posts (this is my third post ever), but we have to start somewhere. I wanted to share a breakthrough that I had today after our Sobriety Mastermind call. I’ll share my journal entry: “I just got off my first Sobriety Mastermind call since 2011. I am so grateful to Allah (SWT) for allowing me to be a part of today’s group. Alhamdulillah, by the grace of Allah (SWT), I made a significant breakthrough today. We were chatting about negative feelings and toxic shame/guilt. I mentioned how 2014 was a very difficult year for me and one of the biggest reasons for that was how negative and hard I’ve been on myself. I mentioned to the group how even joining the Mastermind today, I knew I would get acknowledged and welcomed back, and that it would make me feel good/happy, but that deep down it also made me hate myself because I was attributing this happiness to my lack of self-worth and needing validation from others. Br. Luqman then mentioned that he’s a pretty “simple” guy alhamdulillah. He gave an example that if he saw an attractive woman at some loca5 Purify Your Gaze Inside the Recovery Community
tion, that he would accept and acknowledge that she is attractive and address those emotions in a healthy, mature manner. Then he can go about his day. As he was sharing this insight, I couldn’t help but tear up because this is what I’ve been doing wrong over the past year. Br. Luqman said, “Emotions are human, and actions are Muslim.” That’s when I realized, it’s okay to feel! Whether positive or negative, it’s okay to feel! I’ve been so busy being negative that anytime I felt positive emotions, I wouldn’t accept them and I would
“When you feel positive feelings, acknowledge and accept them and attribute those to Allah (SWT), and when you feel negative emotions, turn to Allah (SWT) for help and guidance” taint them with the notion that this was only me being pleased with the praise and acknowledgement I’m getting from others. Ironically, I’m always looking for the negative emotions to kind of validate and justify where I am in my recovery, to play the victim so that I never have to take ownership
of my self-care.
–End of Entry–
It is human to feel, but the question is, what does a Muslim do with those feelings? When you feel positive feelings, acknowledge and accept them and attribute those to Allah (SWT), and when you feel negative emotions, turn to Allah (SWT) for help and guidance. Either way, it should always lead back to Allah (SWT), and this is what I’ve been doing wrong. I’ve wanted to kind of control what emotions I feel and when to feel them and I would numb out to emotions which I deemed unworthy given who I am and the state I’m currently in.
I am really grateful to Allah (SWT) for guiding me to this group 5 years ago and allowing me to come back despite my 1 year hiatus from 20102011 and my 2 year hiatus from 2012-2014. I will close with the following message from the Laith whose been suppressed for so many years:
I mentioned in the call that a part of me did not like the positive feeling I was getting from being welcomed back, but I’m wrong. I now accept it whole-heartedly and I appreciate it and all the people I’m blessed to “virtually” be surrounded with. I’m even more grateful to Allah (SWT) for allowing me to be a part of such a blessed group.”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
The Sobriety Mastermind is the Purify You Gaze Community’s peer-led support group meeting that take place by phone conference line. Each group meets weekly at the same time and same place to be in fellowship and discuss all things recovery.
Members Only Replay
Members Only Purify Your Gaze Inside the Recovery Community 6
Adventures In Recovery
Morning January 2015
Members Only Replay
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Adventures In Recovery
Morning The new year brings with it a theme of new beginnings. For the January AIR challenge we were to define and go through and ideal morning routine for 21 days together. To top of the challenge we asked for a picture that captures your morning routine.
Congratulations to the members who Participated in AIR Morning! SrDove SrMisbah
AbdulRahman
Sister Iqra
BrTwoThousand
Brightstar
AbuTrustworthy
The Live Conversation @ The AIR Morning Commemorative Event “It motivated me to go back and read the Quran, and I enjoyed reading back the postits, and reading back the verses where I’ve been inspired...I really like that, I think it’s enjoining some kind of connection with Allah’s words and creating a shift in my connection with Allah.” @SrDove on her morning Quran recitation. I didn’t have much of a morning routine...I have trouble waking up to an alarm...I set out the wake up time and also step by step what I would do waking up...Having the wake up time and plan set out the night before I think really helps to actually wake up and do it because you have something to look forward to. And so those gave a really really good start to my day alhamdulAllah.” @BrTwoThousand. “You just kind of feel more inspired throughout your day. You’re more energetic. You’re more calm.” @SrMisbah on the importance of a good morning. Purify Your Gaze Inside the Recovery Community 8
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Happy
Birthday Members Only
May this next year in your life be one of closeness to Him, breakthroughs in the areas you care about, and deeply felt joy! From Purify Your Gaze Purify Your Gaze Inside the Recovery Community 10 5
Member’s Spotlight: Isa
My Healing, Your Healing A beautiful reflection from our brother Isa, about his recovery journey thus far. Highlighting the gifts that have entered hislife through recovery, including the prospect of marriage. TabarakAllah. May Allah bless and protect their union.
Soon, sr. Scarlet and I will be engaged. We’ve been extraordinarily happy all of 2015 thus far and God-willing this will only continue. It’s had an immense impact on my motivations for going through recovery from decades of acting out sexually. It’s not about struggling or maintaining the status quo for happiness, it’s about healing, and that my healing is others’ healing. But how did I get here? After all when I first started terms like “journey”, “recovery,” and most of all, “healing,” were the furthest things from my mind and heart. The process of my tawbah as far as PYG is in11 Purify Your Gaze Inside the Recovery Community
volved began with the Breaking Free Program (BFP). That’s all the resonated with me, I was in an incredibly dark place in life, nobody knew, I just wanted to be free of acting out, and I didn’t want anyone to know. Yet after signing up I was still my own impediment via not immersing myself into said program. What helped me the most was coaching with Ustadh Zeyad. BFP taught me what I had already known deep down, that willpower and doing things on my own would not suffice. They weren’t working. They weren’t going to magically start working.
After about a year of coaching with Ustadh Zeyad, some influence from BFP, and a productive Ramadan, at long last I felt free and incredibly clean. I felt like I would never return to acting out. I was no longer a slave to sexually acting out, I was Allah’s slave. Adding to it is that Sr. Scarlet entered the picture. I was thinking of waiting for a year of sobriety, but I had the best of hopes. Things were going to be great. I started the Sexual Urge Control workshops to add to the wealth of experience. Amongst the lessons learned were actual sexual intimacy being
about a deep, emotional connection, and that acting out was about wounds. No sooner did I learn this than I gone through a traumatic experience that resurfaced age old wounds. I allowed it to get the best of me, to forget what I learned, to lose focus, and in a few weeks I relapsed. Were things going to be great? I didn’t know anymore. I was having trouble picking myself up. I came clean in my next session with Ustadh Zeyad. Following through with his suggestions helped me put together all I had been through, both the building up of insight and disciplines as well as Purify Your Gaze Inside the Recovery Community 12
the festering wounds. And with that I was able to put my hurting self into its own place, my own self, altogether, in a better place. At long last, I was beginning to heal. But I didn’t quite recognize it yet. As Sr. Scarlet and I were gauging our compatibility, from my own community I was advised to be upfront about my personal struggles (though they were not aware of my history of pornography addiction). As we responded to each other’s questions, she shared the nature of her divorce. It was due to her ex-husband’s manifestations of sexually acting out, e.g. neglecting her and a relentless obsession with other women. Despite this knowledge, I still shared my struggles, because this was about something larger. This wasn’t about being an addict, this was about going from darkness to light, and beyond, together. All the traits and practices I gave to and inherited from the open, private space that PYG provided, such as being transparent, vulnerable, and accountable, were things that allowed us to connect. And once we really put ourselves out there, instead of just turning away, we would take the courageous and painful step of moving forward, sharing more, bit by bit, so that we could deal with our problems. Our mutual abilities to communicate effectively in the face of adversity despite the pain lead to an ongoing wealth of happiness. From the very beginning of this journey we were being pointed to sexually acting out was not so much about desire and lust as we might think. It’s about other things, important things, in particular connecting with your element and connecting with our Creator. Back then there would be the occasional sleepless nights of twisting and turning, it was all I could do to keep myself from acting out. The years of addiction made me blindsighted to the truth. Now I’m in a place where I 13 Purify Your Gaze Inside the Recovery Community
feel that intimacy as an effect of my connection with sr. Scarlet, yet I barely have an impulse for acting out, so I know it to be true.
“Our mutual abilities to communicate effectively in the face of adversity despite the pain lead to an ongoing wealth of happiness” This happiness was neither just with me, or just sr. Scarlet’s, or just us alone. From family members to friends, I found things, whether practices, or lessons directly from the Quran and Sunnah, all things from PYG that had helped me at one point or another, was helping them. It was making an impact. Without being arrogant, I began to realize that my healing was helping them heal. This hasn’t become my motivation just on account of the effect of seeing others change for the better, but with this renewed sense of cleanliness, I began to tap into a part of myself I had neglected for so long. It turns out I was always constantly thinking of how to help people be a better them. Sexually acting out was a proverbial thorn. To remove that thorn I had to deal with the myriad of issues I would just side step if not bury. I needed the perspective and tools to do it and keep doing it. Once I began to see my loved ones actually heal, it hit me it was from my healing. This gave me the confidence I needed to further tap into the ways Allah created me. At this point in my journey I’ve learned it isn’t just about breaking free. Healing is what it’s taking to be me, and a part of being me is helping others grow.
Introducing the new Spotlight Series
Members Only Replay What happened when Isa lost hope going through the Breaking Free program? What about marriage and the requirement of full disclosure? There is no better interview to start off the Spotlight Series. Every month we will interview a PYG member whose recovery has taken them out of their comfort zone into a journey of growth, breakthroughs, and submission to God. Pretty incredible if you ask us. Purify Your Gaze Inside the Recovery Community 14
Interview with Hakim Hakim made his mark on the PYG Community Forums with his Salah accountability thread. We dig a little deeper into his recovery journey and his breakthroughs through coaching. Favourite Quote
“You should be able to sit with yourself and enjoy your own company” From coaching with Zeyad Ramadan
One of the very first things you did in your recovery was start a salah accountability thread on the forums. Tell us a bit about that and your breakthrough in this area. Sure. Despite my hesitance at first I reluctantly started it. A member suggested this idea and at first I didn’t know where this would lead but I decided to give it a shot. People close to me around the time I started it told me I’m stubborn and don’t take advice. I had nothing to lose, so I tried the accountability challenge and one year in I can genuinely say this Salah thread was a big factor in helping me to where I am now. It helped me be accountable for my Salah and to be honest all round. The punishment if I didn’t pray was wear paper handcuffs for a whole day every time I missed an Isha prayer. Every time I went through with the punishment, I would at the end of the day when I prayed Isha, would turn to Allah and say, “ I’m serious about changing and I do this to 15 Purify Your Gaze Inside the Recovery Community
prove. I’m serious about changing for good. Help me Rabbi.” We often hold onto disempowering beliefs that get in our way. You mentioned trauma affecting your relationship with Allah. How has your shift from being a victim to a survivor helped you come closer to Allah? Just the change in mindset has changed everything. When you’re going through trauma, you feel as though you’ve been short changed by Allah. You feel less than so Allah has to compensate for that by giving you big accomplishments. “It’s only fair,” I thought. It creates a sense of expectation from Allah and if He (SWT) is not living up to that expectation He(SWT) is hurting you. “You already made me less than my peers, you’re not even going to help me?” That’s how you think. After letting go of this disempowering meaning of entitlement and thinking Allah owes
me for life after that misfortune He (SWT) allowed to happen to me, my life started to slowly change. Things happen at the right time and this trauma has taught me many things so I guess it fulfilled its purpose. It just needs to be let go of all the hurt, anger, depression, anxiety, self-loathing, cowardice, and all that accompanies it. I let myself feel these wounds and not run away from them during the blessed month of Ramadan. This Ramadan also was the first Ramadan where I didn’t miss a single day through acting out since I was a child, which was really beautiful. The healing took about a little more than 30 days. The bulk of it went away. The rest slowly went away little by little until I didn’t feel it anymore. Just that change in belief in Allah removed 13 years of hurt I was carrying around. You’ve been using the self-care tracker. How have actionable self-care items helped you in
your motivation in recovery? For sure. Recovery without self-care is impossible. Self-care is trust in Allah. He (swt) shows you things that bring a sense of stability and calm throughout the day and you do it as it helps you ride the wave of life, instead of turning to acting out to soothe you. I could go on and on about how big self-care has been for me. I know from experience a day without self-care and a day of practicing it are 2 different propositions. It’s the difference between a man who eats 3 full meals a day and the man who goes to bed hungry with no food during whole day. Just imagine not eating. You’ll die. Self care is the same. You’re feeding your soul and it’s a beautiful gift from Allah. You described 2014 as the year of rebirth. Masha’Allah, congratulations. What were some of your fruits of recovery that you experienced for the first time? Purify Your Gaze Inside the Recovery Community 16
Well I have a lot to say but I’ll name just two. Being accountable and not feeling like a victim. And the second would be that it’s ok to feel emotions and acknowledge them. Emotions are not evil. They’re there to show you that there are things that needed to be corrected. They’re a mercy from Allah. In coaching, the calls are called “hotseat.” How would you describe a “hotseat?” Well hot seat calls really live up to their name. It’s like a conversion in a large oven. The heat melts away the lies and shows the real you, who you are without the lies that you cover yourself with. Share a big AHA moment you got from another member’s hotseat. “Children and women are survivors of trauma. They’re not victims.” That quote gave me the confidence to assume the role of a survivor and drop being the victim because that’s all I knew. Glad I 17 Purify Your Gaze Inside the Recovery Community
don’t have to assume that role anymore. You and ustadh Zeyad have an inside joke, “Giant version of Fifa, 99,99,99 of Hakim?” Could you fill us in with the joke? It’s just a reference to thinking life should be easy and you always going to excel. What is your favourite quote in recovery and why? “You should be able to sit with yourself and enjoy your own company”. That was something I never thought possible. The words for 2015 you is Strive and Learn. What areas are you hoping to focus on this year? I feel I’m in a place now when a misfortune happens to me, I acknowledge it and try to learn from it. That’s my new life long goal.
Adventures In Recovery
Motivation February 2015
What's worth fighting for? Record yourself reading out aloud your 'What's worth fighting for'. Send it to support@purifyourgaze.com We want to hear our collective fighting spirit.
Challenge Accepted? Members Only Participation
This is the current AIR challenge Deadline: February 28th, 2015 Purify Your Gaze Inside the Recovery Community 18