5 Jumada Awwal 1444 A.H

As salaam alaykum

I couldn’t send my letter to you on Sunday. Did you even notice?? 😭😭😫.

This past week and weekend was a blurrrr. I spent the most part of the weekend at the 1ummah Peace and Unity conference and it was such a delightful experience, Ma shaa Allah!

Let me now give you small gist. , did you hear? Alhamdulilah, I won a free Umrah ticket at the 1ummah conference on Sunday and I am super stoked! 💃🏼💃🏼💃🏼. Please say a Dua for the sponsors and organizers.

Allah is Al-Kabeer, the one who is aware of our all our needs and desires, and He is indeed Al- Wahab, the giver of the best gifts to meet our needs. Allahu Akbar! This was a much needed gift. I pray Allah grants you and your loved ones the opportunity to visit His house. Ameen!

You might have guessed that I did not pop in only to share the win with you. As a matter of fact, I had a different reflection I wanted to share with you on Sunday but as Mama Reflections that I am 🙈, I couldn’t skimp on the opportunity to share my reflections on this whole experience with you. Ready??? Let’s go!

1.   Don’t be so stuck up! Not every time play to win, most times just allow yourself to enjoy a game! , when we were asked to play the game to win the ticket, I almost didn’t participate. When I eventually logged in on my phone, I did so half-heartedly. In my mind, I was like I never win all these types of things anyway, but I eventually came around because I decided to have fun.

This goes for every other thing in our lives . When striving to attain a goal, make a pledge to yourself to enjoy the process regardless of whether you achieve the goal or not. Committing to the process will bring so much goodness bi ithnillah.

2.   Be sincere in your ask: Allah has shown me in the past few weeks that He truly responds to sincere intentions and requests from Him. If I recall accurately, it was only this past Friday that I had made a sincere desire to experience the calm and peace I feel in the Haram again and look who granted me that opportunity so beautifully? Yup! Our Lord, the most gracious!

3.   Life really is unpredictable! We never know what the next second or minute holds for us. The next second can bring either good or bad and we must be open and flexible enough to adapt to whatever life brings our way. This really drives home the point for me that by Allah's permission, a life can literally change in one second! To add more colour to this, the TV station man who interviewed me said he didn’t bother joining the game because he never wins this sort of things. He gave himself a certain prediction already based on previous experiences and in that process, he automatically ruled himself out from the possibility of ever winning. A lot of us do this and we must stop it!

Say this with me: The past is not a certain predictor of my future

P.s if you are thinking well Seki, you were probably destined to win the ticket, so it doesn’t matter. *Please don’t let me roll my eyes at you* lol. I know that, but I hope that you get my point. Allah still requires you to thread the path that takes you to what has been written for you.

4.   No matter what’s currently happening in your life, try to be present: If I were to allow the stress of the week, the emotions and overwhelm I was feeling at the time run my day, I would have never allowed myself to partake in the quiz and rightfully so. Instead, I decided to be present in the moment, forget about my worries for a while and have a good time. I hope this inspires you to stay more in the Here and Now rather than in the THEN and WHEN.

5.   No knowledge and experience is wasted: You see at work, I am the one who usually creates and organizes the games session using Kahoot. Although I had never used the Menti platform before, I felt at home with it because it had the same concept as Kahoot. Also, some of the questions asked I learnt the answers whilst preparing for my Hajj experience. Some I had learnt from discussions with my husband or just learning generally. One answer I knew was from an episode of Meeting Muhammad video series by Yaqeen institute that I had watched about a month ago. Subhanallah!

I always say this but let me repeat it again. Let’s be people who seek knowledge and endeavour to learn something every day!

6.   Take stock of where you are: I mentioned I had half-heartedly joined the game, but do you know the turning point for me? After the second or third question, the quiz organizers displayed the leader board and I saw my name at the 8th position. I thought to myself, if I could be in the top 10 out of so many people playing this game right now, perhaps I could be on to something if I paid a little more attention. That singular act by the organisers changed my attitude towards the game and this is why it’s so important to take stock of where we are on a regular basis.

Looking at where you are and measuring your gains/ improvements can do a whole lot in shifting your perspective. As human beings, we don’t need perfection rather what we need is a sense of constant progression in our lives. That is the game changer! 

, it is sometimes very difficult to take stock or review where we are, and this is where assigning someone that can do this for you or prompt you to see clearly how you have grown helps. The truth is most often than not, we can’t see beyond our noses and people see us more clearly than we see ourselves. This gives them the ability to give us quality feedback. If you naturally have cheerleaders that give you truthful feedback on how you are doing, lucky you! If you don’t, get a family member or friend and tell them you would love for them to give you feedback on how you are doing as regards an area of your life or a goal or project you are working on.

I would stop here now . I would love to read from you, do reply and let me know which point(s) stood out for you.

Before you go

1.In my last letter, I introduced our first paid offering as a community to you, REFLECTION PODs by Nisabaah.

Starting in January of 2023 in shaa Allah, these will be monthly intimate gatherings with the intention of building up our reflection muscles in a way that helps us develop personalised insights to cultivate more self-awareness and spur growth.

If you would like to be a part of this, please SIGNIFY HERE and I would be sure to send you more details in the coming weeks in shaa Allah.

2. I had the honour of having Sis Fatimah Abdulrahman Giwa on the Radiant Woman Podcast and we had a conversation on Autism and how she is navigating through this unexpected parenting journey with her lovely boy, Khalil. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

3. The UmmFariha Network is hosting her second Muslimah Wealth Conference on Saturday, 10th December 2022. If you would like to be a part of it, REGISTER HERE. It’s free!

P.s: I would be moderating a session in shaa Allah and I would love to see you there.

Lastly, shout out to Lady Shukroh and Aisha Alliu, it was lovely to meet you over the weekend 😉😘. Barakallahu feekum!

Till you read from me again in shaa Allah,

Do take care of yourself.

Your sister,

Sekinat