ghina an-nafs

After the horror of the past year++,
and finally feeling like I crossed a huge internal hurdle,
(circa July 2018 -- a moment now carved in my memory)
I did tell myself that I wanted to have a reflective end-year post this year
like the ones I used to have before.

The end of last year felt like a nightmare.
And the end of this year,
Alhamdulillah!
A spring is growing in my heart again,
and I've found my footing, insya Allah. (:



At the start of the year, I blogged briefly about a dream I had where I'd discovered I had eyes behind my normal eyes, and how I was so freaked out in my dream, I shut them again and hid them away, and pretended they weren't there. In retrospect, it was a prophecy of sorts, perhaps.

I think I've received new eyes this year, a terrifying new thing,
but Subhanallah, I am so deeply grateful now.
(A million purple hearts won't suffice. 💜 )
I literally corrected my eyes and now am utterly
spectacles-free and contact-lens-free.
At the same time, I feel like I'm understanding and seeing things
so much more differently now, and hope to sustain it well into my future,
so that I may hold myself in stead,
at all times as much as possible.
And be the best person that I can be.


a list for 2018 (excuse the lack of coherence):

* a sudden (and very recent) epiphany on that famous hadith about richness being not that of material things but richness of the soul, after reading a book about Sufi mindfulness and building an essential Self. The concept of always returning to your essential Self being the richness of your soul -- ghina an-nafs (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I realise taking the arabic words literally led me to this mind-blowing conclusion.)

*MINDFULNESS -- perhaps theme of the year, after LOVING YOURSELF. And um, isn't mindfulness basically the concept of taqwa in Islam, wow. Mindfulness is basically key to a lot of successes because of the self-awareness and strength of will it cultivates.

*Loving yourself being the start of the integration of the self, insya Allah. Jin's song, Epiphany, wins my Song of the Year.

*WORK must be within and without. I must attend not just to the internal landscape of my mind, but also my body, and my space/environment. I am developing my S function, yay! hopefully slowly but surely.

*Work albeit minute steps to improving health and fitness. Although I occasionally still fail like tonight when I should already be sleeping, ahhhhhh.

*Developing a schedule (conscientiousness being a way to balance the chaos of creativity, especially as harped on by Jordan Peterson) -- slowly but I hope to grow and be consistent

*Jordan Peterson! who makes so apparent real religious truths by his uncompromising manner with logic and rationality, conscious or not on his part. Jordan Peterson's clean up your room! and KonMari corroborates. Jordan Peterson's treat yourself as if you are valuable and BTS's Loving Yourself corroborates. Jordan Peterson's contentions about male-female issues -- I don't know if he realises that the rules and norms he talks about are already stipulated in Islam :P

*JAPAN -- I thought I couldn't love you any more, but I do. And now I have a beautiful spot (i.e. Kamikochi) in the world I have locked away in memory as a promise to return again.

*BTS being increasingly awesome every year. At this point, they're at least Beatles-level. People are just not acknowledging it very well yet. *shhhh I will see them next year, yayyyyy*

*Expanding book clubs!! yayyy Alhamdulillah. And loving the fact that my personal book club is going on to serious classics, and how we're more ready now for such big, heavy works as part of a natural progression.


Thank You.

Humility, gratitude, and love are key, S.

may 2019 bring even more beautiful rain
to water the spring in my heart.