Key 2 - Communicate openly, directly and honestly

I name this key “The Solution” solution for what? It’s the solution for any single problem can face married couples. I know it’s easy to say but in real life it need some effort, practice and enforcement to really apply this key effectively. I believe deserve to pay the price to build this habit and have this key in your life. Just imagine how this key can really change your marriage relation and make it go very smooth and positive with real clear love.


Let me ask you some questions

Do you –sometime- hold conversation in your mind about your spouse but at the end you forget to tell him/her in real life?

Did you ever felt nice about something your spouse did for you but you forgot to tell him/her how you felt or delayed this?

Did you ever felt bad from something but was afraid to tell your spouse to not hurt him/her?

Do you feel that your spouse do not understand you or he/she accuse you with the same?

Did you experienced that the nice time and mood with your spouse spoiled suddenly cause of conflict?

Do you feel distanced from your spouse without specific reason?

The KEY question

Do you want to have happiness, love, and solve all challenges with positive attitude in your marriage?


Do not expect that I’ll give you magic stick that will solve all your problems and make you happy. You can have all the positive results from applying this key and it is proven in real-life experiences which can be considered matter of fact. All what you need is to spend effort and pay the price to build this very powerful habit in your marriage.



Before I start I want to tell you what is exactly my scope and what are the issues that you should NOT apply this key on:

1. Past experiences or relations that you already disconnected from and were replaced by your current marriage.

2. Temporal thoughts that come to your mind and you do not keep thinking about. For example if you felt something temporally toward someone else and he realized quickly that it is not correct or did not pay more attention.

3. If you want to surprise your spouse with something.

4. If you want to advice or guide your spouse in nice way and you know that he/she will appreciate and receive it more if it was indirect.


Well let’s start. I’ll take about 2 main points:


Time Bomb


Big mistake some people do when they hide something and say that time will solve or they escape from it or hang it on weak reasons or leave it to Allah. We talked before about the black dot in the post “Power of Forgiveness” and how it increase by time until it make all the heart black and not able to send or receive any emotions. You can find and discover yourself that escape from problems and negative feelings, try to hide and ignore it is NOT a solution at all.


What you do is to put a BOMB that will explode in the future and you try to close your eyes as if it does not exist. Imagine that you went with your family or friends in a park to have nice time what will you do if you know that there’s a BOMB in that place that can explode and you cannot get out from this place at all. Will you say: “I want to enjoy my current moment and not spoil the nice time by thinking about the bomb!?” or you will rush to remove it and then really enjoy your time without any worry? You choose.


You cheat yourself by leave problems to not spoil the current moment or leave it to Allah and time Allah said in Quran that he will NOT change people until they change themselves. The BEST way to beat fears and problems is to FACE and see it as challenge that will take you to better state Insha’Allah. Take immediate action to STOP the BOMP to really enjoy and have more real long last nice time Insha’Allah.


Another example assume that you have small just born wild animal like crocodile that you kept with you in secret and ignored all the warnings that people give to you. You just say it’s small and I don’t believe it will cause any future troubles. Day after day it was grow slowly and you still keep your eyes closed from the real danger you can have by leave it. This how people do by leave the small and give excuses and close their eyes from the danger of ignoring small problems. Take immediate action to KILL the GIANT while it’s young to save yourself from the future pain.




Seek to understand befor to be understood

My objective from the above section is to really realized the importance of communication and the dangerous risk for hide feelings for any reason (usually it’s with good intention
) . After you realize the Why to communication in this section I want to share with you the habit of How to communicate.


Be the way this habit taken from Islamic source, I heard Dr. Steven Covey admit that Islam and Quran was one of his main sources for his famous book and he mentioned some Ayas and Hadiths as evidence for the habits he mentioned in the book.




One of the very important habits that people need to have smooth communication is the habit of listening. After I learned about this habit I start to pay attention in my daily life conversation and watch how people behave. I was surprised because it’s true that most of people seek first to talk and make the other person understand them.


The funny thing that in many conversations after long time of talk they discover that either they forgot the start point of conflict or the solution was mentioned in the beginning of the conversation and there’s no conflict at all.


Let’s divide listening into 4 levels

1. Ignoring listening: In which people just hear words by your ears but do not pass them cross your mind at all just throw them away.

2. Selective listening: In which people just pay attention to some parts of the conversation that they interest in or when the speaker ask them to pay attention.

3. Active listening: In which you pay attention to all what speaker says and give back acknowledgment.


Before we mention the 4th type we need to know what is the problem of these type of listening and why it lead to misunderstanding and negative feelings.
Imagine that you was feels upset and was talking with your friend about your problem. How will you feel if your friend was not look at you, or do something else while listening, or keep asking you to repeat what you said because he lost concentration and did not hear, or his face and body language was cold and did not get affected by what you said, etc…


I think you wish that your friend give full attention to what you say from his/her heart and deeply understand your feeling. Well this is the 4th type of listening which called


4. Empathic listening: In which you listen with deep connection to the speakers with all your senses. It’s not like active listening in which you pay full attention to speakers words or make it in professional way. Empathic listening is more intimate listening in which you really feel the other person needs first and seek to fully understand how he/she feel then you can present yours .After that, work together to find a solution.



As I said before the benefit from building this habit in your life can be definitely the solution for all communication challenges with your spouse. It can increase your emotional connection and keep it healthy and clear forever Insha’Allah. You need to pay the price to have thin habit in terms of effort and practice. I’ll give you some ideas that can help you to build this habit in your marriage relation:


Avoid

1. Do not listen with intend to reply.
2. Do not take things personally or feel accused.
3. Do not use empathic listening as technique.


Practice

1. Maintain sincere intimate emotional connection.
2. Listen to emotions and content.
3. Have a sincere desire to understand.



At the end of this key I decided from now to seek to understand first before to be understood, and enjoy the sharing of all my feelings and thoughts with my spouse.

Coffee Break #2

The Power of Forgiveness


“I forgive you” Common 3 words people can use to accept apology. I was thinking what these words really mean and how we can know that we really forgive by heart. While I was thinking questions start to come to my mind:

Why should we forgive and why some people cannot forgive?

How can I test my forgiveness if it’s really from heart or just words?

What are types of forgiveness and How Can I forgive really from heart?

What the effect of forgiveness on my spirit, mind and whole life?

In this Coffee Break I want to share with you my thoughts about Forgiveness

Usually in our daily life relationship with people we can have conflicts that cause anger, fight, quarrel, hurt and upset. It’s normal because every person is unique in terms of thoughts, personality, education, background, culture, etc…

Such conflict can lead certain person to have some negative feelings toward another one. You can think about this negative feeling as black dot in the heart which can be big or small based on the situation and how painful it was for you. For sure the situation that causes such negative feeling is something happen in the past even if it was just minute ago.

Assume that someone hurt you in the beginning of the day and you developed such black dot in your heart toward him/her. Watch yourself and ask Am I comfortable? Is my productivity the same? Do I feel peace of mind?

I know that the size of that black dot and its effect depend on the situation itself and how much your hurt from it, But I want to talk about the fact that we cannot feel peace of mind with such black dot in our heart. Think about this as you are carrying the person that hurt you on your shoulders and when you remember the past situation you feel bad or say it was going to be better if I did such and such !!.

I believe if you seek happiness, peace of mind and save your energy you should learn how to STOP carrying all your negative past on your shoulder, move such people away from your shoulder and clean all black dots from your heart to move faster in your life.



Can you really forgive?

Can you really fully forgive other people not partial forgiveness as most people do? To test yourself think about any situation you were hurt by someone and check the following:

Did you tell that person that you forgive him/her?

Did you find logical and acceptable reason for what he/she did to you?

Do you believe that there’s good reason for what happened even if you cannot specify?

Did you gain experience from what happened help you to avoid having the same negative feeling in the future?

And the KEY question
Do you feel ANY pain when you remember that person and the situation?


If your answer for the last key question was Yes it means that you still carry what happened on your shoulders and have the black dot in your heart.


Some people can say but I really forgave that person and do NOT have any hate in my heart. I say it’s not matter of hate the person or no, but s the negative effect on YOU still exists or no? I mean the negative emotion or pain you have when you remember the situation.

What about time I think it can remove the negative effect on me? It depends on the size of black dot itself for example this is true in daily simple conflicts that happen at work, street, school, etc… that last for only few minutes or even hours, But I’m talking about repetitive memories that when you remember you feel pain for some time until you forget again.

Such type of repetitive bad effect memories will NOT healed by time. Unfortunately there’re psychological theories say that it will increase by time. It’s like small ice ball going down from mountain and getting bigger by time.

The good news you can go back with your mind to the past and destroy the small ball. Insha’Allah based on your comments and questions we can later on discuss this in more details.

What is the objective from this Coffee Break?

Forgiveness is one of the BEST habits you can ever develop to have happiness and peace of mind. The simplest way to achieve forgiveness is to make it on 2 levels at the same time mental & emotional level.

You should forgive with both your mind by finding good reasons behind what happened or learn from this, and to forgive by your heart by cleaning it from any negative emotion toward that person & PRAY for him/her because we created different, sinful and with weak points including You.

Stay with yourself and reconsider the situation that you feel pain when you remember and find what you learned from it. Ask yourself what will gain from feeling bad!! It’s enough past is a box select from it ONLY what give you strength at the current moment.

(added on 20 October)

Forgiveness is strength some people think that forgiveness is applied when you cannot defend yourself or when you are weak. It’s totally the opposite because forgiveness is more difficult and need more effort than revenge. Forgiveness is not related to continue or break the relationship because it’s separated issue. To forgive doesn’t mean that you have to continue the relation if the other party abuse this.

Healthy relation should be win-win relation full of care and love from both parties. Whatever happened you are not victim because you have the power of choice. Forgiveness does not mean you leave or lose your rights at all. We are talking about marriage relation Not war.

Forgive regardless you decided to continue or break the relation.

Forgive to be stronger.

Forgive without being abused.

Forgive to protect you energy.

Forgive and keep your rights.

Forgive and correct your spouse.

Just Forgive...

If you want to be happy and have peace of mind develop the habit if forgiving immediately and never allow the black ball to grow in your heart.

Key 1 - Build Full Commitment, Trust and Loyalty

For every building root and core and this key is our cornerstone for the Happy Marriage Why? Because the main core needs in marriage is Stability which cannot be achieved with lack of commitment, doubt about each other or disloyalty.
Let’s discuss them point by point


1. Commitment

Commitment simply is a decision and attitude you should have from the 1st marriage day to keep your marriage relation whatever happen. Why? Because the married couples considered one person from the day they got married. You have one choice is to struggle and fight to keep your marriage relation healthy and last forever Insha’Allah.

Maybe you will start to ask
How can I achieve this? I believe that you have many reasons both logically and emotionally that guided you to choose your spouse. You should do a clear decision and share it with your spouse " I will fight to keep this marriage healthy forever Insha’Allah".

What if I dislike things in my spouse and my attachment decreased?
Put in your mind that we are incomplete sinful human and your spouse and even you belong to this group of creations. Simply as your spouse accept some negative points in you why not you do the same. Find small thing you like in your spouse and focus on it and let it grow. You have to protect your attachment and emotions to your spouse and renew it DAILY otherwise it’s normal to be affected. Just keep your marriage.

What if I feel that my spouse and I are different in many things?
I’ll assume that you choose your spouse very carefully and you felt that he/she is your match before decide to continue the marriage. You should know that every single person has a unique finger print and the same for the personality and behavior. Your spouse is your complements so don’t expect that he/she should be the same as you. Believe me the best thing to do is to accept that your spouse is different. Just keep your marriage.



2. Trust updated

After you decide firmly that you will continue your marriage ship with your spouse and fight for it you should start to search for the tools that will help you to accomplish your marriage keeping mission. The first tool we have is trust.

Why should I trust my spouse? In healthy marriage your spouse will be the most closed person to you in this life. You decided to share your life and all what you have with him/her. Do you think you can share the most valuable things you have without someone you don’t trust!?

Both woman and man need trust but for man it’s higher priority than for woman because woman high priority need is to feel stable and secure. I’ll focus my words for women because she should pay more attention to give trust to her beloved man.

How can I show trust to my spouse?
Usually trust exist by natural in healthy marriage, but sometimes woman do certain actions with good intention that will be translated for man as if she don’t trust him. The common mistake woman do is offering help for something man can manage by himself and consider it his mission.

For woman when she wants to show care for her man she offers help and correct him, but for man this can be translated as if she don’t trust him. Maybe you will be surprised from this or even not convinced but let me tell you the reason for this. Man in general is task oriented and he feel better about himself when he achieve things by his own, but woman in general is people oriented and she feel better about herself when she communicate with people and give them care and attention. When you offer man help you feel that you give care to him, but he will feel that you don’t trust that he can achieve this by himself.

For example assume that man solving a puzzle and he feel challenged by this, It is not recommended for woman to offer him help at this time if he didn’t ask because he will feel that he lost his own mission. But for woman usually she won’t feel offended from this because she concerns more about the communication and sharing more than the task itself.

How can I correct my man without make him feel distrusted?
The best thing to do is to appreciate what he is doing and encourage him without offering help or correcting him unless he ask for this. You can give suggestions and advices indirectly by asking smart questions to make him feel that he is helping you not the opposite.


What if my spouse behaves in strange way or makes unreasonable actions?
The first thing should come to your mind is “I believe that he/she has reasonable justification for this” and CLOSE any door for doubts then simply ask your spouse the reason. AVOID accusing tone and tell your spouse honestly that you ask because you want to understand him/her better. Kill any doubt by your trust and always put in your mind that he/she has a good reason for his behavior.


Finally trust your spouse care and love for you and AVOID making tests for your spouse to examine his/her love. Especially for women please avoid create expectations in your mind and keep watching if your man will meet them or no. Simply after marriage Trust WITHOUT keep testing.


3. Loyalty

Loyalty is the fruit and result of commitment and trust. It’s the measure for your commitment and trust toward your spouse.

Some people think that by talking about marriage disloyalty we mean lust or outside marriage relation. I agree that this is the maximum disloyalty and most probably lead to immediate break for the marriage relation, but here I mean something else which can be the leading way to the worst marriage disloyalty.

I want to talk about mind and thoughts disloyalty. Some people can have just a positive thought toward another opposite gender person. It can take different shapes for example feeling pity or responsible toward another person in need, feeling grateful to someone gave you help and support, feeling admiration toward someone in specific situation, getting temporal eye attachment for someone even if you don’t know, etc… This can be something real in the present or from your memories or even by just pure unreal imagination. Whatever it was remember that if you want to feel peace of mind you have to kill any thought like this immediately in the first second or it will be big giant very quickly by time and destroy you.

What if I got such thoughts what can I do?
By getting such thoughts doesn’t mean that you are disloyal or bad person at all because it can happen normally. The key point is how you deal with.
Before I answer you I want to confirm that your way to achieve happiness and stability in your life is to KILL such thoughts immediately otherwise you will never be content about any spouse you can have.

Here I want to refresh with you some common knowledge that can help you Insha’Allah

a) Every single person on the earth does mistakes and has strength and weakness points.
b) Comparison habit is like cancer can destroy you completely and It’s unfair to compare 2 persons because everyone is unique and has different combination of strength and weakness points.
c) Don’t make over estimate to anyone because we all are human not angles. It’s normal that in the beginning of any relation you can only see the good part of that person.
d) Remember and reinforce the commitment and trust between you and your spouse.
e) Immediately change your thoughts direction and get more close to your spouse.


Remember the cornerstone for your happy marriage Insha’Allah is complete forever commitment, trust and loyalty

Next Coffee Break: The Power of Forgiveness

Coffee Break # 1

Can you imagine that piece of knowledge can change your life? Whatever your answer was this happened with me and I would like to share with you my personal modest experience.

Long time ago I was affected a lot with word, reaction or behavior of other people with me sometimes I was feel upset or bad for many days or even weeks. Now when I’m thinking about this I found the reason was really trivial or I misunderstand something. I started to realize that what happened does not deserve all this negative feelings I had.

Can people change their feelings about past experience if they changed their interpretation and understanding of it?
Can this affect their future reaction if the same thing happened again?

I think we should start to know what is paradigm and how it is control our life.
Paradigm is the set of mental rules that guide your understanding for the surrounded environment and actions. Simply it’s the like glass on your eyes that control how you see and understand what happen around you.
It’s like box contains your of thoughts, opinions, believes, personality and experiences that you use before you make any movement or reaction.

You behave and react based or your paradigm both consciously and unconsciously. The majority of people follow their paradigm unconsciously and fully controlled by their paradigm regardless if it’s true or wrong.


The objective from such topic is to give guidelines how to take control over your paradigm to release your hand break (negative emotions) and go in your life with more confidence Insha’Allah. This post will be just a piece of sugar and after I finish the topic of 7 Keys for Happy Marriage as I promised Insha’Allah I’ll talk in more details about paradigm theory.




What is the objective from this Coffee Break?

I want you to give yourself a chance to think and investigate in the rules in your mind and your opinions. The biggest trap people fall in is to deal with pure personal opinions and experience as facts and be controlled by it.

What if you are mistaken?
What if the reason for your negative feelings is of wrong thought in your mind?
What if you are controlled by wrong thought someone else but it in your mind?
What if you are behave based on wrong understanding for your past experiences?
What if your stopping fears are only illusion?

It’s the time to reconstruct your paradigm based on what you really want to be.
It’s the time to think before react.
It’s the time to be what you really want not what the other people convince you to be.
It’s the time to find the real lesson from your past experiences and to learn from your mistakes.
It’s the time to make your mind free from pre-judgments.

You are product of your own choices. If you want ANYTHING make a firm decision to have and pay the price and you’ll have Insha’Allah.


Do you want to be happy in your marriage?

7 Keys for Happy Marriage

As-Salamo Alikom,

Alahmdlellah wa alsalato wa alsalamo a'ala rasoul allah - salla allah a'alih wa salam -
In the name of Allah

Acknowledgment:
Thank you my dear wife for being with me :) and give me the light and motivation


What make marriage very happy and stable? A question I start to ask when I was going to marry and till now I'm searching & learning to get more and more answers for this. I start to pay a lot of attention how to make my wife very happy & content about our marriage and this was the main motivation to write about this topic.


I would like to share with you 7 keys I found as most effective habits in my opinion for happy marriage. What I’ll mention is mainly my personal view and understanding and I’ll appreciate any positive advice or guide related to my opinions.

Before I start I would like to explain that what I'm going to mention is ONLY after you choose and accept your spouse mentally and emotionally. Take your time in this very important decision and try to check the compatibility between you and your spouse and validate it very well before decide to continue.

Do we really need such information?
Someone can says I believe that around us we can find happy married people and for sure a lot of them didn’t read this article or similar topics so why we should bother about reading this?
Actually this is true. I just would like to add something that such happy married people are our source of knowledge in this article even if they don’t know this. How? Just simply such thoughts were taken from those happy married people and what they have in common, how they behave and Common positive habits, etc… It’s just experience pills were taken from successful and happy people.

Let’s start in this post I’ll mention the 7 keys just as points and Insha’Allah I’ll explain them one by one in separate posts to give you what exactly I mean and how to apply this in simple and practical way.

The 7 Keys for Happy Marriage:

1. Build full commitment, trust and loyalty.
2. Communicate openly, directly and honestly.
3. Make positive assumptions and interpretation.
4. Ask for anything you wish to get.
5. Solve problems immediately and before sleep.
6. Be responsible, patient and supportive all the time.
7. Accept, care and love unconditionally all the time.


Insha'allah by explain each point in the next posts you will find practical guide that may help you really to achieve outstanding happy marriage.

Swim deeply into urself !!!

Hello my friends,
I want to talk with u today about something very interesting it's scientific personality type indicator called MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator).

MBTI helped me a lot to understand myself, ppl around me and how to deal with myself & other ppl.

It's not a magic or just someone personal experience, It's a well established science with controlled statistical researches over 40 years.

The main objectives of MBTI and similar indicators are:
1- Realize and know urself.
2- Accept the other ppl since u can NEVER change anyone without his own will.
3- Adapt urself to deal with other ppl.

There're many tools and personality indicators such as Enneagram, Social Style Matrix, HBDI,etc... personally I prefer MBTI but all of them r very useful

MBTI answer the common question Why I can deal with some ppl smoothly and feel great distance with others !!!

Please note that Human being is very complicated and we have all the personality components inside. MBTI just show u the preferred natural component u use and it's never 100% which means that u use all the components of ur personality.

I wont talk more about MBTI because u can find many online resources and professional books on the internet.

If u want to read more about MBTI u can use the following resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator

http://www.keirsey.com/

Wonderful arabic audio book for Dr.Mousa Al-Jwaeser he spent 10 years study MBTI and he is certified person ... enjoy
http://www.islamway.com/?iw_s=Scholar&iw_a=lessons&scholar_id=526

Please feel free to contact me or leave a comment if u need any further info :)

Thanks

حكم بن عطاء الله السكندري - الحكمة الثامنة

تنوعت أجناس الأعمال بتنوع واردات الأحوال


شرح الحكمة:

يُعرف الحال بأنه الوضع الذي يمر عليه الإنسان ثم يتجاوزه دون أن يستقر عليه، و هي نوعان: نفسية و اجتماعية.

1- الأحوال النفسية:
هي الحالة الذهنية والقلبية الموصلة إلى الله، و هي تلم المشاعر الداخلية التي تمر و تمضي، و لا يوجد لها ميقات، و قد يطول أمدها أو يقصر، و هي تأتي نتيجة وقوف و تأمل. فمن الناس من يقف أمام أسماء الله التي فيها الرحمة و الكرم، و العفو و المغفرة فيحسن الظن بربه، و منهم من يقف أمام صفات القهر و العقاب فيتغلبه الخوف و الشعور بالتقصير، و من أمثلة ذلك ما ذكر من خبر داود الطائي الذي لم ينم الليالي من كثرة شعوره بالتقصير. و هذا الفضيل بن عياض الذي لم يقدر أن يدعو لما حج في جبل عرفات خجلا و حياء من الله، و هذا معروف الكرخي الذي كان صائما فسمع سقاء يدعو بالرحمة لمن شرب منه، فأفطر كي يناله دعاؤه.

فعنوان العمل ليس هو مناط المثوبة و القبول من الله عز و جل، بل ذلك مناط ما تفرزه الحالة التي يمر بها المسلم المتجه بكليته إلى الله. و يدخل في تنوع أجناس الأعمال تفاوت الناس و مدى قربهم من الله، فهذا من عُرضت عليه الطيبات زهد فيها كحال داود الطائي، و منهم من تمتع بها استشعارا للطف الله و رحمته و كرمه.
فطبيعة الأعمال التي قاموا بها، إنما كانت نتيجة حالة نفسية كانوا فيها.

2- الأحوال الاجتماعية:
و تعني بخلاصة الحالة الاجتماعية المحددة للإنسان (أعزب أم متزوج، دارس أم موظف) فمثلا العازب لا يحمل إلا مسؤولية نفسه، ينهل من العلم الشرعي و يتقرب إلى الله وقت فراغه، أما إن تزوج فلا يجب عليه إهمال أسرته بدعوى التقرب إلى الله، فذلك أيضا تقرب إلى الله.
و العامل في المصنع، عليه الإتقان في عمله ثم الانصراف إلى عمله بعد الصلاة دونما تكاسل...

والمقصود أن الأعمال تتنوع وتختلف باختلاف حالة الإنسان الداخلية والخارجية وقربه من الله عز وجل

لكن...
دون أن ننسى أن الجميع مشترك في أساسيات العبادة: الصلاة المفروضة، الصوم، الحج، الزكاة...


و الأثر التربوي للحكمة هو الالتزام بضبط الأدب وحسن المعاملة مع عباد الله ما داموا مسلمين، و حسن الظن بهم مقصرين كانوا أو صالحين ومما يدل علي ذلك كثير مما سمعت من قصص مسجونين وهم في نظر الناس ظالمين ولكن بتأمل حالتهم النفسية وما تعرضوا له من ضغوط وأخطاء تربوية تكتشف
أنهم بداخلهم بشر طبيعين مثلنا تماما وهذا ليس تبرير لهم ولكن مجرد محاولة لتفسير مثل هذه الظواهر وقد نكون أنفسنا مررنا بمثل هذه الحالة من الذنوب والبعد عن الله عز وجل "كذلك كنتم من قبل فمن الله عليكم فتبنوا إن الله كان بما تعملون خبيرا" -النساء 94-....

وثاني أثر تربوي هو من الأفضل التركيز علي حالة القلب في العبادة وليس ظاهر العمل فقط لأن ظاهر العامل متغير وتابع لحالة الأنسان.

إلا انه يجب أن نحذر...

من الخلط بين الأمر بالمعروف و النهي عن المنكر و سوء الظن بالناس، فالواجب تذكير المقصرين مع حسن الظن بهم والدعاء لهم