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What can horsemanship teach us about relations and communications?
Sometimes you have to go outside the norms and learn things from scratch. Last week we used “guinea worm problems” and discussed about how our reactions help us with temporary relief, by getting us more of unwanted behavior and less of desired behavior. For this week’s relationship breakthrough idea, we will extract lessons from horsemanship.
For spiritual section one of the question that people have is that, “Allah is so merciful, and His mercy precedes and prevails over His anger then how come the sin of shirk is not forgiven?”
We’ll be sharing some breakthrough ideas in this topic to have a deeper look at what is so special about “shirk”. We will also summarize how eliminating it from our life would really empower us and help us achieve a sound heart and living in an amazing state in this world as well as in the hereafter.
بسم الله و الحمدلله و الصلاة والسلام على رسول الله
This is your breakthrough coach Zubair.
In episode 5 we talked about the importance of timing and regular check ins. In episode number 17 we talked about the art of getting out of the way, episode number 18 we talked about identifying which of our reactions and behaviors are not working in our favor.
Horsemanship
I have been picking up on my love for horses and riding and have been going back to the barn. The first element to bond with your horse is communication. I realized that as I enter this new relationship I had to learn and be coached on how to communicate properly and effectively. In this relationship I’m supposed to be taking ownership and making sure I am making myself understood. Let me repeat that; it’s my responsibility to make myself understood.
It’s a totally new way of communication, as we don’t have normal ways of communication that we have among the humans. I must be aware of my own emotions, I have to use my body language, I have to watch signs from “Chocolate”, which by the way is my equine partner, and observe how she is changing and responding to me. If I feel equine partner is not responding to me the first question my coach would ask me is; have I made myself understood? Did she understand what I wanted her to do? Or was I giving her confusing signals?
Many new riders would give opposing signals, at the same time they would give the signal to walk, and the same time they would pull the reins. And your equine partner would be confused. If one day you are tired from work or stressed and are not communicating properly or are not present with your equine partner, she would notice that too and would not respond well either.
Upon reflecting I realized that how many times we take it for granted that we are great communicators in our human relationship. Every time I do a relationship intervention and coaching session I realize that there is a big gap in couples’ understanding of each other’s emotions. Sometimes people just expect others to know what they are feeling and what they want.Sometimes what is important to one is not important to the other and they don’t realize the importance of certain things which their spouse would have great importance on.
Lesson # 1
The lesson here is that, just like a great horseman would invest time and effort to communicate with his or her horse even, so we need to spend time to listen and understand people that are important to us. True understanding would mean that we understand what is bothering them, what is that they appreciate, why is it bothering them, how important it is for them, what are two or three changes that we can do to make big difference in their lives, which of these things can we adopt and make those changes and recheck.
Now I’m not saying that it is the responsibility for both partners to be active listeners and listen with an intention to understand not with an intention to respond. It is quite interesting, if you have a couple sitting in front of you and you are trying to coach them what would happen is that, one of them would talk and as soon as she is done saying three to five words the other person is ready to respond. So, they are only looking for some sort of an inconsistency in the others argument; but you forgot about that, what about this, you did that. They are ready to respond, they are not trying to listen to understand what it is that is bothering the other person; what is it about their behavior that bothers the other person.So, if you to listen to understand the whole game will change.
Lesson # 2
Now another lesson from an equine life is to appreciate. If you ask for something and you get it make sure you convey that. If a writer is using some sort of pressure to get a response such as turning, changing direction, stopping, halting, running faster, jumping whatever it is, as soon as the horse delivers that, if the rider does not communicate via a release of pressure or some form of appreciation, then the message is not communicated properly; the horse would not realize if she did what she was asked to do. Likewise using more force than necessary, being more aggressive, telling to do what we can achieve by asking to be done, not paying attention to the needs of your partner is all bad horsemanship. Think about it in your own human relationships
- Do you appreciate, or you keep asking for more?
- Do you use the right amount and the right style of asking?
- Are you more aggressive than necessary?
- Do you listen?
- Do you communicate?
- Do you communicate reasons behind your needs?
Disease of Shirk
Now let’s move on to the spiritual section. We have been talking about the disease of shirk, that prevents the heart from achieving the state of a sound heart that is known as Qalbun Saleem (قلبٌ سليم) in Arabic. Ibn al Qayyim رحمةالله explains in his book that,the fundamental issue is that the one who commits shirk is doing the ugliest and utmost unjust act of likening the creator, resembling the creator with the creation, which is against the sound intellect and the uncorrupted natural disposition of the human. The human beings are created upon a natural understanding, a natural disposition which we call “Fitrah(فطرة)”, so it is against that to liken the creator with the creation.
The fact that Allah alone is the creator, the one who gives and the one who withholds, and none has the say or share in His dominion; and even then, there are people in whose heart expectations, hope, trust and dependence is upon the creation as opposed to the creator. Thus, they are giving what is right of Allah to His creation; the creation who is not even able to benefit himself or herself without Allah’s permission,so how can that weak, humble creation help someone else without the will of Allah سبحانه و تعالى. Ibn al Qayyim رحمةالله explains in his book that, Allah alone is the one who gives, and if He gives something no one can prevent it, and if He prevents something then no one can give. Likewise, from the rights of Allah, the one who is the true deity, is servitude. It stands on two pillars: utmost humility and utmost love. The rank of a servant increases or decreases based on his or her level on these two pillars.
So, the more he or she loves Allah, the higher their rank is, the more he or she humbles and humiliates and submits to Allah the higher his or her rank is. If we really want to live in the paradise of this world we have to constantly check, who do we have ought most love for, who do we have ought most submission for, who do we have ought most love trust for, humility for, fear of and who do we have ought most dependance and trust upon? Let the condition of her heart in and out of Salah, the prayers, show us where do we stand, let us put our self, let us purify our self by dua, reflection on who Allah is and remember Allah especially using reading and reflecting upon the words of Allah and His book the Quran. Hence, if we were to reflect on Allah being so merciful, why is the sin not forgiven? Because, it is because of the severity of this injustice and it being so against the sound intellect and natural disposition, that one who lives and dies of the sin and disease is not deserving of the forgiveness of Allah even of Allah being the most merciful. Another way to look at it, is if you consider any wordly institution whether it be an academic institution, a professional institution, a commercial business institution or entity, there are certain foundational fundamental elements, certain foundational skills, or code of conduct that people in that organization follow right? So you will have a people that very in their expertise, in their experience, in their contribution, and they would have different ranks within the institution within the organization but there are certain fundamental ethics, certain fundamental code of conduct, skills, approach, and common agreements ok? Now if you dont, have those then those people really dont belong to that institution right, so if you have an institution of lawyers right and they dont even believe in the law, how can those lawyers be part of an institution that teaches a certain law? Because what would end up happening is that their present itself would corrupt the institution likewise there are certain people who do not have the basic element to be in the paradise of Allah, to be among the friends of Allah, to be among the those who will be entering the paradise. So something to think about to imagine the purer your heart becomes, the purer your heart the more your heart connect with the love of Allah, the more your heart depend on Allah, the really unbreakable you become with what happens to you in this world with how people treat you, with how people respect you with how much people love you, with how people repay you really become a true monotheistic servant of Allah. So this is something that we should do regular check ups on.
So i would like to end by chance this verse in the Kitab of Allah.
Quran Surah An-Nur [24:35]
So let me explain what’s going on, so you have the heart of the believers right, that itself has it’s on Fitra right which has natural disposition of understanding of there being One creator one Perfect Being, the one who is completely in charge, the one complete deserves utmost love and humility and submission, right? Now the details of it and a detailed understanding of it comes from that external source which is the Wahe, the revelation from Allah SWT as instructed in His Book and the explanation by the Messenger of Allah SAW. So that is like, that itself is glowing right? But when it combines with the flame in the heart then you get light upon light so the fitra and then on top of it you have the knowledge from Allah SWA. Then it says Allah guides to His light whom He wills and that is a very important thing and that again reminds us that we are we are dependent on Allah and if He were not to choose us for whatever reason that He knows from His wisdom we would never be guided. So one of the things for you to be guided and remain consistent upon guidance and to increase in our guidance is for us to depend on Allah and to consistently beg and ask Him for that. And then Allah SWA ends the verse which says, And Allah presents examples for the people and Allah is knowing of all things. So Allah is aware of our sincerity if we really and truly want to know the truth and want to follow the deen of Allah or if we are trying to find arguments in something that we already believe in. Now finally as we talk about communication as a key concept, or the key theme or the key breakthrough idea of this episode, think about this, one of the most important things we can do in our daily lives is our communication with Allah and the five obligatory instance of that are the five obligatory salah, the five obligatory prayers so this is especially beneficial time for us to think about who we are, where our heart is attached and take that heart and put it and connect it with Allah SWA and those five prayers during the day are an excellent opportunity to connect, train and to condition our self, to examine of heart and to ask Allah for help in fixing our connection in our prayers with Allah SWA. Now, again as I always say you have to think about where you stand in light of these ideas and when do you want to schedule bringing these ideas in your life, to take action point and then to schedule the weekly and daily check ins to ask yourself how are your 5 daily prayers? Right when you start asking those questions, you will come up with ideas to prove that. If that is something we only have in our head that you know that my prayers are not good, my prayers are not good that it nothing is going to change. May Allah facilitate it for all of us.
Closing dua.
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Muslim Mastery Breakthroughs is our weekly podcast series in which we share insights on how you can achieve breakthroughs in your life to unlock your spirituality, relationships, and mindset. You will get practical steps towards living a truly extraordinary and fulfilling life in sha Allah.
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