Rumana Bai lives with her husband and two children in Charlotte, NC. She has a passion for nutrition and healthy living and is currently a student at Institute of Integrative Nutrition. You can read her articles at www.rootmountain.com and follow her on Instagram @rootmountaincom to get daily tidbits on healthy lifestyle.
We, women, are skilled at taking care of others. Caring, nurturing, showing tenderness, and expressing compassion are all excellent characteristics Allah has put into our hearts. Unfortunately, we are taught by our culture to use these attributes only on others but not on ourselves.
Many times I have noticed in our community that women go through severe physical and mental exhaustion and breakdown due to not caring for themselves. These are a few misconceptions imprinted in their minds that I want to address:
- Self-care is Selfish – With deeply rooted caring for family members, Muslim women fall into the trap of feeling guilty for any care for themselves. Whether it be a simple manicure or a spa treatment, socializing with friends or a yoga class, pursuing their passion or spending time on hobbies- allocating time for these interests is considered selfish. I want to emphasize that if you don’t take care of yourself, you will be at some point not able to take care of others. Without you knowing, physical exhaustion of doing mundane work or emotional breakdowns due to dissatisfactions affects your relationships with others. So get out of this mindset and start caring for yourself. You know you have to put the oxygen mask before you help others.
- What matters is our inside only – Often we spend so much time on worship, religious matters, and community service and we think that our physical appearance is of no significance. We assume that working on improving our physical appearance is less spiritual in nature. Especially when we see how media puts in women a skewed image of their physical appearance we tend to believe we should not buy into that. Rather, we have to seek balance here and take care of our body so we can be attractable to our spouses and be healthy and enjoy the life better. Also it helps us to perform our duties in a much better way.
- Lack of knowledge in health – Our body is a trust from Allah, and we can’t choose to neglect it. We have to seek the knowledge on how we can keep ourselves healthy. We should not fall into commercials and corporation gimmicks. Just because the aisles of supermarkets have neatly packaged foods does not mean they are safe to be eaten. Living a natural lifestyle with an emphasis on organic whole foods and good quality poultry and meat will make a huge difference. Avoiding processed and packaged foods will make your weight loss and healing effortless.
- It costs too much to be healthy – We think buying organic is expensive and joining an exercise program is absurd. With traditional grocery stores now understanding and trying to get into the organic market, we can get cheaper healthier options with some shopping research. Considering the money that will be spent on doctor visits, medications and surgeries you have to make a choice now whether to spend more later or to spend a little more now on quality food and exercise.
- No time – Trust me, if you have time for Facebook, you have time for yourself. Or instead of chatting to your friend over the phone for an hour ask her to meet at the park for a walk. There used to be a time many hours were gone by watching TV but now it is mostly social media taking our time. I used to think that I spend less time on social media. After I installed a software to track where I spend time I was shocked to learn that many 10 minute breaks I took browsing the social media added up to so many hours a week. So take an inventory of where you spend time and see if you can make some time for self-care. Also women these days juggle with career and parental responsibilities and in that process put self-care off. Consider meal prep in the weekends so you don’t end up eating from outside in the weekdays. Also it means more relaxing weekday evenings.
- No support from family – We think our family members may not agree with these healthy changes. Consider talking to them and you might be surprised that they are ready to listen and change. The only reason they had resistance in the past could be because you never asked. If they don’t agree with you, make small changes. Take baby steps and know that it is not about perfection but progression. Over time they understand and appreciate what you are doing for yourself and for them.
Role Models for our children
Marriage is a beautiful thing we have in our religion and community but haven’t you noticed that our youth are now trying to delay it for the reason that they want to enjoy their life? Two of my non-Muslim friends who have 2-3 jobs and work so hard had told me that their children did not want to marry as they felt like once married they will have to get selfless like their parents. If we take care of ourselves, slow down and take the downtime when needed, we teach our kids that marriage does not stop them from enjoying life.
By emphasizing self-care I do not mean to undermine the duties of women. The things we do out of our love for Allah and our family members are worth the effort. If God wills, the rewards of that are beyond words can describe and what we can imagine. Also taking care of yourself by just buying new clothes, shoes and makeup is not what I mean by self-care. We should go beyond that with proper diet and exercise. We should also look into areas like career satisfaction, our relationships and spirituality.
So….
If you are too busy, slow down
If you are not physically active, start a body moving activity
If you are staying home all the time, find a halaqa (study circle) and socialize
If you are eating unhealthy, straighten out your diet
I could go on and on but I think you get the idea now. We have to find a right balance and do the things our body and mind needs from us so we can do our part in the long run Allah has asked us to do.