Name: The Impact of Grief on Faith - Sarah Sultan | ISNACON 2019
Uploaded: 2019-10-17T16:13:50.000Z
Channel: Sarah Sultan
Description: Sarah Sultan introduces the concept of grief and discusses the impact that grief can have on faith.

<p>Sarah Sultan introduces the concept of grief and discusses the impact that grief can have on faith.</p>

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A psychological and spiritual perspective on enduring emotional pain and suffering. This topic explores healing mechanisms found within Islamic traditions and modern psychology.

Trauma

Your Lord Has Not Forsaken You | Trauma Series Introduction

Why Do Bad Things Only Happen To Me? | Trauma Ep. 1

How to Cope with the New Zealand Mosque Shooting Tragedy | Trauma Special

I Should've Gotten Over It by Now | Trauma Ep. 2

Why Bother Living if the Future is Filled with Pain? | Trauma Ep. 3

How Can I Ever Trust Again? | Trauma Ep. 4

Why Does Allah Hate Me So Much? | Trauma Ep. 5

Addressing the Topic of Trauma and Faith - Sh. Omar Suleiman | ISNACON 2019

The Impact of Trauma on Faith - Sarah Sultan | ISNACON 2019

The Duha Approach: A New Model to Treat Trauma - Najwa Awad | ISNACON 2019

How Islam Addresses Grief - Dr. Altaf Husain | ISNACON 2019

Everything is Falling Apart | Trauma Ep. 6

The Impact of Grief on Faith - Sarah Sultan | ISNACON 2019

Understanding Traumatic Grief - Najwa Awad | ISNACON 2019

I Must Have Done Something Wrong - Is It My Fault? | Trauma Ep. 7

How Can I Ever Get Past This? | Trauma Ep. 8

Why is Everyone's Life Better than Mine? | Trauma Ep. 9

3 Reasons Why You Think the World Is Against You

Healing the Community | MASCON 2019

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Sarah Sultan

Written by licensed therapists Najwa Awad, LSCW-C and Sarah Sultan, LPC, LMHC, this series of articles and videos seeks to address trauma through The Duha Approach, a comprehensive and Islamically sound approach to treating trauma from a spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical perspective. Each article and video in the series will address one of the ten most common types of cognitive distortions, or unhealthy ways of thinking, linked to common faith-based questions that may arise after having experienced adversity. The primary purpose of this series is to provide a refuge and healing for those who have silently endured trauma, perhaps not fully understanding what is happening to them and not knowing how or where to get help. The articles will work through depressive feelings, worries, and doubts that may impact faith while helping promote growth and healing.

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Trauma: Your Lord Has Not Forsaken You

 Today we're talking about grief and the impact that grief can have on our faith and the way that grief can also be a source of trauma in some cases.  The lecture, the talk today, our panel is entitled, I Should Have Gotten Over It By Now.  And so I wanted to start, I briefly covered this if you were in the first talk, I briefly covered the different types of loss.  Here, when we're talking about grief, typically, when we talk about grief, what is the type of loss that people normally view as synonymous with grief?  Just call it out. Death. Death of a loved one, right? Not just death of anybody, but death of somebody that's close to our heart.  That's what causes us to grieve, right?  I want to expand that definition of loss a little bit to realize that we can grieve for things other than the death of a loved one.  There's so many other losses that we experience on a daily basis and it hurts tremendously and we don't understand why.  Because we're not taught that you can grieve if somebody hasn't died, right?  And so the loss of a job, for example.  If any of you experienced the recession several years back, so many people lost their jobs, right?  So what happens when you lose your job, you lose financial stability, you might lose the home that you have established for your family,  your children might lose the home that they've grown up in, they might have to change schools, they've lost their friends and things like that that are associated with that.  A relationship. That's also an intense form of loss. Not the death of somebody that then ends the relationship,  because in some ways, if you have a good relationship with someone and they pass away, right, that's incredibly painful because you miss them, right?  But that connection still can remain in certain ways.  But when you lose a relationship with somebody that you care about and has meant so much to you,  because let's say it was a marriage that ended up in divorce because a person has hurt you tremendously or has been abusive,  a friend that has betrayed you that you fully trusted in every way and then that has ended,  all of these are forms of loss that bring up similar feelings to the death of a loved one,  but people just don't get why you're so upset and why you're so moved by it.  Those are all different types of trauma that can really impact you.  And when you don't identify it as grief, then you don't mourn, right?  And you can't heal because you don't allow yourself to feel it because people make you assume that you shouldn't feel that, that it shouldn't be a big deal, right?  So one of the ways that I think grief has a very profound impact on us and our lives is that it changes the view that we have of ourselves, right?  So I brought up the example of an affair or an abusive situation.  You start to, in a situation like that, you start to question yourself, right?  Like, what was I thinking that made me think I could trust this person?  I thought I had a good judge, like I was a good judge of character.  I thought I had good judgment and suddenly now I'm doubting that.  So that part of yourself all of a sudden is gone, right?  If you're diagnosed with like an illness, like an autoimmune illness, right?  Then all of a sudden the things that you used to be able to do so easily don't come easily anymore.  That part of yourself feels like it's gone, right?  So your perception of yourself and your identity changes and the other thing that can change too in this process is your perception of your faith and your relationship with Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala.  And that can really feel horrible, right?  Like this is like the one thing that I wish I could hold on to and right now it's shaken, right?  So with everything else that's tumultuous in your life, the one thing that you want to be consistent also isn't there, which is your connection with Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala and that's incredibly painful, right?  So as Dr. Altaf was saying, grief is not an indication of your level of Iman, right?  He gave a beautiful example of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu alaihi wasalam who was what?  The most beloved to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, the most perfect human being to walk the earth.  And you know SubhanAllah, whenever I hear this hadith about how he grieved over the loss of his child and one of his companions came to him and was surprised and said,  but you're weeping, right? Like I visibly see tears coming down your eyes.  I think of the wisdom of him, like Dr. Altaf was saying, publicly mourning the loss of his son because it shows us that it's okay.  And the Rasul Sallallahu alaihi wasallam says that the eyes grieve, right? The heart is saddened and hurt and in pain, but the tongue doesn't utter other than what's pleasing to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala.  We're not held accountable. Here the Rasul Sallallahu alaihi wasallam is telling us we're not held accountable for the tears that we shed.  We're not held accountable for the shakiness that we feel in ou…

Trauma: Your Lord Has Not Forsaken You

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