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Welcome to Islamic Life Coach School Podcast. Apply tools that you learn in this podcast and your life will be unrecognizably successful. Now your host, Dr. Kamal Akhtar. Hello, hello, hello everyone.
Why Centering Men Harms Faith
Service Without Needing Validation
Work Decisions From Your Values
Marriage Without Emotional Dependency
Single Women And Healthy Courtship
Divorce Resentment And Fear Patterns
Decision Test For Inner Authority
Boundaries Regulated Nervous System And SQ
Prayer And Closing
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Peace and blessings be upon all of you. In this podcast series, we've come from diagnosing and treatment of decentering men in the last two episodes. Today's podcast is part three of that series and I'm gonna talk about what your life has a potential to look like when you have successfully decentered men. Your shift will be behavioral and spiritual, and your acts will become more aligned with your values, which in turn will elevate your relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Your collaboration with a male partner may still exist, but agreement or disagreement with him is not going to replace your internal authority. Your actions are going to become clearer because they're not going to change for the need of validation. Once you have successfully decentered men, your efforts are going to be from genuine desire of contribution, not just because that's what's expected of you. So today I will be telling you all about what life will look like through this journey. So first things first, there is a huge spiritual benefit because centering men is a type of shirk. And I learned this from my teacher Umma Zakiya, which I've mentioned before. When your emotional stability as a woman, your sense of worth, and all of your decision making capacity gets organized around reactions of a male in your life, then men have moved into a position that only Allah should occupy. So this becomes a type of shirk, which is extremely horrifying if you ask me. Islam teaches us that the heart must have a single axis, which is Tawakul in Allah. Ultimate reliance, all of the reference that our mind makes should only be to Allah. When those type of mental functions migrate towards people, especially men, your soul becomes disordered. And of course, as you have seen, this does not mean a woman consciously starts to worship men, but if you are hypervigilant towards the mood of men in your life, then your heart has organized itself around another human being instead of the creator. And what might look like devotion or romantic attachment is just deeper spiritual misalignment. This is why I value decentering men from women's life so much, because this is what becomes an ultimate act of spiritual correction. And the irony is profound because when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala returns to your center of psychology, relationship with men improve because the pressure that you've been putting them under disappears. What remains is a relationship between two human beings, both orbiting the same divine center instead of orbiting each other. Also what happens when you decenter men is that internal equation changes. Your actions stand on your own. If you contribute at home, at work, if you show up in service to your relationships, it is because this is reflecting your standards and intentions. You might welcome the appreciation that other people extend towards you as an outcome of your service towards them, but that appreciation is not required for your action to be meaningful, because you've decided your actions are already meaningful. And this one decision alone on your part removes an immense amount of invisible pressure from your relationships. That's how they become less transactional and more sincere. From a stable center, you love everyone unconditionally that you are related to. You collaborate with respect, and those relationships thrive. In earning money as a woman, you decentering men looks like if you previously pursued work because a man in your life wanted you to, your motivation was externally anchored. Even outwardly if you appear successful, your internal experience will carry frustration because all the decisions you've been making so far were not fully centered in your own values. Practical decentering at your professional level does not mean that you reject collaboration or agreement with men. You may very well decide that earning money aligns with a shared vision with a man in your life, but the decision ultimately passes through your own center. You make money because you recognize your own education, talent, capacity, because the choice resonates with you in your life. The choice gives you the ability to build a life that you want. Agreement with a partner can support that choice, but it does not replace your own internal authority. In marriage, male centrism might be appearing as emotional dependency and you confusing that for devotion. And a common example of that that I come across in my coaching is that if you think your effort only matters if your husband acknowledges it or appreciates you for it, then you know for sure that male centrism is still a problem for you. Successful decentering restores your independence within your contribution. You maintain your home and you invest in your family and your husband because those actions align with what you want. You might enjoy the appreciation from your husband and it might still matter to you, but the absence of it does not destabilize your relationship. And in that setting, the relationship continues to become stronger because your effort is no longer charged with the need of validation. So in marriage it might have looked like I clean all day and he doesn't appreciate it. The problem is not that you're choosing to clean, the problem is that his appreciation has become the measuring stake of your worth. If your effort only feels meaningful when he acknowledges it, then your identity is still orbiting him. Successfully decentering men looks like that your action become independent of his reactions. You clean because you value a clean home, you contribute because it aligns with your standards. If he appreciates it, that's wonderful. If he doesn't, it does not matter to you. When you start decentering men, the actions you do quote unquote for them begin to shift, because your actions are no longer bids for recognition, they are your conscious choices. You may even do less because you're no longer unconsciously trying to earn worth, and that is okay. You may do the same amount of work or you may choose to do more work, but all without an emotional bookkeeping, things that take a lot of mental toll on you. And this is what changes the dynamic with men because a lot of women mistake centering men as a form of devotion or even love. But when you contrast that with what happens when you're centered in yourself, when your effort is no longer charged with the need of validation, you don't weaponize your effort anymore, and it gives a lot of depth and meaning to your relationships. All of this does not mean that the man in your life will suddenly start to appreciate everything you do. Maybe some men do appreciate it and some will continue to, some have never appreciated your effort and they won't. And they won't start now. But the transformation for you is internal. Your peace is no longer contingent on their appreciation or their reaction. This is true decentering. You can want a marriage deeply, you can desire companionship, children, intimacy, partnership. For single women, male centrism is socially acceptable. It looks like hopeful intentionality about marriage. But internally your nervous system as a single woman becomes organized around male attention. If you're repeatedly checking messages, if you have anxiety about the future, he did this, what does that mean? He didn't do this, what does that mean? If you're overanalyzing a man's action, then he is already at the center of your psychological orbit. You can deeply want marriage, you can desire companionship, children, intimacy, partnership. None of that is weakness or desperation on your part. But if your emotional stability depends on whether a man chooses you, how quickly he chooses you, or if you're hyper focused on refining your qualities so that you can be chosen by a man, you're not looking for a spouse. You're still looking for a savior. A man is still the center. If you're a single woman, decentering men allows courtship to become very healthy. You pursue marriage sincerely while maintaining your internal stability. So what your courtship process starts to look like is that you evaluate true compatibility rather than auditioning men for approval. In the middle of all of that, your productivity, your friendships, your spiritual life will remain intact because your identity is not suspended while you're waiting to be chosen. A single Muslim woman centering men does not look anything abnormal. It actually looks hopeful. It looks like you're putting yourself out there. But if you're constantly checking your phone repeatedly, rereading messages and scanning them for tone, wondering why he hasn't responded or interpreting his silence as commentary on your worth, you may be telling yourself on the surface level that you're just being intentional about your marriage. But one man's inconsistency has the power of destabilize your sense of value, then he has always been at the center. You need to pursue marriage after decentering men, because pursuit of marriage while orbiting men is extremely detrimental. As a single woman, after successfully decentering men, when you meet someone, you get to know him, you ask real questions, you evaluate compatibility, and you do not turn his interest or lack of interest into the proof of your desirability. You truly enjoy the courtship process, since you've stopped softening your standards because you're afraid of being alone. You start evaluating him and the situation through a clearer lens, and anytime things don't work out between a potential and you, then you walk away without spiraling. After successfully decentering men, your validation only comes from yourself. You see red flags clearly, you do not romanticize inconsistency, you do not give in to the potential of how he can change in the future, you do not excuse disrespect, and especially you do not confuse attention with intention. When you're not desperate to be chosen by a man, you yourself choose better. All of this because your center is intact, rooted in a healthy ego and orbiting Allah only, and holding on to Allah this tightly removes urgency from your nervous system. You can want a man, you can hope and pray for him, but he is also not going to be the excess of all of your attention. Once Allah is the main center of your existence, your pursuit of marriage, your marriage itself becomes a genuine partnership. There is no role of salvation left for the marriage to perform. And again, the irony is that men will respect you more when you as a woman stop revolving around them. And this is not because men subconsciously want distance from you. They actually crave closeness just like any other human being. But this happens because your actions are no longer based on emotional manipulation, because your stability becomes magnetic, and that way you will attract the right type of man. Okay, so now let's move on to another scenario, like for divorced women. In this case, orbiting or centering men persists through resentment, like I talked about before, inverted fixation. This is a concept I talked about in the first part, episode two hundred seventy nine. In this case, the mind repeatedly revisits the past, it reconstructs argument, and it narrates to you your ex husband's failures. You might want to believe that you're doing this as a part of your closure process, but psychologically it's yet another form of centering a man. Decentering in this stage means reclaiming your mental bandwidth. The past might remain as a part of your personal history, but it does not occupy the center of your thought constantly. Your attention correctly returns to building a future, rather than replaying a relationship that has already ended. This inverted fixation also appears when women are fearful of men, based on their past experiences, and if that is the case for you, then dealing with the irrational fears, mind management, somatic experiencing, all of that will heal and help you decenter men. Since in this case you've been centering them through fear. Now I've given you a couple of scenarios, but I'm gonna tell you more accurately how you can measure if you've successfully decentered men, or if you're on your way to doing that. To monitor where you are in this process, give yourself a decision test. This is when you can understand that all of your decisions originate from your inner self. Ask yourself, how many of your decisions are you still making because of someone else's expectation of you and that they're anticipating that from you? When decentering occurs, your decisions pass through your personal values. You are always consciously or subconsciously choosing these decisions. A successful test of decentering men is that you will choose to do what your father, brother, husband, son, or a male cousin expects of you, but in the end the decision is yours. It's coming from you because you made that choice. You might have been influenced by a man's advice, but the decision is coming from you internally. With successful decentering, you will not fall victim into the oh he made me do that. Nobody else can make you do anything. All of your decisions come from your thoughts. Another way to tell successful decentering of men is the attention test that reveals the true center of your mind. When you are alone, when you're bored, when you're quiet, when you're not rushed or busy to do anything, where does your attention go? If your thoughts repeatedly turn to analyzing a man's behavior or thinking about a man, the orbit of a man is intact. When decentering occurs, your attention during reflection time expands towards inner reflection, growth, your own creativity, future planning, prayer, your spiritual presence. Now this level of reflection might take a bit of practice because it requires for you to watch your thoughts on a larger scale, but it can be done. And it is a great practice to establish because you will start with small observations of your thoughts throughout the day and then you will move on to more bigger patterns. Then there's also a test of emotional stability, and this is measured through your own nervous system's regulation. When men are centered, your emotions fluctuate with their moods. When successful decentering has occurred, you can observe a man's emotion without internalizing it or taking responsibility for it. You're able to separate your inner environment from theirs and you can carry your own opinions, especially if they're different from everyone else's in the room. And the deepest shift that occurs that you can test for in your life that your own psychological coherence will open the door to authentic spirituality. In this case, your faith is no longer going to function primarily as an anxiety management tool or a shame reduction tool. Instead, it's going to become central. It's going to become a part of the fiber of your being. At this level of successful decentering, a deep spiritual realignment occurs. You begin to relate to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala directly rather than interpreting the sincerity of your actions through the fluctuating approval of men in your life. Your dhikr, your tavakul, all of that replaces rumination and control, and worship becomes about true connection. This whole shift reorganizes your life around a vertical axis of your deep connection to Allah. Your marriage, your family, your work, your relationships, all of that still remains important if you choose for them to be important, but they no longer replace your defining identity. When you successfully decenter men, you become a woman who's operating from an alignment that handles boundaries differently. When an in-law oversteps, you do not react with suppressed resentment or explosive confrontation. You state your limit calmly and clearly, but your coherence and your identity does not depend on being perceived as endlessly agreeable. If someone does interpret your boundary as disrespect, you do not spiral into shame. All you do is pause to evaluate if your conduct was aligned with your value and with Islamic Adab. If it was, then your responsibility is to remain steady, steady in your dignity, belief in your own inherent worth and your decision making capacity. And if your evaluation tells you that your conduct was not aligned with Islamic Adab, then you lovingly redirect yourself with Istigfar. A woman who has successfully decentered men and centered Allah is operating near the upper range of soulful intelligence, or the SQ, because your nervous system is going to stay regulated through your identity being coherent, through your spirituality being anchored in Allah. You can experience disappointment, you can hold ambiguity, and you will not globalize it or panic about it. Your actions are going to become intentional because you can create a gap between a trigger and your response. Decentering men is not just a relational concept, it's a whole neuropsychological reorganization. It is rewiring at the deepest level. At this highest level, this transformation produces a woman who is calm without being passive and grounded without being fearful. This transformation mirrors exactly what I describe as a high soulful intelligence set point in my program. A woman who has decentered men and centered Allah operates from a regulated nervous system. When you move through the full triangulation that I talked about previously, decentering men, stabilizing your sense of self, and centering Allah, your life will begin to feel internally ordered. And because of that, you're going to start to treat every interaction with a human being with respect and dignity. Your nervous system is going to return to home base. With that I pray to Allah, Ya Allah, return my heart to its true center, that is in you alone. Free me from seeking worth, peace, and direction from your creation. O Allah, allow me the ultimate success in this world and the next from the decisions that flow from you alone. Amin Ya Rabul Al Amin. Please keep me in your du'as. I will talk to you guys next time.
