Your relationship with Allah doesn't happen in a vacuum.

Your lived experience which includes your day to day struggles, moments of joy, your history of pain and how it shows up in your life, your moments of celebration, your ups and downs, your unknown and known trauma, your childhood and even romantic relationships, and more, all influence your relationship with Allah.

The way we talk about our relationship with Allah makes it seem as if it's separate to everything else that is happening or has happened in our life.

But that's not what's happening. Our relationship with Allah is happening as we deal with pain and loss, moments of shock and joy, times of fear and uncertainty, experiences of contentment and success. And these moments, our life experiences, our lived experience (which includes both our present and past) all shape and impact our relationship with Allah- our tawakkul, our yaqeen, our certainty- even our husn adhan of Allah.

If you are struggling in life and feel stuck, what happens to your relationship with Allah? For many, their relationship with Allah tanks as well. You might relate to this.

Let me give an example to make this clearer.

Imagine if you are trying for a new job and nothing seems to be working. You feel stuck. You feel a swirl of emotions including jealousy that others are succeeding. You feel upset with yourself for feeling jealous. And so now you start questioning, "Allah, why not me?" You start feeling resentment and then, you might even delay your salah or completely stop praying salah and making dua. And deep down inside, you still feel stuck, sad, tired and upset that you feel disconnected with Allah.

That's just one example of how your lived experience, your life experience including your emotions, impacts your relationship with Allah. And by not addressing your frustrations and other emotions around you feeling stuck, it trickles into your relationship with Allah.

Here's the thing: if you don't understand and address parts of your lived experience that are becoming blocks in your relationship with Allah while learning more about who Allah is, you will overlook the connection between the two.

I have seen this time and time again both in my work with clients and in my personal experience, when you don't address your lived experience and your relationship with Allah and the connection between your lived experience and your relationship with Allah, BOTH suffer.

In fact, many Muslims may find themselves feeling even more distant from Allah as they deal with their life struggles. Or their relationship with Allah feels superficial because it feels like it changes whenever life gets hard or easier- and that realization can hurt too.

By the way, understanding how your lived experience impacts your relationship with Allah is tied to knowing who you are so you can know Allah. It's also tied to living a life of wellness AND embracing self-growth.

It's all connected. That's why I started Wellness for Muslims- to help my fellow Muslims see that connection.

If you want to get started on understanding more about how your life struggles can impact your relationship with Allah, check out the free resources- specifically, Empowering Insights.

And if you want to dive deep into really understanding your relationship with Allah, check out the mini-courses and courses (upcoming, inshallah).

I will be sharing more on what it means to understand your lived experience and how it impacts your relationship with Allah (including your tawakkul, husn adhan, etc)- both on here, the newsletter and on the social media accounts.

Be well and many duas,

Amna K