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Non-Muslims often ask me, “How can you not eat from dawn till sunset? Isn’t it too hard? Not even water?!” I tell them, “It is all in the mind. Almost anybody can do it”.
No, it’s not that I don’t feel hungry (believe me I do, especially during those very long days here in Canada). When I fast, I am not even close to the person I am on my non-fasting days. People generally stay far away from me when I get hungry – I am easily irritated, sometimes even borderline crazy.
Despite that, I am able to fast very easily, and feel relaxed every time I fast. This made me think – shouldn’t I be able to do the same all the time? Feeling relaxed in a situation I usually am not proves that I can control myself at all times, right?
Breaking my fast during the day is simply out of the question. As a Muslim, this is something that I have zero control over, so I’ll be fine as long as I can mentally deal with it. If I extend this logic to my non-fasting days, I should be able to deal with everything the same way. Most of the things that we stress over are not in our control. We feel burnt out over time – this feeling of exhaustion, physically or emotionally, is the result of prolonged stress. In fact, burnout has been linked to negative attitudes, increased conflicts, depression and poor health too.
Most of this stress is over events in the past and things we cannot change or might happen in the future. We should focus on the things that are really under our control (which is what I do), using the things we’ve learnt from the past to try to navigate the future. Just remember, a decision taken under stress is a bad decision.
“ It is all in the mind”. Thanks Ramadan.
