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Newsletter 45
Soulful Serenity Community
As-salamu alaykum, dear beautiful soul,
Bismillah.
There’s something I’ve noticed… and it’s not always obvious when you’re in it.
Fear doesn’t always look like fear.
Sometimes it looks like overthinking.
Sometimes it looks like trying to control everything around you.
Sometimes it’s that feeling of being overwhelmed… or reacting in a way that even surprises you.
And then afterwards, you sit and think… why did I respond like that?
But if you really trace it back, gently… there’s usually something underneath.
Fear.
Not always loud. Not always clear. But it’s there.
And the thing is… a lot of that fear was never really ours to begin with.
Yes, we are created with a natural sense of protection ,that’s part of how Allah has created us.
But so much of what we carry goes beyond that.
It’s what we were exposed to growing up.
It’s what we heard over and over again.
It’s the environment we were in.
“Be careful.”
“Don’t do that.”
“What if something goes wrong?”
“What’s going to happen in the future?”
Or even just constantly hearing about how things are getting worse… how the world is not safe… how everything feels uncertain.
And you don’t even realise it at the time… but it settles in.
It becomes the way you start to see things.
And then later on in life, it shows up.
You try to control situations… because you’re scared of what might happen if you don’t.
Or you feel like you’re losing control… and you react in ways that don’t feel like you.
You get overwhelmed.
You overthink.
You maybe even become harsh in your reactions… especially with the people closest to you.
And it’s not because you’re a bad person.
It’s because something inside you feels unsafe.
And then we’re told something that is true… but sometimes hard to access.
“Just trust Allah.”
And yes… that is the answer.
But if we’re being honest… sometimes it’s not that simple.
Because when fear is sitting in your body, when it’s been there for years, when it’s shaped how you think and respond…
you can’t just switch it off.
Not because you don’t believe.
But because your system is used to holding on..
Before you can truly trust… you have to understand what you’re holding.
You have to become aware of where that fear is coming from.
Not just the situation in front of you…
but the deeper layer beneath it.
What are you actually afraid of?
Is it that things won’t work out?
Is it that you’ll lose control?
Is it that you won’t be able to cope?
When you start to sit with that … something begins to shift.
Because then it’s not about forcing yourself to trust.
It’s about slowly creating the space for trust to grow.
Through awareness.
Through understanding yourself.
Through allowing yourself to feel what you’ve been avoiding.
And when you begin to do that… even gently… you’ll notice something.
It becomes easier to let go.
Easier to say, Ya Allah, You are in control… and actually feel a bit of ease in that.
Not perfectly. Not all the time.
But more than before.
So maybe the journey is not just from fear to trust…
Maybe it’s through awareness first.
Through getting to the root of what has been sitting there for so long… shaping your reactions, your thoughts, your way of being.
Because once you start to see it… It doesn’t have the same hold over you.
And slowly… trust finds its way in.
A Closing Reflection
Maybe fear is not here to control you…
Maybe it’s showing you where you still feel unsafe within yourself.
And instead of pushing it away… or trying to silence it…
what if you met it with a little more honesty?
A little more awareness.
Because every time you pause…
every time you choose to understand instead of react…
every time you return, even slightly, to trust…
you soften something within yourself.
And that changes more than you realise.
WIth love and gratitude
Nazia