Balancing Study Work Life As A Muslim Mum
As a working mum, homeschool mum, studying mum or mum at home sometimes you feel like you have to use every limb in order to do different tasks, sometimes… at one time.LOL Juggling school calendars and your schedule with other duties towards your family, your children, even your parents and yourself, if that. With children it is 24-hours. You can’t just shut off for hours at a time during the day if they are around. The feelings as a mother in one day are many. Exciting some days, some days stressful, some days are exhausting and discouraging, however as Mum's 90% of the time we end up following through and Not Giving Up.
I know what it's like to be and feel stretched too thin and off the track. Using different techniques, and feeling through those that you feel need to be tweaked. Continuous adjustments including my fitness, nutrition, time for myself, studying, allowed me to surely discover some tips that helps me stay on track and be able to navigate when I come off track.
Just as a tip, I remember listening to a micro talk that was about 2 minutes. The speaker made a good point regarding balancing life and in order for 2 things to be equal, they have to be of the same weight and you cannot balance this life and the hereafter. SubhanAllah.
However, we need to devise some type of structural guidance in how we do our daily tasks, driving to maintain what is beneficial and good in this life for the hereafter, including actions that can help make it easier for us.
Sometimes, I feel that our assumption is that all we need to do is be more productive, which will be the result for us having a perfect work-life balance. BUT I still feel that we are getting the definition of balance wrong in terms of what we're doing throughout the day. It's not about doing everything that needs to be done on that day with equal amounts of time, equal importance and equal efforts, because every task has its own time and its own output. Allocating your tasks at a specific time for specific days will give you more clarity of what needs to be done and when it’s best to be done, but this is a guideline and as we have many other responsibilities it can change and will change with life. Allocating will help in creating habits that become a part of your daily life and will not be as much of a struggle due to it being in your daily routine.
If your brain and cognition is better in the morning than it is in the evening, because you're tired from your long day that has passed or because you have to assist with your family and children if you have one or you have finished work, ……this is not the time to try and focus on specific endeavours that require concentration, focus and innovation. After a long day it’s not the most suitable time for your body to do those tasks, the only thing at this point that your body probably really wants to do is either nothing, or actions that are easy to follow through and you can do without creating new patterns.
Sis, it doesn't mean that if you do not find that 50/50 it shouldn’t be done. It's about doing things in the capacity that it requires for you to complete part of your schedule to grow for that day. Maybe you have 100% of different tasks to complete, but this particular duty requires 5%, in another areas it may require 40%, however they’re all of different importance and priorities. BUT, one thing my dear sister that I ask of you, is to tell me which of these things do you do without your body?
The spectrum is wide for us where our health is not at the top of the list, as you may have heard me mentioned before, every single thing in the world that we need to do for our duties, out of necessity, for Allah subhana wa ta Allah…requires our body and that is our mind, our body and our soul.
I see it as three parts. Mind, Body and Deen. This is the method I use with all the sisters I work with. They are entities that should not be separated. What you eat affects not only your body, internally and externally, but also your mind. How you move or lack of movement also has an affect on your mind and body. Likewise, how much you stress, sleep, watch, spend your time doing, etc also have an affect on your minds and bodies. And overall when you contemplate on this, it all has an affect on our soul and deen.
Exercise isn't just about making your body look as you want it to look, just about looking good, it's about helping your body to have a better ability to stand strong as a muslim when needed, stay longer in our salah without or with less thinking about your back hurting, being able to sit in jalsah (sitting position) without feeling as though your ankle may possibly come out of its socket. We should look after what Allah has blessed us with.
Nutrition isn’t about eating what you desire because it tastes good and giving into your desires, it’s about knowing what is ‘best’ for your bodies long geveity, looking after your body internally to the best of your ability to be able to carry out duties in a better state of mind and body. And to be honest, what would our bodies say to us if it could speak!
I’m not saying it’s easy to stop everything immediately, but trying to fuel our bodies with what Allah has given us naturally is taking care of you. The notion that eating artificial chemicals that is killing us, should be eaten when you desire or just not so much as one time, I believe is not true! I did not say I don’t have things that are tempting for me, but reducing - to cut out is the way to go. The biggest money making companies in the world are pharmaceuticals, not giving out free non-gmo fruit and veg, foods that even they have tested is good for our health……but I’ll leave that for another time.
When you give a friend a gift and you really want them to have it, you expect them to look after it, as it is something special from you to them….do you expect them to mash it up, throw it away, let someone else break it….NO you don’t!
So beautiful, remember that your body is a gift from Allah. Put it first and it will help you and look after you in your duties In shaa Allah.