Islamic Life Coach School Podcast
Islamic Life Coach School Podcast
Falling in Love
In today's episode, I challenge the traditional notion of "falling in love" as a passive experience. I talk about how our past collection of subconscious thoughts, values, and repeated experiences create the illusion of "falling" love.
It could be falling in love with a potential spouse to feeling affection for a pet or even a pair of cozy socks.
I also focus on the journey of maintaining long-term love and passion. Learn how to transition from the initial spark of desire to establishing enduring emotional connections fortified by peace, joy, and compassion.
Discover how deliberate thoughts and actions will sustain desire and affection.
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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 Atar. Hello, hello, hello everyone. Peace and blessings be upon all of you.
Speaker 1:Today's topic is super duper popular the concept of falling in love. You never fall into a feeling. Falling implies passivity, like you fall off a chair or fell into the pool. These falls seem passive, but I will remind you that there's a force acting on these falls and that is gravity, meaning there's an active force on your seemingly passive fall. Same thing when you quote-unquote fall in love, you're not falling in it passively. You have a nervous system acting on it to create the feelings of love.
Speaker 1:So let's imagine you fall in love with a guy. It's so sudden, so fast, you don't know how it happened. It seems passive because the force acting on it to create that fall is subtle and very strong. That's the force of your subconscious thoughts. The guy has checked all of your boxes, the boxes that you created through your experiences, the thoughts that your nervous system accepted as yours and presented them to you as facts. I want my future husband to be respectful to me. This is a thought, a checkbox that your nervous system created, that, through repetition, became a strong, foundational belief in your quest of finding a spouse. So now, through time, you will and with you I mean your mind. Your mind will start to notice all the ways respect shows up for other people People who respect animals, people who respect the bounds of religion, respect their family members, elders, children, strangers. With time, your mind has a huge chunk of evidence what respect looks like and it becomes a factual belief. I value that my future husband respects me as a human. And then when a guy comes around and you find out that he loves his pet cat and he brings his grandma to the mosque whenever he can because she can't drive and he disagrees with some organizations, but he does so respectfully, and when you find out all of this about him, you instantly fall in love.
Speaker 1:But you didn't instantly fall in love. It didn't happen passively. You've had that force of thoughts creating respect as a prerequisite for love. All of this time. You have already done the active work of creating all of the thought work that is required of you to create the love. This guy who seemingly checks all your boxes bam, you're in love. Love doesn't come from other person's qualities, it comes from your thinking about them, and most of the time when you've fallen in love, it's because you've had a lot of thoughts about this exact situation and you're already primed to fall in love with this person. Person's actions will influence your thoughts, but ultimately love is a reflection of your mind, because while you might be head over heels in love with someone, other people might hate this guy because love is not being caused by this guy. If that was the case, everyone would love him. You are causing your love because of your thoughts about this guy.
Speaker 1:Now I started with a romantic relationship example, because that's very common, very Hollywood, very relatable. But same falling in love happens with a pet or a pair of socks, or a house and a beautiful scene of nature or a shiny bike. I know this is a huge jump between falling in love with your future husband and falling in love with a pair of cozy socks. But stay with me here I'm trying to make a point. But stay with me here I'm trying to make a point, and the point is no feeling, no matter how strong, how fast, how gripping, ever happened passively, out of nowhere, with no origin.
Speaker 1:Your nervous system is what creates all of your feelings. When you've grown up with the idea what you value in a marriage, you've been thinking the thoughts that make you fall in love in an instant. You've been thinking them all along and you've probably been thinking them since your childhood. This is not passively falling in love. This is a force like gravity invisible, ever-present, but extremely strong. Love doesn't happen because of this guy. It happens because of your mind that he is the guy that you've been thinking about all of this time.
Speaker 1:The motorcycle doesn't cause your love. Your mind causes your love because you've always loved adventure and you follow all of the hijabi bikers and you love freedom and novelty and the adventure that experience provides. So when the right motorcycle comes around, you immediately experience the feeling of falling in love Because your mind has been creating subconscious thoughts all of this time. It seems like the bike caused the feeling of love, when actually it's been your mind all along. It seems that the cat caused the love. The plant causes the love. Your child caused the love. They didn't.
Speaker 1:This is why when you're away from your object of love, it feels painful. Withdrawal of love feels painful not because of the object but because of your thoughts about them. You are away from it how you want it. You want it to be close, how you never want to let it go, how you miss it. The object of love the husband, the cat, the bike, the bouquet of flowers, a million dollar home does not cause your feelings of love or your feelings of missing them. It does not cause your feelings of pain when you're away from them. Your mind does, your thoughts about the objects cause the pain.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, if it's not clear already, thoughts cause feelings, not objects. You do not fall in love. You've been priming your mind for a really long time, so it seems like you just fell, like it was out of your control, like you slipped on a slide and tumbled down. Slide does not cause the fall. Gravity does the invisible force that's there in the background, like the invisible force that is your subconscious thoughts, thoughts about the object that you quote-unquote, fell in love with? This is why it seems like the object caused the love, because it happens so fast. The thoughts about the object have been running in your mind forever, which is why they now appear like facts and it's going to sound like of course, I value respect in my future spouse. That's a fact and it probably is for you. Okay, so now, since we have that established, I want to expand on this to include long-term relationships, especially romantic long-term relationships, because the withdrawal-term relationships, because the withdrawal of what originally seemed like unconditional falling of quick love, is very dramatic.
Speaker 1:In these relationships there are going to be two kinds of love obsession, pure desire, possession and long-term love, care, mercy, compassion. Best example is, if you have a flower, you pluck it because you want it for yourself, you are obsessively in love with it. You need that immediate gratification of possessing that flower. The love within a marriage is that you take a seed, you water it, you wait for it to grow, you nurture it, you give it light and soil and you enjoy the flower as it comes and grows. You do not possess it, but you do love it and nurture it.
Speaker 1:In Surah Ar-Rum, ayah 21,. And his signs is that he created for you from yourselves mates that you may find tranquility in them, and he placed between you affection and mercy. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought. Surah Furqan, 25, ayah 74. There are those who pray Our Lord, bless us with pious spouses and offspring who will be the joy of our hearts and make us models for the righteous Words in the Quran described for love between spouses are tranquility, affection, mercy, joy. These are the emotions that your higher brain creates. Higher brain's thoughts require work.
Speaker 1:Seeing something outside of the default brain, the default lower brain or the nafs, creates passion, obsession, possession, quick feelings of falling in love, immediate gratification and I don't know how it happened and what happened to me. This all requires minimal effort. Now, just because it's default, just because it's easy, does not mean that the love of passion and obsession is wrong. The acts from these feelings of hedonic passion is what's wrong. The actions are sinful, feelings are not, especially if, as a human, you're just finding yourself slipping and falling in and out of love. If that's happening, just be on to yourself. So the period of obsession is very mentally tolling.
Speaker 1:The whole purpose of desire and dopamine that creates that desire is that dopamine feels really pleasurable in the body, but the dopamine is actually released in the anticipation of the fulfillment of desire. As soon as the desire is fulfilled, you have your nikah done and your husband and wife, you have your dream house, you have your parents that allow you to adopt the cat, the dopamine stops. Dopamine is the main neurochemical of desire that is created by your thoughts about the object of desire. And when you acquire that object, dopamine is no longer manufactured, because now desire is not by default, it's not being generated by the easy brain. Now desire requires work, because now you have the object of desire in your possession. Or, so to say, now you have to create desire, because your now husband snores and picks his nose and he's still respectful, though, but he's also annoying. Now you realize that you have to clean the litter box, because this cat requires a lot of work. Now you maintain the house that you were dreaming about all along.
Speaker 1:Desire, passion, obsession is wiped out. Because the dopamine is wiped out, because now you're no longer pursuing the object of desire, you actually have it. So now the main force that was bonding you with this object is gone, poof, disappeared. So now, what are you going to fuel your relationship with? That's the question. And this is where peace, tranquility, joy, affection, mercy comes in. Now this becomes your new definition of love.
Speaker 1:The main molecules or neurotransmitters for these emotions are serotonin and oxytocin. These feel really good in the body too, but they carry differently. You have a completely different visceral experience from these chemicals than you do with dopamine. Your lived experience is completely different when you fell in love versus when you're continuing to be in love and continuing to create love. Now you're at year 5, 10 into the marriage and now not only is he still snoring, he's refusing to get medical attention for it, his health is declining because of obstructive sleep apnea. And now your frustration that was all cutesy in the beginning is turning into anger. Arguments become more frequent. Fear of losing him prematurely becomes very prominent.
Speaker 1:This is where mercy and compassion are absolutely needed. This is where you need to redefine all of these feelings as love. You will need to redefine love in this situation because otherwise the brain will say this feels horrible. Why did I even marry this guy? Because no one ever said that I fell into compassion for that guy the other day. You definitely don't fall into mercy or joy. There's no euphoria in these emotions, but you do get to create them. You do enjoy them once you do create them. Each and every one of these feelings are required to sustain a long-term relationship and they feel extremely good and are enjoyable.
Speaker 1:Having said all of that, I am not saying you cannot create passion in a married long-term relationship. Again, remember all emotions are created by thoughts. Now you have to practice thoughts that create that passion for you in this phase, which will not be the same that made you, seemingly effortlessly, fall in love with him in the first place. You will create passion, obsession, desire, and all of that with deliberate thoughts, and you are totally allowed to do that, especially in a halal-nikah relationship. All of that would have to be done from a refined thought process, using your mind as a tool, and I have a service within my Empowered Muslim Women EMW program called the Pleasure Revolution, where I coach married Muslim women on how to create passion, obsession, desire in a long-standing marriage. If that's what you're choosing to do, you go to my website, you opt into the mailing list and make an appointment to come on a consult call with me. It's just that easy, and we'll discover if this is the right match. In the Pleasure Revolution Framework, I teach you guys how creating passion will not only save your marriage, but create confidence that will then spill over into the rest of your life and it, inshallah, will elevate your life. And if you're already a client, then you have access to these services already and you will get coaching on it whenever you're ready.
Speaker 1:Phrases like heart wants what the heart wants All of this is just justifying behaviors of hedonic pleasure. All of this is a cop-out. It simply does not work that way. Heart is the emotional capital of the body and wants the object of desire because of your thoughts. Pursue it in a halal manner. And if your object of desire is out of reach for any reason, then just start working on refining your mind. Which does not mean that you have to change your values of respect. It just means that the guy you wanted is out of reach. You can keep your value of wanting a guy to be respectful if you would consider marrying him. Just don't pretend that some unknown force of love that you accidentally fell into caused you to take impermissible actions. That does not happen. If that was the case, then we would all be exempt from questioning on the day of judgment. Just because your desire arose from the default mind does not mean it's haram, but it does mean that you are still responsible for your actions you take from that desire.
Speaker 1:Desire in itself is an amazing emotion. It feels incredible in the body, but it will not serve as your get out of jail card on the day of judgment. Practice it inside the bonds of marriage. Create it if it is no longer default, if it is no longer coming easily for you, and join the program if you're unable to do it yourself. What is it that you're waiting for? Like? Really, no feeling is ever beyond your control, but Allah created the force of desire and passion for you to pursue what you want. Direct your obsession to pursue the object of desire in a halal way.
Speaker 1:You don't have to engage in changing your thoughts because you think desire is inherently bad or you are unfamiliar with your wants. And when desire actually hits you, you fall in love. Then it feels wrong because of your ignorance towards your preferences. You do not change thoughts just because desire is haram. It is not. You don't have to change your conscious or subconscious thoughts to change your feelings. This is not the purpose of me talking about this concept. But you can change them if you want, when you need to change them and who decides if you need to change them? That is solely. You Love a flower because it was love at first sight, because you love nature, color and everything that the beauty of flower represents to you. All of that meaning-making took a very long time, a lot longer in the past compared to that instant when you fell in love with that flower. You also have the capability of switching between desire, passion, obsession and compassion.
Speaker 1:Mercy, tranquility and joy. They are all a product of your mind, not the person you're married to, not the person you're pursuing. They do not come from the object of your love. Get coaching to become an expert at managing your mind At this level will be where you can make the transition among these emotions at your will, inshallah. And then, of course, your marriage will thank you. With that. I pray to Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. O Allah, guide my thoughts and heart so that I may serve the purpose of one true love, that is you. Keep me and all of us protected against the negative effects of desire. Help us create the desire for what pleases you. O Allah, make my heart steadfast in creating affection, mercy, tranquility in my relationships, as you have placed these blessings in the bonds of marriage. Grant me the strength to nurture love that is compassionate and passionate, patient and everlasting, and guide us all to make you the ultimate object of our desire. O Allah, ameen, ya Rabbul Ameen, please keep me in your du'as. I will talk to you guys next time.