Islamic Life Coach School Podcast
Islamic Life Coach School Podcast
How to Control Your Mind
Your brain is like a browser with 37 tabs open—some are useful, but most are just noise. Yet, no one ever taught you how to filter them. Instead, you’ve been conditioned to believe every thought that pops into your head, even the ones that make you doubt yourself, overanalyze everything, and stay stuck in survival mode. But here’s the truth: you don’t have to accept every thought as fact. The real power isn’t in thinking more—it’s in learning how to manage your thoughts so they actually serve you.
In this episode, we’re breaking down why most of your automatic thoughts are uninvited spam, not divine revelation. You’ll learn how to stop reacting to every intrusive idea, filter out the mental clutter, and train your brain to work for you, not against you. Because confidence and clarity don’t come from eliminating doubt—they come from knowing which thoughts deserve your attention and which ones need to be ignored. When you understand this, you stop living at the mercy of your mind and start using it as the powerful tool it was meant to be.
If you're tired of letting overthinking, fear, or old mental habits dictate your life, this episode will change everything. It’s time to stop playing defense against your own thoughts and start thinking on purpose. 🎧 Listen now if you’re done letting your brain run the show.
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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 Aftar. Hello, hello, hello everyone. Peace and blessings be upon all of you.
Speaker 1:If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you probably noticed that every now and then I keep circling back to the basics. And it's not because I have nothing new to say, trust me. I could talk for days on all of the new topics that come in my mind, but I want to circle back to the basics, because the foundation is everything. Every advanced skill if it's playing a sport, mastering a language, every advanced skill is built on fundamentals. So that's why I keep running the basic concepts back into focus, and especially now, my podcast being about 200 episodes in. Women are constantly joining in at different stages of their journey, and sometimes a simple reminder of the basics creates a difference between somebody feeling stuck and somebody having a light bulb moment. And, if I'm completely honest, these reminders aren't just for you, they're for me as well, because, no matter how much I grow, no matter how much we grow together, we all need to return to the basics, because it's very easy to get caught up in the ideas, complex strategies, big picture thinking, losing the trees in the forest. But at the end of the day, the simple, most foundational truths are the most powerful. And today we're going to dig into one of those underrated yet life-changing concepts, and that's how to think, how to direct your mind from automatic to intentional. How to direct your mind from automatic to intentional.
Speaker 1:Most of us have been taught what to think. Very few have been taught what actually matters and how to manage our mind, how to direct our minds towards what to pay attention to. From the moment you enter a classroom as a kid, the script has been clear Sit down, listen, memorize, repeat. The entire educational system is built on this model. Well, except maybe Montessori schools. But even then, adults from any of these schools don't grow up knowing how to be aware of themselves, how to be aware of their thoughts and what to do with them. Once you are aware, the system conditions you to absorb pre-approved information, doesn't teach you to question, analyze or challenge it at all. You learn facts, but you don't learn the skill of thinking on purpose, and because of this, most people in the world go through life unaware of how to think. They don't even know that controlling their thoughts is even an option. It's like being handed a TV remote but never realizing you can change the channel. If your mind runs on autopilot, serves up thoughts that aren't necessary, thoughts that aren't true or helpful, but you're not aware how to face that force, it will be very challenging for you to live your life.
Speaker 1:So this podcast is about how to negotiate with yourself, within your mind, with your own thoughts, how to communicate with yourself, with your automatic thoughts. Do you adopt your initial thoughts at face value without seeing the inherent benefit or harm in them, or are you slowing down to determine which one of these thoughts are you going to give more room to grow in your mind? So let's say you're taught that success requires struggle. That's a message you've gotten since your childhood. Then, every time something feels easy, your brain will scream. It'll say this isn't success, this isn't real, you must be missing something. It'll say this isn't success, this isn't real, you must be missing something.
Speaker 1:So recently I coached a woman who faced incredible challenges as a teenager. Now, as a grown woman, that instinct of survival in this hard work has completely burned her out. But her brain can't compute that. She can be successful without burnout. She's learned to rely on her initial automatic thoughts that combine burnout with hard work and hard work with success, so much that she never stopped to question it and, with a little bit of coaching, she realized that success can come with fun as well. So now she has a business that she loves to run and she has fun doing it and she's successful. And this is exactly what happens. When you've only been trained on what to think, you live life reacting to thoughts you never chose, without questioning if they serve you or not. So in this case, I coached her on how to think about life outside of survival mode, outside of burnout, and again now she loves running her business.
Speaker 1:The real skill here that changes everything is how to think, how to observe your thoughts, how to decide which ones you're going to engage with and which ones you're going to let go, how to consciously direct your mind towards thoughts that create confidence, success, instead of inheriting beliefs that don't serve you and thinking they're just coming automatic. And this is not a genetic skill, it's not something you're born with or without. It's something that you learn, something that you refine, something that you master, and then, once you do learn that you're no longer at the mercy of whatever thought pops up into your head, because then you gain control of it and this is where things start to get really, really good. So there are two types of thoughts. Your brain has an open door policy.
Speaker 1:Thoughts come and go as they please Sometimes useful, sometimes completely ridiculous. Thoughts come and go as they please sometimes useful, sometimes completely ridiculous. Some pop in and say, hey, let's plan for the future, while others completely neglect the future. Some remind you of the embarrassing that you did in third grade and it replays that on the loop at 2 am. What you need to know is not all thoughts are created equal.
Speaker 1:One out of the two types of thoughts are the initial thoughts, the ones that seem to appear out of nowhere. These thoughts are like a spam email. You didn't ask for them, they just show up. Some might be helpful, but many are not. These thoughts are intrusive, random, self-critical and even completely irrational. Are intrusive, random, self-critical and even completely irrational. But the confusing part is that they can also be helpful, but most of the time 80 to 90% of the time the default initial automatic thoughts are unhelpful. These are your first unrefined thoughts. Well, calling them unhelpful might be an understatement. Some of them are downright harmful.
Speaker 1:And then the mistake most women make is believing that just because these thoughts appear in your mind, they must mean something. But then enters the second layer of thoughts, and these are your thoughts about the initial thought, how you choose to engage with the first thought, and this is where your actual control lies. So think of it like scrolling on your phone you don't control what posts appear maybe your algorithm does but you do control which ones you stop on and engage with. The problem is that, as a woman, you don't realize that you have this choice. You assume that if it shows up on your feed, it requires for you to entertain it. It does not. That's a false promise. You can always determine a thought that popped up is irrelevant, just like you can disregard a post on your feed as irrelevant.
Speaker 1:So, alhamdulillah, I recently had a chance to be on a speaker panel for a South Florida Muslim conference. Alhamdulillah, I recently had a chance to be on a speaker panel for a South Florida Muslim conference and it was an amazing experience. So many of you came and asked questions and we interacted. And Alhamdulillah, I had a chance to be on the panel with Dr Suzy Ismail, which was just totally out of this world experience. So it was a sisters only session and the title was about wellness, about inner peace and outer success.
Speaker 1:But when I woke up the morning of that conference, do you know what the first thing my brain offered me was who do you think you are talking about? Work-life balance, what makes you in charge of inner peace? Now, if I didn't do any self-management work, I would not realize that this was an intrusive thought. I would totally fall into imposter syndrome. This is a classic definition of an initial thought Uninvited, intrusive. It is my responsibility to give it legitimacy or to disempower it. And that's the work of mind management. That's the battle within your mind. The work of taking control of your mind. Does not mean that you will never have intrusive thoughts, in this case, that you will never have thoughts about imposter syndrome. It does not mean that you will never feel like a bad parent. It does not mean that you will never question your success, not question your skill. It means that you will not engage with these questions to a self-destructive extent.
Speaker 1:When a thought appears, I'm not good enough, and instead of questioning it, you run with it, you analyze it, you overthink it, you gather evidence around it. Before you know it, it will start to take so much space in your mind that it would have turned into an entire courtroom trial where you're both the prosecutor and the accused. But the game changer is that just because a thought pops up does not mean that it's true, does not mean that it's useful or even worth your time. Your brain is a meaning-making machine, constantly churning out ideas, fears, predictions. Your job is not to accept them all at face value without filter. Your job is to filter out the noise and decide which one deserves your energy. And, as women, your experts are engaging in mental action. You analyze, you strategize, you replay conversations like you're training for some sort of thought olympics. Imagine if that mental energy was directed towards something intentional, towards thoughts that actually fuel your confidence, creativity, your success. That's the real work.
Speaker 1:Work is not getting rid of thoughts, because that is impossible. Real work is learning to manage them, learning to decide which ones to nurture and which ones to discard. And once you master that, you stop living at the mercy of your mind and you start using it as the powerful tool it is meant to be. When I talk about take control of your mind, to some women it sounds like a robot, somewhat of a zen-like existence where no intrusive thought ever dares to appear. But I'm really sorry to break it to you. That is not how it works and that's not at all what I mean. Mind control and I mean real mind control is not about eliminating difficult thoughts. It's about choosing what to entertain. With time, the less and less of the difficult thoughts you entertain, the more distant and less believable they become.
Speaker 1:Think of your mind as a browser with 37 tabs open. Some of them are useful Grocery list, work projects, inspirational podcasts. Other ones are pure chaos, like an old YouTube video from 2009. A Wikipedia option with the flamingos, how they're pink, or Google search for something that you didn't find helpful. Your job is not to turn down the entire system. Your job is to close the tabs that aren't serving you and to focus on the ones that matter. Your job is not to pretend that unwanted thoughts don't exist. Your job is not to suppress them. Your job is to entertain the thoughts that fit the curriculum of your life. Your job is to entertain the thoughts that fit the curriculum of your life.
Speaker 1:The biggest misconception that women have is if they still experience self-doubt, fear or any kind of imposter syndrome. It means that they've failed at managing their mind. That's not the case. It just means that you have a human brain. There's no amount of skill that will get you to a point where you don't have intrusive thoughts. That's the nature of a human being. But there is a real skill behind knowing what to do when you see them arrive. The battle of your mind does not mean that thoughts don't show up. It means you get to decide which ones of them get the seat at the decision-making table. This is what awareness is. This is how you learn how to think.
Speaker 1:Living a life of awareness means knowing the difference when you are facing an intrusive thought and when you are willingly rejecting it and when you are willfully accepting it based on its value. A lot of times you will hear to be more aware of your thoughts, to live in clarity, and then you might picture yourself living a life of hypervigilance, constant scanning, overanalyzing, second guessing and dissecting every passing idea, like you're an over-caffeinated detective. One thing I want you to be clear on is awareness is not anxiety. Awareness is not about being on high alert 24-7, just waiting for your mind to betray you. Awareness is you stepping into a role of calm observer rather than the reactor. So, with all of that, what does that actually look like in real life? Let's say you're starting a business.
Speaker 1:You wake up excited, ready to take action, but then your brain being an ever helpful survival machine that it is it says the economy is bad, nobody's spending money, this is probably going to fail. Now, if you're unaware, you will take this thought at face value. You'll accept it as if it is the ultimate truth. You'll start feeling discouraged at a consequence, you'll maybe procrastinate and, before you know it, you'll talk yourself out of even trying. But if you are aware, you'll pause, you'll recognize the thought for what it is Just one possible interpretation of your brain, the first interpretation that the brain makes on default mode, and it is not an undeniable fact. And during that pause, you'll have the option to ask yourself does this thought help me get where I want to go, especially in this business in my life? If the answer is no, then you choose a different one business in my life. If the answer is no, then you choose a different one, and maybe it'll sound something like yes, the economy is tough, but some businesses are doing good, some businesses are thriving, some entrepreneurs are making a lot more money than ever, and my business can be one of them. It will be one of them, inshallah. So notice the difference. Same exact external world, completely different internal response based on what you chose to entertain, and that difference will determine if you have a successful business or not. Knowing that difference is awareness.
Speaker 1:Awareness is not micromanaging every thought. It's about filtering for usefulness. So, if you have thoughts about your relationships, you have thoughts about the weather. You have thoughts about your career, about any and every circumstance that exists in the world outside of you, but then you also have thoughts about your thoughts about how you're feeling, and this is the most under-recognized, under-utilized part of your brain. You have control over the thoughts you're having, about your thoughts, and that control is what defines living a conscious and aware life.
Speaker 1:And this is exactly where coaching comes in. A coach does not hand you a pre-packaged answer or tell you what to believe. You've already been doing that all of your life. That will just be another version of the current educational system that you're trying to outgrow. Instead, a coach helps you watch your brain in action, like a personal trainer for your mind, and as a coach, I will start to help you notice the automatic thoughts that you're having. What thoughts are running the show? The mental habits that have been quietly dictating your life, these unconscious patterns that have been keeping you stuck, and once you see them, you gain power to change them. Your brain being the primary point of contact with the world, it makes meanings of most of the situations around you and it translates the world around you, and your primary responsibility as an owner of your brain is to decide which thought that popped up will be accepted, if you're going to take it at face value or if you're going to reject it.
Speaker 1:I do have to warn you that, despite of all of the groundbreaking information I've given you in this podcast, trying to do this work alone initially is like assembling furniture without any instructions. It is technically possible, but rather unnecessarily frustrating and long. With coaching, you get real-time guidance on how to engage with your mind in a way that actually serves you, and you do it quickly. You learn how to direct your thoughts towards success and confidence instead of constantly spiraling into self-doubt and overthinking and then having to catch yourself over and over again just to start all over. With coaching, you become the kind of person who doesn't react to life, but designs it. So this is my invite for you to join my program, which is the Fast Track to Confidence.
Speaker 1:Insha'allah, we do the majority of the work within the first three months at Empowered Muslim Woman Program and it is for you if you're feeling stuck in your head, you're over analyzing every decision and you don't know how to become more aware of your thoughts.
Speaker 1:This is where we master the skill of intentional thinking and this is where we turn the battle of your mind into a fun activity. With that I pray to Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala. O Allah, knower of the unseen and the seen, purifier of the hearts and minds, grant me and all of us clarity in our thoughts, strength in our faith and peace in our hearts. Ya Allah, protect us from the whispers that create doubt, fear and hesitation. Replace them with thoughts that bring confidence and purpose and trust in you, o Allah, with thoughts that bring confidence and purpose and trust in you. O Allah, guide my mind to focus on the beliefs that matter to me. That will bring me closer to you. That will bring me closer to a life of the purpose you intend for me. O Allah, make us among those who think with wisdom, act with sincerity and trust in your perfect plan alone. Ameen, ya Rabbul, ameen, please keep me in your du'as. I will talk to you guys next time.