Islamic Life Coach School Podcast
Islamic Life Coach School Podcast
Crutches of Self-Worth
The endless pursuit of achievement, validation, and perfection has become the silent struggle of many Muslim women today. We dive deep into a profound dilemma: the confusion between self-worth and value that keeps high-achieving women trapped in cycles of burnout and spiritual disconnection.
Your worth was never meant to be earned. Before your name, before your body, even before your first breath, your soul stood before Allah SWT and acknowledged Him as your Lord. That moment, not your accomplishments, sealed your worth forever. Yet many of us use "crutches" to hold up our self-worth: career success, perfect motherhood, flawless homemaking, or even our spiritual practices. These virtuous pursuits become burdens when our identities depend on them.
What crutches are you using to hold up your self-worth? What would change if you believed you were already worthy? Free yourself from the need to prove, perform, or please. Your worship, your work, your relationships can all flow from a place of inherent worthiness rather than desperate striving. This isn't just easier—it's sacred.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If this podcast has benefited you, imagine the value of a one-on-one meeting with me! Click below to schedule your FREE consultation. Discover solutions with no obligation.
https://www.islamiclifecoachschool.com/appointments
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 I'm going to talk about if and any crutch that you might be using to determine your self-worth, and I've talked about this topic a lot, but I want to revisit it from a different angle. Every woman I coach and most of them being high achievers, deeply spiritual, doing everything quote-unquote right, praying on time, volunteering, keeping up with the home, meeting deadlines at work, planning meals, all of the organizations related to the kids and yet still wondering why don't I feel enough? Why does it feel like I'm always chasing something? For the most part, the fundamental error in the thought is that she's confusing her worth with her value. What she doesn't realize as a person, and you might not be realizing either, is that you're leaning on accomplishments, your productivity, as crutches to fulfill your self-worth, Not because she wants to show off or impress others and that's why she's doing these things but because, deep down, she's terrified that without these things, she won't matter Her career, her kids, her cooking, her Quran and other spiritual goals, her hijab, her emotional labor or her physical labor. All of it becomes a way to earn something that was never meant to be earned and that is her right to feel worthy. And I'm speaking directly to you, because the hardest part is that these crutches are invisible. They look very virtuous, they are worship, motherhood, discipline, ambition and all of these things look beautiful, but when you use them to hold up your identity and you feel hollow or lost without them, they stop being blessings and they stop being beautiful. They start to become burdens, because then that's what weighs you down. And one way to identify if you're using any of these things as crutches to your worth is if you try to rest, then your mind gives you a guilt trip, your mind. It starts to whisper I'm wasting time, I should be doing something else. Even if you sit down for five minutes, your brain fires off a to-do list and all of the things you haven't done yet. The voice says don't just sit there, you'll fall behind. And behind what? Behind who? That's the question. It never asks and never answers.
Speaker 1:What you've been sold since childhood is that your worth is earned through productivity. And especially when you're a Muslim woman, it tells you that a good Muslimah serves non-stop, makes everyone comfortable, is always on whatever is needed, is never tired, doesn't question she's useful. She seems busy, but the irony is that, behind all of this lie, your worth was decided long before you had a chance to prove anything. Your worth was decided before even your body was formed, before your name was given as an identity, before your parents even taught you right from wrong. And that's when your soul stood before Allah SWT and Allah asked Am I not your Lord? And your soul said yes, you are. I bear witness. That is the moment where your worth was sealed, not because of anything you did Not because of anything you promised to do, simply because you were recognized by your creator. And that's the kind of worth I'm talking about here, the worth that is not built, not earned, not achieved. It's been bestowed upon you.
Speaker 1:And the most confusing part for a lot of Muslim women is that you don't even unlock or lock that worth up with worship, you don't boost it with good behavior, you don't lose it with sin. You were created with it intact, and the one who created it for you is perfect. And this is where so many women get stuck. Even the ones who love Allah SWT deeply have conviction in their faith. If worth always remains intact, then what happens to the concept of sin and evil, and worship and good deeds? What happens if someone disobeys Allah SWT or lives their entire life in worship and remembrance of Allah? And the answer to that is very simple for me yes, allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, loves the people that are striving in his path, but you have to remember is that you're not doing it to become worthy. You're doing it because you already are worthy.
Speaker 1:When you worship from a place of unworthiness, your salah becomes a transaction. Your fasting feels self-punitive when you're hungry. But when you worship from a place of worthiness your dhikr, your salah, it becomes presence, it becomes peace, it comes from a place of love. And this is the shift I want you guys to create, because striving to be enough, to striving from enoughness and when you start seeing it that way, everything softens. Even if, despite of your best efforts, you miss a prayer, instead of spiraling into shame, you remind yourself what shame was built for and that was built for you, to remember that the door of tawbah is still open. And if you fail at something, instead of collapsing into self-hate, you hold yourself with compassion, knowing your worth hasn't budged and every time you drop a ball in your life, you still have a chance to be just as held, just as loved, just as seen by your Lord, allah SWT.
Speaker 1:Your worth is not on a sliding scale, it's not tied to your ibadah log, it's not calculated based on how many people you serve or how much you accomplish. What does change based on the quality and the quantity of your worship? Is your value in front of Allah? Your worth has always been decided. It was decided in the beginning. It's a part of your worship. Is your value in front of Allah? Your worth has always been decided. It was decided in the beginning. It's a part of your fitrah. It's already written. It's already being honored.
Speaker 1:What I'm talking about the difference between worth and value is. Even the smartest, most self-aware women get confused, and even I sometimes use those words interchangeably in a casual conversation. But that's actually not real. That's not true. For the sake of your healing and for the sake of my goal of providing clarity through this episode for you, I want to hold worth and value as different concepts. Your worth is fixed, untouchable, assigned by Allah. It doesn't go up and down. Your value is flexible. It changes based on what you're offering to the world or the Akhira. It is what you create, what you give, how you show up, what the intention behind your actions is. It can increase with the acts of worship and sincerity. It can drop with heedlessness, hypocrisy and sin. This is the thing you build with intention and discipline and action. Let me help you understand the difference by giving a worldly example.
Speaker 1:Let's say there's a neurosurgeon and another one who's a journalist. They both have equal worth as human beings, but their value, the thing they contribute to the world, is different. The neurosurgeon is paid differently, not because she's more important as a person, but because of the value she provides in the specific space. Her training was hard, value she provides in the specific space. Her training was hard, her work is technically demanding. And the journalist, on the other hand, while also deeply essential in her own right, contributes a different kind of value. The problem arises when you start believing that the neurosurgeon is worth more than the journalist. Everyone is equal in front of Allah. Everyone lines up in Salah, equally in front of Allah.
Speaker 1:When we start mistaking our worth with our value, that's when we start to create burnout by chasing goals in this world. Yes, it is absolutely true that higher taqwa raises your rank in front of Allah, that more sincere intention carries more weight, that a small deed done with presence can be more valuable than a larger one done with arrogance. And yet none of that touches your worth. And the distinction between those two concepts of worth and value is extremely important, because when you realize your worth is intact, you stop chasing, you stop using the world as your crutch and you start to heal. When you stop confusing the two, your worship becomes cleaner. Your good deeds don't stay contaminated with the desperate need to feel like you matter. Your business, your parenting, your dhikr. They become an expression of your value, not an attempt to fix something that was never broken. You stop trying to earn your place in the world and you start offering value to the world from a place of deep-rooted conviction, and that elevates your intention behind your actions more than anything else in the world.
Speaker 1:So today, I want you to ask yourself, more than anything else in the world. So today, I want you to ask yourself what have you been using as a crutch for your self-worth? Now, notice, I didn't tell you to ask if you're using something for a crutch for your self-worth, because I know for sure that's happening somewhere somehow. Just sit with this question what have I been using as a crutch of my self-worth? What have you been subconsciously saying, as long as I have this, I am enough. Is it the amount of books you read? The people that are praising you at the dinner party that you hosted? How many dishes you served? How many kids you've raised? The size of your paycheck? The compliments that you get at work? The quality of your wardrobe and how you dress? The number of Instagram likes? The fact that your husband seems happy with you or he complains, the way you never start a conflict and always keep the peace?
Speaker 1:What is the crutch that your self-worth is hanging on? Because, whatever you identify it, as that is not related to your worth at all. You can stop chasing it. It's just built to seem that way by your brain to make it feel safe. But the most beautiful part is that your worth was never in danger to begin with. So there's nothing to fear. You are already worthy, already acceptable, already lovable. Your degree, your happy marriage, the carefully curated image of being capable, competent and calm you don't need those things to be enough. You might want them and that's allowed, and you can strive towards all of that but you don't need it.
Speaker 1:Healing comes when you say I'm not doing this because my worth depends on it. I'm doing this because I choose to, because I want to, because I want to contribute, because I want to love my children, because I value higher education, because I want to build financial independence, because I believe in excellence, because I'm doing it for Allah. Once you name your crutch and stop calling it the source of your worth, you get your freedom back. You shift your language from I have to do all of these things to I want to do all of these things. You go from this defines me to this expresses me, and suddenly the life that used to feel heavy becomes lighter. What used to feel like pressure becomes peace, and that ever-moving goalpost of achieving self-worth with action becomes achievable and internalizes. And from now on, your actions are rooted in value, intention and purpose, not fear of unworthiness and inshallah. When you're able to do that, life doesn't just get easier. With the same amount of ambitious goals, it becomes sacred inshallah, it becomes a life of ihsan.
Speaker 1:I want you guys to go from I'm proud of achieving to I'm proud of doing to I'm proud of just being. To be proud of being means you don't tie your piece with your checklist. You don't earn your approval. You're allowed to feel proud, even when you've coasted through the day and you haven't really accomplished anything, even if you didn't contribute, even if when you needed others more than they needed you. And this last one is especially hard, because most of you are okay with being generous, but you're deeply uncomfortable with needing, with resting, with receiving. So when your body begs for rest and your nervous system fights it and guilt shows up, just take five minutes to do nothing on purpose and let that be enough and be comfortable with it.
Speaker 1:Let a quiet moment be a success in itself. Do something that serves no one else but you and it might be something you're already doing, but you didn't consider it just to be for yourself. Maybe it's reading a page of a book just for yourself. Maybe it's making a page of a book just for yourself. Maybe it's making tea. Maybe it's dressing up, even if no one's going to see you, and write down three ways your presence alone is valuable. The more you practice this, the more your mind will start to trust that it's safe just to be, not to prove, just to be with Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, as your witness. While that might look like laziness to your brain in the beginning, while it's naive, while it's trying to equate your inherent worth with your productivity, this is far from laziness. This is the right approach to striving.
Speaker 1:For many Muslim women, childhood was a training ground for performance-based belonging. Childhood was a training ground for performance-based belonging. You were taught that being good means being quiet, compliant, obedient. That love comes when you please others, not when you honor yourself. When you were told to give somebody a hug even if you didn't want to, to say yes even when your body said no, to smile even when you were scared, to be polite, agreeable, helpful, especially if you were a girl, especially if others were watching. And all of that worked because it got you approval, it got you attention, it got you love, it got you the calm, belonging and the peace that you craved as a child. This became your survival strategy, and it worked so well because now it brought you into adulthood, only for you to not realize that you're handing your self-worth to all of these things.
Speaker 1:So here's I want you to know now just because it worked doesn't mean it has to stay, because when my clients tell me that I feel ashamed for being a people pleaser, for over giving, for overdoing, for masking my true values, for overgiving, for overdoing, for masking my true values. I always tell them don't shame. That very skill that kept you safe. That version of you at a point in your life was brilliant. She did what she needed to do. She got you here. But also, you're not a child anymore. You don't have to beg for belonging. You don't have to prove your belonging. You don't have to trade your truth for approval. Now, as an adult woman, you get to choose differently, not from worth but from value, something you choose to do. You get to unlearn what made you invisible and relearn what makes you whole. The healing doesn't mean that you throw away the girl who performed her way to safety. It means that you thank her, you let her rest because she got you where you are in your life now.
Speaker 1:If I could gift every Muslim woman who has survived this conditioning a few sentences to carry with her, I would say you did what you had to do to survive, but now you're safe enough to be seen exactly as you are. You never had to earn your place, you were born with it, it was just hidden. You're not hard to love. You're just used to loving others before yourself. Anchor these in your mind and body. You don't need to prove, perform or please to be worthy. You already are and now you just get to live your life like that. With that, I pray to Allah SWT. Ya Allah, remind me the worth that was written by you for me before the world ever saw me. Free me from the need to prove, to please, to perform. Help me rest in truth that I'm already enough. Replace the weight of guilt by the light of your mercy and let me live and achieve from the place of being loved, not earning love. Ameen, ya Rabbul Alameen, please keep me in your duas. I will talk to you guys next time.