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inner_rihla

@inner_rihla

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EQ development
pre- marital counselling
know your soul.
soul before spouse

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At the recent workshop hosted @nizamiyeschoolmidrand we experienced beautiful shifts and insights into giving a voice to and embracing our hidden fears that become the constant inner voice that hinders our progress.

The fear that you not good enough, not clever enough, not ' smart enough' or just ' too much" .

We identified it, gave it a name then realised that it is not written in stone and that it can be 'dissolved ".

This was a release- an act of tawakkul- handing it over to Allahs limitless mercy and asking Allah to replace it with hope and unshakeable courage so we can all be the leaders we meant to be.

The emotion, letting go and subsequent "lightness ' was evident on all the beaming faces of our attendees

Alhamdulilah for the opportunity to facilitate growth and grow in the process. ❣️

#innertransformation
#growth
#lettinggo
#fyp
#mindsetgrowth taken in Nizamiye School Midrand by @inner_rihla

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6

10 months ago

Every soul carries questions it’s never said aloud...

This is where we pause and ask them together.

Our first Lantern Dialogue will explore Dependency vs. Detachment —
not as an escape, but as a return to love without possession.

🕯
What question sits on your chest right now?

Leave it below — it may light the next lantern.

#InnerRihla #LanternDialogues #FaithReflections #SpiritualGrowth #IslamicHealing #HeartWork #TrustInAllah #Detachment #SoulBeforeSpouse #FaithJourney #IslamicWisdom #LightWithin by @inner_rihla

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0

a year ago

Growth isn’t accidental.

It comes from learning, unlearning, and showing up again and again with humility.

The various trainings I do expands my ability to hold space for kids, couples and youth with emotional insight, balance and compassion. But all of these remain alongside extensive self empowerment work I do on me, myself first. The more I learn, the more I realise:
guiding others requires guiding myself first.

Tiny steps in an anticipated never- ending life-long journey of growth. Grateful.❣️

Alongside this work, I host deeply interactive workshops, one-on-one sessions, couples sessions, and mother–daughter healing spaces — each designed to help you move from overwhelm to clarity, from heaviness to insight.

If you feel ready for a transformational session or want support navigating a challenging season, you’re welcome to reach out and book a session.

#innerspace
#gentlegrowth
#emotionalinsight
#heartcentredwork
#guidedhealing by @inner_rihla

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3

a year ago

THE YARDSTICK SERIES | SELF-DECEPTION

What if the greatest obstacle to becoming a better person is how convinced I already am that I'm a good one?

We all have a story about who we are.

I'm kind. I'm fair. I'm considerate. I would never intentionally hurt anyone.

And perhaps we genuinely believe every word.

But life has a way of placing us in situations where our values come into conflict with our loyalties, our comfort, our interests, or the people we love.

And sometimes, without even realising it, we begin making exceptions to the very principles we believe define us.

We explain. We justify. We defend.

Not necessarily because we are dishonest people, but because acknowledging an uncomfortable truth may require us to reconsider something about ourselves.

And perhaps the most revealing moment comes when someone close to us dares to question our version of events.

Do we examine what they've said?

Or do we find comfort in explaining why they are the problem?

Sometimes we become so busy defending our intentions that we forget to examine the impact of our actions.

The Qur'an calls us to stand firmly for justice, even when it goes against ourselves or those closest to us. (Surah An-Nisa 4:135)

What a profound invitation to self-accountability.

Not to live in constant self-doubt. Not to assume every criticism is justified. And certainly not to condemn ourselves for being imperfect.

But to remain humble enough to recognise that being a good person is not a conclusion we arrive at once and then spend the rest of our lives defending.

It is something we must keep striving towards.

Perhaps the real Yardstick isn't how convincingly I can explain my goodness.

It's how willing I am to question myself when the truth asks something difficult of me.

Ya Allah, protect us from the blindness of our own certainty. Grant us hearts that recognise truth, even when it challenges the stories we tell ourselves. Aameen.

— the inner RIHLA
A Journey Within.

#TheInnerRihla #TheYardstickSeries #SelfDeception #SelfReflection #SelfAccountability Muhasabah IslamicReflections InnerGrowth EmotionalAwareness PersonalGrowth Integrity Tazkiyah MindfulLiving JourneyWithin by @inner_rihla

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7 days ago

There is fear in our communities right now.

The recent discovery of the bodies of women in and around Kempton Park has raised deeply disturbing questions. While authorities have not confirmed that these deaths are the work of a serial killer, the fear women are feeling is very real.

But perhaps that is also the point.

We should not need the possibility of a serial killer to be horrified by violence against women.

Because long before these particular headlines, women in South Africa have been changing how they live in order to stay safe.

We share locations.
We send “I'm home” messages.
We avoid certain roads.
We reconsider the time of day.
We clutch our keys.
We look behind us.
We teach our daughters to be vigilant.

And somehow, these behaviours have become so ordinary that we barely recognise what they represent:

women adjusting their freedom around the possibility of male violence.

Yes, let us tell our women and girls to be careful.

But let us be equally relentless in asking what we are teaching our boys.

Let us speak to our sons about consent, anger, rejection, entitlement, dignity and the sanctity of another human being.

Let men challenge the conversations, jokes, behaviours and attitudes of other men that women may never even hear.

Let families stop protecting reputations at the expense of victims.

Let communities stop confusing silence with dignity.

And let us stop waiting until another woman becomes a headline before we decide that this matters.

As Muslims, we know that every human life carries sanctity. Our response cannot only be fear for our own daughters and sisters. It must also be a refusal to tolerate injustice against someone else's.

May Allah protect every woman who leaves her home today expecting simply to return to it.

May He bring justice to those whose lives have been taken.

May He give strength to the families waiting for answers.

And may He give us the courage to become part of the change we keep asking for.

Enough.

#TheInnerRihla #Enough #ViolenceAgainstWomen #GBV #SouthAfrica ProtectWomen EndGBV WomenDeserveSafety by @inner_rihla

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15

a month ago

“But I would have done it for you.”

Sometimes that sentence isn't really about the thing that wasn't done.

It's about what we believe it says about our place in someone's heart.

I would have noticed.
I would have remembered.
I would have checked.
I wouldn't have needed you to ask.

And somewhere between what we would have done and what they didn't do, we can arrive at a painful conclusion:

Maybe I don't matter to you the way you matter to me.

But I'm learning that reciprocity may be more complicated than that.

People don't always anticipate love in the same way. And expecting someone to know what I have never communicated can quietly turn love into a test they don't even know they're taking.

But there is another truth too.

Once I have let you know me — once I have told you what matters, what hurts, what helps, what makes me feel held — then what you do with that knowledge matters.

A repeated need is no longer unknown information.

Perhaps reciprocity isn't about finding someone who will always do exactly what I would have done.

Perhaps it is about two people who are willing to keep paying attention.

To speak.

To notice.

To learn.

And to allow what they learn about one another to change the way they love.

Because maybe one of the quietest forms of intimacy is being able to say:

“I'm learning you.”

And knowing that somewhere along the way...

they are learning you too.

— the inner RIHLA
A journey within.

#reflection
#growingdaily by @inner_rihla

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1

a month ago

Sometimes belonging has less to do with whether there is a seat for us and more to do with who sits down in it.

Is it me?

Or the carefully edited version of me who has learnt what to say, what not to say, when to laugh something off, when to stay quiet, how much to need, and how much of myself is safe to bring into the room?

The difficult part is that adaptation isn't always self-abandonment.

We compromise.
We practise adab.
We accommodate.
We grow.

But somewhere between considering others and constantly managing ourselves so that others remain comfortable, the line can become difficult to see.

And sometimes, nobody in the present room drew that line at all.

Sometimes we walked in carrying the memory of another room — one where disagreement cost us connection, having needs felt burdensome, or being fully ourselves didn't feel safe.

So perhaps belonging requires more than asking:
“Do they want me here?”

Perhaps it also asks:
“Am I still here — as myself?”

And maybe that's the yardstick.

Not whether I can move through relationships
without ever having to adjust.

Not whether everybody accepts every part of me.

But whether I can remain connected to others
without repeatedly disconnecting from myself to do it.

And when I cannot tell the difference, may Allah give me the wisdom to know when adaptation is adab, when silence is wisdom, when speaking is necessary — and when my fear of losing a place is costing me too much of myself.

What have you used as your yardstick for belonging?

#TheYardstickSeries #Belonging #TheInnerRihla #AJourneyWithin by @inner_rihla

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2

2 months ago

Sometimes we are not arguing about what happened.

We are arguing about what we believe what happened means.

A silence becomes rejection.
A disagreement becomes disrespect.
Someone needing space becomes abandonment.
The absence of conflict becomes peace.
Still hurting becomes proof that we haven't healed.

And sometimes, our interpretation is right.

But sometimes we have taken what we can see from where we stand — through our history, our hurt, our hopes and our fears — and mistaken it for the whole picture.

Perhaps the work isn't to distrust ourselves.

Perhaps it is to become curious enough to ask:

What do I know?
What have I concluded?
And what might I not know?

And then to have the discernment to recognise when something deserves another perspective…

and when a repeated pattern has already given us the information we need.

A lens doesn't have to be false to be incomplete.

May Allah grant us the clarity to see beyond assumption, the wisdom to recognise what is being shown to us, and the humility to know the difference.

What lens have you discovered you were looking through?

#TheYardstickSeries #TheInnerRihla #Perspective #AJourneyWithin by @inner_rihla

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7

2 months ago

I didn't go looking for progress.

I wasn't trying to "get myself out there."

I wasn't testing whether I was ready to be around people again.

I simply saw someone I love working incredibly hard, trying to find her feet in something new...

and I felt she needed a little help.

Something in me responded.

So I showed up.

And somewhere between welcoming people, learning things I knew absolutely nothing about, watching someone else's drive and determination up close, staying long after I technically needed to be there, and coming home exhausted...

I realised something.

Helping her was helping me too.

Not because my grief had become smaller.

Not because I had suddenly become the person I used to be.

But because, for the first time in a long while, I felt useful.

Curious.

Interested.

Inspired.

I found myself admiring not only how my cousin was building a business, but how deftly she seemed to handle life itself—the problems, the pressure, the constant decisions, the commitment to doing things well.

And I was learning.

Not because I needed to.

Simply because I wanted to.

That mattered.

We live in a world that so often operates on WII-FI: What's In It For Me?

So from the outside, perhaps giving up my time to do something I'm neither employed nor paid to do doesn't make much sense.

Except there is something in it for me.

It just can't be measured in money.

Purpose.
Usefulness.
Learning.
Connection.
Inspiration.

And somewhere amongst all of that...

a tiny glimmer of myself.

Perhaps progress isn't always something we deliberately pursue.

Sometimes we reach out because someone else needs a hand...

and only afterwards realise that, somehow,

they gave us somewhere to place ours.

Maybe my grief hasn't become smaller.

Maybe...

my life is simply becoming a little larger around it.

And for now, I'm willing to call that progress. 🌿

The Yardstick Series | PROGRESS by @inner_rihla

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2 months ago

There is another memory this building holds.

For years, I spent endless hours in its prayer room making dua for my father.

So many times we thought we were losing him.

And so many times I begged Allah that, when his time eventually came, we would be there.

That he would not leave this world alone.

That his family would surround him.

That we would be praying for him as he returned to Allah.

I had imagined that ending so many times.

Yet when my father's time came, it wasn't there.

He died at home.

And when my mother entered that hospital years later, death was the furthest thing from my mind.

I never sat in that prayer room asking Allah for that ending for her.

And yet...

when her time came, we were there.

Around her bedside.

Praying.

Making dua.

Accompanying her as she returned to her Rabb.

Almost exactly as I had once pleaded with Allah for my father.

And that realisation has stayed with me.

Perhaps some duas are not unanswered.

Perhaps the answer travels a road we could never have imagined.

Perhaps it arrives later.

Differently.

In circumstances we would never have chosen.

And perhaps that is another illusion we have to surrender—the belief that because we can imagine the answer, we somehow know what Allah's answer should look like.

I still don't walk into that building without feeling it.

But I'm beginning to remember that those walls did not only witness my loss.

They witnessed my hope.

My fear.

My service to my parents.

And countless hours of turning to Allah when I had nowhere else to turn.

Maybe I don't need to reclaim the building from grief.

Maybe I simply need to stop allowing one memory to own all the others.

Because even there...

Allah heard me.

The answer may have been delayed.

The recipient may not have been the one I imagined.

But the dua was never lost.

Allah had heard it all along.

The Yardstick Series | PLACE
What happens when one painful chapter becomes the measure of the whole story? by @inner_rihla

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14

2 months ago

The things that stayed with me...
were never the things I could unwrap.

As I reflected on my birthday,
I realised something unexpected.

When I replayed the day in my mind,
I wasn't thinking about things.

I was thinking about moments.

A conversation.

A shared meal.

A familiar voice.

A message that was not generic but simple and sincere.

Words spoken with sincerity.

The kind that quietly find a place in your heart and remain there long after the day has passed.

It made me wonder...

Perhaps we spend so much of our lives trying to give people things,

when what they carry with them are the moments that made them feel seen, remembered and loved.

Maybe the most meaningful gifts aren't the ones we hold in our hands...

They're the ones we carry in our hearts.

This is another reflection from The Yardstick Series.

Perhaps before asking,

"What can I give?"

we might first ask,

"What will endure?"

🌿 What is one memory that has stayed with you for years—not because of what you received, but because of how someone made you feel?

##InnerRihla
#yardstickseries
#reflections
#emotionalmaturity
#bdaygiftsideas by @inner_rihla

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2 months ago

We often assume we're all talking about the same thing.

Strength.

Success.

Love.

Faith.

Grief.

But are we?

A conversation this week made me realise that two people can look at the same person and come to completely different conclusions—not because one is right and the other is wrong, but because they're measuring with different rulers.

It made me stop and ask myself:

What ruler have I been using?

Who handed it to me?

My family?

My culture?

My experiences?

My wounds?

Or has Allah been gently inviting me to measure life differently all along?

Perhaps that's the beginning of every inner journey.

Not changing who we are...

But examining the measure by which we've been judging ourselves and everyone else.

This is the beginning of a new Inner Rihla reflection series.

The Yardstick.

Because before we ask "Am I enough?" perhaps we first need to ask...

"Am I using the right ruler?"

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

When you hear the word "strength," what does it mean to you?

Leave a comment ! by @inner_rihla

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1

3 months ago