How to Heal With Islam: Step By Step

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The process of healing from the trauma and hardship of this dunya is actually pretty straightforward. Here’s the simplest way to put it.

Imagine your life as a house. Over time, your house accumulates wear and tear. Your trauma is the property damage: rust, mold, wood rot, poor insulation, roof leaks—all the unseen and ignored issues that have slowly deteriorated your home.

The foundation and structure—the bones of your house (the walls, floors, roof, and layout)—represent everything you’ve learned since childhood. These are your actions, beliefs, thoughts, habits, and defense mechanisms. You've lived with these conditions for so long that they’ve become your normal. It’s what you’re used to, what you’ve adapted to. But eventually, something happens that wakes you up and brings your attention to the areas that are neglected and begging for help. The damage is too obvious to ignore now, and you’re certain that this isn’t how Allah ‎_{سبحانه وتعالى} wants your house to be. You can no longer live this way; a change must happen.

Step 1: How bad is it?

The first step is to assess the damage. How much is there? How deep does it go? There may be more than you’re even aware of. You have to know the full extent of the problem before you can make any plans for improvement.

Step 2: What can you invest?

Next, you decide how much time, money, and energy you’re willing and able to invest in the remodel. This is your investment in yourself.

You then envision what your home will feel like when it’s done—how you want to live in it, the vibe you want it to have, how you want others to experience your home. Most importantly, how you’ll connect the blessing that is your home to Allah ‎سبحانه وتعالى.

Now you’re ready to begin rebuilding your home with the qualities and standards of Islam. You then start to look for someone to do the remodel for you, preferably someone who’s a one-stop shop. But as you look for contractors, you find that none are all-inclusive. Each one has limitations and frankly, you can’t afford any of them. You call out to Allah ‎_{سبحانه وتعالى}, asking Him to do it. He responds, telling you that He will not do the work for you (13:11). He will only assist you.

Well…DIY it is.

You vow to commit to the process because you know that once you begin, there’s no turning back. So you go back to Allah ‎_{سبحانه وتعالى} and beg Him to be your Project Manager—guiding you to the right resources, providing the materials, and controlling the timeline, design, and plan. He accepts, but with one condition: you have to listen to Him and trust Him fully (2:186).

Step 3: How’d ya get here?

Before any demolition can begin, you must look at how your house got into this condition in the first place. Then, determine what can’t return to the house once it’s finished (haram, bad habits, and negative beliefs and influences). You need to declutter—removing junk and uncleanliness by sorting through your belongings (current actions, thoughts, and feelings) to find what’s worth keeping and what needs to go. You may even find things you forgot you had or things that belong to someone else.

Step 4: Begin the Renovation

Once you’ve decluttered, you start addressing the hazards—the trauma that has taken root like mold or wood rot. You repair the bones of the house, all while continually learning and acquiring knowledge because you’re not a plumber or a construction worker, so you’re learning as you go.

Once the structural work is done, you move on to the cosmetic details like painting, adding fixtures, and cabinetry. You then bring in the belongings you’ve decided to keep, along with the new things you’ve acquired.

Step 5: Welcome home

Now it’s time to live in your new reality (your new identity of Islam). You’re excited for this new life and are experiencing the joys of a new home (the sweetness of imaan). You share it with the people around you in a spirit of love and gratitude, not out of boasting or arrogance. You share it for the sake of Allah ‎_{سبحانه وتعالى} while also protecting it with an alarm system to keep out intruders and anyone who seeks to harm it.

You’ve effectively remodeled your home, masha Allah. Along the way, your Project Manager controlled all the specifics, and you simply followed His lead with obedience, tawakkul, and sabr.

Step 6: Maintain and Improve

But the work doesn’t stop there. You begin looking at the exterior of your home for ways to improve and strengthen it. You ask your Project Manager to plan, design, and facilitate all over again while you continue to maintain the cleanliness of the interior. Matching the exterior (body and health) with the interior (mind, heart, and spirit) ensures that you’re protecting your internal assets while also maintaining a balance of beauty and function.

Bit by bit, you improve.

Healing with Islam: A True Renovation

Healing with Islam is much like remodeling a home. It requires investment, commitment, and action.

It’s important that Muslims learn to heal using the tools and resources from other Muslims since every other option is void of taqwa, and healing without Allah ‎_{سبحانه وتعالى} is like building a home with bad contractors, poor materials, and a faulty plan. It’s a never-ending process that results in dissociation, intellectualizing, misunderstanding Allah’s Signs and the belief that you’ve healed all by yourself, astaghfirullah. And even if you manage to “heal,” the peace and comfort will be temporary, limited to this life only. Without a concrete, firm foundation, your progress will be flimsy, like a spider web (29:41), giving a false sense of security.

On the other hand, expecting to heal solely by reading the Quran and acquiring knowledge without applying what you learn through self-reflection (muhasabah) and heart purification (tazkiyah) is like renovating over structural damage. These are temporary fixes, cosmetic changes to hide the underlying issues from others and even yourself (2:9-10). Without taking accountability and doing the work, you stay stuck in a victim mentality, unaware of your negative impact on others. You repeat the same life tests because you haven’t learned the lessons, all while suppressing your trauma and its effects because you’re too afraid to confront your inner voice, negative emotions, and past experiences, or you’re too attached to the dunya and the delusional pleasures it provides.

Either way, healing with Islam has nothing to do with shadow work or healing your inner child. It requires taqwa (consciousness of Allah), ilm (knowledge), muraqabah (self-awareness), and muhasabah (self-accountability), and tazkiyah (heart purification). It requires elevating to your nafs al-mutma’inna (89:27) and choosing to heal with the help of Allah ‎_{سبحانه وتعالى}.

If you’re ready to do the work and make the change, I’ve created a step-by-step course condensed into a workbook. It’s simple, fast, effective, and more affordable than any other course. You don’t need a life coach; you need Allah ‎_{سبحانه وتعالى} and your own commitment.

If you’re not particularly good with analogies, here’s the exact step-by-step process of healing with Islam.

1. Observe your actions and behaviors over a period of time, tracking them as they occur. (What are your repetitive behaviors? What factors influence your decision making?)

2. Assess your current situation and review your observations. (Rate the quality of each area of your life. Review and reflect on what you’ve noticed about your habits and thoughts. What stands out? What is causing the most harm to yourself and/or those around you?)

3. Visualize a future with Allah ‎سبحانه وتعالى in it, and then commit to it. (What does a full life look like with Allah ‎سبحانه وتعالى? How do you imagine a connection with Allah ‎سبحانه وتعالى to feel like? Are you truly ready to change?)

4. Review your past and connect it to your present actions and thought processes. (How has your past experiences changed you? What have you learned from each hardship?)

5. Detox your soul from haram, excessive negative emotions, and negative or overstimulating influences. (Remove anything unnecessary that consumes your time, money, and energy, distracting you from Allah ‎سبحانه وتعالى, yourself, your family, and your responsibilities. Learn to regulate your emotions.)

6. Replace and reframe your thoughts with taqwa. Reclaim control of your actions through habit reform while retaining the good parts of you. (What have you seen, heard, or experienced that attributed to your limiting beliefs? How can you replace the belief or feeling with taqwa instead? Learn to replace bad habits with good deeds by properly rewarding and punishing your nafs.)

7. Create an Islamic identity by reconnecting with yourself, reestablishing and strengthening relationships, and setting healthy boundaries and expectations with this dunya. (How can you show gratitude to Allah ‎سبحانه وتعالى versus just telling Him? How can you benefit people rather than please them?)

8. Continue seeking beneficial knowledge and building on your new foundation, so that you may reach contentment in Allah ‎سبحانه وتعالى, in sha Allah. (How can you take your ibadah one step further? How can you increase in imaan regularly? How will maintain your clean heart?)

The Heart Recovery Workbook guides you through this exact process in depth, removing the guesswork and overwhelm.

Assalamu alaikum, until next time, in sha Allah,

Khalisa.