There’s an increasingly popular approach to personal growth that might be destroying your soul.
Thanks to Insta-drama and Fake-book a lot of ‘viral’ videos are out there that are designed to appeal to your lowest self (ie. your nafs), all with the promise of making you a better version of yourself and preserving your mental health. (Ha!)
Like much of the devil’s advice, sometimes these ideas come with a cost – in this case, the cost of doing long-term needless damage and adding pointless drama to your relationships.
One particularly insidious success mantra that might be sabotaging your relationships says:
“Your success is determined by the 5 people you spend the most time with. So if your family and friends are not super-successful, or totally supportive of your goals, or if they’re being negative… cut them out!”
I’ve come to realise that one of the Devil’s top strategies to fool humans is:
“Mix lots of truth with a little bit of falsehood… and people will follow the falsehood without even questioning it!”
Here’s the truth part:
We are constantly influencing and being influenced by those around us. The less conscious we are of the words others use (and the words we use inside our own minds), the more susceptible we are to those words.
It’s also true that one of the fastest ways to move towards a goal is to surround yourself with people who have already achieved it.
There’s even a prophetic metaphor that reinforces this idea of keeping good company:
“The example of a good companion compared to a bad one, is like that of the perfume seller and the blacksmith; from the first you would either buy musk or enjoy its good smell while the blacksmith’s would either burn your clothes or leave you with a bad smell.”
– – The Prophet Muhammad [Collection: Bukhari]
So what’s the problem? Doesn’t that mean we should immediately then cut out our bad friends and family members? Block them all on Fake-book? Blank their phone calls? Exit the family whatsapp group?
The problem, as I once heard the great Imam Suhaib Webb put it is:
Don’t take your Deen from a Meme.
And when it comes down to it, personal growth is spiritual growth… which is your deen (way of life/ religion).
In the case of this Insta-Drama ‘wisdom’ of cutting out your negative friends, here’s the problem:
Can you ever imagine the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him, the human manifestation of love for all the words, the one with the most distinguished and elevated character… cutting out people because they were negative thinkers?
If he, peace & blessings upon him, cut out people who weren’t as spiritually elevated as him… who would have been left to learn from him?
To the contrary, all the companions thought that they had a special place in his heart and everyone thought they were his best friend! Can you imagine the highly vibe energy he must have been giving to all those around him and the way he must have been treating everyone, in order for them to feel that way?
Anyone can harshly cut people out.
That’s not great character.
It’s a great mistake.
One that I myself am guilty of and not proud of. (If only I knew back then what I know now…)
Those who most closely follow the Sunnah have another approach that works far more effectively when it comes to dealing with negative people.
This approach leads to a few excellent outcomes:
#1: It frees up a lot of your time, bandwidth and mental energy
#2: The other person naturally loses interest in spending more time with you, without you being harsh with them at all, in any way
#3: You feel totally spiritually strong throughout the whole process because you know you’re living in alignment with the Prophet’s Way, peace and blessings upon him.
The only problem is, in order to implement this prophetic approach, you need some spiritual energy and ‘divine downloads’. In other words, you’ve got to drop any expectation of your friend/ family member behaving, thinking or speaking any differently to the way they currently do and you’ve got to be totally comfortable with transmuting their negative energy into Love (rahma) energy.
How in the heck does that work?
It works like this:
- Join the Nafs Mastery Program
- Come to the next live session this coming Tuesday (or watch the recording), titled: “The Prophetic Approach to Dealing With Negative People”
- Ask me any questions during the live session or via your online private Coaching Journal and I’ll coach you on it and give you my personal perspective.
The deadline to get access to this special training is this Friday 4th September at 11:59pm UK time. (After that time, you can still join The Nafs Mastery Program, but not this particular training module).
Here’s where you can get access to the upcoming training on “The Prophetic Approach To Dealing With Negative People”:
