Nayyirah Waheed wrote, "it's not a writer's block, it's a heart block." I spent last week reading through my old blog posts. Asma Nasaruddin's article on self reflect really spoke to me, because writing was a form of self reflect for me, and I say was because I haven't been writing much lately.
When I first came into Islaam (in the sense that I chose Islaam for myself instead of blindly believing what my parents told me to), I was going through a phrase whereby I isolated myself from many things including friends and I deleted my social media accounts. I felt I needed some quiet in my life, to hear the sounds that really matter. Pa had just gotten me a laptop then, and this was when we didn't have internet except a broadband that had to be shared, if I remember correctly. A lot of my time was spent questioning the life that I was living, questioning a God my eyes could not see, questioning the teachings of a religion that was from 1400 years ago.
I wrote and wrote and wrote. In 2014 when I first started college and felt lonely, writing was my solace. I clung tightly to my Qur'an and my prayers, and wrote and wrote and wrote. Writing to me is a form of reminding myself of who I want to be and the life I want to lead, and looking back since my environment wasn't Islamic, I was trying harder than I am now to cling tightly to the rope of Allah. I felt lonely and my imaan wasn't admirable and I was constantly sad but I tried, alot more than I am now.
I haven't been writing much lately. I got a job in an Islamic enviromment (which I am consistently grateful for) and I guess I started taking my Islaam for granted. I picked up some bad habits I left, which contributed to the heart block. Sometimes when you have other people doing things for you, reminding you if your Islaam, you just stop doing it yourself. But re-reading Asma Nasaruddin's blogpost reminded me of how important self reflection is, and how vital it is to our growth. And since I haven't done it in quite sometime, I am now experiencing a heart block, a metaphorical heart block, which makes it hard for me to connect to God again (I am not saying my heart is God, but rather a pure heart makes it easier to reconnect to God). I need to take time off again. Enter the quiet as the Prophet sallahu alayhi wasallam did before prophethood, constantly going to cave hira. I need to enter the quiet again, so I can hear the important sounds in life. I need fo enter the quiet again, so my heart can be purified.
