Muslim Life Hackers

Ruwaida Dohry: Creating A Safe Relationship with Yourself

• Mifrah M • Episode 18

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This episode features Ruwaida Dohry, an Islamic life coach who specializes in helping women heal, grow, and live their best lives with Allah at the center. This episode delves into topics such as spiritual optimism, maintaining positive thinking, the influence of Shaitan, social conditioning, and fostering healthy relationships with oneself and others. The conversation also touches on the challenges and importance of maintaining a positive outlook in life according to Islamic teachings.

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
00:41 Spiritual Optimism and Positive Outlook
02:09 Dealing with Hardships and Patience
04:02 Understanding Negative Thinking
12:17 Building Safe Relationships
25:33 Weekly Goals for Personal Growth
29:13 Recommended Books and Final Thoughts
31:17 Conclusion

About Ruwaida Dohry:
Ruwaida Dohry is a certified Islamic Life Coach specializing in empowering women to heal, grow, and live their best lives with Allah at the centre of their journey. Her guiding principle is that spiritual optimism paves the way to a blessed destiny.

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🏖️ This episode is sponsored by Sisters Explore, a company I founded to offer guided small-group travel for Muslim women to connect, explore, and enjoy faith-centered journeys. Learn more at http://www.sisters-explore.com

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Ruwaida Dohry:

Even if someone is treating you really harshly, You'll be able to see that, this is coming from them and this is not a reflection of me or this is not me.

Asalamu Alaikum and welcome to the Muslim Life Hackers podcast. I'm your host Mifrah Mahroof and in today's episode we're going to be having Ruwaida Dohry join us. Ruwaida is an Islamic life coach who specializes in empowering women to heal, grow and live their best lives with Allah at the center of their journey. Her guiding principle is that spiritual optimism paves the way for a blessed destiny. So without further ado, let's get on to today's show.

Mifrah Mahroof:

Asalamu Alaikum Ruwaida, welcome to the show.

Ruwaida Dohry:

Walaikum Assalam, Mifrah. Thank you for having

Mifrah Mahroof:

me. Thank you for Coming on. So one of the things that you mentioned in your introduction is that you have a guiding principle that spiritual optimism paves the way to a blessed destiny. Can you give me a bit more info about what that actually means?

Ruwaida Dohry:

Yeah. So that's one of the principles that I work with personally that has allowed me to grow as a Muslim. Basically coming from that perspective of believing, having Husn udh-dhann.

Mifrah Mahroof:

Hmm.

Ruwaida Dohry:

having a good opinion of Allah, Husn udh-dhann billah. So what that essentially means is we wanna approach religion from a very positive perspective, because if we look at the Quran, if we look at the Sunnah, like all of that, those are pure sources of knowledge, and they are all positive messages. And so if we were to follow that, of course, it's going to lead us to a blessed destiny. So this is like almost like a fight against shaitan because shaitan is the one that's very negative. And for us as human beings, yes, of course, like naturally we do experience like negative thoughts and all of that. But then how do we respond to that as believers, right? Because for us, we are grounded in the message of Allah, which is positive. So

Mifrah Mahroof:

Yeah. Yeah. I see what you mean. So, I mean, if,

Ruwaida Dohry:

Islamic

Mifrah Mahroof:

So, okay, so it's about, a positive outlook and thinking positive of Allah SWT. So I wonder though in doing that, where does the whole thing about this world being hard and the hardships and those kinds of things come into play and how do we deal with that mindset wise as well?

Ruwaida Dohry:

Absolutely. Yeah. So if we look at the message of Allah and the Quran. Allah tells us like in a verse that he's going to test us, right? He's going to test us with hardship, like that is there, but at the same time, when we go into these to understand them, right? Allah reminds us, like at the end of the verse, like the verse for example, so there's a message of like patients, in the end of the verse, which is essentially like reminding us like, as a believer, as a Muslim, we need to have this positive outlook and we need to remain patient because Allah knows, it's like his wisdom. He knows better, like we could never like, understand sometimes the hardships that we go through, but he knows better for us. And he reminds us to be patient because he knows how he's going to reward us like coming out of that. But now the response here is with patience. That's the practical tool of dealing with hardship, and which is a positive thing. And Allah describes patience as, Jamil, patience is something beautiful. So there's usually, something really beautiful that can come out of responding to these hardships in a positive way. And, like, in another verse, Allah reminds us, like, with hardship there is ease, and I think even from that as well, it's still a positive message because it's reminding us like yes hardship is going to be there and we're going to experience like all these problems but there's ease to experience this way if we respond well.

Mifrah Mahroof:

Hmm. I see. I see. So, I guess the question comes up, then why do we have negative thinking? Like where is it actually coming from? If our Dean is about positive outlook and why is this something that people are struggling with these days.

Ruwaida Dohry:

Yeah and that's a good question really. I think I see it from three different perspectives, so of course number one there is shaitan who we know, he wants to see us miserable he wants to see us suffer like Allah has told us in the Quran, like shaitan our enemy. We should not follow him and if we want to do that, like he's not our friend. So he's literally, his mission is for us to fail, right, the test of this life. And, as we know it, we were created to worship Allah SWT. And actually our purpose in this world is to strive to be better. At least 1 percent better every day, because like that's ihsan, like that's part of worshipping Allah. That's essentially why we're here. So what shaitan wants to do is to spoil that for us, so that we don't win. So that's one negative influence that of course we know which is a common one like Allah reminds, don't follow the shaytan, he's your enemy, right? So we need to always strive. To keep our minds like in a positive head space where we are grounded with the message of Allah. We're following the Sunnah of the Prophet SAW, and that is what is eventually going to keep us safe from Shaitan. That's the first. The other one is I think, just naturally as human beings right the way our brains work. It's very easy to think of something negative, as opposed to thinking positively, because thinking positively takes more effort. So let's like just

Mifrah Mahroof:

Interesting.

Ruwaida Dohry:

say like practically if I were to wake up and maybe I'm having a bad day, right? Maybe I just woke up and I'm feeling like moody or something just like I woke up and maybe I missed the bus, something like that. Something just put me off, let's say for the day. It's very easy for me to start and say, oh, I can't get anything, this is going to be a bad thing. It's very easy to say those things. Okay, but you'll find that thinking positively will require us to put in more effort, because then if somebody is having a bad day, they will have to like really sit and be like, okay Yes, I missed the bus. But what if Allah is protecting me from something.

Mifrah Mahroof:

It takes more effort.

Ruwaida Dohry:

Just example, right? So just like that effort of thinking positively like yeah, there's a reason behind this, as to why I experienced this. So I just want to think positively, for example. And, so you find that takes more effort, because you have to sit with yourself. You have to start, speaking with yourself, in a positive way, and trying to keep your head together and, just think positively about the situation. So that takes more effort. And that is why it is rewarded SWT. Like this journey of striving to be better, because it takes work, it takes efforts. That is what Allah rewards. And that is what this test is all about. He created us to test us who is going to be better in terms of actions, in terms of deeds. So I see it, at least I see it that way. And the other thing is like the other negative influence that's obviously there, it's because of like, based on the life experiences that we went through, which comprised of, let's say, a lot of negative messages being imprinted onto our minds, like since we were children. So like what are the psychosocial factors that affected us in terms of our thinking. So maybe we grew up thinking like, I'm going to give an example, right? So is this somebody who has been introduced to Islam? in a negative way. So we take our children, let's say, to these madrasas. But then let's say, their experience there was pretty harsh. They were constantly beaten as they're trying to read the words of Allah. They were constantly beaten or they were constantly given the message of, like, you're going to be punished, like, Allah is going to send you to hellfire and all this. So all of that kind of gets into their mind in a negative way and then then in terms of, like, how we grow up and how we interact now with life and how we respond to any sort of like problems that we will encounter. So there's that form of message, of course there is like, the example the kind of environment that you grew up in. So did your parents nurture you to become like a beautiful human being? Like did they hmm, give you words of affirmation, did they nurture you beautifully? What are the messages that they gave you was something negative, like you were constantly blamed, you're constantly punished. Like all these also factors that kind of play in terms of that negative mindset. And these are like the main things, of course. But then, of course, there's the social conditioning as well. The social conditioning and what we expose ourselves to see as well from the time we were very young and until now. Even until now, any human being is still being conditioned, right? So it's all about these messages in terms of what are we learning? You'll find that you keep yourself safe. Like, how do you know, you're in the right, you're following the truth, or like, you're following the right message. And if we come to that, then of course, we're going to realize that only the Book of Allah, which is the Quran, and what the Prophet SAW left us with, which is the Sunnah, these are the pure sources of knowledge. These are the only pure sources of knowledge and like positive messages that can never be altered. And so if we were to follow that, it will get so much easier to unlearn all these negative things that we've learned and even fight shaitan because now in the Quran, there is your hope in the son of the prophet. As you do that, you are changing your inner self. You're purifying yourself to be a better person

Mifrah Mahroof:

Hmm. So it sounds like, the reason why we keep resorting back to this negative thinking is because that's like the default that we find ourselves in. And so by striving more, we can be able to rise up and think positively. And in order to think positively, we should connect back with the Quran, the Sunnah, the pure sources of knowledge. So we can find the wisdom in there and find how our Deen actually has a lot of messages of positivity. And it encourages us to look at the world through positivity. And then the interesting thing is that in turn, our children will also benefit because now we were positive ourselves. Then we can also set that role model so that conditioning and that environment for our children will also be a positive one as well. So it has so many layers to it, Subhanallah.

Ruwaida Dohry:

Yeah, SubhanAllah. It's really something beautiful. And I want to emphasize, it's not an easy journey. A lot of people struggle with this. They're like, I have this negative mindset, like, how can I come out of this? But the thing is, as long as we have the Quran, and as long as we have that willingness, because we have free will at the end of the day, so I always tell myself, remind myself, and when I walk with my clients, I remind them, remember about free will, and that in life, you always have a choice. So like, which message are you going to, do you want to willingly, lean on to? Is it something that is going to serve you or something that's going to destroy you?

Mifrah Mahroof:

Hmm. True.

Ruwaida Dohry:

Yeah. So it's not easy, but it's so worthwhile. Like, along the journey, because like I said, this is how Allah rewards us. It is about us becoming, striving to be better every day, even if it's 1%. Such

Mifrah Mahroof:

a, that's such a good reminder.

Ruwaida Dohry:

So like to challenge those false beliefs, very crucial to challenge those false beliefs and to really fight the negativity.

Mifrah Mahroof:

It's interesting you know, I appreciate that you mentioned that this journey isn't an easy one to actually get out of that mindset because too many times we can do this work, we can try to be more positive and then we wake up like one day and we're still negative. Or like, we did so much work, we did so well, and then it's like you drop and you're negative again, but it's like you're saying, this is part of the journey, this is part of this dunya experience in which we need to keep striving to better ourselves, and it's a really good reminder that it's not going to be easy, right?

Ruwaida Dohry:

Yes, definitely, 100%. Yeah, not easy but very rewarding.

Mifrah Mahroof:

Yeah.

Ruwaida Dohry:

Like, that's the ultimate

Mifrah Mahroof:

yeah. treasury. Yeah, true, true. So one of the things that you mentioned during our pre interview that we had was about having a safe relationship and you can be able to create safe relationships with other people once you create a safe relationship with yourself which I found it to be very interesting because it's like how we interact with other people is a direct reflection on how we interact with ourselves, so tell me more, how do you actually create that safe relationship with yourself.

Ruwaida Dohry:

So SubhanAllah, like this life, of course, like as human beings, we are social beings. But that social aspect of the human creation, like it really starts with ourselves. Like before you build any relationship with another person, right, it has to start with you. Okay, and this is something that a lot of people like, in my journey, like working with clients that I see them struggling with. So let me just break it down like this. So I see life that it is all about three relationships Okay, it is all about three relationships and the first relationship

Mifrah Mahroof:

Three relationships,

Ruwaida Dohry:

Allah SWT, Yeah, three relationships, your relationship with Allah SWT, your relationship with yourself, and then your relationship with others. Okay, so these are like the three key relationships. Now, before you become a good person, like interact with others in a healthy way, you need to be grounded in a very self relationship with yourself first and foremost. But that cannot be achieved if we have negative relationship with Allah SWT. So, to know Allah in terms of like who He is, that helps us build a safer relationship with ourselves, right? In the sense that if we want to follow Allah's command and to live life according to the limits that He has set for us. That is us essentially respecting. Ourselves, because we know that, you know, Taqwa leads to safety, like what Allah wants for us. It has always been good. It has always been a positive message. Allah wants us to succeed. In this life and in the hereafter. And so like really sitting and trying to have this, self reflection about like how is my relationship with Allah? So understanding Allah who he is first and what he wants for you and then being able to build that relationship with ourself Okay, and with that, it will ultimately, help you relate better with others. Because now, all your three relationships, all these three relationships are grounded in a very, Alhamdulillah, positive message. I'll tell you something, that I experience with my clients, when I tell them, I usually say, inner speech is the first step to your healing journey. Like if you're experiencing any problems, if you're experiencing any sort of like, you're going through hardship, or just on a path or on a journey to be better. Inner speech is very powerful. So what do I mean by that is that self dialogue. What are you telling yourself? And this is how we start building that relationship with the self. So a lot of my clients, when they're new to this, even myself, when I was new to this. I used to be like, I'm speaking to myself, right? But then the result of that is, was like, it was so soothing for me when I started doing this, right? It was so soothing. I found myself being able to feel much calmer when I'm like, reassuring myself that it's all going to be okay, let's say you're going through a hard phase, but you're assuring yourself, it's going to be okay, and then back to those negative, messages that we talked about in terms of what is our self dialogue like, because you'll find that a lot of people struggle with saying that they're not good enough, they're not worthy, they can't do anything, like success is not for them. So you find, that people say a lot of these things. So when I work with my clients and initially when I start telling them, challenge that, like start speaking gently to yourself, start speaking compassionately to yourself. So they say but that's crazy. Like, I'm not used to that. Like, how do I start talking to myself? But there's a difference between talking to yourself, the way people understand it, like it would be crazy if I just sit here and talk to myself, like I look crazy, but there's a difference between talking to yourself and talking with yourself. So that word there is very important, like talking with yourself. You're not just talking to yourself, but you're talking with yourself because there has always been that relationship with the self that needed to be nurtured.

Mifrah Mahroof:

Hmm, I see,

Ruwaida Dohry:

And SubhanAllah, even the couple days, like, I'm doing some research on the Sunnah and going deeper into the hadiths of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And you find that even the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, had this in a dialogue that he had. And sometimes it was like expressed verbally, like people could hear him. But this essentially was a conversation with himself, right? And whenever he used to speak like that, it was more on asking Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to grant him like patience, right? So he would reflect on the previous prophets and how they dealt with their own hajj, their own trials and you would remind himself in that moment. Let's say like a Prophet Musa AS, experienced tremendous type of hardship. But he was able to be patient, allow me to be patient. So that was the conversation so this is what I mean by,

Mifrah Mahroof:

part of the du'as that he was

Ruwaida Dohry:

yourself, because ultimately, it is so sacred.

Mifrah Mahroof:

Sorry, was that, part of the du'as he was asking that gave a glimpse into what his inner dialogue was?

Ruwaida Dohry:

Yes.

Mifrah Mahroof:

I see.

Ruwaida Dohry:

Yes, part of dua, part of like having a conversation with the inner self, but also like it is sacred because you are also having a conversation with Allah. So another thing like I can add to that is that people think like, you know building our relationship with Allah SWT is just like when we're praying and we're sujood and we're asking him, but actually we can build a relationship with Allah at any given point. Like when you're doing your laundry, for example, you're doing your house chores. You can be having like a conversation with Allah, cannot be having a conversation with yourself that is going to lead you to let's say a prayer. Asking Allah to create ease for you, I think. So these two relationships are very much connected, like your relationship with yourself and your relationship with Allah. And essentially that leads you, like, when you have a better self understanding, that leads you to automatically, relate better with others. Because now when you, spending time with people, of course, like good people, because we're told we need to nurture good relationships. Relationships that are good for us. So when you find yourself, like you'll find yourself relating to others in a way that is respectful, in a way that, you know, you're upholding your boundaries and so on, because you now have like a clearer self understanding. You know what you want, right? You know your values. It is ultimately like just a journey of like self discovery and really finding out like what are my values? Yeah, what is important to me? What is meaningful to me?

Mifrah Mahroof:

It's very interesting how you say the inner dialogue that we have with ourselves reflects how we treat other people, right? And I reflect on that when I actually come across people who might, be negative in their speech or try to put you down or put their ideas into you, and a lot of the times, I feel sorry for them because they have an unsafe relationship with themselves for them to speak like that to somebody else. And it's got nothing to do with me, that's what I noticed. And it's a lot to do with their own reality, Subhanallah.

Ruwaida Dohry:

Absolutely. And thank you for bringing that up because that's very key and that's very important. So let's take empathy, for example. If we're not able to like nurture empathy for ourselves, we're not going have

Mifrah Mahroof:

empathy for others. Exactly, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Ruwaida Dohry:

period, right? but if we have that, we have taken our time to build that safe relationship with ourselves. We are first and foremost like trying to be empathetic for ourselves, right? And we're trying to always be compassionate with ourselves. We're trying to create like really a meaningful relationship with ourselves. You will find yourself, even attracting like the right relationships. Because you will be going for people who are compatible with you in terms of your value system. If that wasn't there, essentially, we're not nurturing the self, even interacting with others. We're going to come off like very negative, very negative people, very toxic as well, like with toxic traits and all of that. So yeah, it's all connected really, like having a good personal relationship with yourself, having a very strong relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and then having a good relationship

Mifrah Mahroof:

with So others. So I get the part about seeking out friendships that are once you do that work on yourself and you're positive with yourself, then you will likely attract people like that. But what would you do if you have family members who are negative? So you've worked on yourself, you're now positive, but your family members are tad negative. It's like, how do you actually deal with that? Because they're not like friends, you can't just get rid of them, right?

Ruwaida Dohry:

Of course, and that's real, that's reality for us. That's life for us. Like we're going to have toxic family members or like people who are close to us but then they're toxic in a way. It takes a lot of grace to deal with that, but what I can say is you see like we go back to having that strong relationship with yourself and that's so like, when you have a safe relationship with yourself, you will know better how to deal with that specific situation and also like having a strong relationship with Allah. So we'll go back to what does Allah tell us about family? and you find that no matter what Allah told us, we can't cut off family. Like that's something that he has forbidden us to do. So it's important to take that message and then fully understand it from the sense of there's wisdom in this, like Allah knows better why he has said this to us. But at the same time, okay, let me look at how can I protect myself? Even as I'm dealing with these kinds of relationships. So now the aspect of protecting yourself is where the self work is like knowing your boundaries, knowing what you're going to accept and what you won't accept, like respectfully. So like, let's say somebody is mistreating you or someone is disrespecting you, it's okay to have boundaries and tell this person like respectfully, that's not allowed, or you don't appreciate that of them. There's a way of really like expressing ourselves beautifully when we follow the Sunnah of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, because I he was the greatest man who ever lived in this time. At the same time, he faced a lot of toxic people in his life, how did he deal with them? So that's really something important to reflect and you will see that there was so much compassion, there was so much empathy, and you'd be surprised, how am I going to get the courage to do that? But SubhanAllah, there's something beautiful in that, because it then teaches you that this is not about the other person, this has always been about you. So if you continue purifying yourself in this beautiful way, you're going to fall in love with yourself. You're going to really appreciate, like, even these positive traits that you have for yourself. And no one is going to take that away from you. Even if someone is treating you really harshly, you'll be able to not personalize that. You'll be able to see that, this is coming from them and this is not a reflection of me or this is not me. So what I can do is I can continue being committed to my values. I can continue authentically being the person that I want to be. Like, who do I want to be? In this situation, as much as it is hard, but like, how do I want to show up in this situation? And in what way am I going to show up, which is going to make me proud of myself? I know at the end of this, I've pleased Allah SWT and I've protected myself in that, I've protected my

Mifrah Mahroof:

yeah That's a very good point.

Ruwaida Dohry:

So it's never about the other people It's really this is all about you and you'll be surprised that, subhanAllah, this can even inspire the other people. Because that's the intention, to always express beautiful things to be with these beautiful human beings so that we can inspire others to behave and that's what the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did. He inspired others to be better.

Mifrah Mahroof:

Yeah, that's very true. It's a good point they mentioned. It's, it comes back to you again, because it's sometimes we give our power away to other people thinking, oh, they're being negative, so it's affecting me. But it's actually not about them. It's about us and how strong and confident we are in knowing ourselves. How strong is our relationship with Allah Subhanallah? How strong is our relationship with ourselves? Because once you know yourself, it's like a fortress, you can't just get things blowing that fortress easily, right?

Ruwaida Dohry:

I really love the way you say it. Yes, SubhanAllah. And you mentioned that word power. Like, essentially, it's that us reclaiming our power back.

Mifrah Mahroof:

Yeah, and that prevents us from falling into the whole victimhood, because now it's like, no, I have free choice. I have the power in this situation to decide how I'm going to take this and react and deal with this situation.

Ruwaida Dohry:

100%.

Mifrah Mahroof:

Nice. Awesome. Okay. we're actually getting close to the end of our interview. So I'd like to ask a few questions that we ask all our guests. So the first question that I have here is what's one life hack that's improved your life?

Ruwaida Dohry:

I love that. Best of everything that I'm like with our conversation was around like about relationship with ourselves relationship with Allah and relationship with others, my life hack that I would recommend that I personally do and since I started doing this like it has changed my life for the better SubhanAllah, like I cannot emphasize on it, and this is one of the framework that I've also given to my clients. And so essentially, you want to have three weekly goals, always, in your life. And these three weekly goals, they will look like, personal goal, number one is personal goal, number two is social goal, and number three is spiritual goal. So what is one personal goal that I'm going to set for myself for a week, right? So basically like you're going into each new week having these three goals in mind, What is something personal that I want to do for myself. And that personal goal could look like maybe reading a book, or maybe taking yourself for a walk, or doing some exercise. So

Mifrah Mahroof:

can better myself

Ruwaida Dohry:

care of your well being in terms of whether it's Yeah, just to get better as a person and to take care of your well being, so whether that's mentally, whether that's emotionally. And then, you want to have also a spiritual goal, which is, what do I want to do for Allah this week? What is something extra? Of course, we have already our five daily prayers and everything, but what is really, like, because it's all about setting those intentions, right? And these goals are about intentionality. So you want to be intentional about like, how do I want to please Allah this week? What is my spiritual goal? do I want to fast maybe like on a Thursday or on a Monday? Do I want to like wake up like in the middle of the night, just me and Allah and really pray and, ask for the things that maybe I want to accomplish. It could look like that, right? Sometimes it could look like reading rukia on yourself. Sometimes it could look like maybe morning dhikr. So just like, there's a few examples. But it's essentially about building that relationship with Allah. And then the social goal is what is something, that I can do for others. So, do I want to spend quality time with my parents? Do I want to spend quality time with my children? Do I want to, let's say, have lost touch with a good friend? Do I want to call them and do I want to catch up maybe, on a coffee date or something like that? And sometimes social goal can also look like very simple things like I'll smile at my neighbor today. Like as simple as that. Or I'm going to like beg something for a special person, something like this, or even like donate, right? Donate charity, that's really important as well. What do I want to do next? Like, my money, maybe I want to do this on a Friday, like just essentially something social that is going to uplift you because studies show that, when you have that social element in your life. If you're not nurturing that social aspect in your life, it is proven that you're going to be much healthier and

Mifrah Mahroof:

Hmm,

Ruwaida Dohry:

much happier. Hmm, Nice. Right? So people who are really happy are also people who serve others. So like, how do I want to show up for the people around me? Or like, what has Allah told me about the social dynamics, right? and then just like being intentional about those goals. So having those three goals is so key. Every week you must have those

Mifrah Mahroof:

3 goals. I like it, very nice and simplistic.

Ruwaida Dohry:

As you continue and as you're consistent with that, you'll be building a really strong relationship with yourself, with Allah and with others.

Mifrah Mahroof:

Yeah, it does right, because there's three goals,

Ruwaida Dohry:

Very

Mifrah Mahroof:

yeah, because there's three goals actually goes back to those three connections that you were saying, and it builds it up slowly, and it's very doable, yeah, Alhamdulillah, that's really nice, thanks for sharing. And, second question I have here is, what's a book that's helped you level up in your life?

Ruwaida Dohry:

So, I'm gonna be honest with this question, because I feel like, first and foremost, I want to say that the only book that will really inspire you, that will really change your life, is the Quran. Okay, I know of course, reading books is very important, but I wanted to emphasize like, that's the first important book that everybody needs to read and understand, right? So the Quran, because what I've seen even for me, reading other books, yes, their concepts are gonna come up, but I'm already seeing that. This is already in the Quran, like Allah has already told me this, right? So a lot of people write about good things, productive things, but then we already have that in our religion. We already have those Islamic traditions from the Quran and Sunnah. So having said that, the other books that I can recommend, or have transformed in myself personally, are books about Ustadh Yasmin Mogahed, of course, Reclaim Your Heart, and then there's the other book that came out, Healing the Emptiness. For me personally, I look up to her, and her books, what have really helped me transform myself.

Mifrah Mahroof:

Beautiful. Yeah. I remember reading her first book, Reclaiming Your Heart, and it was a nice, it was a very good read. Alhamdulillah. Okay. Awesome, and the fun one is, where can our listeners find you online?

Ruwaida Dohry:

Okay, people can find me on Instagram. I go by a life within. And the reason as to why I chose that username is because I want people to realize that this life is all about like the inner world. What inner world. are you creating? Because that is what is gonna lead you to have a beautiful world as well.

Mifrah Mahroof:

That's true.

Ruwaida Dohry:

So I go by a life within. My full name is Ruwaida Dohry. I'm a certified life coach, and also a therapist in training at the moment so they can find me there. Otherwise my email is ruwaida@alifewithin.com and I also started a podcast like recently back in Ramadan. And, my podcast, goes by, Alifewithin

Mifrah Mahroof:

Awesome.

Ruwaida Dohry:

podcast, so like when you search that on Spotify, you can

Mifrah Mahroof:

Awesome. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Ruwaida, for coming on today.

Ruwaida Dohry:

Alhamdulillah, it was an honor being here, I'm really glad that, Alhamdulillah, we did this, it was really beneficial conversation, Alhamdulillah, for ourselves, for us, and InshaAllah for the audience, I hope they benefit.

Mifrah Mahroof:

Hey everyone. That wraps up another episode from the Muslim Life Hackers podcast. I really hope you enjoyed our chat today. I've got some great takeaways. if you like what you heard and don't want to miss out on our next conversations, hit that subscribe button on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening to this from. It means a lot to us, and it helps us reach more people who can benefit from this show. Thank you again for tuning in. Until next time, keep striving and getting better every day.

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Mifrah Mahroof

Host