“Arouse your heart to contemplation; keep your side clear off the night; and be heedful towards your Lord”
Imam Ali
Dear Readers,
I’ve received many emails on Islamic therapy/healing program to beat Eating Disorder. I’m a strong believer in using meditation and mindfulness to beat Eating Disorders. Meditation can be described as the development of the presence of body
Using Islamic Meditation to Change the Way you Think
As we have all heard, our thoughts become our reality. If we are thinking negatively, chances are we are going to be feeling negatively, and therefore acting negatively. Anything can affect the way we think. If we are stressed, we are going to be thinking about the things that are stressing us out and thereby creating more stress, both in our minds and in the world around us.
Ihsan Alexander teaches that we can achieve more in an hour of meditation than with 70 years of worship. This is very true. Meditation and gaining personal insight, personal reflection can teach us more about ourselves than if we spend our entire lives worshipping and never thinking or reflecting. Islamic meditation can be a very powerful tool if practiced and used regularly. Meditation can change the way we think, and ultimately change our lives in this way.
Choose Your Own Reality.
Ihsan Alexander
Islamic meditation can help us to heal our negative disorder focused mind and thoughts and bring about positive thinking and positive feelings as a byproduct. If we are happy – we think happily. Meditation can help to achieve the ultimate happiness. Meditation can aid in the relief of many disorder like mind issues, from stress to anxiety and even eating disorders. Most eating disorders stem from negative self-image and negative thinking. Maybe the disorder mind is self-induced, maybe we feel pressure from the outside or others. In reality, however, most of the pressure from the outside we feel is just a projection we are putting on to ourselves and others, and just more negative thinking affecting the way we are feeling, and in the eating disorder scenario –acting.
Islamic Meditation to Help Eating Disorder Patients
Anorexia, or anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder that is extremely harmful to one’s health. While most people think that anorexia is defined by simply not eating, or eating an extremely low amount of calories per day, anorexia can also be defined by excessive exercise or binging and purging to lose weight. Anorexia nervosa is first and foremost a disorder of the mind before it comes to life as a physical illness. Most anorexia sufferers have an extremely negative self-image, and no matter how thin or healthy they may be – they can never quite see themselves that way, they are always thinking they need to perfect themselves by being thinner – and this can progress until the person is literally starving to death, and in some cases, does cause death.
Meditation can be a great tool to overcoming anorexia (and other eating disorders, such as bulimia). Since these ailments begin as disorders of the mind, reflecting upon the Quran and giving ourselves something else to think about, or maybe perhaps just clearing our minds during meditation of all of the negative thoughts that are creating these eating disorder issues. If we think ‘my husband doesn’t think I’m pretty, I’m too big’ – that is just ourselves projecting negative thoughts and feelings that in reality, the other person doesn’t even know! It is all in your head to feel that way, our husbands love us no matter what – and most women with eating disorders are already very skinny, they are just sick. Meditation can help to replace those negative thoughts with positive self-image and self-confidence! An hour or so a day to clear our mind of all negativity, saves the body years of damage that eating disorders can cause.
What Does the Qur’an say about Meditation?
Your Lord knows that you meditate (taqoom) during two thirds of the night, or half of the night , or one-third of it, and so do some of those who believed with you. God has designed the day and night, and He knows that you cannot always do this. He has pardoned you. Instead, you should read what you can of the Quran. God knows that some of you may be ill, while others may be traveling in pursuit of God’s provisions, and others may be striving in the cause of God.
Qur’an 73:2
It is important to do more than just read the Qur’an. You can read something a million times, and if you don’t understand it, and don’t understand yourself – the reader – than what is it to you other than just words? To truly connect and understand, it is important to take time to reflect upon what you have learned – both of yourself and of the Qur’an. Islamic meditation can bring us as close as we can come in this world to connecting personally with Allah. The Qur’an does say that meditating at night is ‘more righteous’. If you can’t find time to meditate during the day, try meditating for an hour or so before bed each night.
Meditate during the nighttime (qum al-layl).
Qur’an 73:2
Ihsan Alexander has a great program of Islamic Meditation.
He has some wonderful free material available on YouTube, as well as a more in-depth program for anyone looking for some serious, guided help with their meditation. This meditation program can help to aid in the process of healing for a variety of mind disorder issues, including but not limited to eating disorders. If you are suffering, or someone you know and love is suffering from one of these disorders, please look into Islamic meditation, for it can provide great relief and change the way you think, feel, and live.
To Sign up For Emil Ihsan Alexander’s Islamic Meditation Program, Please Click Here
