I was supposed to send this post out last week after my last post…. I just didn’t get around to doing it!

For everyone who was in my DMs asking me what changes I’ve made, here are probably the most important ones….

And NO I am not sharing this as a nutritional expert or medical professional…. I am sharing my personal experience and things that have helped me to radically improve my energy levels and cognitive abilities after a huge health issue last year forced me to stop ignoring my health!

EDIT: One MASSIVE change I forgot to mention on the last slide - 5 years of headaches and migraines GONE Alhamdulillah 👌

This might split hairs but I have to say it, because as someone who is probably older and wiser, I have insight that you can benefit from, insha'Allah

STOP giving children your mobile phone to keep them quiet...

You're setting yourself and them up for failure handing over your phone to keep them distracted and silent so you can attend the masjid, or push them without a fuss in the stroller or keep them in one place at home...

You wouldn't feed them candy and chocolate for dinner because it will rot their teeth and stunt their development...

The mobile device you're handing them rots their brain and stunts their development

Once you begin using the mobile, it becomes an ADDICTION, not just for your child but also for YOU, because you don't know how else to distract them and keep them quiet without one...

Young children absolutely ARE physically exhausting, and it IS hard work that requires great effort.

I know you just want a little time to cook dinner, or attend a dars, or just think!

BUT...the mobile you use to pacify them, will only lead to future behaviour challenges, BIGGER problems, and stunted growth.

If you don't use the mobile, your children won't crave it and they will be satisfied with SIMPLE THINGS.

If you use it, nothing will settle them other than the glare of your screen and while they may be quiet holding onto it between their tiny little hands, you have bigger problems than a noisy child coming.

Here's what I did when my children were young:

- Rotate toys so they always stay fresh and don't lose their novelty

- Offer creative toys that allow them to build (ie: building blocks…believe it or not my eldest was still playing with wooden blocks making imaginary towns when she was 12)

- Prepare several activity boxes that ONLY come out when you need a little distraction (ie: sensory materials, sand box, supervised water box)

- When you're visiting the masjid pack a small bag for your toddler or preschooler with a colouring book and mess free crayons, ask them to take a small quiet toy with them and a favourite book.
(And take a few extra colouring sheets or papers for the other kids who will want to join in and encourage your child to share)

You have to think outside the box here... prepare for those moments you know you're exhausted or busy or just need a breather

—————————

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Time is the most valuable asset any of us have!

Money we spend can be earned back, with the permission of Allah. But time spent, can not. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Such a good feeling when you realise you have a whole extra day you didn’t think you had!!!!!

(It’s a better feeling than waking up on a weekend, thinking it’s a weekday and then realising it’s not a working/school day!!)

Ha!!

I’ve been in the online space since 2011 when I used to run a blog, sharing reflections, articles and educational resource downloads. It was something I genuinely enjoyed doing. I used to LOVE reading other’s blogs and would patiently wait every week for the new post to be dropped from authors I benefited from.

When I joined social media, I used to post daily for years!!!! Rarely did I ever miss a day! Again, it was somethign I enjoyed doing.

Over the years I’ve watched how people consume content change. I’ve watch the decline in peoples ability to read long posts, favouring instead the one minute video sound bites that capture attention fast.

I’ve watched how more and more are using AI to write, following the same pattern forumula in every post and everything just sounds the same.

I don’t enjoy showing up like I used to enjoy it. I dislike the pick-me energy social media brings and the scare tactics that make you feel something big in your life is lacking!

When Mums Unstuck launched back in 2021 it was always about growth. It was about striving to be, do and have the best for yourself and family. It was acknowledging the challenges of raising children while knowing there are ways to overcome them in a way that makes you ENJOY your life!

Social media tells you highlight the pain because that’s what hooks attention! But I’m tired of it! I’ve always been about postive lasting impact and growth!

I’m finding it increasingly difficult to show up everyday in this space because it sounds so artificial, which is why I haven’t been. Inspiration has ran dry!! The connection we used to find is melting, leaving behind computerised captions that lack lived human experience.

I’m at a point where I’ve been reflecting deeply around where I want to take this page because I absolutely don’t want to leave it. I know a revival needs to happen and I’m going to double down on my lived human experience because people need people. We need connection. We need shared understanding. We need each other.

If that’s what you’re looking for, you’re in the right space 🖤

Umm Khadeeja 🌱

This week I had a conversation during the Help Me With This drop-in I host, with a muma about her tween daughter and her concerns regarding resistance to wearing correct hijab.

She explained that although inside her household, full hijab is normalised, outside her home in the environment they live in, it’s not so much. When visiting extended family and friends or going to the masjid, it’s common to see young tweens and teens fashionising hijab with small scarves and loose clothes instead of abayas and jilbab. Living in the West, as many of us do, it is a common dilemma we a lot of us face.

It’s easy for our fears to overshadow how we respond. We panic, afraid we can’t convince our children the right thing, and afraid what that could lead to.

Fears are not necessarily a bad thing. They help us to avoid becoming complacent and keep us on our toes. The problem with fear however, is when it hijacks our rational senses, and we end up projecting those fears in such a way that pushes our children away, instead of addressing them rationally, with wisdom, and inviting our children in closer.

What I shared with this muma, is you have to stop looking at this “problem” as YOU see it. You’re looking at this as YOUR problem through your perspective. Meaning you see this as “MY child is resistant to correct hijab”. You are putting YOURSELF at the center and making this about you. It’s not about you. It’s about your child.

What you have to do is see that it is your child who is the one with a problem right now.

And to help your child, you want to understand what problem she is facing so you CAN help her navigate her way through it, insha’Allah.

There is something behind her resistance so we want to support her with that. And we can’t do that if we don’t understand what it is.

Think about it - most kids desperately want to fit in with everyone else. It IS hard wearing full hijab when everyone you see around you, isn’t. This is HER test. We must help her with that, insha’Allah, not shame her through a projection of our fears.

Does this make sense?

Many of us tend to completely ignore the fact that our children have their own problems and tests. Certainly, as they reach puberty, they are going to be tested.

If we only see their “issues” when they don’t meet our expectations as OUR problem....meaning, we make their behaviour or their thoughts or their feelings or their actions about us, instead of them, we completely miss the opportunity to support and help them.

We have to recognise that our children have their own problems and they need help navigating them.

Some of those problems are insignificant to you and I…. A 3 year old melting down on the kitchen floor because they can’t have a cookie is NOT the end of the world, BUT, to that 3 year old, this is a very real
Problem!

And some of those problems are HUGELY complex and ARE very real challlenges they face. Our job is to help them navigate through it. And we can’t do that if we fail to see that.

The snap-shot lesson I want you to take from this, is start seeing your children as individuals with their own problems, instead of seeing their behaviour as yours so you can ask yourself “what help do they need?”

As the famous parenting quote goes: “they are not giving me a hard time, they are HAVING a hard time” and no one does better when made to feel worse…. Not even you

Need help applying this?
Join the membership! Doors are open and new member fees are increasing soon so lock-in the current lower rate! 🖤
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▶️LIVE TODAY insha'Allah


It's the Sunday before the third Monday of the month, so that means ONE thing inside the Mums Unstuck membership….it's GROWTH CALL WEEK!!!! Our main event of the month!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

Tonight we’re going to press the RESET button on our Intentional Parenting Toolkit training….. BECAUSE even when you complete it, you might find that the progress you initially made, starting to regress and old habits resurfacing because old habits ARE hardwired!

It takes continuous effort and focus to maintain new skills. For the toolkit to work, the tools and the skills you learned have to be applied consistently every single day. In the same way that building muscle in the gym requires continued maintenance repeating the same exercises intentionally over and over, the tools and principles of Intentional Parenting must be used daily to maintain efficiency.

This month’s call is about getting you back on track if you’ve found yourself falling off it. And if you haven’t gone through the Tool Kit training YET, then consider this a gentle introduction to kickstart your level-upping adventure!

Join the membership to join us LIVE later today on Zoom insha’Allah!
www.mumsunstuck.com

I was listening into a training call inside a health program I’m in, and the host said “whenever someone wants to control someone else, they use fear to scare the 💩 out of them”

I know this already because I talk a lot about parenting from love and parenting from fear as being two very different things, but this program isn’t anything to do with parenting, and so I’m listening to her talk about this from a different perspective in how fear shows up in my own life, and it got me thinking

Fear really is a manipulative tactic that’s used to coercively control another human…. Whetehr that human is a child or another adult.

You see it in abusive marriages. You see it with toxic in-laws. You see it with toxic teachers. You see it with toxic parents. Fear is used to coercively control someone else for your own gain.

I’m NOT a student of knowlege, I’m sharing this as my own layman reflections, but this is a tactic the Shaytaan uses against our own selves. Using fear to scare us into actions and behaviours that harden our hearts and push our children away, instead of melting them and bring us closer.

When you find your child not meeting your expectations, and that little intrusive voice starts getting louder inside your head, filling it with assumptions and catastrophic consequences, you panic. And that panic rooted in fear, gets projected.

That projection makes you act like a crazy person, because instead of seeing what is rational and what your child needs from you, you act from an emotional hijacking that prevents you from accessing rational wisdom. And that emotional hijacking keeps you stuck inside the problem unable to see the way out of it

Fear and shame don’t help anyone to do better

If you’re using fear to control your children, you’ll constantly be angry and stressed. Because you can’t control the kids. You can’t control any one else other than yourself. The more you use fear, the more your children learn to hide things from you, and as they get older they get much better at not getting caught

You want your children to come to you when they are in trouble, and they won’t do that if they are afraid of you and your reaction. And then you can’t help

Want help?
www.mumsunstuck.com

I could talk about this topic forever! There’s so much I could say on this…

Because kindness isn’t just about being kind to others, it’s equally about being kind to yourself…

I’ll tell you why….

The way you treat yourself and the things you tolerate for yourself, are likely going to be how you’ll treat your children and affect your expectations for them…

You see, if you’re constantly pointing out all your own mistakes and flaws, giving attention to all the things you don’t do right, that’s probably what you do to the kids too… maybe you go a little easier on them than you do yourself, but, pretty much it’s a similar vibe

Kindness melts hearts,
Harshness hardens them.

If you want to be better, do better and have better, be kind. To yourself and to others. Because when you’re kind, that kindness invites better action, better cooperation, better efforts.

Unkindness, holds you and others back. Unkindness is what stops anyone trying. Unkindness is what disconnects us from ourselves and from others.

I challenge you today, do something kind for yourself, AND do something kind for those around you and see what happens 🖤

You in?

Umm Khadeeja
Mums Unstuck

ps. video is a stock photo!

Imagine your child runs into you. You’ll probably ask “are you okay honey?” as they look up at you with a smile saying “yes muma”

Imagine again your child runs into you, only this time you have a broken leg

This time, with the pain of that fractured wound, you’ll let out an uncontrollable scream in pain from the collision and push your child immediately away

The difference in responses is stark!

When you find yourself feeling triggered by your children, it usually isn’t your child you’re reacting to; it’s often an emotional wound that they have unintentionally ran into that was already there. And it is this emotional wound that is triggering your response

Does that make sense?

Something you have to know is the majority of mumas you see who adopted the “positive/conscious” or as I prefer to call it, intentional parenting way, DIDN’T start their motherhood journey in it

What led them towards it, is their daily struggle

The struggle to get through the day without exploding.

The daily struggle to manage their triggers.

The struggle to battle the melt-downs and tears.

The struggle to be the mother they wanted to be.

The struggle to look in the mirror and like themselves.

Behind many of these intentional parenting mumas you see, is an emotional wound they first had to learn to heal so they could become the parent they want to be.

The majority of intentional parenting mumas came towards this way in their search for something better because they knew they couldn’t continue as they were. They knew there had to be a better way and they were ready to change.

You can too.

Your children are only children for such a short time. Don’t spend their youth wasting it crying yourself to sleep, promising that tomorrow you won’t yell, tomorrow you’ll be happy, and tomorrow everything will be different, only to wake up and discover it is all still exactly the same. Make the positive changes now...because you can, insha’Allah

Want help building positive lasting impact instead of searching for quick fixes that don’t stick? Join the membership that’s HERE for you so you can be THERE for your children 🖤
www.mumsunstuck.com

If I could give you just one snap-shot lesson that's taken me 4 decades to figure out, it's give yourself enough kindness to acknowledge your humanity when you slip up.

One "bad" moment doesn't have to turn into a "bad" day. And one "bad" day doesn't have to turn into a "bad" week. One "bad" week doesn't have to turn into a "bad" month, or year or whole life!

When I tell you I KNOW how strong the critical voice inside your head is that makes you believe everything is lost, its because I HAVE that voice. We all do.

Shaytaan is not going to leave us until the day we die. He will always be there whispering his whisperings to have us believe we have messed up so bad that there's no hope. No hope of repair, and no hope of change.

It's lies, all lies!

So long as any of us wake up with breath in our body, there is always hope. There is always opportunity for repair. there is always room for positive change, insha'Allah.

The only time it is too late is if one of two things occur...

1) We are returned to our Lord

2) We stop trying.

We all fall short and even through we know better, we don't always do what we know.

The guilt you experience is a blessing. The realisation after the slip, is a blessing. It means you CAN make amends and repair whatever has been ruptured!

You're going to find that really diffciult to do if you stay trapped in all-or-nothing thinking that makes you believe the moment you yelled or snapped at the kids, you ruined everything.

Be kind to yourself.
Not to excuse your actions as thought they don't matter, because they do matter.
BUT
So that you can make amends and move forward, taking this moment as an opportunity to repair and grow from it.

Give yourself grace so you can get rid of the shame (aka Waswas) that whispers into your heart that its all ruined, and embrace the guilt that prompts you to course-correct and do better.
🖤

__________

Need help?
Join the membership
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I feel this needs to be talked about more becauee I honestly don’t get it.

I don’t get why some men marry, and makes his wife, the mother of his children, insignificant in his life while he goes and does whatever he wishes with whoever he wishes.

And what I don’t get even more, is when family members KNOW what their son, or brother is like, and then scapegoat the daughter-in law / sister-in-law as the problem, when she is often silently doing her best to keep herself strong to raise her children upon the Sunnah for the sake of Allah.

I don’t get, why anyone would strive to make a mother who is raising your nieces and nephews, enemy number one.

Does someone have the answer?

SWIPE SLIDES

I remember when I was studying my cognitive behavioural therapy diploma, my attitude to my thoughts radically changed.

I’m someone who, I think like many people, struggle with intrusive thoughts and destructive core beliefs.

A thought that would often come into my head whenever I felt I had done something “wrong” in front of people would be “I’m stupid” or “I hate myself”. Those are the literal words inside my head.

As Muslims we understand Shaytaan is our enemy and he will whisper his whisperings until the day we die. We seek refuge in Allah from those whisperings and as the scholars have advised, ignore them.

What I’ve come to recognise is there are several destructive thinking patterns that I refer to inside the membership as “stinking thinking”.

And when I understood this patterns of thought, it became so much easier to spot them when they showed up for me…

All-or-nothing thinking that convinced me the second I don’t do something perfect, give up

Catastrophising thinking that turns small issues into giant mountains

Assumptions thinking that has you believe you know the intent of another’s actions

There’s more!

What I really want to address inside this post however, is the pattern of thought that makes you fear what others may say about you, becauee you have to understand that firstly, most peope you think are thinking about you, aren’t. They are too busy focusing on their own life and own problems.

And secondly, most judgements people tend to make are often fuelled by stinking thinking patterns that are not necessarily reality.

Just because we or anyone else thinks something, it doesn’t make it true.

A gift you can give yourself and your family is to not concern yourself with what others may think of you under one condition - you are acting in a way that is not displeasing to Allah.

So long as your actions are within that which Allah is pleased with, who cares what others think?

Most often the ones judging the hardest are the ones who lack enough personal accountability to judge themselves.

And most people, really are not noticing you the way your thoughts (or the waswas) is telling you they are.

What do you think?