This is a gratitude list that might help those feeling anxious and worry in troubling times of this global pandemic. The gratitude list is to count our blessings during this period.
What does God say about gratitude?
When we count our blessings, we are able to realize how abundant they. This helps us to be grateful to Allah s.w.t, and that Allah s.w.t. has promised to increase His blessings upon those who are grateful to Him.
And ˹remember˺ when your Lord proclaimed, ‘If you are grateful, I will certainly give you more. But if you are ungrateful, surely My punishment is severe.’ (Quran, surah Ibrahim, 14:7)
The positive side of coronavirus:
- Alhamdullillah we all learn to take care of ourselves
- We all learned to spent time with our family
- We learn to speed down with the worldly race
- We learn to eat healthy nutritious food
- We learned that we can survive without junk food
- We learned that we can survive without going to cinema halls & malls
- We realized that we are good cooks & can work as a team at home
- We learned we can do our work on our own with the help & support of our family
- We learned to respect our paid helpers whether they a maid or a plumber or an electrician ( as we realized their value & the service they provide us)
- We realized that the importance of savings whether financially or necessities
- We realized that unnecessary shopping is harmful
- We realized the benefits of self-care
- We learned to take care of our physical health
- We realized the importance of mental health
- We realized that we benefited from this lockdown and learned so many new activities
- We worked upon our self-development via reading books or attending Islamic online lectures or worldly useful workshops.
- Some of us realized that we are writers, poets, speakers, preachers, trainers, etc
- We realized the importance of family and extended family, relatives and friends
- We realized the importance of communication within the family
- We realized that adaptability is easy, change can come with resilience and challenges but it’s not impossible
- This is what a V.U.C.A world is: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity & Ambiguity.
- We realized how important is giving sadaqah ( charity) is and learned to implement the same as well in our daily lives
- We realized that we are not who runs the time, it’s time who makes us run.
- AND Above all the realization that Allah SWT wants us to learn, to regain our mental & physical strength, our knowledge (deen & worldly) He wants us to purify our heart for His Remembrance.
- We learned the importance of prayers (five-time prayers on time ) as on usual days we used to be so busy that either we used to be late or missed on
- We realized the importance of having our meal on time, for which we used to run rat race and used to miss on same, and now look at the change we are developing sincere habits, we are praising for what we are serving to ourselves
- We have learned to be at home, as Islam teaches us to go out of the house if necessary (if most wanted), and now see the benefit of this pandemic we are thinking thrice to accomplish the outside work on a priority basis
- We learned to make the best use of technology, those who used to struggle earlier, now they are the achievers with a sense of huge accomplishment
- Most importantly we learned to say Sorry as we realized that we are guest in this materialistic world and not the host
- We learned to forgive and let go of the past
- We all tried hard and still trying to build resilience which comes with patience and patience comes with gratitude.
So my message to everyone is to be always in Gratitude, be in prostration in front of your Allah, the Creator of this Creation. Aameen. And many more.
PS ::: Sisters & brothers keep adding on the list and build upon your resilience journey. Aameen. Ya Rabb Bless us all & keep us under Your Guidance & Rahmah.
Aliya Patel is a Millennial coach and Empowerment life coach (ICF) & Mentor at Time for Change, based in Mumbai. She is skilled in the Western and Islamic methods of personal counseling and is currently pursuing her Certification in Islamic psychology and Associate Certified Coach (ICF). She also works with NGOs to mentor and coach underprivileged youths in India and during the COVID-19 pandemic, she contributed to 60+ personal pro bono coaching sessions across India & globally.
