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• Talk to ourselves. Do not worry about others judging. It is about being honest and open with ourselves. God already knows. Are we ready to acknowledge the issues we need to address? Talking also helps because it engages another sense, hearing.
• Pour out our emotions. Cry, yell, jump up and down if we need to, don’t hold anything back. The point is to examine ourselves so that we may improve. We seek God’s help and turn to Him frequently (1:5, 22:15).
• Read. Sometimes even reading about worldly events lets us step back to appreciate how blessed our lives are. Many are suffering, in danger, or dying. We are still alive. We still have an opportunity to repent, reform, and work righteousness to grow closer to God. Most importantly read the Quran. The Quran is a source of wisdom (36:2) and healing (10:57). We may come across a verse that describes believers and we can use that verse to reflect on ourselves to see if we are meeting the criteria of a believer.
• Write. Use a pen or pencil and paper or type on a device to write down or map out our thoughts or keep a journal. Writing requires articulation, which can help us think clearly about what we need to improve in our souls, with God’s help.
• Reflect upon the past. What did I do? How did it grow my soul? What can I do better? Try to remember a time in the past. It could be a week ago, a day ago, five minutes ago, or however far back we would like to reflect. Focus on events that happened around that time in the past. Did we remember God? Were our action or words righteous? What could we do better? Don’t let guilt and negative feelings trap you into despair. Instead think about what we need to do better next time. Pray to God for help.
• Return to the present. Think about what I want to do better. We are rarely perfect overnight. But, we can set incremental goals for our souls to work towards. God willing, with everything we have learned from the past, we will hopefully have a wiser perspective of our present and future life.
Step 5: Put self-reflection into action. Whatever we were initially self-reflecting for—carry out the results of the self-reflection. Don’t wait, start working on the soul today. Only God knows when our time is up, and the devil will try to stop or delay us in improving our Submission. Be thankful for God’s blessings. Implore Him frequently.
God willing, I am going to share with you an example of my personal self-reflection.
Step 1: I wanted to do a self-reflection on my daily habits, to either remove, add, or use the ones I am doing to increase my submission to God alone.
Step 2: I decided to take a walk on my lunch time as far as I could go, so I had alone time without distractions.
Step 3: To be effective, no matter how difficult it was going to be or how bad it was going to make me feel, God willing, I insisted on being completely honest with myself.
Step 4: Now that I set the groundwork for a self-reflection, God willing, it was time to practice. By God’s leave I chose to focus on my past and try to remember the actions I did during a one-day period. My emotions were running high because I was feeling unappreciative and like a hypocrite or disbeliever. I wasn’t using the breathing method, but I was breathing heavier than usual. I am almost sure I said some things aloud talking and arguing with myself. I realized there are a lot of things that I was doing that I wanted God to change about me. One thing that I will share with you is when I wake up in the morning, one of my habits, like most of us do, is to brush my teeth. I noticed that before or during this particular action I am not reverencing God.
When I have a tooth ache I am imploring God, making all kinds of pleas to stop the pain. When I wake up I try to say, “Bismillah” first thing. When I turn the water on to wash for morning prayer I am thankful and grateful to God for being able to turn a knob and get hot water. For some reason I was just brushing my teeth with no reverence to the Creator.
Step 5: Although brushing my teeth should be a good habit, doing it without reverencing God made me feel emotionally bad about it. After doing this self-reflection, I thank God for a toothbrush and toothpaste. I thank God for my teeth. So much to be grateful for in this one small daily action.
May God help us all to make all our daily habits for the worship of God alone! May God also help us preform self-reflections to increase our submission to Him alone!
[59:18] O you who believe, you shall reverence GOD, and let every soul examine what it has sent ahead for tomorrow. You shall reverence GOD; GOD is fully Cognizant of everything you do.
Reference: https://www.wikihow.com/Self-Reflect
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[This is a letter from someone grateful that a submitter took the time to pass on the message of worship God alone. We never know who will benefit from our words. It’s all up to God. But we need to take every opportunity to deliver the message, and then leave it in His hands. Ed]
Thank you so much for what you’ve done for me. I am overwhelmed with joy that you helped me by introducing me to what I believe will be happiness and a faith in myself to believe in the One True God. I look forward to being able to converse with you on this new-found glory that is God. I truly believe this was meant to happen and owe you my dedication to serving the One True God.
May peace be with you, Thad.