Tag Archives: God

The Emotions of Screenwriting: Anxiety

Islam, life, Screenwriting, , , , ,

Bismillah ir Rahman ir Raheem

Assalam alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatahu!

I’ve been putting off posting this because this is markedly more vulnerable than I usually am. And then I figured – what the heck?

There are many different kinds of pain in the world, but my particular brand is anxiety.

Anxiety flowers in my chest like a firework, spiking every nerve in my upper body. Anxiety immobilizes my brain and my legs because even the slightest movement, even the slightest thought, will let the predator know I’m here. Anxiety makes me feel like a toothless herbivore in the brush waiting to be hunted. Anxiety builds in the sides of my cheeks – as if screaming would help me. Anxiety cancels out my complexity, the strength that hides underneath my vulnerability.

I used to be crippled by these feelings. Like literally. I would lie under my blanket praying for death from the pain. I would weep incessantly.

But they got better over time.

I’ve gotten clearer-headed. I tried delving into my emotions. That works. After wallowing in them, I’m less frightened of drowning in anxiety. I’m less self-conscious about saying or doing or being stupid while I’m in this state.

Lately I’ve started noticing my triggers. When I say lately, I mean literally yesterday when I read an article on the same.

My triggers are situations in which I have no idea what’s going to happen.

Like job interviews. I can read every website in the universe. But I have no idea who’s on the other side of those doors. I have no idea how anything will turn out.

I can prepare myself for a job interview but really it’s a lot like dating. I go in there and I just talk. There has to be chemistry. And I try to connect and try to understand whether I would fit into this family. And really these people become like family. I have a choice about who I work with. And I should make it a good one. All the prep in the world won’t tell you how to manufacture that chemistry.

And here I am trying so desperately yet again – why is my life marked by desperation? When it’s not that, it’s anger. When it’s not that, it’s despair. Or depression. Or frustration.

And I am trying so desperately now to control. To maximize chances of success. To win. Pushed even to give up who I am. For a trifle. But I can’t do that.

In fact from years with anxiety disorder, I know what panicking does to me.

Anxiety saps energy.

Anxiety makes me forget that God has a plan.

Anxiety makes me avoid situations that’ll help me grow.

Anxiety keeps me small and hunted.

Anxiety is my friend.

It tells me that this situation is new. And exciting. And that I should embrace it for what it is. Just as I should embrace me, with all my weirdness and fragility and strength.

I keep telling myself it’s all going to be fine. And it’s working.

I’m living life on my own terms and it’s fine if this experiment goes belly up. It’s fine if I never achieve anything in a worldly sense. I did what I thought was right in the face of nearly unbearable opposition. I bore it. I’ve borne a lot of things. I’m really strong Alhamdulillah (by God’s grace).

But I am also sensitive. And I will expect strong emotions in my life. And I know I’ll be fine.

I want to go outside and look at that beautiful blue sky again. And those pink trees outside my home. I could really stare at them for days.

Love and peace. Wassalam and Fee Amanillah,

The Happy (and okay) Muslimah

The spaces between

life, marriage, , , , , , , ,

Picture by Danilo Rizutti

Assalam alaikum wr wb, sisters and brothers,

So I’m on my way out of the city of my birth, never to call it my home ever again. My husband is happy and excited, well, because he loves me, bless his heart.

Me, I’m caught between excitement and fear. Sometimes, even anger.

I’ve been wondering why I feel so powerless. I wonder where the tide of life has taken me as if I were so much driftwood.

And anger fools me into thinking that I will gain power again, by rage and intimidation.

But that’s not true.

The fact of the matter is, I made a choice – and a truly blessed one it was too Mashallah. As with most choices, there are changes. I always knew these changes would come. I just didn’t think it would come so quickly and they might even hurt a little.

After some reflection and prayer, I’m at peace with my choice now. I‘ve started to notice things about my beautiful city – the tall buildings, the hundreds of different kinds of people.  This afternoon, I watched the patrons of a roadside cafeteria with fascination for a good half hour, making up stories about the uncommonly well-dressed delivery boy and the smoking colleagues.

I’ll miss these winding streets, so familiar I could drive through them with my eyes closed (I won’t, I promise). I’ll miss these strange but familiar people, from all over the world, just as confused and in-between as I am.

I’ll miss my mama in the morning, grinning so wide her drenches almost fall out, standing in the yard waving my dad goodbye.

I’ll miss my silly older brother and his Xbox and obsessive TV watching.

I’ll miss daddy, bionic eyes, slow driving and all.

When I’ve finally learned to love you as you are, it is time for me to leave.

So long, Dubai. I’ve loved you since I was a child. And I always will.

Wassalam and Fee Amanillah,

The Happy (though tearful) Muslimah.

Art is worship

Islam, life, Screenwriting, , , ,

Bismillah ir Rahman ir Raheem

Assalam alaikum wr wb! Love, peace and cupcakes be with everyone reading this!

I have a little confession to make. I’m a bad writer.

The first rule of writing is write everyday even if it kills you.

I haven’t been for I don’t know how long. And you know what? That kills me too.

My fingers itch for the freedom of my keyboard and my imagination.

Mashallah, by the grace of God, I have a million ideas for short films and features and novels and poems and love letters.

But then friends call, bodies fall apart due to illness, family descends on me for one reason or another and it gets put off one more hour and then one more day. And finally when I’ve parked my butt in my chair for some good old-fashioned word-slinging, my mother scoops up my life and takes me shopping.  Because you see, I’m getting married Insha Allah in December. Remind me to tell you about that sometime insha Allah – it’s a truly funny story.)

For a while now, I’ve been unsatisfied with my life. Now that my life might involve someone else, someone who arguably, I love more than I love myself, I feel like I need to do better. I feel like I need to be better. For his sake and for our children’s sake. My children weren’t a reality until now. But now I am painfully aware that I will be a role model to them, flaws and all.

Why then do I write?

Do I write to please myself? Do I write to express myself?

Perhaps.

How effing selfish. My “self” will never be satisfied and my narcissistic intellectual masturbations will lead to a singularly unsatisfied audience.

Do I write to please you perhaps? To make you see the things that I see? To make you wonder? To make you hope? To make you laugh? To make you cry?

While perhaps a nobler intention, ultimately this too is pathetic. Because all I want is for you to really, really like me. Something that changes on a dime, as we all know.

Why then should I write?

I should write to please Allah (SWT).

Money and pleasure should be secondary.

The true meaning of this did not come home to me until I read this on SuhaibWebb.com.

“You find some people have very nice things, some people are middle class and some are lower class. This is because Allah (swt) has spread provisions. It’s the same with `ibadah. Maybe for this sister Allah (swt) has put in her heart the love to make dhikr (remembrance of Allah). Maybe that sister there, Allah (swt) has put in her heart the love of Qur’an. Maybe for this brother Allah (swt) has put in his heart the love to go for forty days in tablighi jama`at. Maybe for this brother Allah (swt) put in his heart the love to study at Zaytuna, and maybe for this brother Allah (swt) put the love in his heart to be with the people of the Islamic movement. So, the same way that Allah (swt) has given them these provisions in the dunya, is the same way He has given them, as Imam Malik said, provisions in `ibadah.”

Political activism is Ibadah. My work, as I’ve expressed before, for me is often a form of activism.

Allah (SWT) has put in my heart the love of writing. Does this mean that writing could be a form of Ibadah? Subhanallah!

When one grows up thinking that only if you read the Qur’an and pray day and night will you reach the highest levels of Jannah, such a concept blows the mind.

Art is Ibadah.

If this is Allah (SWT)’s Rizq (provision for me), if this makes my heart beat, my blood quicken, my eyes refuse to shut even if it’s way past my bedtime, and most beloved of all, fills my heart with gratitude to Allah (SWT) with every letter I type, I believe that it may well be mustahhab (highly recommended), maybe even Fard (compulsory) for me to hone my craft.

Anything less would be ungrateful.

If the world tells me to shut up and go be an accountant (my apologies to all the passionate accountants reading this), I would remind myself that the secular world is also currently opposed to a myriad of outwardly religious activities, for example, the hijab.  Spiritual art by comparison is a cakewalk and much easier to explain.

If I am not grateful for my provisions, including my love of writing, AND if I don’t serve my community through it, ultimately that barakah (blessing) will be taken from me. It is part of my religious duty to nurture it.

Allah (SWT) has placed love in my heart for writing. Mashallah, there must be a reason for that. Won’t stop till I find out what that reason is.

I needed something stronger than the promise of my children and my vain own worldly desires. Alhamdulillah I think I’ve found it.

Wassalam and Fee Amanillah,

The Happy (and Inspired) Muslimah.