As I grew and moved through different chapters of life, I often believed healing and growth was something I could achieve through thinking alone -that if I could explain away discomfort, distance myself from what felt heavy, or convince myself to simply “let go,” I’d find peace.
But over time, experience showed me otherwise. It wasn’t about overthinking or detaching. It was about learning to feel, to meet life not just with my mind, but with my whole being.
And in that space, I discovered a quiet truth: the heart remembers.
The Heart's Central Role
While reading Yasmin Mogahed’s “Reclaim Your Heart”, “Healing the Emptiness” and Shaykh Hamza Yusuf’s commentary on “Purification of the Heart,” I found language for what I had been intuitively sensing: the heart isn’t just the seat of love; it is the seat of everything. Intention. Presence. Clarity. Attachment. Surrender.
In Islam, the heart {the qalb} is at the core of the self. It’s mentioned over a hundred times in the Qur’an, not as a metaphor, but as a living center of consciousness. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) taught, “Truly in the body, there is a morsel of flesh which, if sound, the whole body is sound. And if corrupt, the whole body is corrupt. Truly, it is the heart.”
The Heart-Brain Connection
The field of neurocardiology has revealed that the heart contains over 40,000 neurons. It has its own intrinsic nervous system; a kind of “heart brain” that communicates directly with the brain in our heads. In fact, 90% of the heart-brain communication flows from the heart to the brain.
This means that how we feel in our hearts can directly shape how we think, decide, and even remember. The heart doesn’t just follow the brain, it guides it.
Even more profound is the discovery that the heart emits the strongest electromagnetic field in the human body, 60 times greater than that of the brain. This field shifts with our emotions and can be measured several feet outside the body. Our hearts, in a very real sense, are broadcasting our internal states.
Heart-Aware Living
This reframed everything for me. My growth wasn’t about denying emotion or disciplining myself into seeking mental clarity. It was about becoming more heart-aware. More heart-present.
From Hamza Yusuf, I learned that the diseases of the heart: arrogance, envy, heedlessness, excessive attachment to people and the material world are not just spiritual flaws. They are weights. They cloud our perception, close us off from alignment, and harden the very center we were meant to keep soft.
From Yasmin Mogahed, I absorbed the reminder that reclaiming the heart is not about becoming less emotional, but more spiritually intelligent. It’s about returning the heart to the only One who can truly hold it. Because when our hearts are anchored in the highest power, we stop outsourcing our peace. We stop chasing fullness from things that were never designed to complete us.
Questions That Keep Me Aligned
As I navigate my personal and professional growth, I’m learning to lead not only with strategy, but with internal alignment. This season of growth is not reactionary, it is intentional, measured, and deeply attuned to what is arising within.
Is this response softening my heart or hardening it?
Is this attachment deepening my peace or disturbing it?
Am I centered in presence, or caught in ego?
And when discomfort, anger, uncertainty arises I don’t run from it. I meet it at the door of my chest, hand over heart, and say: “You’re welcome here. You’re a part of this, too.”
There is intelligence in introspection. And there is strength in remaining open even when it’s inconvenient.
Modern Healing Tools and Spiritual Alignment
As someone committed to both inner growth and spiritual integrity, I’ve come to see contemporary healing practices such as mindfulness, inner child work, and nervous system regulation not as contradictions to Islamic values, but as complementary frameworks.
When approached with intention, these tools refine our self-awareness. They help us become more present with our emotions, regulate our internal responses, and meet discomfort with steadiness rather than avoidance. In essence, they support the return to the heart’s natural clarity, its fitrah.
A Return to the Heart
In Islam, the heart is the seat of perception and moral intelligence. It doesn’t forget pain, but it can be softened. It can be purified, not through suppression, but through patient release. What we heal, we don’t erase. We integrate.
Reclaiming the heart, then, is not a single act of detachment. It is a daily discipline. A consistent return to what grounds us, to what matters, to what aligns.
For me, this integration of modern psychological insight and Islamic spiritual anchoring is not only possible, it is necessary. It invites a form of leadership and living that is clear-minded, emotionally attuned, and spiritually rooted.
That, I believe, is where sustainable healing and meaningful growth truly begin.
Why Emotional Clarity is Central to Leadership
As I grew and moved through different chapters of life, I often believed healing and growth was something I could achieve through thinking alone -that if I could explain away discomfort, distance myself from what felt heavy, or convince myself to simply “let go,” I’d find peace.
But over time, experience showed me otherwise. It wasn’t about overthinking or detaching. It was about learning to feel, to meet life not just with my mind, but with my whole being.
And in that space, I discovered a quiet truth: the heart remembers.
The Heart's Central Role
While reading Yasmin Mogahed’s “Reclaim Your Heart”, “Healing the Emptiness” and Shaykh Hamza Yusuf’s commentary on “Purification of the Heart,” I found language for what I had been intuitively sensing: the heart isn’t just the seat of love; it is the seat of everything. Intention. Presence. Clarity. Attachment. Surrender.
In Islam, the heart {the qalb} is at the core of the self. It’s mentioned over a hundred times in the Qur’an, not as a metaphor, but as a living center of consciousness. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) taught, “Truly in the body, there is a morsel of flesh which, if sound, the whole body is sound. And if corrupt, the whole body is corrupt. Truly, it is the heart.”
The Heart-Brain Connection
The field of neurocardiology has revealed that the heart contains over 40,000 neurons. It has its own intrinsic nervous system; a kind of “heart brain” that communicates directly with the brain in our heads. In fact, 90% of the heart-brain communication flows from the heart to the brain.
This means that how we feel in our hearts can directly shape how we think, decide, and even remember. The heart doesn’t just follow the brain, it guides it.
Even more profound is the discovery that the heart emits the strongest electromagnetic field in the human body, 60 times greater than that of the brain. This field shifts with our emotions and can be measured several feet outside the body. Our hearts, in a very real sense, are broadcasting our internal states.
Heart-Aware Living
This reframed everything for me. My growth wasn’t about denying emotion or disciplining myself into seeking mental clarity. It was about becoming more heart-aware. More heart-present.
From Hamza Yusuf, I learned that the diseases of the heart: arrogance, envy, heedlessness, excessive attachment to people and the material world are not just spiritual flaws. They are weights. They cloud our perception, close us off from alignment, and harden the very center we were meant to keep soft.
From Yasmin Mogahed, I absorbed the reminder that reclaiming the heart is not about becoming less emotional, but more spiritually intelligent. It’s about returning the heart to the only One who can truly hold it. Because when our hearts are anchored in the highest power, we stop outsourcing our peace. We stop chasing fullness from things that were never designed to complete us.
Questions That Keep Me Aligned
As I navigate my personal and professional growth, I’m learning to lead not only with strategy, but with internal alignment. This season of growth is not reactionary, it is intentional, measured, and deeply attuned to what is arising within.
Is this response softening my heart or hardening it?
Is this attachment deepening my peace or disturbing it?
And when discomfort, anger, uncertainty arises I don’t run from it. I meet it at the door of my chest, hand over heart, and say: “You’re welcome here. You’re a part of this, too.”
There is intelligence in introspection. And there is strength in remaining open even when it’s inconvenient.
Modern Healing Tools and Spiritual Alignment
As someone committed to both inner growth and spiritual integrity, I’ve come to see contemporary healing practices such as mindfulness, inner child work, and nervous system regulation not as contradictions to Islamic values, but as complementary frameworks.
When approached with intention, these tools refine our self-awareness. They help us become more present with our emotions, regulate our internal responses, and meet discomfort with steadiness rather than avoidance. In essence, they support the return to the heart’s natural clarity, its fitrah.
A Return to the Heart
In Islam, the heart is the seat of perception and moral intelligence. It doesn’t forget pain, but it can be softened. It can be purified, not through suppression, but through patient release. What we heal, we don’t erase. We integrate.
Reclaiming the heart, then, is not a single act of detachment. It is a daily discipline. A consistent return to what grounds us, to what matters, to what aligns.
For me, this integration of modern psychological insight and Islamic spiritual anchoring is not only possible, it is necessary. It invites a form of leadership and living that is clear-minded, emotionally attuned, and spiritually rooted.
That, I believe, is where sustainable healing and meaningful growth truly begin.
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