Anxiety

One of the children I know is okay to speak when she is with her friends, but gets very quiet when she has to speak in front of a large group of people. She starts crying every time she encounters something difficult. She can't answer questions she knows the answer to when she starts crying. I wish I could tell her that I know how it feels. I know how it feels to feel like you can't breathe because your brain feels clogged up and everything in the world seems to be against you. I tell her everything will be okay. Just to calm down, drink some water and start again. She seems to be doing better - she went to the canteen person all by herself to ask for her lunch order, and she was so happy about it! She came running to me and told me the good news. 

She isn't the only one who feels that way. There's a few other children I know who seem to have anxiety issues. I can't remember having them when I was little, maybe I did, but I can't remember. But now that I am older and experience these issues all the time, I know how it feels like. I wish I could hug them tight everyday and let them know that everything will be okay. Allah will take care of them. 

Teaching and everything else

I am up at this ungodly hour doing an assignment and thinking about my kids and thinking about all the things that I have to do and trying to do my reading for my assignment. And then it hit me (again) - I love what I do! I am super busy these days but alhamdulillah I am absolutely loving it. I love teaching, I love learning about teaching and I love everything that comes with it. I love my family, I love my husband and I love everything that comes with them too. Right now, I feel like I have way too much on my plate, but I don't feel terrible about it because I love the things on it!

I feel like sometimes I feel very negative about everything. This is an advice to me for those times. When I feel negative, I need to think about everything I love.

- My loving family
- My super supportive, perfect (for me) husband
- Innocence that my (school) kids bring into my life
- The amazing potential that every single one of those children are carrying within themselves
- Thinking up of ways to tap into these potentials

Even though sometimes I feel like I am not doing anything to serve Allah through serving humanity any more, I need to remember that I am. I am doing it everyday at work, or at least, I have the potential to. I just need to take that opportunity everyday that it is given to me.

PS: The following words were sitting in a draft post written exactly 2 months ago - 9th January 2016. My mind really seems to rollercoaster...

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Sometimes, words like 'inspire' and 'dreams' and 'twinkle' and 'reach' seem too used. They seem like words that used to mean something once upon a time, but have entered and left my life so many times that even the thought of them makes me roll my eyes. "That's unrealistic, you know that right?" I told him today. "We can never do it."

"You have such a negative energy with you right now." He said.

When did our roles reverse? Why does he get to be the one with the twinkle in his eyes and dream of change? When did I become so tired of smiling in hope and began smiling only in social situations? After all, he is the accountant and I am the teacher.

What am I going to teach my children if I don't teach them to dream? What use will they have in folding laundry and cooking chicken, except for mere survival? How will they become astronauts and doctors and inventors if the only thing they learn off me is that being an adult means you don't think about being those things?

I had this realisation today. I have been edging towards it for a few days I guess, but I could only word my concern today. But this isn't the first time I have thought such a way, and I am assuming I am not the only one.