1.2 ROOTS: Returning to What Holds You

Season One: ROOTS

Returning to What Holds You

بسم اللہ الرحمٰن الرحیم

False Roots: What We Hold Onto That Cannot Hold Us

Every heart looks for stability.

Every woman seeks something to lean on when life feels uncertain. This is not weakness, it is part of being human.

Yet sometimes, in the search for safety, the heart reaches for supports that feel firm but were never meant to carry its weight. These are what we may call false roots.

False roots are not sins.

They are often survival responses, ways the heart learned to protect itself when it felt afraid, unseen, or overwhelmed. But when these attachments quietly replace reliance on Allah, they begin to exhaust rather than support us.

Attachment to People:

Connection is natural. Loving deeply is part of a woman’s fitrah. But when emotional security becomes dependent on another person’s presence, attention, or consistency, the heart becomes vulnerable to constant shaking.

People change...

Circumstances shift....

Even the most sincere relationships cannot promise permanence!

Loving people is beautiful.

Expecting them to provide inner stability is heavy, for them and for you.

When the heart leans too heavily on people, every distance feels like rejection, and every change feels like loss.

Approval and Validation:

Many women grow quietly dependent on approval: from family, society, colleagues, or even strangers. Being liked feels safe. Being praised feels affirming. But approval, by its nature, is unstable.

Psychologically, validation from others offers short-term reassurance, not long-term security. Spiritually, when the heart begins to seek worth from creation rather than the Creator, peace becomes fragile.

When approval becomes a root, identity becomes conditional.

And conditional worth is exhausting to maintain.

Control as a False Root:

Some hearts try to feel safe by controlling outcomes. Planning, anticipating, and managing every possibility feels like protection, especially for those who have experienced loss or uncertainty.

But control is often an attempt to quiet fear, not remove it.

Islam does not call us to abandon effort. It calls us to release the outcome after effort. When control becomes the root, anxiety grows whenever life refuses to follow the plan.

Control feels reassuring, until it collapses under what cannot be controlled.

Productivity as Identity:

In a world that praises constant doing, many women measure their worth by how much they produce. Rest feels like failure. Stillness feels undeserved.

Productivity may organize life, but it cannot define value.

Your worth does not rise when you do more, nor does it disappear when you slow down. Your value is not earned through exhaustion, it is granted by Allah through existence itself.

When productivity becomes a root, burnout is not a surprise; it is an outcome.

(Burnout:

Why False Roots Feel So Real:

False roots often feel convincing because they offer immediate relief. They are visible, measurable, and socially rewarded. They give a sense of control, belonging, or reassurance, but only temporarily.

Anything temporary, no matter how comforting, cannot provide lasting stability.

An Invitation to Awareness:

This is not a call to detach overnight.

It is not a demand to uproot everything at once.

It is an invitation to notice.

Allah ta'ala does not reveal false roots to shame the heart. He reveals them to free it. Awareness itself is a form of mercy, the first gentle step toward returning to what truly holds.

Tracing What I Lean On...

Gentle reflections

• When I feel afraid, unseen, or uncertain, where does my heart turn first?
• Whose approval or reassurance feels most necessary to me, and why?
• What do I fear losing the most, and what does that fear reveal about what I rely on?
When you are ready, the journey continues, not by tearing roots out forcefully, but by slowly returning the heart to the One who never shifts.

May Allah grant us clarity without heaviness, and guidance without fear. Aamiin!

With Duas
Amina Chahal
Islamic Life Coach, Life Skills Trainer