THE CHOICE OF CHANGE: PRACTICAL STEPS FOR SELF-

TRANSFORMATION
BY KAMAL SHAARAWY AND LESLIE SCHAFFER

The Choice of Change: Practical Steps for Self-Transformation

(Part 1 of 2)
EARTHLY LIFE BURDENS people. Yet there is an argument to make that the
weight of the world now presses even heavier upon us than it did our
predecessors. Natural and man-made political and social disasters abound.
Their effect on mind, body, and spirit can be overwhelming. By the millions we
now seek out counseling in search of relief from anxiety, depression, or
addiction—often for all three. At the base of most maladaptive behaviors is a
single, urgent desire: To escape the world’s intensity and one’s own life
challenges.

We are ‘Mukallaf’As Muslims, we know and accept that the life of this world is
an ongoing test, and how we respond to its travails either makes the heart pure
and sound or corrupts and hardens it. Yet how many of us fail to realize that
the things that determine the suppleness of the heart are not just the outward
religious duties, such as salah and fasting, but also the myriad details of one’s
everyday regimen of living. At any given moment, we are, in fact, choosing to
purify –or harden– our hearts. Such is the trust conferred upon the human
creature, for he accepted the divine amânah of volitional faith and will and the
burdens of obligation and accountability –as well as the risk of Hellfire that
comes with this– when other creations refused the trust (Sûrat Al-Sajdah, 32:13,
Sûrat Al-Aḥzâb, 33:72). We are each one of us, as the scholars say, mukallaf,
burdened with the obligation to choose right action and divinely accountable
for the choices we make.

Thus, each time we practice, for example, empathic listening with spouse or
child, or friend or co-worker, we are choosing. Each time we refuse to indulge
in negative and self-defeating thoughts, we are choosing. Each time we act out
in anger, pray mechanically and without focus, allow resentment to build,
reprimand our child with hostility, we are, likewise, choosing.
 Purity or corruption. Purity or corruption. Purity or corruption. On and on our
choices tally.

Yet some say: “I feel like I don’t have the strength or the will to choose.” Or: “If
it were a simple matter to choose a smaller portion so as to control my blood
sugar and not have to use medication or inject myself with insulin, I would do
it. My problem is that I can’t control myself.” The issue of self-control or self-
restraint is a crucial one. Consider the following verse:

And do you realize what is the steep road? It is the freeing of a human being
from bondage, or offering food on a day of starvation to an orphan who is a
relative, or to an indigent person who is down in the dust—all the while, being
of those who believe—and who exhort one another to [persevere in faith with]
patience, and who exhort one another to mercifulness. [Sûrat Al-Balad, 90:12-
17]

In this verse, “freeing the human being from bondage” is literally in Arabic “freeing
a neck.” This phrase holds the general meaning of liberating a human being
from any sort of bondage. Bondage, by extension, can be any type of servitude
or captivity. One can be captive to addiction, to any sort of self-destructive
habit, to ignorance, to poverty, and so on. To “free a neck” of another human
being is thus to help him when he is in need, protect him from harm, contribute
to his healing, or to intervene on his behalf in any other benevolent endeavor.
So in accordance with this verse, we can say that beyond the core level of belief
the steep path entails three obligations:

1. ENSURING SOCIAL JUSTICE:

Represented in the verse as feeding the needy.

2. ENGAGING IN THE PRACTICE OF SELF-MASTERY:

Represented as promoting and practicing ‘ṣabr,’ or patience and perseverance.

3. CULTIVATING THE QUALITY OF MERCY:

Represented as promoting and practicing loving-kindness and compassion.

In this short verse, Allah reminds us of the foundational place of belief in our
lives, of the duty of helping others, and of actively working to bring about
justice and mercy. Yet at the pivot of all of this resides the quest for self-mastery.

This brings to mind the teaching story of the old man sitting with two friends
at a coffee shop. One asked him what he considered the most important thing
he had learned in his long life. He answered:

As a young man, I was self-assured, full of enthusiasm, and used to pray to God
to help me change the world. Then when I became 40, I realized that my life
was already half over, and I was honest enough with myself to admit that I had
influenced no one and changed nothing. So I prayed to God to help me change
the people closest to me, all of whom had many imperfections and harmful
habits. Still no one listened to me, and my relationships became even more
difficult. Now I’m an old man and my prayer is simple indeed. I ask God to
give me the strength and determination to change myself.

The Gauntlet of Life

This anecdote, of course, sums up life’s central question. How to change
ourselves? Two of the most popular and effective types of counseling or
therapy that are used to help a person address issues such as anxiety,
depression, phobias, and so on, are cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and
rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT). These therapy approaches propose
that it is the belief we hold about an event rather than the event itself that causes
us to become depressed, anxious, angry, and so forth. For example, a child
misbehaves because of some normal factor such as fatigue or childish
selfishness, but the parent thinks: “How dare he behave that way in front of
me, his father!” The father’s dismay impels him to scream at the child and
spank him. It is not really the child’s behavior that has triggered the father’s
dismay, but rather the father’s belief about the behavior and what he thinks
should be considered proper respect for a father.
Studies using CBT and REBT have examined the most effective techniques or
mechanisms of change. What they show is that keeping thought records to
observe and challenge automatic negative, irrational, or fallacious thoughts and
beliefs are very effective. They provide an individual with greater clarity to
better put things in perspective and to logically examine such thoughts and
assess the evidence for or against their validity. But the participants in this
study (and more generally people who strive to make a positive change in their
lives) had far greater success when they also engaged in “behavior
experiments”—an experiment designed to provide an individual with an
experience in real life to test out whether a particular thought or belief is valid
or true.

For example, consider an individual who believes and has persistent fearful
thoughts that if she speaks up in class, everyone will judge her as being stupid.
The “experiment” is designed, undertaken, and then the individual evaluates
the result. In the case of a female college student who hesitates to participate in
class, she and the counselor might design the experiment to be one instance
during her next class session when she will volunteer to answer a question
asked by the teacher —even if it be a very brief answer like a “yes” or a “no.”
In evaluating the experience, she might determine that “none of the students
even looked at me. It was like the flow of the class just continued without
break…I didn’t get the expected ‘some kind of disaster.’ It felt great!”

In these studies, the behavior experiments extended the change-producing

experience from being primarily intellectual, in the head, to a deeper level, that
of “sensefelt,” which was more globally convincing. In other words, the
behavior experiment involved not just the intellect, but also feelings, the gut-
level experience of greater confidence, or that “something just felt right.”

These behavior experiments are successful because they go beyond the solely
rational. The student might say to herself: “Don’t’ be silly. Of course, you’re not
stupid.” And she knows intellectually that the other students don’t perceive her
as stupid. But that rational awareness, although correct, is not sufficient to shift
her physical and emotional experience of doubting herself and lacking the
confidence to speak out.

Similarly, when an individual practices feeling gratitude or appreciation for the

good things in his life in order to self-generate a regular and healthy heart
rhythm (referred to as “heart rhythm coherence”), he is instructed to recall a
past positive memory that elicits warm, pleasant feelings. Over time and with
practice, most are able to self-generate feelings of gratitude or appreciation
through this biofeedback training without reference to the originative memory.
Note what we said above, that the memory must elicit a “feeling” that is warm
and pleasant. This is the mainspring. Dr. Rollin McCraty, director of research
for the Institute of Heart Math, [1] says:

It’s important to emphasize that it is not a mental image of a memory that

creates a shift in our heart rhythm, but rather the emotions associated with the
memory. Mental images alone usually do not produce the same significant
results that we’ve observed when someone focuses on a positive feeling.

The Quran verifies this observation:

[God] guides to Himself whomever turns [to Him] in penitence. These are the
ones who [truly] believe and whose hearts grow calm [with assurance] at the
remembrance of God. Most assuredly, it is by the remembrance of God that
hearts grow calm. [Sûrat Al-Ra’d, 13:27-28]

Here, the emotional event of repentance, and specifically the uttered

recollection of Allah as the Accepter of Repentance suffuses the heart with
tranquility.

The common-sense approach to understanding ourselves as thinking, feeling

beings obligates us to see both brain and heart as essential in any attempts to
change ourselves for the better…which brings us back to the central challenge
of life—how to change ourselves. Have you ever tried to lose weight, be more
patient, or stop yelling at your kids? These and countless other attempts to
improve the quality of our daily lives often come up against a brick wall.

We try and try again, over and over—new diet, greater determination to avoid
feeling in a hurry at a slow checkout line at the store, wanting so much to find
ways that work better and don’t leave us feeling guilty about how we deal with
our children when they are loud and annoying but just being kids. What keeps
us from being able to change negative behavior patterns when we know that
they are making us miserable and compromising our efforts to purify our
hearts and souls?

Reading, Talking, Dreaming…But No Action

Some people who desire to change something in their behavior, character, or
daily habits of living spend considerable time reading books, attending
seminars, and looking for insight from self-help sources of information. They
consume endless amounts of information and knowledge and still do not
experience any genuine change. Vernon Howard, author and teacher, says of
this dilemma:

Many of us knock on the door but remain outside, because knocking and
entering are entirely different actions. Knocking is necessary, consisting of
reading books, attending meetings, asking questions. But entrance requires
much bolder action. It requires one to enter into himself, to uncover (his own)
hidden motives, to see (his own) contradictions, and to realize his actual power
for self-change.

There is a relevant story (perhaps apocryphal) in our literature attributed to

various scholars but commonly to Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali (d. 505 h/1111 c.e.).
He used to travel from village to village, his donkey loaded with the books he
proudly collected –evidence, so he thought, of his vast knowledge. One day,
robbers accosted him and stole his donkey and all his books. He was grateful
they had spared his life but begged the chief brigand to return to him his books.
The chief asked him why he needed them. Al-Ghazali responded that they
contained his knowledge, to which the astute robber replied: “If, when I take
your books, I steal your knowledge, then truly you possess no knowledge at
all.” Al-Ghazali realized that he had never taken to heart the knowledge in the
volumes of books he had carried from village to village. He vowed from
that moment forward to acquire only one book and when he had mastered and
put into practice the knowledge in that one book, only then would he acquire
another. This story illustrates the importance of “taking to heart” and putting
into practice the knowledge we acquire.

At Julliard, the world-renowned performing arts conservatory in New York

City, the amount of time dedicated to practice is approximately 80 percent of a
student’s learning time. Academic learning through lectures accounts for about
5 to 15 percent of the time, and the other 5 to 15 percent is devoted to “decision
training,” such as improvisational skill and ability in music performance. Think
about that—80 percent of the student’s time dedicated to practice! Yet there are
too many people who say: “I want to lose weight –or be more patient, or stop
yelling at my kids”— but they go no further than reading material related to
their goal, thinking about it, dwelling on it, dreaming about it, engaging in
endless mental chatter about it—but who take no action. Prophet Muhammad
œ used to seek refuge in Allah from this:

O Allah! I seek refuge in You from useless knowledge. (Ibn Mâjah)

A part of useless knowledge is knowledge of the intellect and the tongue,

knowledge that is not taken to heart and acted upon.
The Choice of Change: Practical Steps for Self-Transformation
(Part 2 of 2)

Taking Action, But Giving Up Too Quickly

THEN THERE ARE people who want to take action, to practice what they have
learned; they try for a couple of days but then say: “Oh, nothing ever changes.
I keep trying and don’t see any change.” One man sought counseling because
he had been trying –unsuccessfully— to overcome an anger habit that was
damaging his relationship with his wife and children. He had heard that it takes
10,000 hours to master anything and this was very discouraging to him. Upon
a little research, we found that the origin of this idea is a book published in
2008, Outliers: The Story of Success. Its author, Malcolm Gladwell, refers to what
he calls the “10,000-hour rule.”

The idea is that it takes around 10,000 hours of practice to become masterful at
something. It’s certainly true that such an enormous amount of time is required
to become an NBA superstar or world-class artist. Michael Jordan, arguably the
greatest basketball player of all time, was cut from his high school basketball
team. How then did he win six NBA championships? While his skills during
his high school years might have been inferior to other players on the team, he
had the drive and cultivated in himself the desire for mastery far surpassing
the vast majority of others players. He pushed himself harder and practiced
more than the others. His hard work, of course, paid off.

We are focusing here, however, on practicing personal skills or new habits of

behavior, or techniques that bring about self-improvement. We can look to
neuropsychology for a more realistic assessment of how long it takes to institute
a new behavioral habit. Behavioral habits create pathways in the brain. These
neural pathways are basically connections of neurons that transmit
electrochemical messages throughout the body. Every time we learn something
new or focus the mind with concentration, neural pathways are being created,
and this goes on throughout our lives. Learning to tie our shoes or ride a bike
as a child, or learning to drive a car or use Microsoft Excel, the brain is
establishing neural pathways so that gradually our actions become “second
nature” and easy to execute without conscious effort. At first we feel awkward
and inept in the new activity, and progress is likely to be slow and gradual. But
with practice, step-by-step, our ability improves.

We can think of habits of thought and behavior as pathways that become more
and more deeply grooved. It’s like a channel through which water flows. The
water will always flow through that channel unless it is blocked by something.
Then a new channel will be etched out.

Researchers have found that new neural pathways can be created in 30 to 60

days with focused effort. The person who automatically heads for the kitchen
whenever feeling moody or anxious or depressed, using food to temporarily
ameliorate those feelings, is traveling down a neural pathway that is well worn
and familiar. The effort to create a new pathway, to learn to soothe the self in
more productive ways, feels utterly strange and difficult in the beginning, until
one has traveled that path enough times and it starts to feel “right,”
comfortable, and enjoyable.

We can find great motivation in the fact that the brain is constantly changing,
and we just have to be willing to act as self-directing individuals, capable of
creating new habits of living whenever we decide to improve the quality of our
lives. This neuroplasticity of the brain allows us to genuinely choose how to
live our lives. The key is to practice, practice, practice. It’s said that “practice
makes perfect.” We could say that practice makes perfectly grooved neural
pathways toward mastery!

Practicing the Same and Getting the Same

Mediocre Results
Some who are committed to change practice their new skill or behavior and
don’t give up after a short time. They establish a baseline of practice and simply
continue doing the same repetitive practice even if they are getting mediocre
results. They may say: “Something must be wrong with me. There must be
some secrets of learning that I don’t know about. I’ve tried hard but it’s just not
getting me anywhere.”

One couple came to counseling because the husband, Ahmad, had a habit of
blaming his wife for every little (and big) thing, and the wife harbored
resentment toward him for the habit of blaming and many other things. (To
protect privacy, the case we present is an amalgam of a number of actual
counseling cases.) The wife was willing to work on herself and practice
techniques to eliminate and avoid building up resentment. The husband
acknowledged his tendency to find fault. Yet whenever he had the opportunity
to choose a more emotionally intelligent way to convey a complaint or
dissatisfaction, he would just restrain his tongue and walk away. But then later
that day or the next day he would bring up the incident and launch into his
blaming barrage.

He justified his new habit of deferring the blaming until a later time by saying
that at least he was trying. And he was “trying”—again and again, the same
routine, never advancing beyond that point. It’s like he knew there was a hole
in the road and every time he approached the hole, he would see it, walk
around it, and then later come back and fall into the hole. Every time!

Think about how routine any activity can become once it’s “second nature.”
When we drive a car, we don’t have to consciously think about turning the key
in the ignition, backing out of the driveway, accelerating and braking at the
appropriate times, and so on. Unfortunately, the same phenomena can take
place when we practice something. It can become rote and mechanical, serving
little purpose or benefit. For example, when a beginner gymnast learns a
balance beam routine, if he has learned it without paying attention to the
importance of keeping his body straight and vertical, perpendicular to the level
of the beam, even if he goes through the routine one thousand times, he will
not improve what needs improvement, namely, the relationship between good
form and balance. Our practice of new attitudes and/or behaviors requires the
same meticulous attention to specific elements involved in that change, and
giving special attention to areas of weakness in the practice regimen.
Practice Must Be “Deliberate Practice”
Professor Ericsson, of Florida State University, corroborates the idea that
practice is the most significant factor in attaining to superior performance.
However, he asserts that “deliberate practice” (which we’ll define in a moment)
is what brings results. He writes about practice as the foundation for acquiring
the necessary skills in pursuit of mastery and even shows that this expertise is
more the result of practice than special talent.

When experts exhibit their superior performance in public, their behavior looks
so effortless and natural that we are tempted to attribute it to special talents.
Although a certain amount of knowledge and training seems necessary, the role
of acquired skill for the highest levels of achievement has traditionally been
minimized. However, when scientists began measuring the experts’
supposedly superior powers of speed, memory, and intelligence with
psychometric tests, no general superiority was found—the demonstrated
superiority was domain specific. For example, the superiority of the chess
expert’s memory was constrained to regular chess positions and did not
generalize to other types of materials.

These skills of expertise result from practice that is characterized as being fully
focused and concentrated, meaningful (as opposed to rote and mechanical),
and working on areas of weakness. That is deliberate practice. In our example
of the beginner gymnast, this would involve focusing on what needs
improvement rather than performing the routine again and again, which only
serves to strengthen the neural pathways of mediocre technique wherever that
exists.

Deliberate practice also involves using varying and creative techniques to learn
in a way that is “deep and intense.” This kind of practice includes welcoming
and even looking for feedback. In the case of someone practicing a sport, that
feedback would come from the coach. In the case of someone working on
character skills, that feedback would come from those people with whom daily
interaction provides opportunity to practice the skill and to see what effects the
behavior or attitude modification brings.

To reiterate, deliberate practice includes the following qualities:

1. Full focus and concentration

2. Making the practice meaningful
3. Working on areas of weakness
4. Using varied and creative techniques to learn in a way that is “deep and
intense”
5. Welcoming, and even looking for, feedback.

There is, however, one very important note here. In fact, it is a paradox of sorts.
We are using words like “focus,” “concentration,” “deep,” and “intense.” These
words would seem to convey a kind of tenseness, a hard pushing. But
deliberate practice, as we mean it, is a keenly aware yet perfectly relaxed—
almost elegant— state. The intensity is in the intention and resolute motivation. But
the approach is one of ease. There is a keen awareness without harsh or
judgmental demands on self, or thoughts that produce anxiety. Practicing a
sport, chess, or patience—when performed with simplicity of spirit—has an
underlying cognizance of silence, ease, and joy.

With regard to practicing a new character trait, it is in a very real way of striving
for freedom from a persona that was conditioned in early life by people and
events, fears and anxieties, desire for acceptance, and aversion to harsh
judgment or rejection. When there is freedom from these ego concerns, there is
simplicity. We come to realize that it’s not enough to understand the routine
and outer patterns of our lives. That is nothing but a shadow of the real self. We
are aiming deeper, to cultivate the self that thinks, feels, speaks, and acts in
harmony with a genuine core of principle and mastery—of a skill or of the self.
To this end, psychotherapist and Zen-master Karlfried Graf Durkheim notes:
(In) all the martial arts … the basic aim is always the same; by tirelessly
practicing a given skill, the student finally sheds the ego with its fears, worldly
desires, and reliance on objective scrutiny—sheds it so completely that the
student becomes the instrument of a deeper power, from which mastery falls
instinctively, without further effort, like a ripe fruit.

Staying “In Ease”? —Life’s Too Stressful!

Going back for a moment to the idea of staying “in ease,” some may say: “That’s
not realistic. Life is too stressful!” Then consider the following verse:

And We shall smooth your way to perfect ease. [Sûrat Al-A’ala, 87:8].

Sayyid Qutb says about this verse:

This is a glad tiding for the Prophet personally and for the Islamic nation at
large. It is furthermore a statement of the nature of Islam, its role in human life,
and in the universe. This verse, which is rendered in Arabic in no more than
two written words— [wa nu-yassiru-ka li-al-yusra]—states one of the most
fundamental principles of faith and existence. It provides a link between the
nature of the Prophet, the nature of Islam, and that of the whole universe. It is
a universe created by Allah with ease. It follows its appointed way with ease.
And it draws nearer it final objective with ease. Thus, it is an inspiration
lighting limitless horizons. If Allah smoothes a certain person’s path, he finds
ease in everything in life. For he will move along his way to Allah, as does the
universe, which is characterized by its harmony of construction, movement,
and direction…. Ease will pervade his whole life. It will be evident in his hand,
tongue, movement, work, ideas, way of thinking, conducting all affairs, and
tackling all matters; ease with himself and with others as well.

We learn to recognize exactly what will and what will not contribute to our
ease. So we choose something other than food to soothe our troubled emotions,
or resolve to practice tolerance and forgiveness rather than giving in to
blaming. If we are tense and tight and twisted again and again, like a tight
 rubber band, we will defeat our purpose and defeat our attempts to gain greater
mastery of self.

A very interesting study was done that has far-reaching implications. Mothers
of children diagnosed with ADHD were given mindfulness training. This
training included:

1. Contemplative and concentration exercises.

2. Practice in having good intentions, such as loving-kindness, compassion, and
generosity.
3. Cognitive strategies, such as reflecting on and remembering the transitory
nature of events and circumstances when facing a challenging or provoking
situation.
4. Empathic strategies, such as overcoming the fear of suffering so as to truly enter
the world of another in order to relieve their suffering in whatever way possible
and facilitate for them an improved stat — be it relief, happiness, or feeling
understood and appreciated.

The training provided to mothers brought about improved behavior in the

children. When the children were also provided the training, behavioral
improvements were even more pronounced. Some of the children could be
taken off their medication. This has implications for our efforts to gain greater
mastery of self.

The Mind Can Be Like an Unruly Child

On a certain level, the mind can be compared to an unruly child. Unless we
discipline our own minds, and do it in the proper way, the mind runs here and
there without purpose. We fail to act. We end up feeling discouraged. We
practice in ways that get us nowhere.

The study about mindfulness training for mothers of ADHD-diagnosed

children supports the idea that three states of consciousness and self-directed
mental strategies work best when dealing with difficult children: (1) being
entirely present; (2) being profoundly aware of one’s own thoughts, attitudes,
 intentions, feelings, speech, and actions; and (3) keeping things in perspective
with an approach of calm, gentle, and empathic assertiveness. This same
mindfulness constitutes the foundation we need to train our minds to engage
in deliberate practice.

Here’s a handy list of guidelines that facilitate getting out of the endless loops
of thinking, reading, and wishing about some change you want to make, but
never taking action to bring about that change; avoiding the vicious cycle of
enthusiasm and then discouragement; and making sure you don’t fall into the
trap of practicing at a subpar level of behavior over and over again:

1. Pay attention to your attitude and approach. Be open to change. Cultivate calm
assertiveness. Avoid harsh or judgmental demands on yourself or anything
that produces anxiety. Don’t worry about feeling or looking foolish as you try
out new behaviors. (Baseball Hall of Famer Lou Brock said: “Show me a guy
who is afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy I can beat every time.”)
2. Acquire knowledge related to your objective.

3. Spend time reflecting on what you have learned and on the consequences of
making the change versus staying “unchanged.”

4. Get creative in how you practice. Think outside the box to find ways that you
can use so as to accomplish your goal.

5. Make your practice a “deliberate practice,” i.e., deep and intense. Studies show
you can accomplish more in a deep 10-minute practice than a shallow two-hour
practice session.

6. Keep your practice focused on particulars, reaching for one particular goal—a
new aspect in your repertoire of self-directed thoughts, chosen attitudes, or
behavioral responses. Don’t worry if you are not perfect during that segment
of your practice. The point is not to get it perfect “this time,” but to
systematically build toward a success vision of steady and gradual
improvement.
7. Practice, practice, practice—this is sabr, patience and perseverance. Know that
change does not happen overnight. Remember that creating a new neural
pathway takes 30 to 60 days.

8. Welcome—and look for—feedback.

9. Ask Allah, the Exalted and Most High, for help, guidance, and the grace
necessary to reach into the depths of your being.

Remember Ahmad, the man mentioned above who used to blame his wife a lot
and then got into the habit of “deferred blaming”? Through counseling, he
learned to use the above guidelines to address his issue. In an upcoming article,
we will, Insha’Allah, go into detail about Ahmad’s attempts to apply each of the
above points and provide details of his journey of change, including the more
nuanced modifications he made in his attitudes –and in his perceptions of
himself, of life, and of his family. We will also present details of the positive
challenges put to him by his counselor and his wife –challenges that he resisted
at first but ultimately embraced wholeheartedly, which produced
extraordinary results in his relationships with his wife and children. The
detailed descriptions take the reader “inside” his thoughts and feelings,
allowing a first-hand understanding of how change takes place.
Allah does not change a people’s condition until they change what is in their
souls. [Sûrat Al-Rad, 13:11]