??? ????I had just invited my cousin to our aqiqah (new baby celebration). The party is on friday, and it turns out, that they are leaving Dammam friday to go to Makkah for Hajj. And since we are directly on the way for them, it worked out perfectly. A perfect plan. Everything in place.
Now, I was able to clearly see the thought stream in my head. I thought to myself, “Wow everything is falling in place perfectly. This aqiqah will have good amount of people, and family is coming, and they will stay the night, so we gotta give them our room again to remain comfy, and then we’ll see them off the following day. Wow everything is just perfect. And I have to continue to do things perfectly to maintain this standard of and perfection. I then felt the need to assure perfection in everything at the moment. Perfectly drive and choose the correct streets to take. And not make a sub-par choice. And doing the perfect thing, which is to go home stop by and say salam to the wifey, change into a thobe, and walk to the masjid. And untuck my dress shirt and take off the tie. And to get started immediately after asr for Arabic with the wife. All the dominoes need to be set up perfectly so they perfectly hit each other and fall down swiftly and smoothly.I was able to separate myself from this unhealthy thought stream and question it. “You have earned perfection, don’t mess it up now, you must keep up that perfection or else you’ll be a failure.” Or something along those lines.
It’s like, “Don’t mess up!”, because things have been going well, and if I don’t keep doing things perfectly, everything will fail.
But as I saw it floating in my mind, I was wondering, why is this defined as perfection? Where does it say that this situation = perfection, and it’s up to ME to keep everything perfect? And why is my goal to maintain this “perfection?” Shouldn’t the goal rather be to be sincere to Allah and to just try my best? I could sense some irrationality in this unhealthy, deeply rooted thought process.
It is promising that as I am undertaking this Social Anxiety Therapy with Dr. Richards, I starting to feel tiny bits of disconnect with the engrossed anxious thoughts and feelings.
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