Abandonment, according to what the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan taught me, is the second most destructive emotion. As I reflect on the many counseling sessions that I have had with various people in and outside the country, including in-depth reflection on my own trajectory in life and experience in relationships with others, abandonment is a most destructive emotion that I am finding must be deeply studied. First and foremost, any painful emotion experienced in our conscious lives should be properly studied by reflection on the source of that painful emotion. Refuge must be sought in ALLAH (God) so that we do not get stuck or become ill influenced by the painful emotion experienced.
Who of us hasn’t experienced abandonment in our lives at, at least, some point in a relationship with someone other than ourselves, but not to the exclusion of self? I believe we all have at one point in our lives had this experience. I really like the wisdom I derive from the following adage; “it’s not what happens to you that matters most but instead how you RESPOND to what happens”. I think it is proper, and we have a God given right, to reflect on our individual lives not only on what we’ve been through and what was done to us but how we responded under those circumstances and with those individuals that we see as the cause for the painful emotion called abandonment.
I’d like to state right here as the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan once said to me that we are never alone and it is not ALLAH (God) that forsakes us. Instead, it is we who forsake him. When we think that someone has abandoned you, they may have, but ask yourself in the moment of that emotional judgement have we abandoned GOD-Consciousness? This is not to say that the other person or persons did not abandon you in your expectation of them, however you might find that this assessment of them, whoever they may be, is secondary to the deep seated ill effect that our own abandonment of GOD-Consciousness has caused us when we experienced self abandonment and accused or blamed others for this self-destructive emotion. We should examine and analyze our self-perception in relation to others we may have accused of abandoning us. I believe, with ALLAH (God)’s help, we will come to see that this self-destructive emotion called ‘abandonment’, which can misdirect our perception of others who we may hold responsible for abandoning us, is actually quite secondary to the abandonment of the God within which I’m using in this text under the term “God-Consciousness”.
Whenever we feel abandoned by anyone we generally develop an attitude toward them that is negative. In a wonderful study guide given by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, we learn that when negative attitudes go unchecked they harden into belief. We will find that it is much harder to change a person’s beliefs than a person’s attitude toward us or about whatever they have experienced that caused them the negative emotion. For the sake of this study I’m finding greater clarity in what my Minister shared with me concerning abandonment, which I read once that in clinical psychology it’s the most destructive emotion. It’s really secondary but not primary. My Minister taught me that the primary, most self-destructive emotion is ENVY. I would hope that the reader of this post would reflect on self in the manner of the following three steps: self-examination, self-analysis and self-correction for healing.
Let us examine how we begin to feel and perceive others when we feel abandoned by them and how they regard us in comparison to how we perceive they should. As an antidote (medicinal) to what you may discover in the study of self, I’d like to conclude with the words of the Holy Qur’an in Surah 113 “The Dawn”:
113:1 “Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of the dawn,”
113:2 “From the evil of that which He has created,”
113:3 “And from the evil of intense darkness, when it comes,”
113:4 “And from the evil of those who cast (evil suggestions) in firm resolutions,”
113:5 “And from the evil of the envier when he envies.”
NOTE: Envy here in the 113th chapter of the Holy Qur’an clearly stands out as the most destructive emotion that we must guard against and seeking refuge in ALLAH for the believer in God, seems to be the most effective, sure way. Thank you for reading this post. Until the next time… Ramadan Mubarak! May ALLAH bless you on your fast 😇
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