What if the thing you’re avoiding… is the thing that will free you?

She decluttered her home, logged off social, even slowed her thoughts. But one thing kept pulling her back...Week 4 of the PAUSE Framework

Jul 27, 2025

﷽

For those who would rather listen, you can listen to this post on Substack audio.

Let’s get started, but before reading, take a breath. Set an intention. Say: “I’m doing this for Allah— to purify my heart for Him.”

The Storage Room of Her Heart

By now, Mayya had cleared every visible surface. The kitchen counters gleamed. The kids’ craft shelf was finally sorted. She wrapped, labelled, and stored the drawer full of tangled phone chargers. But the storage room in the back corner of the house, she avoided that room.

She followed the first three weeks of the PAUSE Framework. Click below in case you missed it.

Week 1 — she said she’d get to it.

Week 2 — sheshe did her best to change her social media habits

Week 3 — she started to feel something wasn't right

Something in her resisted. It wasn’t laziness. Nor was it forgetfulness. Mayya couldn’t put her finger on it, but she could feel it. It was something deeper, inside her soul. Each time she saw the bags in that one room, she felt the depth of her soul crying out to her.

The small storage room, tucked away under the staircase, was packed with bags of old letters and documents. Each one held memories from a time she believed she had left behind. Why then had she stored all those papers in that room? Why hadn’t she tossed them years ago?

After three days of averting her gaze from the half door of the storage room, she knew she had to face the past. Also, the lawyer needed her mother’s death certificate. Ordering it from the archive would take 8 weeks. She had no choice; it was needed without delay. And there, in the storage room, was a copy of the death certificate that Mayya was certain of.

When she opened the door, an order of old papers, with a musty, slightly sweet, and dry dust-like smell, assaulted her senses. Life made Mayya confront the room she had been avoiding. Deep down, she knew Allah swt was telling her it was time to let go, for His sake.

It wasn’t simply a room filled with documents. It was a room of Mayya’s past.

She found the envelope marked “Mama.” Inside: an old stone box, her mother’s gold watch with a cracked watch face. Mayya wondered if she could get it repaired. And a thank-you card her mother had once tucked into her hand, as an expression of her love for Mayya. “You are the most wonderful daughter in the world. Thank you for loving me.”

Mayya’s throat closed up, and her chest ached. She dug deeper. Divorce papers. Her ex-husband’s final letter. An old birth plan she had written for her first child. Mayya also found a list of goals from 2012; funny thing, well not so funny, most of the goals hadn’t changed, except that she had given up on achieving them. She sat and wondered: What happened?

As Mayya held the pile of papers in her hands, they slipped onto her lap. Grief hit her like a tsunami. First, the water pulls back, then it crashes in. She took a deep breath, her chest expanding as if it might collapse. When she exhaled, the tears she'd held back for years came flooding out.

But there was more than grief. There was shame and nostalgia. It wrapped around her, creating an invisible shield. It felt like cling film, holding her emotions tightly. She saw herself as a leftover version of her life, sealed away and not ready to be opened.

The Quiet Confrontation

There’s a hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari where the Prophet ﷺ says:
“There is a piece of flesh in the body. If it is sound, the whole body is sound. If it is corrupted, the whole body is corrupted. Verily, it is the heart.”

Like Mayya, when we avoid a corner in our physical space, it is often because we are avoiding something in the corner of our hearts.

Mayya started to see that the storage room mirrored her inner struggles, but she felt unsure. She had tried to tuck all the emotions, memories, and pain she didn’t know how to deal with away, hoping it would go away. But as with a storage room, or that drawer or closet with stuff stuffed inside, it doesn’t go away. It collects dust, begins to decay, and often, we pile more things on it, without sorting out what is already there.

Mayya didn’t know it, but that storage room was a reflection of her own inner resistance. When she finally paused, it wasn't to declutter, disconnect, or do another exercise. She paused to reflect and let her heart speak. In that moment, something broke open. Mayya wasn’t trying to fix anything. She wanted to understand what she’d been running from. And in that pause, the answer came.

What Are You Avoiding?

A key part of growing spiritually is to take time to reflect. Sit with your thoughts and feelings.

The Messenger ﷺ often would take time alone and retreat, and exercise in muraqabah, which is Islamic mindfulness. Sometimes, the hardest thing to look at is not a mess in our house, but the memory that the mess is hiding.

So this week, I’m not asking you to organize anything.

I’m inviting you to pause — to slow down with intention, take a breath, and reflect. What have you been avoiding? What resistance begins to rise when you sit in silence? Are you pausing long enough to even notice it? And ask in a gentle manner: what progress might you be skipping past? What small victory from the last three weeks deserves to be honored and thanked?

Allah swt tells us in the Qur’an:

Surah al Baqarah (The Cow) (2:155)

وَلَنَبْلُوَنَّكُم بِشَىْءٍۢ مِّنَ ٱلْخَوْفِ وَٱلْجُوعِ وَنَقْصٍۢ مِّنَ ٱلْأَمْوَٰلِ وَٱلْأَنفُسِ وَٱلثَّمَرَٰتِ ۗ وَبَشِّرِ ٱلصَّـٰبِرِينَ ١٥٥

We will certainly test you with a touch of fear and famine and loss of property, life, and crops. Give good news to those who patiently endure—

Sometimes the best thing you can do is to PAUSE.

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Your 7-Day Practice (A Pause Within the Purify)

This week, try this:

Set aside 10 or even 5 minutes each day, more would be better. Find a quiet space, and let yourself be. Take time to feel and think without judgment. Reconnect with yourself. Remember, you are doing this to get closer to Allah swt.

One More Thing…

You don’t have to have an answer today, tomorrow, or any time soon. The answers will come when you are ready. If something is bothering you, like a memory or an unfinished task, pause. Then, ask Allah for His guidance and help. Allah swt may be inviting you to heal through it. If something surfaced for you while reading this…

I’d love to know what it was. Hit reply.

I read every word.