Personal Struggles During Ramadan

Hellooo everyone! Ramadan is literally upon us – some have begun fasting today and some are starting to fast tomorrow. I talked about my personal struggle as Ramadan approaches in one of my previous posts .

I decorated with intention to help me get into the frame of mind that is so important to have a successful Ramadan, whether it is for increasing your spirituality or in helping you keep your fasts. Complementary to that, I thought it would be helpful to write a reflective post for my Ramadan Goals and share some of my struggles for 2018. I think these goals are evergreen, and I can see them applying year after year.

This year, I am setting myself some tangible goals for Ramadan which I hope to carry forward. I have been doing this for years in a small notebook, but thought that maybe someone else out there could benefit from my little goal list in order to get some motivation.

#1 Personal struggle during ramadan: Taraweeh prayers

This is a huge personal struggle of mine, and I want to move it up on the goal list for Ramadan this year. Up until four years ago, I would be at Taraweeh every night or almost every night. And then I just dropped off the band wagon.. I made excuses like Taraweeh is so late, I don’t get enough sleep even though I have a flexible work schedule. So this year a personal goal is to go to Taraweeh on the weekends or even the weekdays if I can. I know for me, this will be difficult given I have half a dissertation to finish in the next 2 weeks and a toddler. But I at least have to try.

#2 Personal struggle during ramadan: Self Care and Nutrition

I have been eating healthier and taking care of my body in terms of exercising (mostly yoga for strengthening and toning – I cant do cardio due to a medical condition) and its really paying in terms of my energy levels. I have been feeling better, eating better and over all everything feels great. However, in Ramadan we tend to fall into the trap of unhealthy meals at Iftaar. I am no nutritionist, but logically it doesn’t make sense to eat a carb heavy meal right after fasting for 16 hours. A few years ago, I had the rule that I would ONLY eat one plate of food (whatever it was) but that plate size would be the size of a salad plate. And I would feel so energized that I made it to all the taraweeh’s and even qiyam that year. So I am bringing back the salad plate portions and also adding in my “smoothies and samosas” to my iftaar plan. I love samosas, in fact so much so that I can safely say they are my weakness (pakora’s are a strong contender too). So here’s the plan – work out for 15-20 minutes right before iftaar and then have a smoothie at iftaar followed by 2 samosas. And lots of water.. I shall keep you posted on how I do with that!

#3 Personal struggle during ramadan: Quran

Again 4 years ago as when I went downhill. I had been reading a whole quran in Ramadan before that and last year, I don’t think I read more than a few juz. I need that to change this year.

#4 Personal struggles during ramadan: Consistency with Dua’s

I write down dua’s for myself, my family and for all the things that I want (because who are we kidding, we pray for things too..) and I make dua several times during the day. My favourite time to make dua is right before iftaar – it is also one of the times in the day during Ramadan, that dua’s are most accepted [ ” Whatever is prayed for at the time of breaking the fast is granted and never refused – Tirmidhi”]. So literally, I will pull out my hand written dua list and read all my duas.. and so many of these I have actually seen come true  or be answered in the past years. So I will definitely be doing that again this year.

Those are my personal goals for this year – do you have goals for this Ramadan? Share in the comments below to motivate me and others! Also check out this blog post I have on DIY Ramadan Home Decor .

Ramadan Mubarak everyone!

xoxo

Areeba

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