Loving Others Begins with Remembering Yourself
There is a hadith of the Prophet ﷺ that many of us know by heart:
“None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.”
We often hear this as a call to selflessness. To give. To sacrifice. To always think of others first.
But when I heard a recent lecture unpack this hadith, something in me shifted.
How can I love for someone else what I love for myself…
if I no longer know what I love for myself?When we first get married, we are whole people. We have identities, preferences, dreams, routines, personalities. Then slowly, beautifully, we merge into a “couple.” Decisions become shared. Time becomes negotiated. Space becomes blended. Identity becomes overshadowed.
And then motherhood arrives.
Pregnancy. Labor. Healing. Nursing. Sleepless nights. Hormones that don’t feel like your own. A body that no longer belongs only to you. A heart that now walks around outside your chest in the form of a tiny human.
You are told constantly what you’re doing wrong.
You stop having time to think… to breathe… to shower… to use the bathroom… to nap… to eat.You start drinking your coffee cold, because that’s the temperature you usually end up drinking it after reheating it four times.
Sometimes all you want is to hide in a closet and cry — quietly — so you don’t wake the baby.
Days turn into weeks.
Weeks into years.Maybe you get pregnant again. And again.
And one day you look up and realize: it’s been 8… 10… 12 years.
You’re still married. You’re still loving. You’re still giving.
But you haven’t had a chance to sit and consider what you would love… what you would want… who you are… who you have become.
So when life finally slows down enough to ask, “What do you want?”
You don’t know how to answer.
Because you’ve been last for so long.
What I want… is me.
I want to know who I am now.
Who I’ve become after all this loving and losing and giving.I want time to love myself.
To find myself.
To look within.
I want time to sit with myself.To heal emotions that were postponed.
To tend to a heart that’s been unattended.
To care for a body that was used for everyone else’s survival and left sick and broken but never restored — because everyone else came first.
To quiet a mind shaped by worry, stress, depression, anxiety, loneliness, late nights, and silent strength.
I want stillness.
Peace.
Moments of not being touched by tiny hands.I want to be intimately held.
Chosen.
Remembered in small ways.Ached for. Longed for.
Loved deeply — not just needed but truly wanted.
How can I love for others what I love for myself…
if I no longer know what love for myself looks like?….And here is where the hadith comes back to me, differently now.
Perhaps rediscovering ourselves, loving ourselves, and learning to care for our hearts in a healthy way is part of honoring the Amanah Allah entrusted to us as women and as mothers of this Ummah.
Allah reminds us gently:
“And do not forget your share of this world.”
(Surah Al-Qasas 28:77)Food for Thought –
Abu Hurayra reported:
“A man came to the Prophet of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and asked, ‘What do you command me to do?’ He replied, ‘Be dutiful towards your mother.’ Then he asked him the same question again and he replied, ‘Be dutiful towards your mother.’ He repeated it yet again and the Prophet replied, ‘Be dutiful towards your mother.’ Then he put the question a fourth time and the Prophet said, ‘Be dutiful towards your father.'”
حَدَّثَنَا بِشْرُ بْنُ مُحَمَّدٍ، قَالَ: أَخْبَرَنَا عَبْدُ اللهِ، قَالَ: أَخْبَرَنَا يَحْيَى بْنُ أَيُّوبَ، قَالَ: حَدَّثَنَا أَبُو زُرْعَةَ، عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ، أَتَى رَجُلٌ نَبِيَّ اللهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم فَقَالَ: مَا تَأْمُرُنِي؟ فَقَالَ: بِرَّ أُمَّكَ، ثُمَّ عَادَ، فَقَالَ: بِرَّ أُمَّكَ، ثُمَّ عَادَ، فَقَالَ: بِرَّ أُمَّكَ، ثُمَّ عَادَ الرَّابِعَةَ، فَقَالَ: بِرَّ أَبَاكَ.
Not because mothers disappear.
Not because they are meant to be emptied.
But because of the weight they carry, the love they pour, and the parts of themselves they quietly set aside for the sake of others.But even the soil that holds gardens must be nourished.
Take a moment to get to know who you are.
Not necessarily to remember who you were — because you are no longer that person.
You have grown.
You have added titles: wife, mother, caregiver, nurse, teacher, chef, protector, emotional anchor… and so many more.
Embrace the woman you are now.
Take time to learn what you need.
What you love.
What brings you peace.
What restores your heart.Because when you know what you value for yourself, you finally understand what it means to love it for others.
And in that, faith becomes complete — not through losing yourself, but through knowing yourself.
Inspire Society
At Inspire Society, we believe that devotion does not require depletion, and that becoming whole is part of becoming closer to Allah.
We gather not just to grow outwardly, but inwardly.
Not just to serve, but to heal.
Not just to give, but to remember who we are.