My Ramadhan Journey
my experience of Ramadhan is different every year, as I get older and my life circumstances change. This year I’m a married woman and I started the month fasting with my husband, Seán and for the first time I’m working from home full-time. I decided to approach Ramadhan with greater intention and because of who I am, I set goals to help keep my promises to myself.
I’ve also noticed that as I get older, the challenges I face in my day-to-day have changed and the meaning behind Ramadhan becomes clearer to me. What I’m learning is that we’re each on our own journey and we achieve things at different paces. I realised that I shouldn’t beat myself up and compare myself to others but just take notice that I’m trying to improve my character and practice.
Over the years, I’ve had an up and down relationship with my religion. I am a curious person and I asked questions to understand and grow my faith. My inquisitive and rational brain was not always satisfied with the responses and sometimes left me frustrated. Like many challenging disciplines in life, the importance of a wise and patient teacher is essential. Fasting has always been important to me, even when I was deployed into a humanitarian emergency or if I was at school or playing in a tennis tournament I would still fast.
When we are young, without the teachings of intention, sometimes religion is practiced out of tradition or obligation, but I’ve matured and learned, and with that, my approach and mindset has changed. During my five daily prayers I use this time to meditate, be present and share positive thoughts to God, myself, and others. This is the spirit I’ve entered into and experienced Ramadhan 2021.
Marriage and spirituality is a journey
As a new wife, I’ve felt the importance to share my spiritual journey with Seán and for us to be honest about our experiences with religion so that we can support each other. As a new convert to Islam, his understanding and connection to the religion is different. Rising early (04:30 in Europe) and fasting 16 hours to sunset for 30 days is challenging physically and mentally, if you’re not used to it. If you haven’t been conditioned to this practice over your lifetime and you are still learning about the religion, then fasting can be very difficult. When I noticed his struggle and change in mood I was torn. I know how important Ramadhan is but I also had to acknowledge that our journey has different starting points. If Seán exercised only his will to complete Ramadhan, his energy would have depleted him. Most likely he would have been frustrated and pushed against the physical challenges, rather than embrace the spiritual understanding needed to get through it.
I pushed myself to see past what others would think and focused on Seán. As a Muslim, fasting is important, but Ramadhan is more than abstaining ourselves from food and water. It is about patience, kindness, understanding and supporting others. The understanding between us was a relief for him because it meant he could take things a little slower and practice like how we teach children to fast.
We planned together how we would extend kindness to others around us and how we would reach out to family far away. What I’ve valued so much is the consideration and thoughtfulness in our agreement and taking our journey a step at a time.
Ramadhan in the age of diversity and inclusion conversations
Diversity and inclusion is a topic of focus since key world events sparked the need for greater understanding and awareness. In my organisation our leadership and colleagues participated in many discussions where we had some difficult and often eye-opening conversations.
At the start of Ramadhan my manager wrote to me saying that the diversity and inclusion discussions helped her realise that she had never asked me about how she could support me during Ramadhan. The interesting thing is that I never thought about it. Every year I would get on with my normal work without really altering anything; working patterns, workload, making time for prayer. Yet, I remember being very conscious of making these adjustments for my Muslim colleagues. When I travelled, I was conscious to reduce work, end work early so they could prepare Iftar, making sure not to schedule meetings around prayer times, etc. I never extended this consideration to myself. So, this year, my goals included prioritising my daily prayers by planning my schedule around them where possible.
I also had colleagues asking me whether it was OK for them to drink in front of me during our calls because they knew I was observing Ramadhan. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest, but it was so nice to be asked. I’m grateful for mindful colleagues who by extending their awareness have helped ease my practice and goals of ‘bettering’ myself.
Ramadhan without a Muslim community
I think for me, this is one of the more challenging aspects of observing Ramadhan in a pandemic but also in a town where we don’t have a Muslim community. It can feel quite lonely at times to read the Quran on your own or pray by yourself. However, I try not to focus on that and think of my connection with God and find ways to share the experience with others. We have had small Iftar dinners with our neighbours where we share dates, and they might ask me questions about Ramadhan. While it’s a different experience it’s still a connection and exploration I cherish.
How will Seán and I be celebrating Eid?
We said at the beginning of the month that we’d sit and reflect on our Ramadhan goals, enjoy some home-cooked Asian food, most likely beef rendang, chicken satay, and maybe even Laksa. This is also a time where we seek forgiveness from our parents and loved ones for any misgivings and we start the year afresh.
This will be our second Eid during the pandemic, I can already envision our hilarious group video calls with family in Singapore and Malaysia where we’ll all take turns saying “hey, you’re on mute!”
