Good morning everyone and welcome to the third annual big talk from small libraries conference This is a great day where we get to hear from lots of small libraries around the country and Have participants from around the world Join the conversation to see what's going on in small libraries and what amazing things small libraries are doing My name is Michael Sowers. I am the technology innovation librarian here at the Nebraska Library Commission And with me is Laura Johnson and Krista Burns. Would you like to say hello? And so I'm kind of acting as your host Laura here is our co-host and we'll be Passing along questions throughout the day Krista is our technical support and third co-host And she will be handling any technical support issues that may come up during the day And you have to excuse my voice. It is a little rough today We are using go-to-webinar and you should be hearing us now We are recording everything and will we we will be editing up and posting all of the recordings and session notes and presentations starting next week after the conference We are not taking questions via audio today So if you do have a microphone, we appreciate the effort But with more than 400 people registered and attending throughout the day that gets a little confusing a little fast So there is a Q&A section of your go-to-webinar interface if you have a question of our presenters as we're going along through the day Please just submit that there.  That's BTSL if you want to try to submit comments or questions there We will also be watching the Twitter feed for those One of our co-sponsors today or our only co-sponsor today is the association of small and rural libraries and On the line with us. We have Tina Hansen and Donna Bryce from ARSL Tina and Donna. Are you there? Yes. Yes. Good morning. All right and Tina I am going to give you control for just a moment here And so if you would like to go ahead and tell us a little bit about ARSL Go ahead Great. Thank you. Well, good morning everyone and welcome to big talk from small libraries Which is produced by the Nebraska Library Commission and co-sponsored by ARSL My name is Tina Hansen and I'm the current president of the Association for rural and small libraries With me today to talk briefly about ARSL our Donna Bryce our vice president president elect and Having technical difficulties unfortunately is Carolyn Peterson chair of our 2014 conference So I'll try to cover for her slides Our introduction to ARSL this morning will be offered through a new presentation style called Pichacucha in PK presentation There are 20 slides very visual with only 20 seconds of narration per slide the term pika chuka Comes from the Chinese word for chichat We would like to thank the Nebraska Library Commission and the organizers of big talk for allowing us to talk a little bit about our organization first established in 1982 ARSL's home base was at Clarion University in Pennsylvania until 2007 when it became an independent organization with an expanded board and committee structure our first conference as an independent Organization took place in Sacramento, California in 2008 since then a concerted effort has been made to move the conference around the country each year Our board represents a wide range of locations all across the country Additionally, we include individuals who are involved in various aspects of library work from front-line small library directors to consultants Library support organizations and state library staff This allows us to tap into expertise and all sorts of subjects and to offer that expertise to our members Our members frequently tell us that it is like coming home and they find our organization Just like big talk. We are here to support small libraries We are frequently asked how small do I have to be to become a member our answer is if you think you are small or rural You probably are Our website ARL info is full of great resources for folks in small rural libraries You can learn not only about the organization and our popular annual conference But also access news about our featured members libraries right now the Dickinson County Iowa libraries are featured. You may also come here to print or order our brochure or Search our newest feature a listing of library jobs in small rural communities Our board meetings are open to our members and we encourage participation by the membership The board meets every other month and the various board committees meet in the off months Members are sent an invitation to participate in board meetings via our listserv and it's important to remember that we're a working board And our members spend the number of hours of their own time working hard to make ARSL the best it can be The ARSL board is made up of practicing librarians from small libraries or those who serve small libraries Every board member is a volunteer who puts in countless hours on behalf of the Association The board spends two days working on planning for the future when we meet face to face face every year at our annual conference Probably the thing we hear the most when we ask people what they like best about ARSL is the warm welcoming nature of our members This is a group of people who are all about doing what it takes to serve their communities no matter the obstacles Relevant ideas are shared and lasting friendships are formed not only at our annual conference, but also on our listserv One of the best ways you for you to find out what ARSL is all about is to join us and become a volunteer Volunteers can help in a number of ways including participating in committee work Representing ARSL at local and state gatherings and being a part of our conference our website has information on volunteering But to become a member, but you have to become a member to join the fun You won't find a better deal anywhere for your membership dollars We understand small budgets and have chosen our fees to fit your budget our rates started just nine dollars per year You will receive an online newsletter access to our listserv and a discount for the annual conference One of the major benefits of membership is the opportunity to get involved as an entirely Volunteered led organization. We need committed individuals both on our working board and as volunteers Our committee structure allows opportunities for folks to utilize their skills to help ARSL With PR needs program development conference planning and much more Some examples of volunteer help we have received include people to take the ARSL table display to their local and state conferences key contacts who help us pass along useful ARSL news to local listservs and Those who work on the website make promotional materials help write our newsletter And individuals who pass along the best practices they find across the country We pride ourselves in our commitment to providing a conference that's 100 percent applicable to those in small and rural libraries Our sessions are selected specifically to be hands-on practical learning opportunities that can be readily applied back home Much like big talk for small libraries. We are focused on the needs of small and rural communities In 2007 after many years of hosting the annual conference in Columbus, Ohio The board made the decision to move the conference around the country The California State Library offered to host in Sacramento in 2008 and was what great hosts they were The conference was well attended and helped confirm the decision to try locations all around the country This map shows our past locations as well as our plans for the future And this is where we're missing Carolyn right now She is the chair of this year's conference which will take place in Tacoma, Washington at the beautiful Hotel Murano Which is full of exquisite glass art. This is just a sampling of what you'll see when you join us in Tacoma this year Remember the dates for our conference are September 4th through 6th 2014. That's immediately following Labor Day weekend We hope that many of you can make the journey out We're excited to take part in that this year One way that you can get to conference if you're worried about funding is to apply for our scholarships Each year ARSL gives away three conference scholarships to those who want to come to the conference for the first time This program has allowed individuals interested in ARSL to learn about us without making a financial commitment It has resulted in some truly enthusiastic new ARSL members Librarians are creative people Those from small communities are wizards when it comes to finding the most cost-effective way to get things done Whether you're you carpool organize a bus share a room or whatever We truly hope to see you in Tacoma this September and here we are along with our contact information We're happy to take questions visit with you about membership conference or anything you might be interested in about ARSL Feel free to get ahold of us anytime All right. Thank you both for that ARSL the last conference was actually just here in Omaha and All three of us attended and many of the library Commission staff did and it was wonderful I really enjoyed it. It was a it was a great couple of days to do that. So Again, thank you very much for that letting us know all about ARSL


Unfortunately it is true restaurant industry is truly getting impact like no tomorrow. I have a personal friend of mine who's actually having to close down his restaurant from Monday to Thursday because he needs to save on labor. The virus is hitting the disease is hitting and you too should be scared. Today we're going to be covering the five ways that you can survive this catastrophe and how you can overcome the recession that is about to happen. Hey it's Wilson here owner of multiple seven-figure business. Make sure you guys subscribe so you guys can get more tips, tricks, strategies on how to build a successful thriving restaurant business. As a disclaimer I'm gonna be a little bit vague in today's video because YouTube decides to demonetize any video that talks specifically about that disease that is happening around the world that started from China. And by no means am I a health professional nor am I a crazy economist. I'm just gonna be sharing with you my personal insights, my personal takes from all my friends within the restaurant business. If you're already in the restaurant business you're gonna feel an impact but if you're in the Chinese restaurant business you're definitely gonna feel the crunch according to multiple media outlets out there. Businesses have gone down in sales by more than 50% we're talking about across all the major cities from San Francisco to New York and to even the most prestigious restaurants out there like Peninsula their sales are down by more than 70% with the restaurant business having only 5 to 10 percent margins typically we're talking about many many businesses, restaurants that's gonna be going out of business. Today we're gonna be sharing with you the five ways you can use to survive this catastrophe so make sure you guys keep watching and just to give you a little bit more context on where I'm getting the sources from is that I'm studying all the cases that are happening from ground zero from Wuhan so make sure you guys pay attention because in North America we only have 20 cases right now that number is only gonna grow so make sure you guys take urgency take notes with this video take notes with the five ways you too can survive this recession. The first way that you can survive the recession is to work delivery as a core of your business. Delivery app services have been around for a while now I cover it in this video of how you can take advantage of it I also cover in this video about Cloud Kitchen how ex-CEO of Uber actually spend more than 500 million dollars building these ghost kitchens and so on and so forth but for the context of this video the reason why delivery is so so so important is because people are not going out to eat because they're afraid of getting the virus they're afraid of the disease that's the reason why people are not going out to eat which is the reason why the first thing you should do is package your food options and delivery service options delivery meal we see that Starbucks is doing that we see McDonald's are doing that and in China they're even doing contactless delivery options what does that mean it means that they're having these items delivered to the store steps with zero contact to the human that is actually delivering the service you can actually you don't have to go through that extreme for contactless delivery but having delivery as a core of your business will help you in terms of generating extra revenue people still need to eat people still need to consume so if you have an option you can definitely take advantage of it if you're already working with third party delivery apps make sure you take advantage of that ramp up your menu so that way it's attractable for people to order from you the second way you can survive the recession is to close down on weekdays now of course I do not want you to close down of course if you have business during the weekdays and if you can break even during those days definitely don't close down but I know a lot of my friends and peers they are actually closing down on the weekdays to save on labor don't be afraid to do so just for a short period of time people understand that and as long as you actually go through with option number one to work delivery as a core of your business then you're okay with closing down on the weekdays close down on the days that are not making you any money reserve your animal reserve your time be patient and don't be afraid to bite the bullet okay I'm giving you the permission to actually close down on those days and only open on the weekends Friday Saturday and Sunday so then that way your math can make sense if you're not even sure if you should close down on weekdays then make sure that you calculate your overhead cost per day including your rent including your labor including everything on a daily basis and then calculate how much revenue you're actually getting in on those days to see if staying open would make you profitable or not if it's not then once again feel free to close down on those days to reserve your time reserve your energy until the market picks up again if you guys are liking this video if you guys find any value from this video make sure you smash the like button because that just shows me to make more of these videos for you in the future the third way to shelter yourself from this first session is to talk to your landlords talk to your landlords to negotiate either cheaper rent or deferring your rental payments speaking from a landlord's perspective the biggest fear that I have is my tenant going out of business because if they're going out of business I'm afraid that my unit would be out of commission for months on end that means that I'm paying my mortgage out of my own pocket every single month before I find someone to fill the unit that's my biggest fear understanding that if my tenant was to go through some troubles if they have always been paying their rent on time they've never really caused me any trouble and I want to keep them as a tenant I would be much more willing to even give them a month two months even three months free rent because I know if I were to replace them if I were to force them to be out of business it would take me six months to find a new tenant or if not more which is the reason why go out there don't be afraid to ask for free rent ask for deferral and rent because your landlords are in the same boat as you they are equally as afraid of you going out of business so make sure that you guys go out there ask for it my several friends of mine have actually asked for extension in their rents and they have actually were able to get them luckily my tenant has not asked me about it yet but if he's watching this video he's probably gonna ask me and I'll probably say yes the fourth way to survive this recession is to repackage your food items repackage your food items into grab and go meals why why is that the case the number one pain point people are not visiting restaurants is because they're free they're fearful and getting the disease they're fearful of being in places with lots of people they just don't want that they want to avoid any way shape or form to capture the disease if you do not have delivery service as a core of your business if you don't have that make sure you at least repackage your offering into these grabbing go meals so that way people can come in grab their food item and get out of there people still need to eat you just need to understand people still go to work people still go out to eat people need to have food so if you're able to repackage your item in a way that prevents them and minimizes their chances of contracting the disease then it is also going to be a win and allows you to be able to win and survive this recession the fifth way to make sure that you guys can survive this recession is to keep proper good hygiene make sure that you do everything upfront provide your staff with gloves with masks with sprays with stuff to wipe down their tables all the time so then that way when people come in when people see you guys they would know that hey you know what these owners are taking hygiene to the next level they understand the importance of good hygiene I feel much more comfortable eating at this place so make sure that you guys keep really really good hygiene because that's a really really big perception issue if you have good perception if people see you as being a good hygienic restaurant they have much more confidence to be able to dine at your place so provide and empower your staff to actually represent you to actually show the world that you are in good standing that you too care about other people's hygiene so there you go the five ways you can survive the recession that is about to happen the five ways you can survive this catastrophe that is happening in today's time number one delivery as a core of your business we see this as a trend that is happening regardless of this recession or not it is still something that is going to happen like it or not so working is a core of your business offering second thing is if you really cannot and if you did the math close down on the weekdays don't be afraid to do that because at then a day if the numbers make sense that you just close it off reserve your animal reserve your energy it is still okay I'm giving you permission to do that third is grabbing go grabbing go is super super important because of the fact that you know what even if people don't have delivery even when they come in they can grab their items they can go a lot of businesses are doing that repackage your food offering so people can come grab and go they still need to eat the food fourth is to talk to your landlords talk to your landlords to defer your rent me speaking from a landlord's perspective I'm giving you insight about what my greatest fear is my greatest fear is the fact that not only are my tenants not paying the rent but if I have to leave my 10 unit empty for six months eight months a year I'm gonna be paying out of pocket which is the reason why you as a tenant you as a potential restaurateur will have much more leverage talking to your landlords and last but not least keep proper hygiene keeping proper hygiene and always empowering your team to actually do that is the number one way to stop the disease from spreading and it's the number one way to actually give confidence to people that come again and again to your restaurant I really hope you liked this video if you do make sure you smash like button subscribe for much more of these contents otherwise I'll see you guys in the next video


The main reason that Allah created the human being was to get to know Him. He says in the Qur'an, A'udhu Billah Mujad An-Ar-Jimu maa khalaqtu binna wal-insk illa liya'budun that we only created mankind and jinn in order to worship Me. And the famous commentator Ibn Abbas mentions that it means in order to know Me. That we only created mankind and jinn in order to know Allah. This is an experiential knowledge. A knowledge that as we go through life, as we go through the ups and downs, as we go through the adversities and the good times, we begin to experience Allah in our lives and get to know different traits about Him. The traits of Ar-Rahman and Ar-Raheem. The traits of Dujalali wal-Ikram. The various names that Allah has that manifest as attributes and that manifest as experiences in our life. But the more and more we begin to know Allah, the more and more we also begin to achieve a state of inner peace and inner happiness. But the heart, as Allah says in the Qur'an, the only thing that will matter on the Day of Judgment is to have a sound heart, a kalb salim. And this heart is the vessel, it's the organ. It's a spiritual organ. It helps us to either know Allah or to get into the mullah. The more that we go through life, the more that the heart either collects rest or begins to be certified. One thing that we have to understand is that our various experiences in life will influence the state of our heart. A certain thing that you and I do could put a black spot on the heart. A certain negative experience or a certain type of difficult experience has an emotional impact on the spiritual heart. Different, if we stop worshiping Allah, for example, the heart begins to collect rest. And Allah mentions in the Qur'an that their hearts have rest on them. And so Allah is trying to teach us that everything we see, everything we hear, everything we say will have some impact on the heart. There will be some negative or positive impact. There's no neutral. They're either ascending or we are descending in some way, shape or form. Now many of these images though that the heart takes on, many of these experiences that the heart takes on, they might come early in our life and then they negatively or positively impact us as we continue to progress in life. And so they can prevent the heart from recognizing Allah. A barrier can be formed between you, between me and Allah. A cloudiness can form in the heart. Just like right now we have a cloudiness and a windiness that is here. And just like 40 minutes ago it was sunny and then before that it was rain, there was some rain, right? The various seasons that happen in the world, they're also a metaphor for the types of seasons that you and I are going to experience in our life. But the more cloudiness that there is, the more of a barrier there is between us and the bright light of the sun. The more cloudiness that there is between us and Allah, the more of a barrier there is between us and the light of happiness, the light of tranquility, the light of trying to achieve a state where we actually feel calm and good and spiritually close to Allah. And these are impacted. This cloudiness is impacted by the experiences that we have. Now when we go through our day, there are two categories of good deeds or bad deeds that you and I can do. There are things that are just between you and Allah and then there are things that are between you and people. There are things that are between you and Allah. Let's say we're talking about sins that we might commit between us and Allah. Someone looks at something, haram, they drink, or they might smoke, or they might eat something that they shouldn't be eating. These are any number of sins that are going to have a negative impact on the heart and a sincere toba can cleanse these sins. A sincere toba sincerely repenting to Allah, apologizing and saying, I'm sorry, we'll begin to cleanse these sins. And then there are the issues that happen between you and me, between people, between family members, between friends. The heart is impacted in a very different way by these types of issues because if that person doesn't forgive you or if you don't forgive that person or if that relationship is not mended, the heart will hold on to these issues. And these become major blocks on our path and they ring and ring inside until we resolve them. Or they block us from achieving a state of nearness to Allah. And so maybe we had a major falling out with somebody, maybe it was with our family members, maybe it was with our spouse, maybe it was with our siblings or cousins or friends or someone like that. And we're still holding on to something deep down inside. We say, oh, I forgave them, but deep down inside we haven't forgiven them. We haven't let go. We feel uneasy around them. There's a certain type of negativity and negative energy, a darkness that we feel when we're around that person or when that person is around us or when we think of that situation which caused this rift. What happens then? Right? A certain type of trauma begins to form in the human being. Emotional trauma is a very, very real thing. Maybe we had a rocky relationship going up with our parents. There was a lot of fighting. There was a lot of problems. Maybe you said things that you shouldn't have said. Your parents said things that shouldn't have said. There was tension. And that created a certain type of trauma. Or maybe our marriage is in that type of situation where it's never peaceful. There's constant bickering of some sort. There's a tense relationship. Or maybe we have that with other people in our life, our cousins or our family members or our friends. That's going to start to have an impact on you spiritually. It's also going to have an impact on you and I physically that many of the health issues that we face according to traditional views of medicine mentioned that when you have a certain type of negative experience and negative relationship, a damaging relationship that's causing stress, that's causing anger, that's causing resentment. It manifests in your body. It manifests in health issues. It manifests in energy blockages that prevent the body from functioning at its optimal capacity. This common sense would tell you that this stuff has been studied and you and I have experienced it in our life. When we're stressed, we don't feel the same. We feel different. We can't sleep. We might not be able to function the same way throughout the day. Now imagine someone who's carrying stress from an incident that happened or a trauma from an incident that happened for 10, 20 years and they haven't let it go. Imagine the type of negativity that could impact you. Just from an emotional point of view, let alone from a spiritual point of view. Then what starts to happen here? When you and I beef with somebody, allow beef with somebody, when we have an issue with someone, when we have a grudge, it begins with this anger and Imam al-Ghazali, he described it beautifully in the Ayah al-Lumuddin in his book on anger. He said it starts with something that causes anger. You have a disagreement with somebody. How could they do this to me? How could my parents say this? How could my siblings say this? Because you're upset and then it doesn't get resolved because nobody was the bigger person. No one said sorry or if someone did say sorry, it was superficial and we didn't really resolve the situation. Then he says, what does it result in? It results in eventually you start forming a resentment towards that person and negative feeling towards that person. You don't want to be around them. You don't want to say salam to them. You don't want to get up when they walk in the room. You don't want to reply to their call. You don't want to reply to their texts. You don't want to virtually zoom with them because that's all we can really do today. You don't want to do anything. You don't want to see them. You block them on your social media. You don't want to do anything with them. But you say, no, no, that's cool. I forgive them. That's not forgiveness, right? Because there's something there. So he says anger turns into resentment. And then he says that actually turns into it's unresolved. It turns into hatred.  You begin to really feel a negativity towards that person. That's kind of a loving forced relationship with, let's say, a family member. That hatred might manifest in a very different way. You just kind of hate being around them. But you've got to force, you've got to pretend it's kind of like them still, but you can't stand them. Right? And it results in damages later, later on in life. Someone has an issue.  Because of the negativity of problems that happened that were left unresolved. Right? Growing up. And if there's issues on both sides, right? It's not always just one person. Somebody had a problem and that resulted in a grudge. It resulted in anger. And then it resulted in resentment. And then it resulted in hatred. And now what happens? This is what's important and what I want to get to. One or two of those problems they start to take over your world view. One of the hardest part works is corruption from one category messes up all of your categories. You and I cannot compartmentalize our spirituality. Many Muslims do this. They compartmentalize. They're all good when it comes to praying in the message. Meanwhile, outside being rude, arrogant, you know, not obeying the rules with regards to the mass and social distancing thinking they can do whatever they want. Right? Just having a very different attitude. Meanwhile, when it comes to certain types of worship we're all about it. Compartmentalization of spirituality is not spirituality. The Prophet ﷺ said, the best of you are those who are best in character. That deals with action. So spirituality is an inward phenomenon that manifests outwardly. So when you and I have a very negative relationship with somebody, or if we're doing something that's between us and Allah the Taraf, we're sure it's going to impact other areas. We're sure it's going to impact other areas. People who struggle with drug problems or struggle with alcohol or struggle with pornography, they don't have the same type of calmness and the types of positive relationships that people who don't have those that's just without a spiritual aspect to it. And then you find spirituality, of course they're going to have a damaged relationship. Their heart is going to be damaged. And then that manifests in other ways. All of their worldview is then influenced by those sins and those relationships that have been damaged. And so what starts to happen in this situation? You and I have different traits that can impact us and that can take us over. Different parts of our soul that influence us. Imam Ghazali he describes a whole kind of inner world that you and I have running and going on. But for the sake of time we won't get into all of that. One of the traits he describes is you and I have what's called a dog soul. Imagine like a part in us that can be good or it can be guided towards evil. It's called the irascible faculty or other kind of work.   And then the more its worldview is an angry worldview. The more its worldview is a worldview filled of prejudice and hatred and problems. And then whatever position that person is in, in their families or in society or in a job, that negativity will manifest with them if it's something small it'll just influence that it'll feed the dog in a small way. But if it's something big it feeds them in a big way. And you and I have all heard the saying hurt people, hurt people. When you have been hurt emotionally or physically when you're young you will manifest that stuff if it's not cured and it's not taken care of when you and I are older. There's actually many studies that show that people who commit some of the most heinous crimes when they get older are people who have very very significant problems. Some type of verbal or physical sexual or other types of abuse when they were younger. So we have to keep in mind that the issues that we have we've got to resolve that.  Sometimes we think like man this person said this to me I'm never going to speak to him again. And we think that it's somehow hurting that person if we're holding a thread. No, it's hurting you. It's hurting you and me. It's affecting our sleep. I know somebody who has had a major falling out with a family member of theirs with their child and they told me I can't sleep at night. I tried to ask them like why don't you fix it why don't you resolve, why don't you apologize they're like no, you should apologize to me I'm the older one. And it was like he's immature and he might not apologize to you you've got to do it. It's affecting your sleep it's affecting your health it's affecting your spirituality, it's affecting all of these things. Right? But sometimes we're encouraged to go and say sorry to resolve these things and it's going to affect us negatively we want to try to have a situation where we have a sound heart between us and Allah and between us and other people I'll say this to you Alhamdulillah So all we need to do to start this process is just think first and foremost. What do I mean between me and someone else? What kind of relationships have been damaged? Alhamdulillah if something is not the damage we're in we should be really grateful that Alhamdulillah we don't have major tension between us. And if we're young, we should make a commitment to not let that type have that type of approach to not hold grudges against people and hold things against people and get into fights and situations. Getting into fights is not the biggest fear in the world we're all going to fight with someone or not or fight with our spouse to argue that happens don't resolve it is the problem it's not the issue it's the lack of resolution that we have to figure out. So start to think through what is the problem here that I have and then look at who do I follow who is my leader, who is my role model you study certain families for example there was a book that described the details of the Trump family and you just look into that and I didn't read the book but I read some of the synopsis and it talks about major broken family major fighting all the time problems between the siblings, problems between the parents, all of these different types of issues that manifest and then you can see how those problems manifest we don't need to explain that but we have to look who is our role model the public service and what did he do you had people who threatened his life who tried to assassinate him family members of his, his own uncle who was literally trying to do anything possible to survive a living problem everybody in Mecca at some point so many people were against him but what did he do when he entered Mecca he could have literally like captured all the people put him in jail and had them dealt with there's a lot of things he could have done I mean he's entering Mecca as the conqueror we're talking about Mecca when he enters again after when he's entering now as after he's living in Medina but what did he say, he says no he forgave everybody on that day he said the same thing Yusuf Alayhi Salam said when his brothers finally came back to him after all of the problems that they caused him to try to kill him all these things and he finally saw them later when he was in the top position in Egypt and he says you're forgiven there will be nothing that held against you today he forgave them a serious proper forgiveness such that that is Ayat in the Qur'an the words he said were earned such a high degree with Allah that they're in Ayat in the Qur'an so now think about it these are our role models the Prophet Salam wouldn't hold on to Gregory he just wouldn't he wouldn't hold on to Gregory he wouldn't hold on to things between him and other people we might say we are not the Prophet Salam we know that so we have to aspire to try to act like him in some way to perform and then let's at least begin the process and forgive him and Allah says that those who restrain themselves he says that those who restrain their anger and they pardon people they pardon people they forgive people they let stuff go Allah loves those people who are constantly virtuous who are kind and fired excellent so the last thing I just want to mention is that you and I we have issues between us and Allah in certain ways I can't think of a single person who would say that they don't want Allah to forgive them we all want Allah to forgive us you want Allah to forgive you forgive someone else be a forgiving person be a merciful person be a pardoning person we say in Ramadan Allah allows us to reach Ramadan and make it a beautiful Ramadan like there used to be let us pray together you love to erase let's forget literally forgive and forget pardon all my sins pardon what I've done erase it let's do the same in our relationship let's make a commitment as we enter into this new year that we're going to forgive people we're not going to hold on to things people who we have issues with from the past we're going to make an intention to resolve them we're going to go and say sorry we're going to be the bigger person the Prophet ﷺ said the bigger man the stronger man is not the one who the one who can outwrestle somebody else not the one who is muscular but the one who is able to hold their anger what is the sign of holding anger it means that you can forgive because if you can't forgive it means the anger is still there don't let your dog soul, that inner dog that negativity outrule the positivity you and I have positivity in us we have that positivity channel that positivity and use it to wipe out the negativity in our relationship and the problems that we have in Allahumma alayhi ta'ala Peace be upon you Allahumma tzera ala teena peace be upon you Allahumma tzera ala teena peace be upon you we ask Allah that you pardon us we ask Allah to forgive us we ask Allah that you allow us to pardon others and to be forgiving all of our problems and our prejudice that we have against people Allahumma tzera ala teena peace be upon you


We've all heard of gaslighting. But there are a few aspects we may not recognize as gaslighting because of its subtle and insidious nature, which is why we will be discussing this today. For those who don't know, what exactly is gaslighting? Well, picture this. You're feeling pretty confident about your memory and your version of events, but then someone comes along and starts making you doubt yourself. They twist things around, deny what you know to be true, or straight up invalidate your feelings. With that said, here are some surprising signs of gaslighting you might have missed. Constant contradictions. Ever had someone not along to your story only to turn around and say, that's not what happened? Some people might subtly try to gaslight you either to steal the spotlight, let me tell you how I remember it, or change the narrative and make themselves seem more sympathetic. Sometimes it might not even be intentional, like when they just have a really assertive or argumentative personality, but accidental or not, having someone constantly contradict you is still a subtle form of gaslighting that can leave you doubting your memory and perception. Selective memory. Picture this. You're going over your plans with a workmate or classmate about a project, and they suddenly forget they agreed to something you both discussed yesterday. You explain to them what happened, but still they insist you're wrong. Frustrating, right? Gaslighters excel at selective memory, rewriting history to fit their narrative and deleting any inconvenient truths, like mistakes they made or commitments they want to get out of. Minimizing your feelings. Picture this.  You're overreacting. Ouch. Gaslighters love to downplay your emotions, especially if they're the reason behind it.   Like doing something bad even when you told them it's a bad idea. They're indirectly making you feel that what you think or say is unimportant or wrong, which makes you doubt yourself and feel that you're delusional. Microaggression. Imagine you're answering in class and someone says, you're pretty good at math or science for a girl. Or maybe you'll get praised at work, only for another colleague to say, hey, you're pretty smart for someone who didn't go to college. What if you were walking down the street and a person came up to tell you, wow, you're so brave for wearing that outfit. These small comments or actions might seem harmless, but they can really mess with your head over time and make you question your abilities and choices. Microaggressions, like backhanded compliments and thinly veiled insults, are like a quiet form of gaslighting because they chip away at your confidence and make you doubt your own experiences.  And when you try to call them out on their insensitive behavior, they'll most likely shrug it off and say something like, that's not what I meant, or you're too sensitive. So, recognize any of these patterns of behavior in your relationships? Notice any other warning signs that someone is trying to make you doubt yourself? Share your insights in the comments down below. Gaslighting isn't always as obvious as we think. It can sneak its way into our lives, leaving us feeling confused, insecure, and downright frustrated, and sometimes even the gaslighters themselves on a way of the harm they're causing others. But that doesn't excuse their behavior. Remember, you deserve to feel heard, respected, and validated. Trust yourself, trust your instincts, and never forget your worth. Want to dive deeper and learn more about gaslighting? Check out our other videos like 6 types of gaslighting to be aware of, and 10 examples of what gaslighting sounds like, and if you found this video helpful, show some love by giving it a thumbs up, sharing it with your friends, and hitting that subscribe button. Thanks for watching!


So, right, if you want to wear a rainbow, of course you're going to try to drag Gucci for that price. It's good. Y'all two different people, two different markets, y'all got two different interests. So, yeah.