Reflections From My First Ramadan
I converted to Islam when I married my wife Majd in February of last year in Palestine. As I write to you today, I am currently experiencing my first Ramadan.
Majd and I made the decision this year to do our own version of the religious fast, in doing a water only fast where we abstain from food while still hydrating (the full Ramadan is no food or drink), from sunrise to sunset.
Here’s two surprising lessons I’m learning through this experience.
Lesson 1: There Is a Source of Energy Beyond the Physical
I’m sat on my sofa feeling tired, weak, low in energy, hungry and struggling to focus. I look at my watch. It’s 10:00 AM. I do some quick maths and realise that I still have 8 hours to go until I can break the fast. “How the hell am I going to make it through the day?!” I think to myself. I’ve got a business to run, meetings to have, a to-do list to get through. I’ve even got a triathlon training session planned at lunch time.
I pause, take a few deep breaths and return to the work in front of me on my laptop. After 10 minutes or so, I start to notice something interesting. I am feeling some energy coming back, some life being breathed back into my bones, the hunger is beginning to fade and my concentration is returning.
Fast forward to 2:00 PM and I feel like I am on fire. My energy levels are strong. My mind is sharp. I am in Baker Street for a meeting with a potential new Wildest Dream partner - a famous London-based healthy restaurant chain. I feel like I am in complete flow, I am listening intently to the ideas they are sharing about what a potential partnership of our brands could look like. I’m bouncing off them, ideas are popping up in my mind and I feel I am able to articulate them clearly, with so much passion, confidence and conviction.
As I was sitting on the tube on my way back to my flat after the meeting, I thought to myself: “Where on earth has all of this energy come from?! I was on the absolute ropes a few hours ago. I haven’t eaten since 5:00 AM, so it can’t be from food. I am under-slept (as is the nature of the Ramadan routine and an important part, I am learning, of the experience), so I should be exhausted. And yet, I was quite possibly feeling more energised in that moment than at any other point of this year to date.
We can (and I have in the past) become obsessed with tracking how we sleep, move, eat, rest and recover. Thinking that if one of those is just slightly off, that we will feel like crap. I strongly believe that all of those metrics are absolutely important. I also believe in the benefit of wearables in learning about our body to make tweaks to our behaviors to optimize our health and performance. But I think it is important not to be governed by the data and to recognise that there is another source of energy which can’t be tracked on a wearable device.
And so, what I am learning is this: if we become overly focused on the metrics and don’t step back to ask ourselves the bigger questions - What am I connected to beyond myself? How am I contributing to something larger? - we are leaving an abundant well of potential energy untapped. The kind that doesn’t come from sleep scores or recovery data, but from meaning, purpose and contribution.
Lesson 2: Life Is Not About Me
When the astronaut Edward Gibson of the Apollo 12 lunar landing in 1969, was asked what he thought as he looked down at earth from space, this is what he said:
“You see how diminutive your life and concerns are compared to other things in the universe … (and) the result is that you enjoy the life that is before you.”
What Gibson is reporting here is the psychological phenomena known as the “overview effect” - a profound cognitive shift in awareness experienced by astronauts overcome by an immense sense of awe upon realising how insignificant they as a human being are, in the context of the universe. Fancy language which can be summarised in one word: perspective.
This zooming out and gaining valuable perspective on life which Gibson experienced from space, is something which I have experienced through Ramadan. I at times, as all of us human beings can, get caught up in the minutiae of life. Over-obsessing about small details which in the moment feel important but upon reflection don’t really matter.
Ramadan has humbled me in many ways. It has challenged me, stripped me back, pulled me out of the weeds of the day-to-day to have this bird’s eye view perspective. It has helped me to maintain awareness of what is truly important and what is irrelevant, as well as to appreciate those things which we so easily and so often take for granted. And in this stripping back I have noticed a quietening of that inner voice which so often can get in the way of life.
The “I need this” or “I need that” voice. The one focused on me, me, me. That voice inside our heads which we all have - the one beautifully described by the English philosopher Aldous Huxley as “the interfering neurotic who in waking hours tries to run the show.”
But when we gain perspective on life - when we recognise our insignificance and appreciate that, in the grand scheme of things, most of those self-centred, niggling concerns don’t really matter - something quite beautiful happens. That inner voice quietens. We are freed from the constant self-obsessing and are able to simply get on with our day and our work with a little more peace. Knowing, in the words of Pete Turner, that “it is not about me.”
There are many ways we can gain this perspective. It isn’t something reserved for the religious, an atheist can experience it too. Meditation, journaling, a walk in nature, helping another. Activities that help us step out of our heads and reconnect with the world around us, to be able to distinguish between what is important and what isn’t, to see what we have and to be grateful for it, to think about ourselves just a little less.
And this, I believe, is one of the great ironies of life: the less we think about ourselves the happier we become. Because any life lived with the belief that we, as the individual, are at the centre of it, is not a happy one.
Deepen Your Curiosity
Want to learn more about the power of finding meaning and being connected to something beyond yourself? I love this episode of the Tim Ferriss show with the author and happiness expert, Arthur Brooks.
Something I’ve been thinking about during the fast, is the concept of metabolic flexibility - our body’s ability to burn fat as fuel. Want to learn more about this? I highly recommend this podcast episode with Alan Couzens.
