My Declaration of Emotional Independence

It was supposed to be a fun day at the park during one of those sweaty, sultry summer days in Chicago. I promised my nephews and sons that they could run around all they wanted, but first I needed them to accompany me to a department store so I could pick up some much-needed items.

They trailed into the store behind me like a row of ducklings. My youngest nephew Ibrahim was wearing a cape—making it clear that he would avail any opportunity to save the world if it ever came down to that. The boys were playfully tagging one another while scampering around me. As I pushed my cart along, I had an eerie feeling that I was being watched. From the periphery of my vision, I noticed an employee at a distance, her narrowed eyes piercing me. I felt self-conscious and uncomfortable. “I’m sure it’s nothing, just in my head,” I reassured myself, continuing with my shopping.

It was then that my younger son, Idrees, inadvertently stepped on an infant’s plush toy that was lying in his path. Within seconds, the employee came rushing toward us and yelled, “Do not step on that!”

I replied, “I’m so sorry. It was an accident.”

Enraged, she insisted, “No, it wasn’t! I saw the whole thing!”

I turned to Idrees and gently instructed, “Please watch where you step and be careful next time.”

The employee marched off, her feet stomping the ground and her hands clenched at her sides.

Jibreel, my eldest son, called out to me in a worried tone, “Mom?”

After seeing my face turn red from anxiety, he wanted to be reassured that everything was fine. Suddenly, memories of enduring post-9/11 Islamophobic attacks flooded my mind. In those days, my face would turn red from humiliation while people cursed at me in public places, yelling hurtful words like “terrorist” and “camel jockey.”

Feelings of guilt and shame swept over me as these thoughts raced through my mind.

Although this employee’s attitude was similar to what I had faced before, I turned to Jibreel and comforted him in a calm voice, “Don’t worry. I’m okay. Maybe she’s just having a bad day. I’m okay… really.”

But I wasn’t.

A voice in my head chided me: “You should have stood up for your child and told that lady off for yelling at him. You can’t let your kids think that you’re weak or else they’ll grow up not learning how to defend themselves when they’re intimidated or bullied in public.”

Feelings of guilt and shame swept over me as these thoughts raced through my mind. I was angry at that lady, but I was angrier with myself. But I didn’t let my children see my inner conflict and continued with my shopping instead.

As I meandered around the store, I again noticed the employee staring at us from a distance with an angry and disgusted look on her face. I thought to myself, “Oh, come on. You can’t possibly be having such a bad day that a hijabi woman is the only target you can find to vent your frustration on.”

Right then, my nephew decided to untie his superhero cape and drop it onto the floor, complaining, “It hurts my neck.”

Suddenly, the employee rushed toward us and furiously grabbed up the cape. I quickly explained, “That’s not from the store; it belongs to the child.” Frustrated, she flung the cape back down and stomped away, grumbling under her breath. As I watched my kids staring at me with wide eyes, I said to myself, “That is it. I am not going to take this anymore!”

I followed the employee and confronted her, “I’ve been noticing you following us and staring at us in disgust. You yelled at my son, and I didn’t say anything. Now you are throwing the other boy’s cape on the floor. What is your problem?”

My kids and I deserved to be treated with respect and dignity just like any other human beings.

She turned around and screeched, “Your kids are animals!”

I shouted back, “How dare you talk about my kids like that? How dare you talk to me like that? I want to talk to your manager right now!”

She yelled at a higher magnitude. I yelled back even louder. The conflict continued to escalate. I don’t even recall what else she was calling my kids and me, but my heart was pounding so loudly from both anxiety and anger that at one point, it felt like it would break through my chest.

My mind kept telling me: “Don’t let her intimidate you. Don’t be weak. The kids are watching. You must stay strong. You must stand your ground.”

Fuming, she started to walk away and disappeared into the employees-only room in the back. I called over another employee and demanded that she summon the manager, insisting that I would not leave the store until that first employee had admitted her fault and had apologized for her appalling behavior. After all, my kids and I deserved to be treated with respect and dignity just like any other human beings.

That other employee went to the back room to get the manager. She returned shortly, but she was alone, saying the manager couldn’t come out as she was busy with an important call. I replied “I’ll wait,” and then requested the kids to stay quietly beside me. “No talking, no laughing, no nothing!” I instructed them. In other words, I was ordering these little boys to behave like adults. But what could I do? I didn’t want to give anyone else any reason to agree with the woman who had called my kids “animals.”

I waited: 10, 15, 20 minutes went by, but the manager didn’t emerge from her office. Frustrated, I asked for the complaint center number. I was not willing to let go of this situation so quickly. I put my phone on speaker so the kids could hear the whole conversation and then explained the incident to the complaint department employee, adding that such people harboring hatred, bigotry, and prejudice should not be hired to work at stores. I also told him that I wouldn’t feel comfortable shopping at that store again. The complaint manager apologized and reassured me that they would conduct sensitivity training to ensure something like my experience never happens again. He also said he’d call me back as soon he had spoken to the employee about her behavior.

I thanked him for being so understanding and proactive, turned to the boys, and said, “See how I handled this. Don’t ever be weak, don’t ever be scared, and don’t ever let anyone walk all over you.” I felt good about how I had handled the situation. I finally felt like I was a good role model for the kids.

A week passed and still no call from the complaint department. I began to wonder, did he even do everything he had promised? If he did call the district manager, was there any training? Was the employee held accountable? Did anything change?

The following week I was back home in LA with my kids. I got busy with my routine, yet now and then that store incident would pop in my head, and I’d wonder if I could have done anything differently at the time.

When I was sharing my emotional blockages with my mentor during one of our weekly sessions, I mentioned the store incident, hoping for sympathy and expecting validation for how I handled it.

She listened patiently without uttering a word. In the end, she shared something completely unexpected, something she had been taught by her own teachers: “When someone throws negativity at you, you have three options: absorb, reflect, or transform.”

Her words bounced around in my head all day, and I found myself wondering: Did I really have three options?

Initially, when I had remained quiet, I was internalizing my pain by shaming and blaming myself for being weak for not fighting back. When we absorb negativity, it hurts us because others’ words or behaviors trigger an already deep-seated insecurity within us — e.g., the belief that “I am weak.”

Persistent softness is needed to penetrate others’ hardened hearts in order to transform them.

When I finally mustered up the courage to fight back, though I believe my reaction was justified at the time, I only ended up mimicking the negative behavior of the woman who had upset me in the first place. I thought I was being a good role model to the boys by being strong and fighting back, but I ended up showing them that, internally, we are so weak as to have no control over our reactions. I was showing them that our emotions fluctuate based on people’s behavior toward us. If they are nice to us, we feel good. If they are mean to us, we feel angry, hurt, humiliated, and the list of painful emotions goes on.

People reflect each other’s behaviors, perceiving this to be a strength. But when we outsource our hurt to others by saying we reacted negatively only because of what they said or did, we empower them by disempowering ourselves. Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong in standing up and speaking out on behalf of what is right, but how we do it distinguishes strength from weakness. And figuring out the correct approach requires introspection.

In my case, I needed to dig deep and ask myself what outcome I wanted out of this incident. I know that I wanted that woman to never to treat another Muslim woman so unjustly again. Bad actions should have consequences, yet fighting back with fear, intimidation, or punishment is not a strong enough incentive to create meaningful and lasting change in a person’s behavior — let alone to change the negative feelings they may be harboring toward us.

Now, had I remained calm and composed irrespective of her negative behavior — and had I responded positively with kindness, patience, and respect — chances are that at some point she herself would have realized that her actions were out of line. Maybe she would have stopped her aggression toward me or brought it down a notch. After all, it takes two for a conflict to thrive. If water can penetrate the hardest of rocks despite being soft, then persistent softness is needed to penetrate others’ hardened hearts in order to transform them. Remaining calm and polite in the face of anger and hatred is not easy—and what’s not easy always requires strength.

We crave freedom, liberation, and independence, but many of us are entirely emotionally dependent human beings; we give others full control to dictate our emotions. Anyone can make us happy, upset, or angry—which means we are trapped in a state of emotional dependency.

The declaration of our emotional independence is at the heart of transforming others. Once we can zoom in and ensure we remain emotionally stable on the inside, we can then hope to zoom out to inspire and influence change in the world outside.

-Sarah Khan, American Muslim Peace Monger