Everyone talks about how your twenties are supposed to be uncomfortable. You’re trying and failing at lots of things and maybe feeling lost. Apparently, it’s normal, and I have a long list of TV shows and a couple of SZA tracks to back me up on that. If we factor in the political and economic state of the world, uncertainty is honestly an inevitable experience for a woman in her twenties.

But how do we deal with this? Don’t get me wrong, I love a validating coming-of-age story that shows how hard it can be, but I need more. I need direction, preferably an instruction manual. So, I spoke to 5 other women to see how they use Islam to help them navigate their twenties, and I have a few coping mechanisms to share with the class.  

‘Coping mechanisms’ is a phrase I’ve always struggled with. My therapist often asks, “What do you do when you feel like this? How do you protect yourself in situations like this? What will you do to look after yourself tonight?” I love her, but every time I’m asked those questions, I think, ‘Lady, if I knew, I wouldn’t be here.’ However, she asks because coping mechanisms are important, and they can take a while to build. This is a significant point.

Most things in life aren’t fixed quickly. Stability, patience, and emotional regulation require consistent effort and repair because sometimes they stop working and must be rebuilt. That’s just part of this long thing called living.  

I tried to build lots of different coping mechanisms. I’d hang out with friends, I got a cat, I bought things I didn’t need, I volunteered, journalled, cried, and screamed. I tried to keep myself busy, so I wouldn’t focus on how deeply uncertain I felt about the present and future. None of these things were inherently bad, but they didn’t address the root of what I was feeling. I realised that I needed something new. Or maybe something old. 

Tawakkul (تَوَكُّل ) is an Islamic concept that encourages us to place our trust in Allah ﷻ. I’m sure many of you have heard of the hadith that uses the camel analogy. For those who haven’t, a man visited the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and asked if he should leave his camel untied and trust that Allah would look after it. The Prophet ﷺ replied with the following:  

“Tie your camel and put your trust in Allah.” (Tirmidhi)

This analogy is often used when describing tawakkul because it demonstrates that in all endeavours, we should do what we can and then leave the outcome to Allah. 

When I spoke to Elissar, 28, she described how tawakkul has helped her to stay hopeful in her twenties. She talked about her relationship with success and how tawakkul factors into that. For a generation whose futures have been shaped by global events, our ability and freedom to plan are continuously changing, as are the milestones we give ourselves.  

Elissar shared, “As I got older, I began to enjoy the difficulties in my life more because I knew something good would come from it. When I was younger, I used to obsess over achieving specific goals, and I couldn’t see any alternatives. I can create these goalposts for myself, but at the end of the day, I know Allah will take me where I need to go. Hindsight has given me that.” She found that having tawakkul helps her cope with things she cannot control, providing her with a sense of certainty that once she has done her part, Allah will take care of the rest. 

As type A girlies, Yara, 25, and I bonded over the fact that we often find ourselves trying to control situations and feeling devastated when we cannot reach outcomes we have worked very hard to achieve. She spoke about tawakkul almost like an exhale, a release from the pressure of trying to control everything and went so far as to say, “tawakkul saved me.” After experiencing hardship in her personal life, which changed the trajectory of her twenties, Yara has found tawakkul to be a grounding practice.  “Once I learned about it, I realised this is a concept I need to apply to my life, and I know it will help me in every struggle.” 

There were many things in this conversation that resonated with me, but what really stood out was how tawakkul made her re-evaluate her twenties. She told me that experiencing hardship brought her closer to Allah and increased her faith.

When her plans were destroyed, she realised she could either have tawakkul or continue feeling uncertain and lost. “As a Type A person, the moment I understood tawakkul, I felt such relief. I realised Allah is filling my time now with things that I need in the future.”  

There is something deeply exhausting about believing your life only has value when it follows the timeline you imagined for yourself, or the timeline society gives you. We often talk about societal expectations and timelines, but what of Allah’s expectations of us? What about Allah’s timeline for us?  Looking at it this way has changed how I want to approach this decade. From education and careers to relationships, family building, or even learning how to drive, your twenties can feel like a constant cycle of beginning again.  

It can be hard to know whether you are doing what you’re supposed to be doing. Especially if, like me, you’re the eldest sibling, and you don’t have someone to model your experience against. Having tawakkul in Allah and recognising that our time is being filled intentionally brings me ease, and similar to Yara, I feel relief when I begin to view it that way.  

While tawakkul helped many of the women I spoke to rethink uncertainty, sabr was the practice that carried them through it day by day. After struggling to begin her career post-graduation, Ahlam, 24, realised that sabr was something she needed to make a conscious effort to practice. She talked about how she used to be impatient in her teen years, but her early twenties have taught her that things tend to take longer, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. “Allah doesn’t hate you; there’s no vendetta. This is all happening for a reason.” 

In an era where we’re told to seek instant gratification, it’s easy to want immediate results. Seeing the TikToks of ‘corporate girlies’ and the constant stream of LinkedIn updates, it can be difficult not to feel like everyone is moving faster than you. 

Ahlam spent two years working in a toxic environment and found that making dua before each shift and reading Ayatul Kursi helped her. She also talked about making an effort to pray whilst working, even during times that felt difficult, as she didn’t have many other Muslim colleagues. Taking the time to pray at work not only gave her respite from the job but also provided her the opportunity to reconnect with Allah and remind herself to have sabr. Implementing these acts of worship made her experience in that role a lot easier to manage.  

Your twenties often feel like you’re just doing things for the first time again and again. For Ahlam, it was navigating work post-university, but for Noor, 23, it was learning how to deal with grief. After losing two of her grandparents in her early twenties, she realised that the only thing that would help her cope with the loss was having tawakkul. “They became meaningful for me during moments like that. I’ve had experiences with bad mental health in the past, but at that time, it was hard to have patience and trust in something else when my brain just wasn’t working properly. It was when I experienced grief for the first time that I also felt reliant on sabr and tawakkul in Allah just to get through the day. If I didn’t have a belief in that, there would be no point in things. That’s when it became an actual tool I used.”  

This feeling was strengthened for her when she struggled to comfort one of her non-Muslim friends when they lost someone close to them. Comparing their experiences with grief put things into perspective for Noor. It’s in those moments where we realise what we believe has true meaning, and it grounds us because it’s the basis of how we continue. 

Jamila, 23, a recent psychology graduate, has a really interesting perspective. We discussed long-term potentiation (LTP), which is a process that explains the neuroplasticity of our brains. This simply means that our brains are remarkably malleable, so each time we think about something, our brains create a neurological pathway. As the saying goes, ‘neurons that fire together, wire together.’ That pathway is strengthened every time we think that thought, and it is a way our brains create belief systems.  

Over time, repeated thoughts can become automatic ways of interpreting our experiences. When it comes to tawakkul and sabr, if we consistently reaffirm our trust in Allah’s plan for us, perhaps we can slowly train ourselves to respond to uncertainty with greater steadiness rather than panic. Tawakkul then becomes a practice that reshapes how we move through difficult moments. “Over time, it helps my brain not to signal distress, worry, and anxiety straight away. It’s helped me gain control over my emotions.

Understanding the neuroplasticity of our brain has helped me put more effort into tawakkul because I know the long-term effect it can have. For now, I have to consciously think about it, but eventually I hope it will become second nature to resort to tawakkul.”  

I’m no neuroscientist, but in some ways, I can see this reflected in my life.  Recently, I’ve been listening to a juz of the Qur’an whilst I’m working from home. There was one day when I could feel something was off, but I couldn’t pinpoint it. By late afternoon, I finally remembered that I hadn’t listened to any Quran that day. Just having it on in the background whilst I sent emails completely changed my mood. My annoyance and anxiety went away; I felt completely calm. Now, I’m not totally sure that this is the work of LTP, but there is something to be said about routine and how your body and spirit recognise when you’ve forgotten to do something good for you. 

This isn’t to say that we must be perfect and that we should never allow ourselves to feel uncertain or anxious or feel guilty about impatience. We’re human, and as trivial as it may seem, this is our first time doing life. We’re going to make mistakes and be stressed or short-tempered. 

When Noor and I spoke about sabr, she said, “I don’t know, man, I’m still crazy a little bit,” which is completely fair; my therapist probably thinks I am too. Our twenties feel so dystopian, with pandemics, genocides, and the rise of the far right. If we feel crazy, it’s because the world is. What these conversations have shown me is that there are things we can do to help us move through life with a little bit more ease.  

When I think about how this dunya is a test, it shocks me how differently we are all tested. I tend to think about this a lot in relation to the genocides in Gaza and Sudan and how privileged I am in comparison. It’s in these moments that I feel uncertain about what my role is, and I nearly allow myself to become debilitated by not knowing what to do. I realised recently that these privileges and blessings that Allah has given me are not to make me guilty but grateful. So how do we practice this shukr? Personally, writing three things at the end of each day that I’m grateful for does not work. If you’re like me, maybe think of ways you can share the blessings Allah has given you with other people through volunteering, donating, or something else.

Being pulled out of spiralling and into action helps me channel my uncertainty into practical acts of gratitude. 

A lot of these conversations were centred around how we can use tawakkul and sabr to reduce the anxieties we experience in our twenties. I was especially interested in talking to people about those concepts because they require a mindset change and can apply to many situations. Every person I spoke to had a unique example of where uncertainty exists for them; be that achieving specific goals, experiencing events that make you re-evaluate your priorities, navigating the job market or dealing with grief for the first time. In every conversation, tawakkul and sabr kept resurfacing as tools these women used.  

However, there are other practical things that people do, which resonated with me. When feeling anxious, Elissar mentioned that she recites particular surahs during her salah: Surah Ad Duha and Surah Al Falaq.

“Both very short surahs, but I think they just give me hope in times when things feel a little bit dark and lonely.” 

Tadabbur is something we tend to spend a lot of time on during Ramadan, but the Qur’an is available to us all year round and is rich with stories that validate, teach, and guide us. Being intentional about the surahs we recite whilst praying can make that salah so much more meaningful and help us process our emotions.  

Truly understanding the meaning behind things came up quite a few times; translating duas was another one. As someone who wasn’t raised speaking Arabic, my Qur’an classes as a child were focused on recitation and not much was translated.

As I’ve gotten older and my relationship with Islam has become more meaningful and personal, understanding what I’m saying and what I’m asking of Allah has strengthened my trust in His capabilities, reducing any anxiety or uncertainty I may feel.

Reciting morning/evening adhkar and salawat were other practices mentioned as well. A common theme in these conversations was that, to some extent, we can choose to revel in uncertainty or reframe our thinking and begin to see how this can bring us closer to Allah. We have been given this feeling for a purpose. 

People tell us being uncertain or lost is a rite of passage for this decade, even if it brings anxiety, but Islam reminds us that uncertainty is not wasted time. Whether through dua before work shifts, dhikr during anxious moments, or simply praying on time, we can try to see our twenties as a season that encourages taqwa. In the same way that physical pain is your body drawing attention to an area that needs attention, mental/spiritual difficulty can be seen as Allah drawing our attention to our relationship with him. 

In doing so, I find my nervous system beginning to settle, and care little about how expensive driving lessons are now, the way I’ve worded something on a LinkedIn post, or whether I can pass all those ridiculous tests for a graduate job. I’ll do my bit; I’ll leave the rest to Allah and trust that with sabr, what is meant for me will recognise me.