Inshirah Academy
Some things have to be learned in order.
A course is six short lessons that build on one another, four to eight minutes each. You can move between them freely and stop whenever you like. Nothing is timed, nothing is scored, and nothing here counts against you if you put it down for a month.
20 courses, 120 lessons. Every one of them is a draft, and every one says so.
Worry loops, avoiding things, panic, and the fear of being judged.
Worry and anxiety
Worry that will not switch off
A false alarm, a habit of thinking, and a religious accusation that has no text behind it.
Teaches Cognitive behavioural therapy for worry
6 lessons40 minutesdraft
Written for
Anyone whose worry has stopped switching off, anyone who has had the surge and thought they were dying, and anyone who has started avoiding places or people because of it.
What it will not do
This course does not run exposure work on you, and you should not build it for yourself from a page on the internet.
Opens with a safety note, and repeats it at the top of every lesson.
Read what is in it
Worry and anxiety
When doubt keeps coming back
Waswasa, what the law already settles, and why reassurance makes it louder.
Teaches Treating reassurance as the fuel, on top of the rule the lessons set out
6 lessons40 minutesdraft
Written for
Anyone caught in repeated doubt about purity, intention, prayer or belief, and anyone who loves someone who is.
What it will not do
This course does not run exposure work on you, and you should not try to run it on yourself from an article.
Opens with a safety note, and repeats it at the top of every lesson.
Read what is in it
Worry and anxiety
Money worry that will not stop
Worry is a behaviour rather than a character, the loop runs both ways, and the verses about rizq do not say what the posts say they say.
Teaches Worry specific cognitive behavioural therapy, plus problem solving
6 lessons36 minutesdraft
Written for
Anyone whose money situation has taken over their thinking, who is not opening the post, who lies awake doing sums, or who has been told that if their faith were in better shape a door would have opened.
What it will not do
This is not debt advice and it never will be.
Opens with a safety note, and repeats it at the top of every lesson.
Read what is in it
Worry and anxiety
When the doubt is anxiety, not a question
Two things that look identical from outside, and only one of them is answered by an answer.
6 lessons36 minutesdraft
Written for
Anyone whose doubt about belief keeps returning in the same form, who has been answering it for months or years, and who finds that a good answer lasts about an hour.
What it will not do
This course does not run exposure or response prevention on you, and it will not disguise them as ordinary advice.
Opens with a safety note, and repeats it at the top of every lesson.
Read what is in it
The moment before you snap, and what sits underneath it.
Flatness, shame, urges, and feelings you would rather not have.
Low mood and hard feelings
When you are told it is weak faith
What depression actually is, why doing comes before feeling, and what the tradition really says about grief.
Teaches Behavioural activation
6 lessons42 minutesdraft
Written for
Anyone who has been low, flat or exhausted for weeks, anyone who has stopped being able to do things they were doing three months ago, and anyone who loves someone in that state.
What it will not do
This course does not treat or diagnose anything, and it does not do trauma work.
Opens with a safety note, and repeats it at the top of every lesson.
Read what is in it
Low mood and hard feelings
The first year nobody prepared you for
Three different states wearing one name, a body doing what it was always going to do, and a concession the religion already gave you.
Teaches Behavioural activation, with what is specific to the first year
6 lessons38 minutesdraft
Written for
Any woman in pregnancy or in the first year after a birth who is not herself and does not know whether that is normal.
What it will not do
This is not a screening test and it will never tell you what you have.
Opens with a safety note, and repeats it at the top of every lesson.
Read what is in it
Getting started, losing time, and working with the brain you have.
Breathing, movement, food, touch, and settling a nervous system.
Closeness, conflict, repair, and the small things that hold it together.
Your marriage
The small things that hold a marriage
Four behaviours that corrode a marriage, one skill that repairs it, and an honest account of how good the evidence for any of this really is.
Teaches The Gottman findings on bids and repair, with the pursue and withdraw cycle
6 lessons42 minutesdraft
Written for
Two people who both want this to work, in a marriage where neither is afraid of the other.
What it will not do
This is not the right course for anyone who is afraid of their spouse, controlled by them, or hurt by them.
Opens with a safety note, and repeats it at the top of every lesson.
Read what is in it
Your marriage
What to do instead of shouting
Why shouting works tonight and stops working by next year, what the religion actually asks of a parent, and the one swap with evidence behind it.
Teaches Behavioural parent training
6 lessons40 minutesdraft
Written for
Any parent who has ended a day feeling worse than their child did.
What it will not do
This is not a behaviour programme, and it is not written for a child with a disability, autism, ADHD or a disrupted early attachment, where generic behavioural advice is often actively wrong.
Opens with a safety note, and repeats it at the top of every lesson.
Read what is in it
Your marriage
A parent who keeps hurting you
What the religion actually asks of you, what it does not, and how to hold a limit without cutting the tie.
Teaches Boundaries, and the difference between the two kinds of control
6 lessons40 minutesdraft
Written for
An adult child who dreads the phone ringing.
What it will not do
This is not therapy for a childhood.
Opens with a safety note, and repeats it at the top of every lesson.
Read what is in it
Worth, boundaries, and asking well.
Yourself and your limits
When worship stops feeling like anything
Fatrah, the difference between the feeling draining and the practice draining, and how to set a floor.
Teaches Behavioural activation, borrowed and kept honest
6 lessons38 minutesdraft
Written for
Anyone whose salah has gone flat, anyone who has dropped a wird and taken it as a verdict on themselves, and anyone who came out of a Ramadan or an intense stretch and found nothing left in the tank.
What it will not do
This course gives no fatwa and no diagnosis, and it replaces neither a scholar nor a doctor.
Opens with a safety note, and repeats it at the top of every lesson.
Read what is in it
Yourself and your limits
Is it jinn, or is it illness
Two questions that are not one question, and the cost of answering only the first.
Teaches Differential reasoning, held carefully
6 lessons38 minutesdraft
Written for
Anyone who has been told it is the eye, or sihr, or a jinn, and anyone who has been told the opposite and found it dismissive.
What it will not do
This course gives no diagnosis and no fatwa, and it replaces neither a scholar nor a doctor.
Opens with a safety note, and repeats it at the top of every lesson.
Read what is in it
Yourself and your limits
The feeling that arrives after the scroll
A measuring habit, a standard that keeps rising, and a verse that was never about your face.
Teaches Compassion focused therapy, with the social comparison research
6 lessons34 minutesdraft
Written for
Anyone who comes off the phone feeling smaller than they went on.
What it will not do
This course does not do body image work with you.
Opens with a safety note, and repeats it at the top of every lesson.
Read what is in it
Yourself and your limits
Alone is not the same as lonely
A gap rather than a headcount, a threat filter that makes you harder to reach, and an ummah that was never automatic.
Teaches The cognitive model of loneliness
6 lessons34 minutesdraft
Written for
Anyone who has people around them and still feels unmet, anyone who has drifted out of contact and cannot see the way back, and anyone who has started assuming in advance that they are not wanted.
What it will not do
This course does not build you a ladder of social tasks to climb, and you should not build one for yourself from a page on the internet.
Opens with a safety note, and repeats it at the top of every lesson.
Read what is in it
Yourself and your limits
The hour after
Shame and guilt are doing different jobs, and only one of them has an exit.
Teaches Cognitive behavioural work with compassion focused therapy, and urge surfing
6 lessons38 minutesdraft
Written for
Anyone caught in the loop of doing this, hating themselves for it, and finding that the hating makes the next time closer rather than further away.
What it will not do
This course does not run exposure or response prevention on you, and you should not build it for yourself.
Opens with a safety note, and repeats it at the top of every lesson.
Read what is in it
Carrying a loss with patience, and with hope.
Grief and loss
Carrying a loss
Grief comes in waves and not in stages, and the tradition already gave you more room for it than you have been allowed.
Teaches Continuing bonds and the dual process model
6 lessons38 minutesdraft
Written for
Anyone who has lost someone and is being measured, by themselves or by other people, against a schedule that does not exist.
What it will not do
This is not grief therapy and it does not try to be.
Opens with a safety note, and repeats it at the top of every lesson.
Read what is in it
Grief and loss
A loss other people cannot see
Grief for a future, with no body, no funeral and no witnesses, and a set of forwarded messages that turn out not to be sound.
Teaches Acceptance and commitment therapy
6 lessons36 minutesdraft
Written for
Anyone who has lost a pregnancy at any stage, anyone who has had a stillbirth, and anyone who has been trying for a child for a long time and is grieving something month after month.
What it will not do
This course does not process the loss with you.
Opens with a safety note, and repeats it at the top of every lesson.
Read what is in it
Safety, grounding, and going gently.
Most people arrive with a question rather than with a topic. These answer first and explain afterwards, in about the time it takes to read a long message.