Torment, Tears, Tawbah

Tawbah is... hard. We talk about it a lot, especially in Ramadan, but the actual act of it? It's painful as hell. It's supposed to be. 

Tawbah - repentance - is more than some vague guilt, or an absent minded "dear God, please forgive me." It is a deeply uncomfortable, painful journey of the abyss of one's own nafs; staring hard at the parts of ourselves that are ugliest, that we usually do our best to hide from ourselves and others.

Tawbah is to feel that sucker-punch of humiliation and guilt as we recall our sins: not just the mildly awkward ones, like a petty fib or mild infraction, but the genuinely terrible parts of ourselves... ugly lies, vicious jealousy, violations against others' rights, abuse.

Some of us may be actual criminals - others of us may seem presentable on the outside, even religious, maybe even spiritual... and yet have violated others in terrible ways. Abuse comes in so many forms, and some of us are perpetrators, not just victims.

Facing that reality can be a gruesome process. 

It is a necessary process. Token words, glib recitation of spiritual formulae, those do not constitute tawbah in its entirety. 

Rather, it is a matter of owning up to our violations, experiencing genuine emotion over them - true humiliation, true regret - and striving not to be that person ever again. 

Much as we hate to admit it, we have our own fair share of red flags that we create and wave, even before we get into the nasty business of committing the worst of our sins. Tawbah isn't just feeling bad for those Big Sins - it's to recognize what led us to them to begin with.

It requires us to acknowledge our own flaws of character, of the ease with which we fall into certain behaviours, the way we justify the pursuit of our desires, the blindness we have to the worst parts of ourselves.

Tawbah is to sit down and face all of it - and then to beg Allah, over and over, not just to forgive us and erase those specific actions, but to change us for the better. 

Sincere tawbah isn't a one-and-done deal, either. Truly sincere repentance is to consistently seek forgiveness, to embark on that inner journey over and over again.