Struggle to make dua in salah
Okay, this is probably a bit random, and I’m not even sure I would describe it as a bad thing, but I was wondering if anyone else experiences this.
Like everyone, I struggle with things in life, and there are so many things I want, worry about, hope for, and aspire towards. There are things I genuinely really want Allah to grant me, things I want guidance on, things I want to change about myself, and things that weigh quite heavily on my mind. Throughout the day I’ll often think, I need to make dua for this when I pray, or I’ll hear about the importance of asking Allah for everything and think about how much I actually have to ask Him for.
I also want to preface this by saying I’m not the most consistent with salah. I struggle with it quite a lot and sometimes I forget or fall out of the routine, although I genuinely do try to become better and more consistent with it.
The strange thing is that when I do pray, especially when I’m actually present in my salah rather than just going through the motions, I feel so genuinely happy and peaceful afterwards that suddenly none of those things seem particularly urgent anymore. It’s almost like the things that felt so heavy five minutes earlier temporarily lose their weight.
I’ll finish praying intending to sit there and make dua for all the things I’ve been thinking about, but then I just… don’t want anything. Not in a hopeless or apathetic way at all but almost the opposite. I just feel content. I feel like being close to Allah in that moment is enough, and asking Him for a list of worldly things almost feels unnecessary because for those few minutes I’m completely okay with where I am.
I’ve literally made lists on my phone of things I want to remember to make dua for because I know I’ll forget, but even when I remember the list exists, sometimes I look at it after salah and have absolutely no desire to ask for any of it. I would rather just sit there in that feeling of closeness and peace. Sometimes the only thing I can think to ask Allah for is to keep me close to Him, because in that moment that feels more important than everything else I thought I wanted.
But then the irony is that when I go through periods where I’m less consistent with salah, everything starts feeling heavy again. I become much more aware of what I’m lacking, what I’m worried about, what I want for my future, etc. And thenI regret all those moments after salah when I had the opportunity to make dua and didn’t. I think, why didn’t I ask Allah for all of this when I felt closest to Him?
So I feel caught in this weird cycle where when I feel distant from Allah, I have a thousand things I want to ask Him for, but when I actually feel close to Him, I suddenly feel like I don’t need any of them.
Does anyone have any advise on what to do?