My biggest lesson this year (and of the last several years) is to have faith.
When after getting rid of everything I owned except for what fit in a suitcase and that suitcase was lost and I was alone in a foreign country without what little belonged to me, I did my best not to panic and instead, have faith. Like an angel, a friend of a friend, Jean, showed up at the airport, gave me clothes and took me shopping for essentials. She was living proof that when I have faith, I am supported. A few days later, my suitcase containing the only things I owned showed up at the airport. More proof that I am supported.
During my battle with chronic Lyme disease and mold poisoning, I lived in fear. I remember lying in bed at night terrified that mold would show up on my clothes or in my apartment.
And it would.
The more I lived in fear, the bigger the fear grew, and the more things went wrong.
I've since shifted from living in fear to living in faith. Yes, I get scared sometimes, but coming from a place of "I can't do that because..." to a place of "If it doesn't work out, I will be fine," is life changing. It wasn't easy to get to make that shift. It took a ton of practice believing that I am supported and that I will be okay.
I still have to constantly delete my limiting beliefs and the limiting beliefs of the people around me. Limiting beliefs show up in subtle ways. How often do you think or hear people say things like: "How will I/you afford that?"
"Where will I/you find the time?"
"How will I/you do THAT?"
Questions like that come from fear. Fear of failure. Fear of breaking norms. Fear of being different. Fear of looking stupid. Fear of so many things.
When I hear questions like that (out of other people's mouths or in my own head) I say, "Delete that." I make a decision to trust my intuition, look for signs, and when I need a little more guidance, I ask the universe to "Bless it or block it."
And when I get those signs or a blessing or a block. I have faith in them.
Many of us are shifting from a culture of fear to a culture of faith. We may not be able to see what's coming, but we know we'll be all right.
What about you? How would you describe your relationship with faith?
PHOTOS:
Pier in Bonaire
Sky Road in Connemara Ireland
Robert Frost Interpretive Trail, Vermont
VAST Trail, Green Mountains Vermont
I think I can assume that these last few years have certainly been ones where fear has had a grip on most of us. Covid, politics, the economy...the doom and gloom of daily chaos took a toll on me and I found myself in tears worrying about "worse case scenarios" most days. I finally went to my doctor, had a physical and had a really deep heart to heart conversation with him. He, like I am, is a Christian, (in fact, we attend the same church), and we both marveled at how people could cope through all the turmoil in the world without God being a beacon of hope and light in their lives. He agreed that things had …