Believe and keep the faith

Faith as defined by the dictionary:

1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.

2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence

Belief as defined by the dictionary:

1. The mental act, condition, or habit of placing trust or confidence in another: My belief in you is as strong as ever.

2. Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something: His explanation of what happened defies belief.

3. Something believed or accepted as true, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons.

These two are synonyms for one another and yet at the same time they seem to have opposing energies. Take a moment and think about how you feel when you tell yourself “I must believe…” and then again see how you feel when you say “I have faith…”

Here’s an example:

You need to complete a project for work and so you say to yourself “I must believe that I can finish this project!” can you feel the stress from these words?

Now change the words to “I have faith that I will finish this project”. How do you feel now?

When you think of belief or when someone tells you to believe it is normally termed as “You must believe in…” sounds harsh, doesn’t it? Sounds like something you need to force in order to make it happen.

When you think of faith, you can imagine someone simply saying “have faith…” it has a much more calming and peaceful manner and appears to flow naturally.

After contemplating these words last night I realised something. Many spiritual and self-help books, movies and cd’s out there keep saying something along the lines of “believe in it and it will happen!”

After experiencing these you tend to feel amped and ready to take on the world and make a difference in your life but after a few days you still, for some reason, feel blocked. Why would this be?

Naturally the first thing you may think, after reading the book, watching the movie or listening to the cd is “I must now believe this will happen, or it won’t” which is not quite what these teachers are trying to say. They want you to just have a little faith in yourself and your dreams.

As we grow up we are taught “you must do this or that”. When we feel that we are being forced to do something, it is only natural to rebel it, so why must we believe in something?

You don’t question you just do. This is the natural flow of faith. You just know.

If you really want your dreams to come true and to attract to yourself everything that you want, just have faith that it will happen. Breathe in, tell yourself “I have faith that…” as you breathe out.

When I tried this exercise I felt lighter than I had in a while. So now when I feel worried and frustrated, I take a deep breath and simply have faith.

I can believe too but I don’t have to!

Mantra of the day:

I have faith in myself