Personal Growth Planet Blog

As Lou Reed sang, does it ever seem that in order to just get through the days of your life, you need an immense– busload– amount of faith?

Life sometimes knocks us around. We can become worried, afraid and despairing about the conditions of our bodies, our lives and those close to us.

In times like these, just about everyone wants assurance that it’s all going to work out for the best.

Who doesn’t want to believe that everything will be fine?

This sense of hopefulness and wishing it will all work out is where faith comes in.

Faith can actually be what carries you through difficulties and helps you see the resolutions and solutions that allow you to do more than just get by. Faith can help you thrive.

But what is faith after all?

To me, faith and trust are a package.

When I drive in my car over a bridge or overpass, I have faith that the engineers and construction workers adequately did their jobs and that I will safely cross. When I go to a restaurant, I trust that the food I am served was prepared in healthy and sanitary ways and that eating it will only benefit my body.

Each and every one of us puts our trust and faith in countless other people and things all of the time.

But it’s not so easy when the going gets rough.

When we can’t pay our bills, we can’t find a speck of love in our relationships, we feel like nobody cares what we do, we feel sick and exhausted…it can be really hard to tap into that sense of faith and trust.

What if you haven’t got any faith?
It might seem like you have to be religious in order to have faith.  This will block your ability to trust.

Perhaps you don’t belong to a church or you don’t attend one regularly. Maybe you don’t even believe in God or consider yourself spiritual in any way, shape or form.

I contend that you can (and probably already do) rely on faith, even if you aren’t religious or spiritual.

Faith is that stalwart voice in your head that keeps you from going completely under when life feels as if it wants to drag you down.

Faith is the comfort you feel when a friend says “just the right thing” to help you smile or laugh.

Faith is your resilience to get back up again when you fall down.

Another block to faith is that it could mean a kind of passivity to you. You might not feel comfortable with the element of non-action that faith is sometimes associated with.

I actually see faith as a very active endeavor.

When you trust and have faith, you have to be open to a lot of possibilities– not just the frustrating or disappointing “reality” that you see in front of you. This opening up is in no way passive.

When you are tuned in and trusting, you don’t just automatically take action as an attempt to control a distressing situation. As you might have experienced, knee-jerk action is rarely effective.

Instead, you cultivate within yourself a faith that the relationship/job/health/happiness/well-being/peace of mind that you want will somehow happen.

And then, almost magically at times, the “right” people and circumstances come together and you find yourself closer than you were before to what you wanted. Many times, you find yourself exactly where you trusted you could be.

We all have the capacity to trust and tap into faith. What is required is a willingness to go there.

I know, not everyone is an optimist. Many people consider themselves “realists” who are frequently on alert for the next challenge to erupt in their lives. Some people carry around unresolved pain from the past that also interferes with their ability to trust.

You don’t have to weld rose-colored glasses on your face in order to have faith.

What you do need to do is to find that glimmer of hope– whether you identify it within yourself or perceive it somewhere on the outside– and then give that at least some of your attention.

Keep on looking for the glimmers and pay attention to how you feel when you do.

This is where faith and trust spring from. We can build and grow faith from such a foundation and we can create the lives– and world– we truly want.

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Tags: faith, Finances, Health, job, Lou Reed, Relationships, religious, spirituality, Trust