Beliefs and Faith

When we are children, our beliefs and imagination allow us to live in a magical world inhabited by a Santa Claus who goes from chimney to chimney to deliver us gifts, an Easter Bunny who hides chocolates in our garden at springtime and a Tooth Fairy who exchanges teeth with coins under our pillow. In this magical realm, we are convinced that we can become whatever we want: Astronaut, Doctor, Veterinarian, Teacher, Adventurer, Magician, Dancer… When teenagers, magic takes an air of romance and careers take an artistic or sports turn: Rock Stars, Cartoonist, Footballer, Surfer, Writer, Actor…

Then, we grow up and the adults start to explain to us that “the real world” doesn’t work that way at all, doing so, they inform us that they’ve been lying to us throughout our whole childhood. They thus inform us that, in terms of career, it is better to aim lower and easier to be sure to earn enough money to survive than to try to achieve a more economically risky dream… After teaching us to build ourselves around our dreams and imagination, our parents or referring adults, though they think they are doing it out of love, ask us to sacrifice our dreams and follow their own fears, lack of money in particular, killing our own desires in the process. Obviously, this ultimately creates a great deal of disappointment, frustration and unease in many young adults’s lives, who feel they have no other choice than to follow the expected path for grown-ups know better. We’ve sold them a dream for the first part of their life and finally explain to them that they will never be able to achieve it… Isn’t that quite a cruel way to begin our own adult life ?

However, this behaviour only reflects adults’ beliefs on how the world in which they evolve works; these beliefs, based on their own fears and insecurities often inherited from their parents, transmitted from generation to generation, end to limit us in our capacity to be the tremendous beings we really are inside and to create the life that we wish to live. They generally revolve around our abilities to achieve goals or to be loved:

• I would like to become a professional artist – make a living from painting, acting, singing, dancing, writing a book… – but it is impossible to earn a good living as an artist,

• Life has nothing more to offer me than what I already have,

• I will not be happy if I don’t get married and have children,

• I could never earn more money than what I already earn,

• I would like to buy a nice house by the sea but I will never earn enough money to do it,

• I feel that I am made for another job but it is too complicated to resume my studies or to take the risk of leaving my current profession even if it no longer suits me…

Our lives are limited by our fears and the power we give them: our beliefs. All these beliefs, usually very untrue, whether they are ours or belong to our culture and education, limit us and lock us up without us even being aware of it. On the contrary, if we put aside our fears to live our life with the faith that the best is always to come – and it is, believe me! -, that we can do anything we want provided we give ourselves the means and tools to do so, then we become again the invincible children that we were and we can start building the life of our dream. Because that wished life is our creation – a co-creation if you accept that the universe has its part to play in the equation – and not something we deserve. Indeed, if you look closely, there are many human beings who manage to live the life they want – including financial well-being or freedom – despite morally very questionable behaviors; in the same way, there are plenty of “good people” who long for the life they dream of but never achieve it. Is it because life is unfair? No, simply, despite their moral values, they are locked in their fears and beliefs.

Life is an energy which needs our actions and interactions to head in the right direction. If you follow your deepest desires, heading that path step by step with the unshakable faith that you are going to succeed and that nothing really bad can happen to you along the way – which is generally the case – you have every chance of getting what you want though, sometimes, the result is a little different from what we expected and we have to be very open-minded about it.
I’m very fond of the saying that goes “be careful of what you’re wishing for because you always end up getting it”, it works for the positive things as well as for the negative ones: fear systematically leads us to live the situation we are afraid of and, sometimes, what we wished to obtain for the wrong reasons, generally by following the whims of our ego, quickly becomes a poisoned gift.

If we agree with the principle that life is a long series of self-experiments, successive trials and errors in getting to know who we really are, that we are not the same persons with the same aspirations at 20, 30, 40 or 50 years old, then our life will be made of many changes and leaps of faith. If we see these changes as opportunities of evolution and accomplish them without fear and with a great appetite for small and big, good and bad surprises, as the life adventurers we deeply are, we will be able to experience so many enjoyable things that will lead us to great happiness.