When you have faith, everything will begin to work for you. Faith comes from moving back in spirit and connecting to intention. When you have faith you feel inspired, what appeared to be risky becomes a path you feel compelled to follow. The fear is gone because you are following your path. which is the truth within you. This is really love working in harmony with your intention. Essentially, if you do not feel love, you do not feel the truth, and your truth is all wrapped up in your connection to Spirit. This is why faith is such an important part of the fulfillment of your intention to live a life on purpose.
Unfortunately, many people live in fear most of the time. I am not talking about a constant fear of danger, although for some this is true. I am talking about a low level of fear that is present all the time so that it keeps you from living your life and fulfilling your dreams.
At its root, all fear results from a lack of faith—pure and simple.
Living in fear makes no real sense. On a purely physical level, fear lowers your vibration and actually makes you far more susceptible to illness and disease you fear you might contract. By contrast, a growing body of evidence shows that having faith can help you stay well and thrive. Of course, the best part is that faith doesn’t require a prescription.
Fear has many harmful effects on your body. Fear shuts down your gut. When you experience fear, your body releases stress hormones that slow, or shut down, bodily functions that you do not immediately need for survival. This includes your gut where most of your immune system resides.
Living in fear short-circuits your brain. The flow of stress hormones creates an overactive mind by flooding your brain with dangerous stress hormones which over time interrupts your ability to regulate emotions. It breaks down the cells of your body to cause things like depression, fatigue, premature aging, heart disease, and cancer.
Everything in the universe is simply energy in motion, including us. The universe mirrors back to you what you think and feel. So, fear attracts what you fear most. When you let fear run your life, you attract to you more of whatever it is that you are afraid of. If you’re afraid of illness, you will attract it. If you’re afraid of being alone, you will be alone for as long as it takes to get over that fear. If you’re afraid to die, you will never live fully and joyfully.
Having faith, whether you go to church or not—is associated with many health benefits including reduced risk of depression, better immunity, lower stress levels, enhanced cognitive abilities, improved fitness, healthier heart, reduced inflammation, a positive effect on your vagus nerve function.
It’s relatively easy to live in faith when nothing really bad has ever happened to you; but sooner or later, everyone experiences something that seriously tests their faith. So, I am not going to tell you to stop being afraid and move into an unshakable faith. This is nearly impossible, especially if your nervous system has been imprinted with trauma. The only way to build faith is to calm yourself and turn your trust over to God, the Divine, the universe or whatever higher power you believe in. This requires patience and commitment.
A simple step you can take every day to overcome your fear and have faith is to notice your fear. Scan your body and figure out where you feel the fear. Say to your fear: “I love you. You are precious. I know you’re afraid. I will take care of you.” This instantly breaks the fear trance.
Breathing is a very powerful and quick way to eliminate fear. Begin by taking a long, deep, slow breath through your nose and hold it for a couple of seconds. Then exhale slowly through your nose, allowing your exhale to be longer than your inhale. This calms your vagus nerve, which in turn lowers your heart rate and blood pressure and helps your body metabolize stress hormones. Repeat this three times or as many times as you need to fully stop the fight-or-flight fear response in your body.
Daily prayer is a great way to eliminate fear and fill your life with faith. There are more than 300 peer-reviewed studies on the healing power of prayer, and it turns out that prayer is effective no matter what your belief system or religion. Prayer sends healing energy out into the universe which is mirrored back to you. In general, there is nothing that isn’t helped by the intention of prayer. It also doesn’t matter what kind of prayers you use. What matters is your sincere desire to connect with the Divine.
Lack of faith tends to boil down to a belief that you are not worthy. Not worthy of love, acceptance, care, or understanding. Fears are based on the truth of your experiences, but you still have to transform them. And the only way out is to have more faith in God and the Divine than in your own ego. There are many practices you can use to begin to develop a sense of your true self-worth, including affirmations and mirror work.
Offer everything to the Divine. Say to the Divine, “Okay. I am yours. And the relationship that’s driving me nuts is also yours. I offer it all to you, including my body, my health, and my lover who just left me.” We all have the ability to do this. You simply need to trust in the part of you that is orchestrating things from a higher perspective. This is not the same as your little self who is down here on earth managing day-to-day business. Remember, faith is a process, not an event. It’s not intellectual. And it requires love and patience. The way to loosen your grip on anything is to realize that none of it really belongs to you.
Have faith and focus on the big picture. There is a much larger picture than the one you’re able to see of your life. When you are up against fear or loss, I can assure you that you are going to have feelings about it—anger, sorrow, sadness, fear. That’s not only okay, it’s the only way for your Soul to do what it came to do. Many times, painful events are actually orchestrated by your Soul to assist you in moving from fear to faith. It’s enormously helpful to realize that, on some level, everything that happens to you is designed to help your soul growth.
