My 20’s and 30s, and even the first couple years of my forties were marked by a lot of anxiety…approval-seeking…and bouncing between fear of the future and excitement for it, while rarely appreciating the present moment. 

Today, at 44, I’m happier than I’ve ever been, and I feel like I’ve only just begun. 

I see a future for myself of more happiness, more abundance, more success, more love, and more fulfillment.

So what changed in that time?

When I look back, it comes down to one thing:  

I developed faith.

Faith in myself and faith in the universe.

I believe faith is the single biggest trait you need to develop if you want a future that’s different from your current reality.

Here’s why:

Faith in yourself allows you to:

1. Feel peace in times of uncertainty – like financial uncertainty – because you know your value and you trust in your worth.  

When you’re not in fear and anxiety, you’re more solution-oriented, which gets you to where you want to be.

Here’s an example: if you’ve read my About page, you know Dush and I lost a lot of money in 2017 and 2018 and had to take on some pretty significant debt.  

This used to weigh on me a lot.  

Today, though, I feel totally different.  I still don’t love having the debt, but I feel sure that we can manage it and pay it off over time.  I feel confident in our ability to make more money and I know the lessons I’ve learned in the past have made me even more valuable as a business person.

As Dush often asks rhetorically, “why do we want to hire someone with experience?”

2. Take risks because you know you’ll find your way back on your feet even if it doesn’t work out. 

It’s only by taking risks that we can move toward the life we want.

You can’t find love…start a business…go for the job you want…move to a new city…stand up for yourself…or do anything else that’s going to take you from where you are now to where you want to be without taking on risk.

But that’s impossible to do if we don’t have faith in ourselves.  

We’re only willing to take on risk when we either feel confident of the outcome, or when we know we’ll be ok if things don’t work out – and both of those require that you have faith in yourself.

3. Use your strengths to move yourself forward.  When you have faith in yourself, you understand your strengths and how to leverage them to get where you want to go.

This site is a perfect example.  It’s only because I finally understand my strengths and have faith in myself that I’ve been able to build SoulfireShift – a business that allows me to do work I love and that’s bringing me all kinds of psychic and physical rewards (e.g. fulfillment, meaning, joy, money, purpose, etc.)

Now let’s look at faith in the Universe, by which I mean faith in something bigger than yourself. 

 For you that might be a specific religious belief; it might be faith in what we call “Source”, “the Divine” or “Spirit”; or maybe it’s just faith that life tends toward the good and positive.  

Whatever it is, I believe this: 

Trusting in something bigger than yourself is required if you want to move from where you are now to where you want to be.  

Why? 

Well, I think Steve Jobs captured it best:

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.”

Without faith in something bigger than yourself – it’s really hard to keep going when things don’t turn out like you hoped, or things aren’t happening as fast as you want.

When you want something and you’re working toward something and you don’t see the dots connecting, it feels like such a big burden to carry on your own.  

It feels so heavy and hard and strenuous.

And it’s too easy to give up when you feel like it’s all up to you.  

But when you believe that something bigger than you is supporting you and helping you move toward your dreams, the road to get there suddenly seems lighter.  

You feel guided, rather than like you’re pushing for something.  

And you feel a sense of peace knowing that you’ll reach your destiny because there are unseen forces that are helping to carry you – whether that’s God for you, Allah, Buddha, Vishnu, Spirit, the Divine, the goodness of life, or just the recognition of the principles of energy and vibration from quantum physics.

So, if there’s a difference between where you are now and where you want to be…I want to invite you to consider these two questions.  

Maybe even journal on them this weekend.

1.  How can I develop more faith in myself so I can take more risks, feel more confident in my strengths, and trust that I’ll always land on my feet?
2. What do I believe in that’s bigger than me that I can trust in to help me get where I want to go…and how can I share any burden I feel on my journey with that force so that I can lighten my load?  

(And for bonus points, try this one:  How can I release the entirety of the burden I feel to that unseen force and not carry any of it?)

Love,

Terra