Fear and faith equal Courage.
Courage is not a lack of fear. Quite the contrary.
Courage is the ability to act in the presence of fear.
Why is this important for you to understand?
It’s okay to feel fear. It’s a natural process of life. If you try not to be fearful, you are getting in the way of your fear.
You have to dance with your fear to understand it. You have to become the fear to work with it. You have to feel it to build your courage muscle.
In other words, fearlessness does not exist.
Courage is acting in faith on that very thing you are resisting, despite your feeling of the fear.
This is where faith comes into it. After all, what is faith? It’s not tangible. It’s not something that you see.
It is something that you feel.
It’s a belief, a trust or some sort of confidence that keeps you moving forward when you do not know the outcome.
But deep down inside, you know that somehow it will all work out in the end.
Better things are coming
This energy, this drive, this conviction initiates motivation. No matter how bad, scary or lousy your situation is, if you have faith, there is always hope, desire and aspiration.
Putting both faith and fear together demands you to believe in something you cannot see.
It’s all up to you.
Yes. You have a choice in what kind of day you are going to have.
Regardless of your circumstances, experience or the situation at hand, you always have a choice about how you think, how you feel and how you react.
While countless external factors may be out of your hands, what you can control is the way you internally process the challenge and how you act moving forward. The changes and choices you make within will shape your perception over your environment.
And once you realise that you can decide what can and cannot affect you, nothing can stop you.
In the end, only you have the power to change your life. Only you have the influence over you to change anything that you don’t want to have in your life.
Nobody else can do it for you, and no one can take that away from you.
Staying in your centre
I know I harp on about being in our centre and its unparalleled value. This is a daily practice of mine that takes a lot of consciousness, focus and concentration. It doesn’t happen overnight, and the process requires continuous dedication.
However, if we remain in our centre, these two dichotomies — faith and fear — exist.
If we can grasp that one does not exist without the other, then it will be so much easier to be mindful and not swing too far to the left or right.
The acceptance of faith and fear as two parts of a necessary whole paves our way for balance. They both hold equal importance in our journey towards transformation and fulfilment.
Fear is an opportunity to grow.
Faith is a place of enigma, awe and magic.
Their intersection is where you will find the courage to believe in what you cannot see and the strength to let go of your fear of uncertainty.
And the only way to see this intersection is when you remain in your centre.
Keeping the faith
Why the importance of staying in your centre now more than ever?
Well, there are so many different realities available to us right now as we are all going through a major transformation. There are potential conflicts between nations, within nations, between groups in society and between individuals.
And here we are, trying to make sense of everything that is going on … when we can’t.
The more we focus our time and energy on the things that we can’t control, the more we will react and respond to the events taking place. It is a prime example of us being out of our centre.
This is why I encourage you to practice faith on a daily basis because it is faith that is the light that guides us through the darkness.
Ultimately, we are going through a massive shift, a metamorphosis and a renewal from a collective consciousness point of view.
It’s okay to be fearful through it all. The trick is what you do with it.
You can allow it to take over. Or you can use it as a catalyst to propel you, to do something really brave. It’s all in the way you choose to perceive a situation, whether it’s the current global struggle we all share or a personal challenge that carries tremendous meaning in your life.
Embrace fear. Maintain faith. And cultivate the courage to continue.
To read the second piece in this two-part series, click here.
