The Tricky Thing About Faith And Fate — A New Age Guide
I grew up in a very traditional family with highly religious beliefs. We had a temple built into our house, and I saw my parents partake in morning and evening prayers every day. We celebrated festivals not only with fun and festivities but also religious activities.
I grew up believing that everything happens for a reason, and that faith will lead me to my fate.
Some parts of that sentence, I still believe in — sort of. I do believe that everything that goes wrong is a stepping stone to getting better. Bad breakup? Well, you now know better. Bad year? You made it through hell, which means you can now deal with anything and everything. Pandemic? Well… I don’t know about that one, but who knows, maybe we’ll look back at it in fifteen years and think about something good that came out of it.
How to make something bad turn into something good
But I also believe that to make good out of bad, you need to want to do so actively. If you had a terrible breakup, you need to allow yourself time to grieve and feel what you are feeling. But you also need to understand what you are feeling. What is making you so upset about this breakup? If they asked you back today, would you say yes or no? Why? Do you actually miss the person, or do you miss the idea of the person?
Because until you understand why you are feeling a certain way, you can’t work towards changing it. So do something about it — write down your feelings, put them in voice notes, talk to someone who’d listen. And most importantly, heal for the positive.
You may still dislike the person, but you don’t have to hate them. You may still miss them, but don’t use the bad times to get rid of that feeling. Remember your good times, and remember what they taught you.
Indulge in the activities you’d do together, and do them alone. Watch a show that the other person got you into. Go the distance by yourself, and prove to your brain that you don’t need a partner to live and love your life. Make yourself more whole than you were before meeting this person.
Everything happens for a reason, and faith will lead you to your fate.
So yes, I still believe in this, except one part — faith. You need faith. But I spent a large chunk of my life thinking about the wrong kind of faith. The right kind? What you really, really need? Faith in yourself.
Because more than anything else, you need to remember that no one, and I do mean no one, is ever going to be as invested in your life as you. In the end, people have their own problems to worry about, even if it seems like their life is perfect. Power play can be an almost instinctive feeling in many humans, meaning that if they can, they are going to try to make themselves feel better than you. This comes off in many ways — from passive-aggressive remarks to outright bullying and abuse.
And God cannot save you from that, only you can. God cannot make you change your thoughts and not bother about any comments. And in that sense, the phrase that God only helps those who help themselves gets a lot more real.
If something is wrong in your life, you are responsible, and you need to fix it. No one is coming to save you, especially if you don’t make the first move. Blaming the other person or even blaming God won’t get you anywhere. You don’t even have to blame yourself — you only need to want to change it.
It’s okay to work at your own pace and fall back to your negative habits.
People will always come at you with the next comment, and yes, it can be so hard to get over it. It can be so incredibly hard to move on and remind yourself that you’re worth everything and more.
Yesterday, I was feeling like a hypocrite, for spiraling down my terrible eating habits when someone commented that I’m fat. I write about self-improvement and self-love, yet all it takes are a few words to put all my progress into reverse. I barely ate a meal in the entire day, and even then, I struggled with nausea because the minute I was near food, a mental ticker would go off in my head, screaming at me that I needed to lose weight.
But here’s the thing — I’m not overweight. At most, I could lose a couple of pounds, but I am healthy and happy and that’s that. I work out regularly, and I eat a fairly healthy diet.
But having been told that I’d look better if I was thinner everywhere I went — from the media to people I knew — played with my head. I struggled with an eating disorder for years.
And while I am obviously not perfect and go back to my damaging habits from time to time, after the years of not wanting to eat more than a meal a day, counting my calories, and trying all forms of crazy crash diets, I can finally say that today, I do truly feel better about my normal body and my normal diet.
Throughout yesterday, even though I was struggling, I also knew that it was not a reflection on my weight that had caused that comment — it came from them, and their own insecurities.
So I took my day easy, let my body and my mind feel and act how it needed to. It’s okay to fall back to your older, more negative habits when something bad happens because for your body that’s familiar. And familiar feels safe. So when you feel like you need time off, believe yourself. But I’m back here today, writing this blog and wanting to go eat because I am SO hungry. It is always hard to get over harsh comments. But it doesn’t require effort, just practice, and faith in yourself.
All you really need is to stop pitying yourself and start loving yourself.
So the next time something goes wrong, or someone says something hurtful, remember that your best weapon is your faith in yourself. Learn to love yourself, and remember to give yourself some space. The world truly is your oyster, as long as you know what is within.
