It’s Not What You Believe in That Matters, Just That You Do
“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.” ― J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan
For the longest time, I’ve felt a little lost, a little out of sync and a little of kilt. But, I could never put my finger on exactly what was wrong. So, I continued on, hoping that it was my habits or my job, some dissatisfaction in an aspect of my life that simply had to be worked on and everything would be solved.
But it wasn’t.
I just wasn’t inspired or excited about life. I’d become a little hopeless. I cast my mind back to the last time I felt truly inspired. What was I into? What was I doing? And delving through those archives, I came across a talk in which the speaker said:
“It’s not what you believe in that matters, just that you do”.
And I realised I’d completely lost touch with my beliefs. I hadn’t given them a single thought in months. I’d never been a particularly strong believer in anything. I’d always just approached religion and philosophy with curiosity and an open-mind, seeing the same ideas pop up with different faces.
But I fell in love with spirituality. It’s not so much that I do believe that the universe plays a role in shaping our paths, I just love that image. I like pocketing a different crystal each day to symbolise how I’m feeling, smiling when the moon and I are on the same page, watching my first response to my tarot cards. These, of course, are only the surface level part of spirituality, but even still, they give life some colour, they make my thoughts and feelings a little lighter.
No matter what you believe in, let’s talk about why you should.
We need something bigger than ourselves
As human beings, we need something bigger than ourselves to concentrate on. When we get too wrapped up in our one-person narratives, we spiral. We feel wronged and hopeless, faulted and broken. We’re not meant to be solitary figures.
By placing your faith in something outside of yourself, your everyday approach to life becomes simpler, calmer and healthier. Trust me, you’ll get better results.
Take the idea of manifestation, for example. The idea is to set an intention for something you’d like to manifest in your life and then to let go of it and work to align yourself with catching it, whilst trusting whatever you believe in to throw opportunities your way.
If you set an intention to obtain something and believe that brute-force hard work and taking complete control is the only way you’re going to get there, you’re going to tire yourself out. You’re going to stress. You’re going to blame yourself and give up early. You’ll hold onto the idea so tightly that it’ll evade your grip. Putting so much of the weight on yourself makes letting go of the idea impossible.
Instead, choose to believe in something outside of yourself, whether that be in a religious figure, the universe, the source or in life itself and promise to align yourself as well as you can to obtain those things, and you’ll find the whole process becomes a lot easier.
Say you want to manifest a new love interest. If you run round the city desperately trying to meet someone — you’re not going to find them, or if you do you’ll likely be too tired or have your desperation come through in conversation, so that you might lose them. If, however, you trust that you will find that person, start going out a little more, start being more open and curious to meet people, you’ll find them, calm and collected.
Remember, your delivery won’t always look as expected
The brute-force way of thinking will also encourage you to block out other opportunities as you narrow your vision. You know how you hunt for that specific item for ages, only to find it the minute you stop looking? Same principle here.
Say you have your eye on a new job and you’re aligning yourself with receiving it, going to networking events, learning everything you can in your current role, doing research, applying for jobs, reaching out to recruiters. You’re opening yourself up for opportunities, whether they’re the one you intended for or not.
You might find 1) that as you work harder in your current role, you’re offered better positions in the company you already work for, 2) that you fall in love with the job you’re already in and realise you don’t want to change or 3) find yourself presented with an entirely new opportunity you’d never imagined and find the job of your dreams. And, of course, 4) are presented with the opportunity you’d hoped for.
Take ownership of how you can make a difference
Note that I’m not telling you to blindly trust and not work for what you want. You can’t simply write a list and wait for everything to be delivered, silver platter and all, to your door. You need to ask and then work to align yourself with receiving, taking responsibility for the avenues you do have control over.
You need to be ready for that new job when it comes and increase your chances of a good job finding its way to you. Life will throw opportunities at you, but you need to ensure you’re in the best place to catch them (and you’d do well to have bought yourself a net too).
Have an outside friend
One of the simplest benefits I always hear from people going through therapy, is that a therapist often acts as a non-biased third-party source of help. They don’t know your friends, your family, your co-workers — they only know you and what you’re facing. And that means they’re placed really well to give you helpful advice and to provide a sanctuary where you can talk about your life, outside of your every day.
This is the same type of relationship you can create with your beliefs. If there is a figure, bodiless or not, you can seek refuge, advice and guidance from them, knowing they’re apart from your own life, unbiased and inconsequential to talk to.
Even if you don’t believe in anything divine, talking to something and believing in it, will allow you to give yourself advice that you speak to yourself through said figure. A simple mind trick that allows you to speak to yourself without the usual filters that you speak to yourself through.
Look for yellow cars
One interesting exercise you can do to practice these ideas is simple. Ask your ‘whoever’ to show you more yellow cars. Am I saying that your God, figure, universe, etc are bringing you more yellow cars? I’m not saying either way, maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. I’m simply saying, that if you believe you will, you will notice more yellow cars.
So, when you ask for more good things in your life, for more happy moments or for something specific, know that if you truly believe you will be given those things (so long as you align yourself with them) they will appear and you, consciously and unconsciously will create those things. You’ll see the signs, you’ll get closer, you’ll find the opportunities. Believe and trust.
