If you have ever been a person of faith, like me, faith in any kind of Higher Power, then you probably know how exhilarating it is to know you are being watched and cared for by powers of seeming invincibility! On the other hand, over time, you may have realized that it’s not nearly as easy as it used to be to share your faith. You still know the truth, those past experiences are still deep within your heart, but, like me, you may have lost all desire to share your experiences and try to touch people’s lives with things that could move them to tears of joy. Why have we lost this fire? And what steps can we try to take to rekindle ourselves? I’ve come up with three common reasons, along with some simple ideas for solutions we can try together to get our spirits back on their floaty-feet-thingies, and get that joyous twinkle back in our otherwise, tired, hopeless eyes.
1. We pushed people too hard before.
I know this is true for me. When I first grasped a strong hold on my faith, I got so excited and motivated, that I absolutely NEEDED EVERYBODY to see this belief in exactly the same way I saw it! I became excessively preachy, I constantly badgered people to do the things I did. When bad things happened to people, I bluntly blamed the fact that they weren’t doing what they were supposed to be doing… I was basically a super jerk about having faith! People got hurt, I lost friends, I did more damage than good in most cases. When I realized my error, it cut me pretty deep, and I kind of subdued myself with a promise to never become that bigoted and single minded ever again. That is one reason I find it difficult to talk about my faith anymore. I don’t want to be preachy.
How we can recover from this: I think that an excellent way to regain our faithful voice, is to embrace faiths and beliefs different from our own. This doesn’t mean abandoning our own beliefs, but by approaching the world of people around us with an open mind and willingness to learn, we can easily rekindle our desire to also share. To add to that, when we have already learned and embraced from people who are different from us, we are naturally less likely to assume they absolutely need to be exactly like us! What with the humbling experience from the past, coupled with this newfound love for others, we become twice as strong as we were before!
2. We are scared to be judged.
In the world we live in right now, many, many people do not wish to hear anything about a Higher Power. They feel that our beliefs of a Higher Power infringe on their own freedoms and goals. They can walk on us all they want, but once we speak up, we are the attackers. If problems are happening in the world, oft times, people who express faith in Higher Powers and Supreme Beings are blamed for escalating the situation. To be fair, many people of faith are still in the above phase, they truly are being way too pushy. But for those of us who have passed that marker, we just wanna be heard and happy again! We can’t be heard and happy again though, because we are almost sure that the second we speak out, we will immediately be labeled a bigot and shamed for hating everybody.
And you and I both know, without a shadow of a doubt, that WE DO NOT HATE EVERYBODY!!
How we can overcome this obstacle: Well, for me, at the moment, I use the computer to protect myself from backlash and attacks on my faith. In the safety of my home, I can testify of my beliefs in a happy, peaceful, non-hateful tone, and not have to directly deal with anybody in any ways that make me feel threatened. I recommend becoming a writer, maybe even a blogger! But at least a journal keeper. Talk about your faith in a journal. Express your feelings to your Higher Power in writing. Vent out your suppressed frustrations through a pen. Treat yourself to a cool leather journal! I have found some awesome ones online. There are also cool writing apps you can download which help you keep up with a journal. Then, when you feel you are ready, pass your journal on to somebody who cares, like a grandkid, or a significant other. Then they can know how you truly feel.
3. It has simply been too long.
How long has it been since you expressed your faith in a Higher Power? You are rusty! You just need to break the ice! Your heart has been longing for this moment. You were a skilled speaker, back in the day, right? I know you were! I definitely was. But geez, that’s a young person’s life. We don’t have what it takes anymore. PSYCH!! Dudes and Dudettes! The older we get, the more we have to share. The more experience we have to fall back on! We shouldn’t let ourselves down because we think we could never be as good as we used to be. Sure, we made mistakes in the past, people got hurt, people hurt us, but that makes the power of our voice just That Much More Influential!
How we can break the ice: Call up a good friend or loved one, somebody we trust, and tell em you’ve been wanting to say something for a long time. They might even have similar beliefs, which would make this even easier! Just tell them something simple — something happy — something genuine. Make them smile. Make yourself smile. → 🙂 ← Like that guy! Maybe, if you’re still not ready to use your actual voice, you could hand write a letter, expressing faith and love to a close friend or family member. Or maybe get creative, and tape it anonymously to some random house in the neighborhood! Haha! (You didn’t hear that one from me…)
So yeah. If your faith has had a journey anything like mine, you probably could relate to some, if not all, of the things I said up there. Just remember, your voice matters, your faith matters, and you matter! Keep workin’ at it, and pretty soon you’ll be on fire again, just like you want to be.
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This post was previously published on Change Becomes You.
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