It is hard is hard to look past your current circumstances and trust that the specific situation or process you are doing will turn out ok or bring the change you want.
Religious or not, you have probably been told to just “have faith” about something at some point in your life. And it’s not easy. I think people use this expression to be encouraging towards tried and true approaches that yield a favorable outcome for most people – things like AA are proven to help people break addictions which may not feel promising to an alcoholic when they are first setting out. Despite this, because no one really knows how something will turn out, it is hard is hard to look past your current circumstances and trust that the specific situation or process you are doing will turn out ok or bring the change you want. To add to this, as a Christian, I’ve been taught that faith also means that everything might not work out as I want it to in a situation, but it works out how I would have wanted it to if I knew all that God knows. Ugh!
Right now, I’m doing a 12-week creative improvement process called the Artist’s Way – you may have heard of it if you are an actor, writer or painter. The process is meant to help you unblock your creative side and “discover and develop your artist within.” It might sound like a cheesy self-help book, but in talking about the book, I learned of my acquaintances actually restarted an old passion because of the book. Even with hearing about other people’s success with the book, it’s hard to believe that this will work FOR ME. The book guides you through exercises that seem unrelated to helping me harness my creativity. For example, how is doing a brain dump of all my thoughts for 3 pages in the morning going to make me a better talk show host? Or why is taking myself on a solo date going to help me recharge my inner artist? I’m still not sure, but this week I had a realization.
Knowing that the more uncomfortable and foreign it feels means that we ARE moving forward, even if we don’t see an output in the moment.
When we set out to do something new, we can never see the end goal…. because we’ve never been in the new reality we are striving to create. We are working towards something that of course we can’t picture because we’ve never experienced it! Sadly, our brains find comfort in the known so anything that we haven’t experienced directly feels scary and impossible, so our brain tells us “stop trying this new thing out, it’s not working.” But those feelings are what can help us have faith – knowing that the more uncomfortable and foreign it feels means that we ARE moving forward, even if we don’t see an output in the moment. Knowing that the more RESISTANCE we feel towards doing new things means we are entering the unknown, and the unknown is a NEW reality that is right for us now. Trusting that even if the process doesn’t give us the exact same results as what we thought we would have, it gives us results that are adjusted to us, our needs, and how we embraced the process. So join me… let’s have faith together!
Leslie Delery 