Faith - Well I Gotta Have Faith

George Michael sang about it. Well, he sang about having faith in something, anyway.

So often when we hear people talk about their faith, we are hearing about their religious beliefs. But there are other demonstrations of faith, since “faith” has shades of meaning.

“I watched a documentary about First Responders and it really restored my faith in people.”

“I was afraid to change careers at my age. But I just had to make a leap of faith.”

“No one knew if the news report was true at first. Everyone was just taking it on faith.”

Dictionaries and thesauruses (thesauri? Nah, it’s 2013) have definitions of faith that focus on belief in something, trust in something.  You can trust something and believe in it if you have faith in it. Whether that thing is a god, a philosophy, a business model, or a weather forecast, it is something that you trust to be correct, or helpful, or at least that it is what it appears to be.

Sometimes we apply faith in something without thinking about it. We subconsciously trust something when we just assume – take it on faith – that a thing is and will continue to be what it seems to be. A new bridge might be unsafe, but people might have faith in its safety simply based on knowing it’s new. Whereas a bridge might be very stable but appear to be rickety, and folks might not have any faith in it to support them on use.

Sometimes faith needs more conscious effort, whether because we encounter something new, or because something familiar has demonstrated questionable trustworthiness in the past.

Then there are situations where we have been pre-programmed to either have faith or have no faith in something. Religion is often involved in these cases, but it extends to pretty much any sphere of one’s life.

But for folks who dive into Mindfulness, there are a few places where they may not have really examined for the presence of – and need for – faith.

Faith in Self

It is a funny thing to watch someone who seems to lack confidence suddenly enters one of their Strong Places. You know, suddenly his back gets straighter, her head is held a little higher. Or the person who oozes self-confidence suddenly stumbles into a gray patch, a Weak Place for them. His posture drops, she suddenly looks at the floor or her shoes a lot.

It goes to show that self-confidence isn’t something you either have or you don’t; it’s something you have in some places and don’t have in others.

Although I am more balanced now than I used to be, it wasn’t that long ago that I had a very prominent Strong Place and an equally prominent Weak Place.

Work was a Strong Place. If weird things happened or technical issues popped up, I could just slide my brain into Analyze and Correct mode. I would exude self-confidence, not because I thought I could understand or fix absolutely everything, but because I had enough experience which I could plug into my troubleshooting brain routine. I had a track record of success; it wasn’t 100% but it was certainly well over 80%. At the drop of a hat, tell me of an issue or tell me to go train someone on something, and I needed very little preparation time on average. My instincts were sharp and I followed them.

Once I got home though, it was like entering an alternate universe. I thought too much and second-guessed everything (actually I often didn’t stop at second-guessing. I was very familiar with fourth- and fifth-guessing). I assumed the worst in many situations which caused them to actually become worse. I worried and fretted about making the wrong decision or saying the wrong thing or not doing something that I should have done. I had instincts, but I only followed the bad ones.

In short, I had faith in myself at work, but had no faith in myself at home. Work stuff was a piece of cake to me, but I stressed mightily in relationships.

I guess it ought to make sense, given my past. Dad was an old-school auto mechanic and Mom was a Customer Service wizard. They found what they enjoyed doing and were good at, then had careers in those realms. They excelled in their niches – their little corners of specialty – but they fell down at home in their relationship. I followed in their shoes.

I had to figure out how to develop faith in myself as a man capable of having a good, successful relationship. To do that, I needed to lay some groundwork: I needed to develop faith in myself as being someone worth being in a successful relationship. I simply didn’t think I was worth it.

“I Don’t Deserve You,” I Lied

The fairy tales and romantic songs try so hard to dictate how a relationship is supposed to work. Never mind that we put our relationship training in the hands of guys who abandon all sense in pursuit of beautiful girls (even if she’s an ogre now, I promise she becomes a gorgeous princess at some point!) or girls who will only fall in love with exactly the one prince or knight in shining armor (usually because all other choices are clearly shown with amplified imperfections). Or in the case of music, we are entrusting our understanding to people whose main purpose in life centers on the popularity of songs they sing (even if someone else wrote them).

Pop tunes and power ballads do not set a very good foundation for a long-term relationship. Look at the track records of most of the people writing and performing them.

It is assumed that the right sentiment expressed in a song can land you happiness everlasting. Or only one person holds the key to Happily Ever After.

Lies! The whole pack of it is lies!

But those tales survive, and the tunes sure are catchy.

One problem with all this is that it’s all unrealistic. It’s fantasy. That’s why people buy the romantic fiction or the love song-laden CD: they want to purchase a fantasy. That’s fine, up until they start treating the fantasy like a viable foundation for reality. Then it gets a bit dodgy.

Archetypes are presented, and you need to find some way to fit into them. That can be tough because you are dealing with princes/princesses, magical beings, rulers or other rich people, and the world of myth which is conveniently black-and-white. Mostly our ability to fit into the myths is physical: bigger aspects of anatomy; more wealth on display; prestigious position in society.

Aside from songs in which sex is the main motivator, love songs portray huge myths. These songs emphasize how desperate the guy is to land this particular girl that he will do anything to win her. We know he will do anything, because after stating this fact in exactly so many words, he is often off on a Romantic Scavenger Hunt, ticking off all the items on his list that he is prepared to do. Catch grenades, take a bullet, never let her cry nor feel even a moment’s pain or unhappiness, die in some fashion that will eventually be featured on an episode of 1000 Ways To Die, etc.

It’s simple: I don’t deserve you, so let me purchase you and your love through martyrdom, whether literal or figurative. Self-sacrifice is pretty noble, so I shall win her heart through self-sacrifice.

Of course, it’s one thing to win a heart; it’s another thing to keep it. This leads to the relationship becoming an endless business transaction that would put the karma cycle to shame. It’s like you are only leasing the girl’s heart. You make the down payment, and then you spend the rest of your life struggling to keep up the payments so that her heart doesn’t get repossessed and auctioned off to some other guy. Or girl.

So rather than accept who I am and remain open to love from someone who is equally flawed but generally compatible with me, I assumed I was not worth being loved by anyone and therefore I needed to settle for what I could get. People may not say it in so many words, but you would be shocked to find out how many folks believe that somewhere inside. One of the reasons many people stay in toxic relationships is an abiding belief that they don’t deserve better, or that they will never really find better, or ultimately that if they did find better, then “better” wouldn’t want them.

Ugh.

Have faith in yourself as a loving, caring, flawed human being. Believe that you don’t have to be perfect to get someone into your life. You don’t even have to meet all of their criteria (so stop trying to, as I had to learn).

Even the most “broken” person can turn the corner into a happy relationship. And even the most insecure individual can find happiness single and unattached. So before we look more at how to have faith in a relationship, consider having faith in yourself as a complete, whole being who can exist happily separate from a partner. Let’s look at Faith in Singleness.