Monday Musing on Belief

My Monday Musing on  Belief – is about what is belief and how does it affect us?

Religion.  Spirits.  Newspaper stories.  Fairies.  The media.  Science.  UFOs.  People believe in all sorts of things……or not.

In order to exist on a day to day level, there has to be some form of belief in what is right, which is the right way to behave, or in what we are told by others, otherwise how would anyone be able to make any sensible decisions?  Why should we buy this brand of food rather than the other, which do we believe is better for us and why?

Some people believe everything they see through the media.  Are we truly certain that what they are telling us is the truth?  Do you believe that everything that happens on Reality TV is a natural sequence of events or is it staged to some extent?  How many people believe what they have seen in the newspapers?  We could be being lied to through every newspaper and every programme – or at least manipulated – by the people, who air them, who have their own agenda.

How many people believe their doctors when they are diagnosed, or sadly misdiagnosed, with an illness – probably ALL of us.  And we do so because we are told they have qualifications in the subject and are experts.  I guess we can’t ask for more than that.  But we should be able to ask for a second opinion, we should be able to question and push if we want.  The hard thing is recognising when to accept and what to challenge.

Then there’s religion – whose way is the TRUTH?  Does it actually matter, if all religions preach pretty much the same thing?  Do you believe in Adam and Eve, or the Big Bang Theory?

Do you believe that when a loved one dies you will somehow get over the upset and pain?  How?  Because people have told you it will ease? Or do you somehow know innately that you will be able to cope with it in the end (our survival instinct)?  Perhaps, you have seen other people cope with the same thing and get through it, and that is why you know you can.

If you BELIEVE in anything, then you inherently, and fully, put your trust into it.  And therein lies the nub of the matter.

So we believe things and people right, left and centre, with little thought, because we do it all the time and that is ‘just the way life is’.  But because it is ‘just the way life is’ indicates, to me, that we have been programmed to accept these things, day in and day out……but by whom?  Tradition – but traditions are man made.  Advertisements.  Governments.  Religion.  It all comes down to human dictat in the end.  Somebody said it, did it or wrote it, and that’s the way it is, it is TRUE.  People see it as ‘proof’ (despite the fact it could all be a pack of lies).

If you follow your own instincts, then you fully trust in what your mind and body are telling you through your feelings, it’s not something you can see.  There is no proof, just that you have that ‘gut feeling’.

Believing in a placebo is just as powerful as believing in a proven drug, this demonstrates the power of the mind or ‘belief’.

Why have I written this blog?  Because I believe it is now more important to trust our own feelings in just about everything, rather than just following the current trend.  To have more faith in ourselves and what we can do to improve our lives.  But how do we do this?

If I believe in me, and my own power to create a different reality for myself, and if I believe in a Divine Source of All Creation that can help me, I have to put my trust into these things entirely and wholeheartedly.  If I pray, I then have to leave it to the Power Source to sort it for me without fretting and harassing – otherwise I am not trusting entirely and therefore do not truly believe, in other words I have to have faith.

What I am trying to say is believing in yourself, or anything you think can help you, is a very powerful tool – I have experienced it.  If we can believe, and trust wholeheartedly that we will get all the wonderful things that we want, I do believe they will come.  But the belief, ironically, is the hard bit.  We have to trust in the unseen and that, my friend, is why it is so difficult for so many.

I think an apt Major Arcana card for ‘Belief’ is The Hanged Man.  Because, he believes the situation he is not permanent, he believes that if he surrenders to the experience of discomfort without struggle he will endure it better, and he believes he can get through it with patience.  He trusts his instincts and believes he will triumph, no matter how hard it is.  But he too, is trusting in the unseen and the unknown, and many people find that difficult to do.  Maybe that is why they find it so difficult to get off the treadmill of misery – they need to be told they can by ‘someone’ in charge, because then they will ‘believe’ it.

Patricia x