Where there’s faith, there’s doubt. It’s the law of duality. If Faith is Lightness, then doubt is density. Personally, I want more light and less heavy in my life.
I want a Faith that comforts my hunger pains. I want a Faith so protective that it keeps the painful agitation of doubt at bay. Faith like a flashlight on the best decision. A Faith that fuels me to keep doing what needs to be done.
I was raised Catholic. I came of age in the New Age. Both camps of belief gave me an image of Faith that was softly lit and very…flowy. I was to point my Faith outward, to the heavens, to the cosmos, and just breeeathe. And through this genteel esoteric exercise of trust, all would be well—I would be rewarded for my Faith.
Enter doubt—because doubt always enters. And doubt, being the opposite of Faith, is gnarly. She is not fluid, she is seizing. Doubt does not make space for the long view, because panic happens right now, dammit! Doubt doesn’t look up to the Light, because she’s survival-based.
If trust is a garden of paradise, then doubt is the weed. So how do you water your Faith when doubt-creep is inevitable? With a lot of really hard work. Unceasing, daily doubt-whacking. Faith works up a sweat. She is anything but passive.
You don’t plant a garden and just let the elements tend to it. You fertilize it and do everything you can to prevent weeds from choking it.
You can’t just hand your desires over to Life or your God and say, “You got this, right?” and then expect that Life or He/She will also dissolve your doubts while answering your prayers. Yes, release your desires into the care of Universal Intelligence. Yes, yes! But you have to be responsible for your own doubts—because they originated from you. Cleaning up your doubt is part of your Co-Creator’s job description.
When doubt creeps in, don’t just pour on the “I have Faith” affirmations. Confront the doubt and remove it.
Faith is the “work” in “Light work”. It scrubs and rinses and steadily erases doubt. Faith stays on doubt’s ass: I see you. I dissolve you. I replace you with Faith. And then doubt will pop up again. And Faith is right there: Yep, I heard you. I choose faith. Yep, I know the odds, I choose Faith. And because Faith knows the natural order of things, she says to doubt: You’ll probably be back later this week. And you might even distract me. But I’ll still choose Faith. No anger, just clarity. No complaints, just pure, fiery resolve.
Doubt isn’t a failing, it’s a reminder to feed and protect your positive beliefs. @DanielleLaPorte (Click to Tweet!)
Faith isn’t something you “have”, as much as it’s something you do. And if you do it consistently—the clearing, the focusing, the nourishing…the getting back on track, then you become the very Lightness you long for.
Danielle LaPorte is the creator of The Desire Map: A Guide To Creating Goals With Soul — the book that turned into a day planner system, a top iTunes app, and an international workshop program. A Desire Map workshop happens every weekend somewhere in the world. Author of The Fire Starter Sessions and the wildly popular #Truthbomb series, Danielle is also the co-creator of Your Big Beautiful Book Plan and co-host of the Beautiful Writer’s Group podcast.
Entrepreneur Magazine calls her “equal parts poet and entrepreneurial badass…edgy, contrarian…loving and inspired.” A speaker, poet, former business strategist and Washington-DC think tank exec, she writes weekly at DanielleLaPorte.com, where over four million visitors have gone for her straight-up advice — a site that’s been deemed “the best place online for kick-ass spirituality,” and was named one of the “Top 100 Websites for Women” by Forbes. The Huffington Post named her Twitter feed as one of the “12 of Wisest Twitter Accounts Worth Following.” You can find her @daniellelaporte just about everywhere.
