Faith Is Believing The Unseen

I want to throw this out right away. This is not about religion.

The default is to associate faith with religion, because this is what parents and school taught us.

Faith is just a spiritual declaration where you believe something has happened or will happen.

Fears exist because you give faith to your mind when it creates them.

Evolution exists because people have given faith to unrealistic, unachievable things.

Blockages exist because you give faith to the mindset of I can't.

One problem I had was that I was quitting before trying rather than trying until I did it.

There were nothing but just my affirmations I couldn't stick to:

I will quit smoking
I will stop spending hours on social media compulsively
I will stop being angry while driving
I will stop overeating
I will quit alcohol
I will not lose my nights to play video games

What happened for several years? Besides nothing, more frustration and unfulfillment aroused.

As you can imagine, the more resistant I was to changing those things, the more prone I was to pick them up again. With each return, I got more compulsive in doing those actions.

There was just one fact I wasn't able to see. I haven't had support:

My friends made fun saying that in 1 month I'll join them back on smoking and drinking
The majority of people gathered to party way too late and stayed until in the morning
When my parents cooked their meal, they've kept asking me to give it a try at least (but I couldn't stop if I did)
Most subjects to debate were about gossiping or negative visions, so it was though for me to socialize

Can you feel my struggles? Not that I struggled to quit my bad habits, but I had to argue and resist others as well.

It was all about mental strength.

This struggle ended when I dove deep into spiritual aspects, where I discovered the missing piece: faith in myself. I explained a bit in "My Experience in Solitude" how important it is to cut everyone putting pressure instead of helping, and remain just you, with yourself, where the real truth is.

These 3 steps gave me the freedom to become the person I craved:

Give Faith to Yourself

We all have at least one "what if I were to.." thing, right?

If you say you're mentally prepared, but aren't doing it, you may be missing to believe in accomplishing or deserving it.

People don't believe in you by default. If you don't do that either, there's nobody to believe in yourself.

Start by connecting with your inner self, with your struggles, stress, beliefs that are not yours, and imagine how your life would be without them. The life you want.

Do you see any realistic reason for not being able to change or quit those things? If yes, all right, let's write them down, and analyse what are the next actionable steps to get closer.

Remove Cheap Dopamine habits

There are already plenty of studies on "cheap dopamine" such as social media, junk food, impulsive shopping, p*rn, gossiping and video games and so on.

To keep it simple, cheap dopamine refers to quick and easily accessible sources of pleasure or gratification that provide temporary satisfaction but do not contribute to long-term happiness or fulfillment.

I could achieve this by doing business with me: I traded bad, old habits with good, new ones.

What I've quit in the last few years:

Sold my Xbox and gaming PC
Got rid of any food that did not suit my meal plan
Gave all my alcohol drinks to my family and friends
Uninstalled Social Media apps

What I've added:

Meditation
Stretching
Long walks
Reading
Listening to podcasts
Journaling
Bumped workouts from 5 to 6 days a week
A lot of spices to enrich my meals and truly enjoy them

It may not sound like a big deal, but watch yourself telling those habits goodbye.

Act As You Are Your Future You

A lot of demotivation comes from the traditional "I will", as you saw in my "I will" list in the beginning.

This is common within people not believing in themselves. They just create space and time to avoid making the commitment right now. Why? Because they are not connected to their higher-self, to see the vivid life they could have by doing now what they however want to do in the future.

You only know your past, while FEARS keep shrinking your future past.

Fears are involved as well, as I remember mine:

I will be excluded if I won't play games anymore
They will forget to invite me, as I leave the party early
I will be finger-pointed as the one not drinking and eating junk food
I won't have common subjects as I don't have social media

As you can see, every fear was about how others would see me. It was all about My Image in front of others. This is what I've seen and been taught to care about.

That is what kept me down for over a decade.

Since the moment I switched from will do to doing, insights immediately arouse. Hmm, they don't judge me. I'm not excluded. Oh, I can even get new friends and find other activities.

Now.. there was one crucial step I took before started doing: I promised myself everything I do is for me, not for my image in front of others.

Implement what's possible today - your future self's habits.

Leave for the future what you can't have now - today's habits' consequences.

Letter's quest

Bring your first thing you struggle with when you get upset.

What do you do? Eat more, smoke, insult, drink, gossip, stress, blame? Pick just one.

Here's what I need you to do:

Remember what you've learned in Seek Inside And Manifest Outside, seek how you truly want to respond to that
Believe that you can face your weakness
The temptation may get even higher, but you have just one thing to focus on, believe in your control
Visualise the triumph you'll feel once your anger is gone, and you didn't react
Empower yourself through something that does not exit now, but really soon

Faith is found in both fear and courage. The choice is upon you.

Until the next letter, I wish you success in everything you're up to!