Faith

It is the end of the week, the end of the term and the end of the year. We are into the season of Advent, and whilst this is not the season of darkness in New Zealand, it is still the season that completes the year. Light has become darkness and has stretched to light again. It is not long until summer solstice. What will be bathed in the most light that nature has to offer this year? What has come into being? What has grown? Is it what I want? Am I being everything that I dream of?

I already know one thing I want to be next year, I have an intention of being balanced. Perhaps over Advent I will find more that I aspire to be, perhaps not, but taking time to reflect is good for me, and that is part of being balanced too. It is probably a healthy way of being able to be that perfect 10 that I aspire to be in my world and in the things that matter to me.

I realised after I wrote last month that I have a ten year anniversary coming up. At C3 Imagine in Amsterdam, the first Sunday of the new year is always Dream Sunday. And on the Dream Sunday of 2016, we were invited to reflect on the past year and consider how we might find peace with the path that had unfolded, whatever that had been, perhaps by asking how it could be the foundation for something new. We were encouraged not to rush, to consider taking the whole of January to be quiet, to meditate, to seek, to pray... And I set the intention to create a business that would allow me to be the person for others that I would have liked to have had myself the year before.

I started Interwoven.

It has been an incredible ten years of learning, exploring, trusting, unfolding and experiencing a dream coming true.

It is a principle of NLP that what we think becomes how we feel and how we feel becomes our actions, our choices, our patterns of behaviour. I see a similar flow in my faith. Faith becomes how I feel and then what I do. Likewise doubt becomes how I feel and then what I do. Choosing to have faith in myself and my path rather than doubt is important. Learning to guide my thoughts is worth working on. And you will be able to see how I am doing should you choose to look out for how I am living. My life at any given time will tell you how I am feeling, which will tell you whether I am living from a place of faith or of doubt. I think that faith might be a little like a muscle. It is believing and speaking, again and again, with patience and perseverance. It is hope. It is hope for the new year. It changes how I think, how I feel, what I do and how I am seen. It is balancing something important to me.

Someone mentioned to me on this Advent Sunday that I can have faith because I am created for something in particular, something unique, that has been known about and prepared for since before time began. It was even known what my name would be and what that name means before it was ever chosen by my parents. Just think about that for a minute, because that’s you too. Elaine means light. Pathfinders are guides. On balance, does that mean that I am a guiding light?

I rather like that. That’s something that I can have faith in. That’s light that I can bathe in.