Choosing faith over fear, knowing the difference

[Blueberry Pancakes]

When and how do you choose faith over fear when making a big decision? If I am being honest, when an opportunity came along that had risks or unknown elements, I would usually choose to not act. I do not know if it is the freeze or flight response. It feels familiar though. I can stay safe where I am even if it has limitations.

How do you know that you are not choosing a limited life?

At what point do you choose faith? Faith in your abilities, that you will have whatever is needed to work out challenges that arise, that those around you also have the same ability to find their way - and just faith that a higher power is working for you in your life?
 
You can be logical and talk yourself out of something. I do not know if I am masking my fear with logic. Is the logical part though where our faith resides? I can compile a list of supportive arguments, but still feel like I missed something in spite of my analytics.
 
Any thoughts on how to gauge if you are making decisions out of fear?  Thank you. 

[Boat Babe]

Hey BP - growing up with my mother who was/is afraid of everything I saw how limited her life was because she never took a risk, never stepped outside of her teeny tiny comfort zone and never tried something new. I was determined to embrace life instead and became a crazy teenager who indulged in all sorts of risky behaviours. I was very lucky that I didn't get into serious trouble, very lucky indeed. The upside of all that was that I travelled, lived abroad, tried all sorts of ways of living, met amazing people and took a run at all sorts of things. Now, I wouldn't change a thing (the only things I would change would to have been a lot less selfish and thoughtless but that's another story). The only thing I am really risk averse with is money; growing up dirt poor and having to work for every penny means I never take any risks with dodgy investments etc. I don't see that as a bad thing as I never got burnt financially. There's a great book that I read years ago "Feel the fear and do it anyway" which also helped me in life. As an atheist, I never hung around waiting for any supernatural power to fix things for me and I don't think that's been a problem in terms of achievement/experience.

You tend to regret the things you didn't do rather than the things you did do.  Go for it BP!

[keepmoving]

At what point do you choose faith? Faith in your abilities, that you will have whatever is needed to work out challenges that arise, that those around you also have the same ability to find their way - and just faith that a higher power is working for you in your life?

I think everyone relates to the idea of a higher power and its effect on their lives differently. It can also depend on your own personal definition of it as well.

For me, I use the idea of a 'higher power' when I know I need to do something but don't want to, either out of fear, or because logically I can talk myself out of it. For example, I 'know' it doesn't matter if I don't get out of bed and brush my teeth because I have a tendency to believe 'nothing matters', I turn to the idea of a higher power to basically tell myself that no, you don't know everything. I put faith in the fact that my skewed perception is not the truth of life, that I don't know that grand truth. And that gives me enough doubt in the voice within myself that tells me not to get out of bed that I am able to get out of bed.

Thinking of a higher power or a truth outside myself offers space between myself and the negative thoughts to begin to doubt those thoughts. If I don't know everything then maybe I don't know that whatever negative thought I'm perpetuating is true.

So I get out of bed and brush my teeth and continue to live as though the higher power knows better than I about the meaningfulness of life. Whenever I begin to falter I picture the 'what if' the idea of a higher power offers me. What if I wasn't worthless what if there is more to life than the things I've experienced, what if I take care of myself in the ways I think of but often never do. What if I don't give up on that project, what if I continue to work on it and make all the changes that come to mind, ever single one. What if I try to set up an art show with all the art I've made, what if I did that. Why don't I do that? Is it fear? What if there was something that knew better than I, what if I followed that message whenever I began to doubt myself.

What if I don't give up. What would my life look like then?

And then soon enough you will have done many things you thought you were incapable of doing, and then you have something to believe in: yourself and the knowledge that you are capable of doing many things. And If you keep reaching for the higher power in those times of self doubt, you will continue to expand the possibilities in your life.

At least for me, this is the higher power I reach for.

[Blueberry Pancakes]

Thank you, Boatbabe and Keepmoving.

I probably see this aspect more as spiritual than religious. I just think it is easy to lose an inner voice, or inner guidance in life and replace it with something else. What that "something else" is, I do not know but I have followed it for so much of my life. It never felt like it fit though. It is sort of like listening to the good angel on one shoulder who might be whispering, and ignoring the opposite voice that is screaming loudly in your ear. To me, it is going against everything I've ever known and trusting. 
 
I did have a huge decision. Life changing for me and my darling husband who I love more than anything. It feels so different but in an exciting way. It feels like doors closing, and other doors opening.   

Thanks for sharing your insight and listening.

[Miranda]

Blueberry, I tend to not listen to the inner voice and be fearful. My father was fearful and I am like him. I fight it all the time. I want to listen to the inner voice, higher power or good angel on my shoulder. Life just throws at us so many twists and turns and decisions. I pray that your life changing decision brings you joy and the very best.

I've always waited for that big moment from the higher power, like we read that others have had. It didn't happen, but perhaps the small inner voice that whispers do this or don't do that is that higher power. 

[OverHere]

Blueberry Pancakes I believed I was choosing faith over fear when I married.  Wish so much I had chosen fear.  I think it is there in our bodies for a reason and we should listen hard.  Maybe wrestle with it, but I wouldn't move forward until I had resolved it.

Sometimes what I called faith later turned out to be pride, presumption, inability to see what was right in front of me.

Big difference between faith in God, and faith in your own strength and brains, but if you've only ever known the latter, how can you see it?