Reason Number Three: Faith VS Fear There is a real problem that arises when you mention something like a problem with faith. The word faith brings up images of tele-evangelists with Jiffy Pop hairdo’s looking into the camera and telling you that if you have faith then you need to send in $100 dollars. ($1,000 if you REALLY have faith). Fortunately this has very little to do with faith, thank goodness. Faith is not what most people think it is. However, there is another word which is the opposite side of the coin of faith that is equally misunderstood. That word is fear. Fear and faith are so remarkably similar it is astonishing once you begin to see it. The difference between the two is that they lead you in opposite directions. Lets take a look at both of them before I make my final point in this series. Fear. Fear can be a good thing. Fear is the thing that tells you not to try and wrestle the 300 pound Hells Angel just to see what will happen. Fear is an instinct that was hard wired into our brains to protect us from roaming lions and other mammals who would eat us if given the opportunity, like the 300 pound Hell’s Angel. You see the way fear functions is very simple. It looks to the past and judges what the outcome was before and then tells you what to do in the future. The outcome of this can be remarkably destructive. Just for the fun of it go to this website (http://phobialist.com/) and look at a remarkable list of all the known phobias. To be defined as a phobia it means that a group of individuals were so afraid that it had a substantial impact on their life. In the end fear does not have an off switch. Fear is something that must be controlled or overcome. Fear will always tell you that not matter what it is your are doing things are going to turn out badly. How many things in your life are you afraid of doing simply because there is a possibility that things might go wrong? Not kill you are physically hurt you, but just go wrong? This is your fear ruling you. Faith. As I said before faith is the opposite of fear. Where fear looks to the past and tells you what will go wrong faith looks to the future and tells you what will go right. Sounds great right? Then why is our faith sitting dormant while fear runs our day to day life. Fear is comfortable and faith is scary. Fear gives off the appearance that it is trying to protect you while faith appears as if it is trying to hurt you. Fear says don’t start that business it will devastate you financially. Faith says everything is going to be just fine because you are smart enough and talented enough to make it work. Faith pushes you out of your comfort zone (which is many times your fear zone) and says go for it! This is the problem with modern relationships is that there is no faith. In almost every relationship I know there is very little faith that the relationship will not just make it, but that it is going to get better and better as time goes by. We have lost faith that romantic relationships have any power because our past and our fear tells us this is true. No matter how much crap you have put up with in the past to have a remarkably powerful romantic relationship that lasts for the rest of you life you only need to find it once. It does not matter of the 10 or 20 before were a mess, it only needs to happen once and if you do not have any faith that it can happen then you are going to miss it when it should happen. In science there is a little thing called entropy. Entropy simply means that everything in life is in a state of decay. This goes the same for relationships. Your relationship is either improving or it is decaying. Faith is the tool to fight the natural entropy of your relationship. Take some time today to think about where you and your partner are on the Faith/Fear scale. If you are looking only to the past and seeing what is wrong then your relationship is in a state of decay. If you are looking forward and expecting great things then you are working in faith. If you can not believe things are going to be better tomorrow then they are today, they you are absolutely right. - Erin www.energyofromance.com

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