Finding faith

What is faith? What role does it play in our health and wellbeing? And most importantly, can a sceptic find faith?

 These are the questions we tried to answer in this episode, from the double perspective of a believer (Maeve) and a sceptic (Lorenzo).

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Episode 5 – Finding faith

Welcome to the Mindy Movement, the thought-provoking podcast by Soulful Soundwaves. Conversations inspired by real life events, lessons and learnings, gifted to us while traveling across Australia in a tiny home on wheels. Welcome aboard.

We would like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners, custodians and ancestors of the land and country we walk on, and their connection to the land, waters and community. We pay our deepest respect to the elders, past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to all Indigenous people across the world.

Maeve:

Today we are going to discuss faith. What is faith? How do we find it? And the role faith plays in health and well-being. So let's get started! 

Lorenzo:

Sounds like a recipe for success. 

Maeve:

So, Lorenzo, how would you describe what faith is? 

Lorenzo:

Well, “faith - I'm actually reading from the dictionary - is the ascent of the mind to the truth of a proposition or statement for which there is not complete evidence”. Which means that faith is the bridge between the rational mind and something else, which is in this case what we cannot see. The invisible. 

Maeve:

Right. I like that. So I think it's fair to say faith is a very personal topic. Very personal to…it's not a personal topic, it's personal to everyone that what you have faith in, could be different. 

Lorenzo:

There's one thing that, when I was in my 20s, I never liked about faith. Which was the fact that in a religious context you have to believe in order to find things. So, I came from a very rational point of view, and I was talking to religious people saying “How can you explain this? If things are in the way they are, in the way you are saying they are, why this is happening?” And the answer was “You can't see this point of view because you need to have faith”. And that's something that, personally, it pissed me off all the time. And I was refusing to invest in something that I couldn't see. 

Maeve:

And it's so hard, yeah? Let's not forget, having faith in something we cannot see is a challenge, because it's against everything we're taught. It's against everything we have been conditioned into believing, that the physical is what matters, the physical is more important, I suppose. And personally, faith is something that I have found throughout my life. I would say personally faith is something I have found progressively as my life has gone on. I would say I was born an optimist, definitely, and that has been…in some ways part of my faith has come through that. But it's something I've learnt to embrace. I think I've learnt to understand how I work, how my body, my mind, my soul, all of those things [work].

Lorenzo:

I think you’ve learnt to embrace your faith through the acceptance of your physical body

Maeve:

Absolutely 

Lorenzo:

Of who you are, not just physically, of who you are from a from a human point of view. 

Maeve:

Yeah. Are we agreeing that faith is having faith in the invisible world? 

Lorenzo:

I think having faith is trust. 

Maeve:

Totally, and we will get there even further in a moment. So let's go into how do we find faith? If you can rewind the clock as we sit here with faith, how did we take ourselves on that journey? 

Lorenzo:

The starting point of a journey is what you know, what you're comfortable with. So in my case, and I believe in your case too, it has been our physical body. 

Maeve:

Yeah. 

Lorenzo:

In my personal case I had to find myself with my shoulders against the wall, and my body was actually refusing to work. So I had to find other avenues, because the healing from a purely physical point of view didn't work any more, and I couldn't move. 

Maeve:

Yeah. 

Lorenzo:

So I started developing new ways to help myself through understanding that our body is not just made of meat. Our heart for example is not just a pump, but there is… Let's put it this way. When we talk about physical and spiritual, in the western society, we oppose these two levels of consciousness, the spiritual and physical. But in other cultures, and I'm talking about the Ayurvedic culture of the Taoistic culture, the levels of consciousness are five. If we take a look at these five levels we find that we start from the physical point of view, we go to the mental and psychological point of view, to go to the energetic level, how our energetic body works, and then, only then, we arrive to the spiritual level. 

Maeve:

Yeah. 

Lorenzo:

So, that's what happened to me. I started discovering the existence of an energetic level that I didn't know about, and I started discovering how to unlock the energy in my energetic body. And through the use of my energy I had access to a level of health that I couldn't possibly know before. 

Maeve:

Totally. And similar, it all started when I was interested to help heal myself, probably more mentally, and physically as well in terms of how my body was performing for me. I started with food, I started in a very physical world. I started with literally looking at the fuel I put into my body. Understanding the ingredients that are on the back of food and…my mother will tell you. 10 years ago when I came home from Australia and walked into a pantry and was like “mum, do you know there's 30 ingredients in mayonnaise?” And this is literally where it all started because I realized - through just looking at food and trying to heal myself, in ways, I've spent many dollars on therapists, in terms of kinesiologists and chiropractors and nutritionists and naturopaths, and eventually we all have to do the work, you know? You gather enough knowledge and then it's right over to you - And I realised how quickly my physical body responded and healed when I gave it the right ingredients. Or when I gave it what it needed, or what it didn't need, I took out what it didn't need. And that really instilled faith in me, faith in my body, faith in my physical self, that actually there's such a willingness to heal. And it can happen quickly. And those benefits that I felt, you know, not long for 6-8 weeks of cleaning up a diet, my faith was huge in my physical body. And that then lead me on this faithful journey because, as you mentioned, I started cleaning up my physical body. And then the emotional body, which then lead me to the energetic body, and understanding then how everything was connected. Because it naturally takes you on that journey if you're curious to understand the pieces of the puzzle. They all very much link into one another. It was that progression that led…but it was a progression of wanting to heal. I think it’s we're all starts. 

Lorenzo:

Absolutely, sometimes you find yourself forced to - in a good way, because the outcome is good - but you find yourself in a situation where you give up or you're forced to look at things from a different perspective. And since we are resilient, as beings, it's not in us just to give up, lay down and die. 

Maeve:

Absolutely. And I actually think it's the curiosity to find the root cause. Because we could take medication to… You know? You could you be on pain relief, you can have a sore back, you could be on anti-inflammatories, you could be on pain relief daily and sleeping pills so you can sleep, and you know what? Your pain would be manageable. But has that got to a point where your back is healing? No it is hiding the signals from the body. 

Lorenzo:

The problem is that when you are taking drugs to numb the pain, what creates the pain is still there. And it's getting worse, and worse, and worse, no matter how many pills you are ingesting. So at a certain point you're going to find yourself against the wall again. 

Maeve:

Let's go into this faith a little bit more. As you find faith in your healing journey, how did you rely upon that, or what what practices did you use as part of your healing? 

Lorenzo:

Once you understand that your physical body is not the only reality you have to deal with, you start spending time within your energetic body. And you can do that with meditation. Meditation is just one tool that you can use for this kind of purpose, but you have to acknowledge the energy of your body, something that you can feel physically. And that's why it was the connective tissue to bridge my physical reality with something else that I didn't know what it was at the time. At the beginning I remember that it was very faint and it was not always there, if you know what I mean. The tingling that you feel for example in your feet in your hands when you start meditating it can be expanded. One of my exercises was trying to make this tingling, this energy, this sensation that I felt in these parts of my body, to travel throughout my body. So for example from the feet I was bringing it up through my calves, through my knees and through my thighs, and then it was going up and up and up, until my whole body was alight. Of felt alight. And if you do that on a regular basis, so if you spend time… You spend the time already with your physical body, but if you spend time with your energetic body too, you find out that the physical reward is actually magnificent. 

Maeve:

And you had faith in that lifeforce that you were activating in different parts of your body? 

Lorenzo:

I think my faith was a buildup. I didn't have faith in the beginning, I was just trying to discover how far I could go with this thing. And the more I felt that I was getting better, and the more I was feeling that this thing was working, the more I started developing the concept that there was something that I couldn't see that was there. And therefore not all that we can see is present. 

Maeve:

Absolutely. 

Lorenzo:

And that created the bridge for another stepping stone. 

Maeve:

Yeah, we both had these stepping stones at a similar time because we already had activated this faith in ourselves, in the trust that you know we can heal ourselves. 

And then, you know, life throws your curveball and we needed a miracle. There's no other way to explain it. If my brother is listening to this, we love you dearly. And I say to him often “I'm sorry you had to go through what was my life changing moment of faith”. My brother had a very serious accident and the night of his accident I prayed. Having come from a religious country where two religions are unfortunately killing each other and hurting each other, I stepped so far out of religion. And with that I stepped totally away from the invisible world of “There can't be a God, there can't be that essence if these people are trying to kill each other”. So I actually didn't ever use the word God for a very long time, and I actually find it again through my spiritual practice, and it's not religion. In terms of finding that essence that is that pure love a pure support. And I'll never forget when it changed for me, I laid in bed and I had no idea who or what I was praying to, and I asked and prayed so hard the hardest I've ever prayed, and my prayers are answered. 

Lorenzo:

So you basically need a miracle in order to believe. 

Maeve:

No, I'm not saying that however I was granted… Miracles do happen through prayer. I’m not saying we need a miracle to have faith, however that was my changing point. I was curious before that, hence why I even prayed in the first instance. However that day has changed my complete faith, and from that day every day I pray. Because that prayer was enough to be answered that day. I don't need every day. What I do is return it, and I'm very grateful every single day for that miracle. And it was a Godly miracle, there's no way about it. Even the surgeon, my brother's surgeon, couldn't believe his eyes the recovery that was made. How faith comes with us, that has been a turning point for us, but also it is crucial - I know and we know now - it is absolutely crucial for healing. 

Lorenzo:

Absolutely.

Maeve:

We can only get so much in healing without faith. You will find yourself plateau at some point in time. However if you have faith in yourself, if you have faith in your body, if you have faith in something even larger than you, miracles can't be granted. Your health will be restored. If we allow ourselves to move the doubt aside…doubt is in the way of us and faith. 

Lorenzo:

Doubt is the exact opposite of trust. 

Maeve:

Absolutely. And that's exactly where I was going to. 

Lorenzo:

If trust is faith, doubt can erase faith. 

Maeve:

Absolutely, and the three main essences, ingredients let's say, for healing and proper healing, root source healing is faith, trust and belief.

Lorenzo:

And a cup of tea. 

Maeve:

Lots of tea. So that's a little snippet into what we understand and what we feel is faith. It is a huge topic. We understand that, it is a personal one. You know, we've gone on a journey with many things we call “what it is we have faith with?” It started as “Source” then it was “The Universe” And then maybe it was guides, or maybe you resonate with angels. Maybe it's your past loved ones. Maybe it’s your past pets or maybe it's God. We sometimes don't even need to label it. We don't need to label on what it is, but if we know we have faith in it we can trust it, and start to open that dialogue with whatever that is you have faith with. Not necessarily in times of need, but it can be asked upon in times of need. 

Lorenzo:

Absolutely. I also think that an obstacle for faith is something that's very typical of our western mindset, which is “I want to believe, I want to have faith!” So we constantly seek for the destination. Well life is actually teaching us that we do one step at a time because we need to do that step. And we do the second step because we need to do that step. So it's not a matter of a choice in a certain kind of way. It is a matter of choice, but when you get push to find faith it's because it's your moment to discover it. There's no way around it, if it's not the right moment for you it's completely useless to force yourself upon it. 

Maeve:

Hear hear…very wise words from Lorenzo to conclude today's episode. So if you ever have any questions or want to reach out please get in contact, send us an email, DM, whatever that is. You might also help us with future topics for the Mindy Movement Podcast. Thanks for joining us. 

Lorenzo:

We send you some love. 

Maeve:

Namaste. 

Lorenzo:

Lots of love. Namaste.

Thanks for listening to the Mindy Movement Podcast. You can find more content, free meditations, brain entraining music and much much more over on our website, at www.soulfulsoundwaves.com

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