Windmills of Our Minds: Faith or Fear?

June 16, 2009 · by Anne Caroline Drake · in Faith-Based Solutions to DV, Survival Skills & Strategies. ·

Instinctively, we react to threats to our safety with a fight or flight response. It ramps up our adrenaline and sends us into a temporary high.

It can, at times, help us to literally move mountains to remove ourselves and those we love from peril.

For those of us who have experienced abuse, it can also ruin our health (see 4/29/09 post). We can end up with health concerns like complex PTSD (C-PTSD), auto-immune disorders, and cardio-vascular problems.

We also don’t make our best life choices when we are consumed by fear rather than faith ~ in ourselves, in our Creator, and in the people who are out there to help us. Fear causes us to become victims of our circumstances. We react which means someone else is in control of our destiny. Fear becomes like a windmill ~ it goes round and round creating energy. The energy, however, is negative.

Faith, on the other hand, allows us to be the creators of our futures. Faith puts us in control. Faith allows us to be creative.

Yes, faith is difficult when we are in the midst of a life-threatening or life-altering situation. Sometimes, quite frankly, it seems impossible. Y’all know what I’m going to say next. . .faith allows us to morph impossible into “I’m possible.”

One of the reasons this web site is called “Navigating Uncharted Waters” is that we often find ourselves in stormy seas. Most of us would love to spend our lives in a tranquil, safe harbor. But, the bottom will eventually rot out of a boat left in a harbor. As Oliver Wendell Holmes wisely advised:

To reach the port of heaven, we must sail

sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it~

but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie in anchor.

Good sailors learn how to navigate stormy seas. They grasp the wheel of their ship or the rudder of their boat firmly. They know if they surrender control of their ship or boat that it will capsize and they will likely drown. Their faith in their abilities and in their ships or boats calms them, creates positive energy, and allows them to steer their ship or boat into calm waters.

It takes practice. Practice eventually creates mastery. We can become captains of our fates and masters of our destinies.