I am not religious. Faith doesn’t mean the same thing to me as it does to the Christians. I am not talking about a faith in God that he exists. I am talking about faith that everything will work out. I’m spiritual. I believe there is something out there whether you want to call it God or the Universe. I put my trust in the Universe, while others put their trust in God. In the end it is just semantics really. Most of us want to believe there is something out there looking over us, because it is scary to think you are all alone.

Now, I don’t believe in the power of prayer. I don’t think someone is up there listening to my requests and granting my wishes. What I do believe is there is a plan for us and we may not always get what we want or how we want it, but we have to have faith that it will all work out one way or another. I’m stubborn. I want to control the fate of my life. I try very hard to take the steering wheel and make things happen my way. It never works. My mom always tells me, I need to relinquish control and just have faith it will all work out. Do you know how hard that is?

It is funny, because I do believe in fate and I don’t believe we all have free will and there will be no consequences. On the other hand, I have a vision for my life and I don’t want to let go of it. I battle constantly with the Universe (or God) to get my way. In reaction to my stubbornness, I get a big metaphorical slap across the face each time. When I plan to my little hearts desire how everything is going to go, something always goes awry and I’m forced to be flexible and allow for a different plan. Whenever I’m super stressed about something and all the things that could go wrong, I have a hard time just letting go of it and having faith it will all work out.

Just yesterday, I was counting up all the money I have and all the bills I owe and the ones I’m going to owe and I started to get chest pains. I felt the walls closing in on me. I starting thinking about the future and wondering if I’ll ever be able to save money for our honeymoon and wedding. I wondered how we would start a family with such meager paying jobs. I couldn’t breathe. Then I went to the gym, worked out some of the gloom and stress and revisited the problem. I told myself, things always work out right. Have faith, they say. When I got home a check arrived for $52 and I could breathe again. It wasn’t even a lot of money, but it felt like a sign that I need to just have faith that it will all work out.

It is so hard though to let go of our fears and stress and just trust the Universe or God. It feels like you are swinging on the trapeze and you are about to let go and hope that your partner grabs your hands. I just keep swinging back and forth ruining our circus act, because I’m too afraid to let go. They even write Disney movie songs about this very issue. I never saw Frozen, but of course I know its title track, “Let it Go.” I hear you Universe, I’m trying!!

I’ve managed to jump out of a literal helicopter into the Swiss Alp abyss and had faith somehow that I would land safely on the ground, but I can’t seem to have faith that my relationship will last, or I’ll survive financially, or I’ll get to travel again. This is scary stuff. It leaves the door open to a world of “what ifs.” What if I can’t afford food next month? What if Ethan leaves me, because I’m stubborn? What if I don’t save up enough money and we never get to travel? What if? What if? What if?

I have a grand idea, what if I let go of all these fears and put faith in the Universe and everything magically works out and I’m happy. What a preposterous idea. How could I possibly give up the reigns to my own life? That’s crazy talk. What would I do with all my free time, if I wasn’t busy worrying? Maybe, I would sleep through a full night. Maybe, I would smile more. Maybe, just maybe I’d find inner peace. But who wants that, when you can have heart pains, anxiety attacks, sleepless nights, and a lack of appetite. Just writing it all out, makes me wonder why am I not just letting this all go?

I’ll tell you why I haven’t let go yet and just had faith, it is because it is goddamn terrifying. It is like the feeling when you are about to curve over the tallest drop on a roller coaster and you know that your stomach is going to fly up into your throat. It is terrifying, but then when it’s all over you laugh and want to do it again. I always wanted to have control over who my soulmate was and when I would meet him. I tried to fit all these square pegs into a circle, because I was done waiting. I told the Universe, “give him to me now!” But the Universe didn’t budge, not because it was stubborn but because it already knew when I would meet him. When I finally gave up trying, Ethan appeared. Thank you, Universe! I wish I had just had faith all along.

It is scary to sit idly waiting for the results, especially when they aren’t the results you think you want. All we can do though, is send out our desires into the world and sit back and have faith that those things will be sent back to us. They may not look the same as what we requested though, but we will find they are even better. This doesn’t mean we give up on life and just sit around waiting for things to happen for us with no effort on our part. We have to go on living. We just don’t have to sit around worrying about what will happen. We just live in the present and let the Universe take care of the future. Easier said than done, but I’m learning. Worrying doesn’t make the future any better or worse, it just steals the present away from me. Then when it all works out in the future, I regret wasting all that time in the past.

So, every time I start to worry about the future, I propose to take three deep breaths and repeat to myself, “have faith, let it go, it will all work out!” If I make this my mantra, then hopefully I will get the courage to let go of that trapeze bar and soar into the Universe’s arms. It is actually scarier thinking that I am wasting years of my life worrying, instead of enjoying each day. If you are having the same problem as me, whether you are religious or spiritual or just lost, give it a shot. Have faith and let that shit go.