Fear or Faith: Where Do You Choose to Live?

Lynn Morgan Carpenter: I believe in possibility in all of our lives. This has been a driving force in my life for a very, very long time. And I wanna inspire you today that there is possibility, and I wanna give you hope that even if you have encountered experiences, life challenges that have been painful and have knocked you on your rear, and you still haven't been able to find a way to bounce back up and to have a sense of direction and to have clarity and to have even the spark for life to keep going, this message is for you. And what I wanna share is that yes, we have these experiences. Here's the deal, life when we choose to come here and experience life, we are also saying, and what comes with that is the good and the hard. And we are meant to experience all. But it's with those hard experiences that we can get knocked down. And I want to inspire you that if that is where you are, to get right back up because there's beauty and there's joy, and there's possibility and opportunity that's still awaits for you. So when we go through these experiences, number one I wanna share is that you'll go through the gamut of emotions and feelings. And a lot of those feelings can be grief, they can be uncertainty, they can be fear, and the list goes on and on. But it is the grief because a lot of these experiences often incorporate loss. This could be loss of a loved one through death, it can be loss of a relationship, whether that's romantic or a friendship or an important relationship. However, that's defined for you. It can be the loss of a career, it could be the loss of a home, it can be the loss of health. And so yes, grief is part of that. And so understanding that grief doesn't come in just with the loss through death, but it's also anytime we encounter a loss and allow yourself to go through that process. And no, oh, I'm grieving because this is a loss - there's a hole in my heart. The other feeling that's common is uncertainty. Because what takes place is that when we have these life experiences that we can, then it can change the direction of our life, or knock us down and what we thought was going to take place and the expectation we have has completely shifted, and we don't have that, that forward vision any longer. And so then we have to make that different. And that feels uncertain because it's unknown. It's territory that we're not aware of or we haven't traveled for a long time or if ever. And just like a baby that first starts to walk on wobbly legs because they're uncertain. Eventually, through each step, micro action, micro steps, just like that little baby takes, eventually we find our footing, we find our foundation, and we're able to walk with more of a steady pace that we feel certain about. Another common emotion and feeling is fear. And especially if we've gone through loss. I know for me personally after I lost my father to pancreatic cancer, I was riddled with fear. And this is really where this is some mind shift where we have the choice. I can live in fear, I can live and choose faith. And this can take some inner work and it can take working with a coach, a therapist, to help. So if you find yourself in that state of fear, know that you absolutely can disengage from that, and you can make that and create that to be different and better. Also, to know many times through these experiences that we have when they're painful, challenging, unexpected, hard even if we've chosen them, but there's been new challenges that popped up that we weren't expecting. All of that also creates where we have a shift in our priorities and our priorities and our values can change. And this was also true for me after the loss of my dad, I absolutely didn't know it at first, but in time I'm like, oh, I am changing. My values are shifting, my priorities are shifting, which meant I had to shift my life. I was being called to take active shift and change of my life. And that can throw you for a loop because there's a piece of you that's still attached to what you once knew and what you once did and what felt safe and felt comfortable, and felt right, and felt right in the world, admired by others, whatever it might be, and going through the process of saying, I'm changing. I am changing, and there's something new and different that's calling for me. So just know that as you navigate this path, yes, you're gonna navigate a whole new emotional landscape. So just be aware of that and allow yourself to feel all the feelings that come with that. And number two, very possibly you're gonna have shifts in your values and your priorities, which means you are going to be asked to change. And I know as humans, we can sometimes not like change. There's many people that do not like change. But if you've experienced something, it will shift and have an influence on your priorities and your values. And when that takes place, there is no choice but to change. So when we know this, we can allow this to happen. We can surrender to it. And I know this firsthand because I had to walk this path. And I'm bringing this to the light for you because if you are actively walking this path or you know somebody close to you who is, it's bringing this to the light because what we can talk about, what we can know and have a greater understanding of, then things don't feel quite as heavy and things feel a little more brighter. And a big piece of my work also is to always, always bring a sense of hope because we need that as humans. And there is always hope, but we also have to allow that hope to come and soak in. And my hope and my wish is for you to wrap your arms around your life, wrap your arms around in spite of what you're navigating, how painful it is that there's still hope before you, there's possibility, there's opportunity, there's love, there's joy, and there is peace.