How to Cultivate Faith In Yourself and God

As I write this article, Hindus all around the world are celebrating a festival known as Navratri. Navratri is a nine-day Hindu festival celebrating the divine feminine. I figured this is the perfect time to talk about how to cultivate faith in yourself and God.

Note. The word God is referred to in this article, but if that doesn’t resonate with you, feel free to replace it with the term universe, higher power, higher intelligence, or whatever suits you.

My curiosity about cultivating faith

After a few years into my spiritual awakening and hearing about the concepts of surrender, trust, and faith, I was genuinely curious and wondered: How do you cultivate faith? How do you surrender and trust in the unknown?

I have struggled with uncertainty my whole life. I am not comfortable with the unknown. I always need to know things and feel in control of things. But there are many situations beyond our control and many situations where knowing is impossible. In these moments, surrender becomes essential. Cultivating faith becomes essential for one’s own inner peace.

Without faith, it is easy to become stuck in overthinking and anxiety, especially in uncertain circumstances, which are inevitable in life.

I believe the universe has many ways of speaking to us if we’re willing to listen to it. One of these ways is through the challenges it poses to us, at least it was one of the ways it spoke to me. A couple of weeks after I asked these questions, an interesting series of events occurred.

My story

I woke up to a loud and blaring fire alarm at around 6:00 am. I made my way down to the building and waited outside until the firefighters told us it was safe to go inside. I thought it must have been an accident, and I could go back to sleep in no time.

But when I got back to my apartment, there was a small leak. Water was trickling from the roof onto the floor in the small closet at the end of the hallway of my apartment. It turned out my roommate’s bathroom was drenched in water as it was pouring from the roof. Interestingly, both of my roommates had leaks in their rooms. To put it into perspective, my bedroom was in the middle, and both my roommates on both sides had a leak in their room, but my room was safe and leak-proof. Luck? That’s what the maintenance guy said, and maybe it was luck—who knows?

Fast forward a week after the flood, I was at a social event, and I noticed the WhatsApp group chat buzzing with notifications. I read “we have to move out”. I quickly opened my email and saw an email from my landlord asking us to vacate the unit because it needed to undergo repairs due to the moisture in the walls from the flood.

I was stressed and overwhelmed. This is exactly what I had feared. I did not have the time to move here and there, especially with an important and hour-long presentation happening in less than two weeks. On the way home, I hoped that I could talk to the landlord to get some adjustment and temporary accommodation while they fix this one, but nothing was possible. My stress increased.

People told me to look up tenant rights and call legal support for advocacy. After trying everything in my control to minimize these drastic life changes, I realized there was nothing I could do.

As I silently packed my stuff from the apartment, I had a subtle but profound shift. I realized even though there is nothing I can do, in this moment, I am actually okay. Things are not as bad as they seem. Sure, I may have to commute for a few days a week for a few weeks, but at least I had a house, and I was determined that I would not let this setback affect my presentation.

That subtle but profound shift was transformational because it changed the way I deal with uncertainty and the unknown. Usually, I’d stress out, overthink, and victimize my situation. But this time, I saw the situation as it was without catastrophizing, and that moment of presence created a ripple effect.

That moment increased my faith in myself and the universe. I realized that I was okay in this moment. I could handle the situation and take it one day at a time. I also felt grateful that I had a home other than the one I was currently living in, and my room wasn’t affected at all.

What does this have to do with faith?

Moments and challenges like this can make you doubt your ability to handle tough situations, and sometimes even whether God exists. But instead of doubting, I chose to have faith in myself and in something greater than me. Now, maybe this is easy for me to say because my room wasn’t actually impacted, and I had support from my parents. However, this is exactly what strengthened my faith. The fact that my room was completely unaffected, even though logically that made no sense.

I truly felt a shift in myself in terms of how I handled that situation. I truly saw the situation for what it was, and that’s what shifted the way I handle uncertainty and the unknown. More importantly, in that moment, I didn’t deny the reality I saw. Despite being okay in the moment, I could have chosen to worry about the future, but I chose to have faith both in myself and the divine, knowing that the universe has my back. I purposely chose faith despite the situation being uncertain.

Maybe within every detour or obstacle is a greater blessing at play that we can’t see. Everything truly turned out all right for me. My presentation went really well despite the obstacle, and the landlord repaired the unit for the new year as promised.

Whether things turn out all right or not is not the purpose of this article. The purpose of this article is to inspire you to believe in yourself and God a little more. So, how does one cultivate faith?

How do you cultivate faith?

I don’t think there is a magical formula to cultivating faith. To me, faith is about believing before seeing. Faith is something that you choose with intention.

Faith is a belief that is needed most in challenging circumstances, and especially when things are not going as you expect them to. Thus, to cultivate faith, you must choose to believe in yourself and God, no matter how tough circumstances become.

Here are a few things that can help strengthen faith:

1. Presence

A moment of presence can shift your perspective, just as it shifted mine. By choosing to remain present and see the situation for what it is, we maintain our neutrality and prevent unnecessary overthinking and anxiety. Want to cultivate more presence? Check out this blog post.

2. Gratitude

Gratitude allows one to appreciate everything they already have and be grateful to the universe for it, strengthening faith and trust.

Conclusion

Faith is something you choose with intention. Whether you decide to have faith in yourself, God, or both, it is something you must choose. Actively practicing presence and gratitude can help strengthen faith.