A Return to Faith

by Julia Tiffin on December 18, 2024 with No Comments

Is there more out there?

In a world focused on bottom lines, bank balances and markers of outward success, has faith been reduced to that fancy kitchen utensil you bought but never used?

Or maybe you didn’t even buy that utensil as it never struck you that you needed it?

Or maybe you wouldn’t be caught dead to have that utensil in your kitchen!

Let’s get down to the very salt of faith. Because faith is a core tool you need in the kitchen of your life to create a juicy and amazing life!

Faith is one of the most valuable ‘assets’ in anyone’s life. Faith both in yourself and faith in God and the Universe can change your world.

Atheism and ‘scientism’ have been influencing the world where faith is considered unintelligent and a ‘fool’s errand’. Those who do believe in something more out there are experiencing a diminished connection to faith, living in the closet of discomfort (see lower down: So where does the lack of faith come from?). But faith, faith is your ticket to freedom.

Do you hear yourself doubting you will find what you are looking for?

Maybe you feel you are not worthy or that somehow you are forgotten, and you don’t know how you are going to find what you need?
Maybe you genuinely don’t feel you are supported, because no one is out there for you?
Maybe you feel that you’re at the bottom of the pile, and think it will happen for everyone else, but not for you, you are somehow forgotten?
Or maybe again, ‘faith, what faith?’ … if I can’t touch it, taste it, feel it, how could faith exist?

These are all indicators of issues with faith.

In my own life, as a child and teenager, I lost faith in God as a result of manmade hypocrisy in the Catholic Church, but I always felt there must be ‘something out there’. I found my way to ‘something’ I could hold onto in my late teens and younger adult years. But only when I found a Path of Initiation, did I find my way back to the very holy beings the Catholic Church spoke of: Jesus the Christ and Mother Mary. But, that was only the beginning. It didn’t stop there, the world opened, and I found many, many holy beings with so much understanding to impart about this physical experience, always supporting me to map my way back to my inner intelligence and Path of Service, Path of Joy and real fulfillment here and in the Universe! The knowledge and wisdom these beings have imparted have empowered me to take LEAPS of FAITH.

Many times, sitting at the feet of Mother Mary, I’ve imagined how she might’ve felt with the knowledge of what was going to happen to her son, and how she had to surrender to faith and to God. Mother Mary is an incredibly special holy being of grace. She can be a helping hand to assist you to find this pathway home, a pathway to faith in yourself and faith in God and the Universe.

Let’s go deeper.

What IS FAITH?

It’s a feeling there is more
That you can reach out to something unknown, do something untested, and that you’re going to be ok

It includes both FAITH in yourself and FAITH that there is something that has your back. It could be FAITH in the Universe or a force you call the Divine or maybe it’s a force you perceive in Nature.

This is very different to FANTASY and this is an important distinction. FANTASY is based on wishful thinking. FAITH has a real weight to it and part of finding your way back to FAITH is knowing the difference between the two. You can’t THINK your way through FAITH – it is bigger than the logical mind. It reminds me of the mycelium network, and just as faith grows, more neural pathways connect and it just keeps building you stronger and stronger and feeds you with increasingly powerful energy.

Finding your own life path is made of the juice of taking (many) leaps of faith. It isn’t based on certainty as finding your own life path, finding you, is something you are learning to do. There is a map inside of you, but between what you are currently conscious of and the unknown terrain you need to go along to access that map, faith is the bridge between the known and unknown potential versions of you.

As a child we had faith in things, and as adults we need to find our way back.

How do you bridge your way back to faith?

As a note: The season of winter is the time of the year when the physical light is dim and available for only shorter times of the day. It is the perfect time to find your way back to your inner light and the spiritual light of Divinity. This is the time to cultivate that inner light and that connection, a time of going inwards and deepening.

Of course, the Return to Faith can be done any time, any place: there is always an opportunity in any season of your life, whatever you are going through, whatever you are feeling.

Image right: Photograph far right by Antonio Mora

Meditation is an amazing way to sense more. It gives you a moment to cut out the drone of the world outside of you. Know that there are so many beings who want to connect with you, support you and help you find that pathway back to you, but with the constant humdrum of the physical world, it is disconnecting you. This is a great tool to work with on the path of rebuilding faith.

But it’s like building any relationship, it takes time. Faith is a bridge you need to build.

A core step to building FAITH would be communicating with the Divine. In a quieter space just share and communicate about your life! As with any relationship, communication comes first. Ask for help in your conversations, and express gratitude for all you have.

THIS is the foundation of prayer and THIS is the primary tool to use to rebuild faith: communication, asking for help and expressing heaps of gratitude, because there is always so much to be grateful for. Only when you have lost something so basic that you took for granted, do you realise how much you can be grateful for. Rather use extra servings of gratitude than that third helping of Christmas lunch!

Let’s map this journey step by step…

The Bridge back to Faith

Here are some UNIVERSAL TOOLS to help you find your way back to FAITH IN YOURSELF and FAITH IN SOMETHING GREATER THAN YOURSELF.

STEP ONE – ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of THE DIVINE (both within and without)

This first step is borrowed from the renowned 12-Step program:
- Consider (ultimately acknowledge) that there is a great power / network of energy outside of your human self.
- You could call this a HIGHER POWER, the UNIVERSE, the DIVINE or the GOD of your understanding.
- Consider that there is an UNSEEN WORLD beyond what you know (think Alice in Wonderland).
- Consider there MUST be more to me – sense that part of you that knows there is more to you.
- Are you ready to believe you are more than what you know?
- Consider that this higher power is inherently GOOD and not only wants only good for you, but is waiting to co-partner with you to create a life of good and beauty!
- This is about considering a greater power both within and without.

STEP TWO – BUILD A RELATIONSHIP with the Divine (also known as PRAYER)

Even if you don’t know step one for sure, start with small steps:
- Start having a conversation with the Universe around you / a Higher Being to build a relationship with the unseen world. It all starts with ‘Hello’! There is a great scene in Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love, where she has no idea how to start a conversation with God, where it was such a foreign concept to her that she almost considers saying ‘I’m a big fan of your work’. Instead she says: ‘Hello God, nice to finally meet you. I am sorry I have never spoken directly TO you before, but I hope I have expressed my ample gratitude for all the blessings you have given to me in my life. I am in serious trouble, I don’t know what to do. I need an answer. Please tell me what to do [..] Tell me what to do and I will do it!’. Watch here for the full clip.
Consider where you felt a special energy as a child:
- Was it in nature?
- In a special building? A church?
- Where did you feel something great? Perhaps go back there & have a conversation with the Divine.
Light a candle
- The flame connects you to SPIRIT when you are having a conversation. This will help build a connection.
- Keep talking and sharing what’s going on inside of you, as the only way to build a relationship is through communication and consistent communication!

Image above: Sculpture right by Dan Stockholm Intimately Cupped Hands Cast Inside Clay Bricks

STEP THREE – ASK FOR HELP

I loved that scene in Alice in Wonderland (here) where the caterpillar challenged her that she was Alice. She had to become ‘much more Alice’. She had forgotten who she was, her potential and how powerful she was. She had to overcome negative and [small] self-talk. Perhaps watch this movie. As you become aware of your negative self-talk, ask for help from the energies around you to shift this.

Asking for help is THE SECOND ASPECT TO PRAYER, THE FIRST IS COMMUNICATION.
Remember: FEAR = FALSE EVIDENCE APPEARING REAL. Ask for help in overcoming your fears and lack of faith in yourself.
Drawing from the Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

STEP FOUR – GRATITUDE

Gratitude is the one thing that WILL turn your life around.
GRATITUDE IS THE THIRD ASPECT OF PRAYER.
There is a lot to become aware of that you can be grateful for: your health, being able to walk, clean water, electricity, friends, loved ones, pets, so much!
Every morning when you wake up start your day saying out loud what you are grateful for and perhaps even light a candle while you are doing it.
As you do this more and more, you will realise how much there IS to be grateful for. It takes practice to realise what you have.
Gratitude builds a powerful field of energy around you that attracts goodness into your life! It magnetizes more good stuff to you and it BUILDS FAITH.

You may be asking about now, but how DID I lose faith? Sometimes the mind needs to understand more, so let’s explore more…

So where does the lack of faith come from?

Let’s venture now into the world of METAPHYSICS, meaning how things work outside of the physical world. In a way, this is the higher science as it explains the science (metaphysics: meta meaning above) of how the spiritual world shapes the physical world. This will offer you a new understanding, besides historical, cultural and environmental influences.

The key programming we experience from a young age before the age of seven is ALL around the LOSS of FAITH. We only come into the age of reason, making literal sense of the world, at the age of seven.

So if I (as an adult) see a man beating a woman after the age of seven, I would think: this man has something going on inside of him that’s leading him to beat a woman. I would probably also think, that this man is not being a good man, and needs help. I would reason with myself about what I saw.

However, if a child under the age of seven saw his father beating his mother, most likely, according to psychology, this child would think they are responsible for this! In that moment, the child believes that:

I am bad
and the child then loses faith in themselves!
But since we see in several holy texts, that we are made in the image of God, we lose faith in God also!

On top of that there is cultural programming – so if you grew up in an atheist or scientific family or the school or government system was anti-spirituality, then society’s beliefs would further inform you that believing in something greater is unintelligent.

There are increasing numbers of scientists today saying it is UNscientific to say there isn’t anything else out there. Sy Garte, a biochemist, is just one of these scientists who speak about the evidence for the deep connection between all things. Sy Garte was raised in a Marxist, militant, atheist family. Here is an extract about him:

Sy Garte fell in love with the factual world of science. He became a distinguished research biochemist with an anti-theistic worldview – and he had no intention of seeking a God he didn’t believe in. That is until the very science he loved led him to question the validity of an atheistic worldview. His journey to answer the questions that confronted him drew him into becoming a fully committed Christian, determined to show others the truth: modern science doesn’t contradict God at all.

This is just one example of many.

There is scientific evidence of a field of energy that exists within all things. Metaphysicians know this is a universal energy which you can tap into because it connects all things. We see this butterfly effect when one small thing affects something on the other side of the world. As long as you can tap into this field and have faith that the Universe can support you, miracles can happen.

The idea of ATHEISM is indeed getting outdated bit by bit – it’s almost ‘last season’. Science is catching up, but the truth is it takes 4-5 years to get research that has been done to be applied and written up, and then up to a further 12 years for this knowledge to filter into actual practice! But we can catch up already while we are waiting for the words of science to follow suit.

It is important to understand that the Path of Faith is not about promoting religion: all these concepts are congruent with the teachings of the ancient Mystery Schools. The Mystery Schools find the connecting threads BETWEEN ALL TEACHINGS and hand down tools so that you can TRUELY KNOW YOURSELF. Herein lies the hermetic teachings handed down from mouth to ear for thousands of years, tested for their efficacy, effectiveness and efficiency for maximum evolution for the user. This conversation about faith in this article offers you universal tools on a spiritual path that will lead you back to FAITH.

Faith & The Fool – how to embrace a Path of New Beginnings

The original 22 cards of the major arcana of the Tarot deck work with the main archetypes of humans to help you understand your growth and evolution. The first card is not numbered 1, it is numbered 0! Zero is where we can start anew, it is in fact how humans can truely grow to start from a place of NO THINGNESS, no certainty, no attachments to expectations, no opinions. To start afresh, to start at all, there needs to be surrender and faith, to be undaunted like The Fool, in order to take a leap of faith! The Fool card is the symbol of one who feels a calling, a pull to something they simply must do. It comes from a place within the Spirit and is the card of new beginnings, risk-taking, and listening to your intuition. This card invites you to put your right foot forward to live a life alive!

May you find that peace, that connection, so that when you are next presented with a LEAP of FAITH you need to take, you can take it, you know you are supported and that this is the next thing you simply must do. May you also know the difference between Faith and foolishness.

Wishing you an ever-increasing relationship with faith …

What else can I do to find my way back to Faith?

If you need to open yourself up because you feel too stuck to even consider this, or if you need help with this, book a Life Activation – it will get you unstuck and open doors inside of you that you haven’t yet opened. Overcoming negative cultural, familial and environmental programming is all possible! Just ask me for the steps. For those who want to open your Path of Faith even more and open to way more possibilities, Empower Thyself Class & Initiation will launch you forwards. Beyond that, there are a smorgasboard of tools from the lineage of King Salomon to restore faith – it is our birthright to return to this state of being! Contact Julia to book your session and for more information about what you can do!

About Julia Tiffin

Julia is a Modern Mystery School Speciality Teacher working globally to share ancient teachings to help you find your unique you & your navigational system within to live your most fulfilled life. She has trained since 2004 within the Modern Mystery School and specialises in the ancient arts of Healing & Sacred Geometry. She has a background as an international Fine Art photographer, exhibiting internationally and lecturing at tertiary institutions in South Africa.