Faith, God, and the Gut – are they one and the same?

Hello Warrior Parents,

Sorry, this post took longer than I thought. It’s a bit heavy, I had work travel, and I wanted to make sure it was conveying a good message to you.

Before I go getting serious talking about the next part of our journey. I felt compelled to take a side step and blog about Faith, God, and the Gut. And what that means to me and this journey we’ve been on with our daughter.

Faith has been a huge part of our story.

I was never a religious person. But when my husband and I were engaged we knew that we wanted to raise children as Catholics. As our parents had attempted for us. I had to go to church as a part of my education. So I can get my communion and confirmation before we could marry. My parents wanted to raise me as a Catholic. But I never got the sacraments done as a child.

Outside of intent for us to be Christian, there wasn’t much talk in my home as a child about God. I’ve always been curious about people who go to church weekly, who live faithful lives. People I would envision hearing quote scripture. It’s been studied and confirmed, that people who are more religious/spiritual have better mental health and adapt more quickly to health problems/life problems compared to those who have less or none at all. I was always drawn curious but never knew where to start for myself.

A little history about me.

I came from a very dysfunctional family, was one of 5 children, and had what would be to today’s standards a physically, mentally, and emotionally abusive mother, and at times an absentee father. I was the middle child, and as you can imagine, getting any positive attention from my parents was difficult if not nonexistent.

My upbringing in a nutshell.

I was physically abused almost daily for years by my mother. My father was not physically abusive but was so mentally and emotionally terrifying. Sometimes I would prefer to be beaten instead of getting dealt his harsh psychological punishments. On top of this, I would try and exist in a volatile household where we’d watch our parents fight more than not. If they weren’t fighting they were indifferent to each other.

Not 100% sure which is worse.

Nevertheless, there wasn’t much talk about faith, although I know both believed in God, that’s really as far as our conversations went with it. I think about that now as I raise my own kids. Flying blind it felt like. Trying to get through the toughest times as a child in a difficult household, feeling as if I was a constant target for bullying at school, the typical stressors of the teenage years… BOY, I could have used some guidance and support.

I was raised with a general understanding that there is a God, he created all things, etc. What that meant for me, I had no clue.

I was a parishioner of the mindset. Faith, God, and the Gut

From that moment on I relied more on my “self will” than any divine power. I believed that those who work hard are always rewarded. That if I put my “mind” to it there was nothing I couldn’t accomplish. Now don’t let me mislead you, my life up until this point was never easy. In fact, it was nothing short of continuous roundhouse kicks to the face.

What I share now was something that really SHOOK me and my belief system in a profound way and started me on the path to understanding that I was not alone in the things that were happening to me and the decisions I would make.

I always considered myself a hard worker, never once thought I would ever leave a job, not on my terms.

But one day, that is exactly what happens.

I ended up parting ways with a job, that I thought was a dream job when I got it, but just like many things in life, not everything lives up to our first impressions. This company was being run by a narcissistic mad man gone wild. In the midst of this lunatic trying to run this company into the ground, I was knee-deep in anger at God and the world about my daughter’s diagnosis. Nevertheless, I never saw my leaving happening on any other basis but my choice, yet here I was jobless and terrified.

I spent the next few days in utter panic, not sure how we’d pay the mortgage or put food on the table. After a few days of this, my “work ethic” kicked in. I was down but not out. I started the process of updating my resume and submitting it to as many competing companies as I could. Within a month I had 3 job offers on the table. 2 high profile and one very risky but if it worked out, very rewarding. Tried going with my “gut” and for no other reason than going by “feel”, I picked the riskiest of the 3 jobs. I resolved that if I had made the wrong decision, I could start the hunt again.

It was devastating but losing that original job, led me to an even more exciting, more fulfilling position that I would not have ever come across had I not left the previous employment. Not only did I get a better opportunity, I felt “possessed” when I was looking for it.

I asked God for help with this endeavor. Faith, God, and the Gut

Even though I was pissed at him. I found it “on my own” and was “obsessed” with the “mindset” that I must find a job that would fulfill all of my family’s needs. And allow me to work from home and grow as a salesperson.

I look back at this scenario and I know now that I have a CHOICE in how I see it. Did shit happen to me to lose that job? Or was it supposed to happen that way? Was it another bad luck or was I being guided? My own “willpower” found this job, right? At the time I would have chalked it up to shit happens and its a good thing I have such strong “willpower” or “work ethic”. But now I 1000% believe everything was sent to me.

That shift in “mindset” didn’t happen overnight.

But I know now that once I was able to see that for what it was. Once I was able to start being more curious vs cursing of God’s decisions to put hardships my way, the more I was not only at peace in my life but enlightened to the fact that God does not want to harm us, God does not want us to fail. He is always there waiting for us to acknowledge and ask for his guidance.

“mindset”
“my self”
“my choice”
“obsessed”
“will power”

Are they one and the same?

The moment I shifted my thoughts from me, to him, or to the Universe of Energy, or to a higher power, whatever you are most comfortable with, the more results arrived at me. The more I went from the above “words representing me vs him” to understanding I was not alone in this life and decisions, the more the stress and anger lifted. I could help my daughter heal in ways I never thought were possible.

At any moment in this life, you can make the CHOICE to think differently…to take another path.

I plan on sharing all of my stories with you, but the answers are not in my story but in your own journey. To know you are not alone, to maybe think even in your worst days dealing with a child on the spectrum that there might be a reason that you could never understand that you are going through this. What is the message? What is the lesson? I took this detour because, from this point forward, every step in our journey was not a step I took alone, I wanted you to have the basis of where our strengths, failures, and successes have come from. I only hope that you are open-minded to what I’ve shared.