REMEMBER THIS BEFORE YOU READ this post! Adversity in my life is a tricky thing to try and compare to the adversity in your life. The worst thing each one of us has faced is the worst thing we have faced. WHILE you read this, don’t judge me or compare my adversity to yours. We all have problems and challenges that take everything we have. If you get tripped up comparing, you will miss the point I’m trying to make about Defining Yourself. Don’t spend time trying to decide if I’m right or wrong about my core value of Faith. If you do, you will ALSO miss my point.
PLEASE Look for a PERSPECTIVE that you can use to strengthen your own strongest beliefs or core values in a way that authentically makes YOU stronger!
It’s been one of the most challenging months of my life. That’s actually really an understatement. Everything I believe has been challenged. If it were not for my personal Strength and Honor Code, I would not have been able to face the storm, the emotion, or the momentum of the circumstances. Everything I was planning to do over the next six months blew up. It’s crazy when you lose your health how everything is left on shaky ground. I tore my tricep and got COVID in the same week. I’m still trying to recover from COVID 4 weeks later. It’s the sickest I’ve been in 25 years, and I still need surgery to fix the tricep. If you have been there, you know what I’m talking about.
If I hadn’t been PREPARED, meaning my emotions under control and the plan or protocol for my life in place. If I was not clear about my personal identity, core values and had not developed a solid routine, if my wife weren’t GRACE AND STRENGTH, I’m sure I wouldn’t be typing this blog.
Remember! This is what I believe. The WHOLE point of the Mayhem Mindset Process is to help you develop, strengthen and firmly establish what you believe, so it’s a force multiplier in your own life.
I believe that defining yourself starts with taking personal responsibility to create a vision for your life. To become 100% of who you were born to BE, you must decide why you are unique and then bring that to the culture.
You must define yourself and connect how you want to act to what you believe. Being fully prepared for opportunity or adversity requires this understanding as an individual first.
Jim Hensel
I wanted to tell you about how my core Value of FAITH was tested. I think Values were meant to be tested outside your comfort zone. That’s the only way you know if that Value is authentic or it’s just an underdeveloped ideology that needs more work. If the Value is TRUTH in your life, then it will work. I love this definition of TRUTH: If it’s true, then it works.
For me, my Value of Faith is based on a personal relationship with who I believe created me. I see God as my coach or my inventor. I can relate that way. I don’t need proof the Creator is real or not. I choose (have Faith) to believe that there is something bigger than being human, bigger than science, but I love science and the pursuit of knowledge and our evolution as humans beings on this planet. When I look at the design of this world, so many things leave me awestruck, and I can’t believe it’s an accident. I know I’m alive and that my life is finite, there was a clear beginning, and there will be an end. Time is undefeated. I believe that the whole point of living is to move forward, to grow in adversity consistently. I know the only things I can completely control are my attitude and effort. I believe the Creator of it all made it that way so that we would need her. Ha, just messing with you, it’s a joke if you smiled first and fought back being offended, then you are on track to see the point of this blog, remember this is about how to test and authenticate your personal strongest beliefs, not compare or judge mine.
There is no such thing as perfect in people, but we can pursue excellence. When I get too comfortable, it’s easy to lose sight of my Faith and my relationship with the Creator. I believe that the whole point of my Faith is to remember to connect with the Creator in the good times and the bad, to live and test that relationship daily. My Faith has to withstand that pressure test, or it’s just religion (rules without relationship) to me.
REMEMBER, THIS IS WHAT I BELIEVE. JUST BECAUSE YOU READ THIS DOESN’T MEAN YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE WHAT I BELIEVE. You are in no danger here unless you are easily manipulated, and that means you need to do the work I’m talking about for your life! Just because you read something you disagree with, doesn’t mean you have to believe it.
I defined Religion as “rules without relationship” for my life. My Faith is not based on a denomination or a religion. I believe religion has started more wars than anything else in history. If I’m living what I say I believe, I’m too busy to get into a religious, ideological argument. My Faith starts with daily conversation and meditation with my Creator. I think many religious institutions have failed us. In my past, when I had based my Faith on the institution or another imperfect person leading that institution, I thought my faith failed me when the people in that institution failed. When I took ownership of my faith, I realized my mistake. I needed to do the work to put my Faith and confidence in the right place. It’s also true that many institutions haven’t failed us. The community and structure they give us as imperfect humans are significant in staying motivated and developing good habits and mindsets tools for our families and our communities.
BUT for me, My Faith is not based in a church. Some of the best communities of people I’ve ever been a part of have been churches. I’ve also been to churches that were religious pits and death to my soul, and I will never under any circumstances go back regardless of what they say it means to my spirit after I die! “I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with those saints.” -Billy Joel
In the storm, what you say you believe is tested. That’s what storms do. Are you prepared to face the storm? Can you find your feet, get your bearings, re-aim, BE present and focus on the next values-based behavior, or will the emotion and the momentum of the storm, the possible outcomes expose what you said you believe, as an underdeveloped, oversimplified ideology you abandon when pressure tested?
Read the words to If I Ever Lose My Faith In You by Sting. It was the motivation for this blog. For me, the words carry so much truth, and they are similar to how I talk to God every day:
You could say I lost my faith in science and progress
You could say I lost my belief in the holy church
You could say I lost my sense of direction
You could say all of this and worse but
If I ever lose my faith in you
There'd be nothing left for me to do
Some would say I was a lost man in a lost world
You could say I lost my faith in the people on TV
You could say I lost my belief in our politicians
They all seemed like game show hosts to me
If I ever lose my faith in you
There'd be nothing left for me to do
I could be lost inside their lies
Without a trace
But everytime I close my eyes
I see your face
Never saw no miracle of science
That didn't go from a blessing to a curse
Never saw no military solution
That didn't end up as something worse but
Let me say this first
If I ever lose my faith in you
There'd be nothing left for me to do
You can say all of this and more about me but your probably wrong. DO THE WORK TO DEFINE YOURSELF OR SOMEBODY WILL DO IT FOR YOU! S&H!
Keep Coming Forward
Jim Hensel
