The Holidays can be such a magical time as we talk about Santa with our children, many of us are moving a toy elf every night, and there is a lot of excitement and activity preparing for “The Big Show” of Christmas morning. Many families are excited about celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, and others celebrating Faiths as diverse as the rainbow. And then there are those among us that are against the whole thing – those that are offended by the belief in Santa, Jesus, and/or the tradition of gift-giving.
What everyone has in common with their experience this time of year is that what they believe deeply affects them. I want to take this opportunity to talk a moment about the importance of belief, not just around the fantastic and magical, but how beliefs affect one’s daily experience as well.
I read a lot – mostly on the topics of personal development, manifestation, law-of-attraction and success. The authors I read come from very different cultural and religious backgrounds and their methods and messages vary dramatically. Something they all have in common – is their discussion of the importance of belief.
Don Miguel Ruiz talks about the Mitote, Bob Proctor focuses on your Success Paradigm, and Mandy Morris talk about our “rules of belief”. The bottom line is that what you believe changes your experience in your life- both in the great story arch that your life is, and in the daily mundane.
Ask yourself a few questions about your beliefs:
What do you believe about yourself?
What do you believe about God?
What do you believe about the world, your culture, or your language?
What do you believe about money?
What do you believe about death?
Just asking these questions, I hope has illustrated how these beliefs could completely change the way you experience life. Your beliefs change 1. How you interpret EVERYTHING in your life. 2. How you respond or react to each individual experience. 3. How you feel about yourself.
Many of us decided when we realized that Santa isn’t real that we wouldn’t believe in magic anymore. In “Living Untethered” Michael Singer suggests that by looking at the natural world through the eyes of a statistician is a fantastic way to re-ignite a belief in magic. Sound incredulous? Consider this: the probability of all of the variables that have come together to make life possible at all is essentially ZERO. If that’s not magical, then I don’t know what is.
Do YOU believe in Santa? I do. He may not wear the red and white suit imagined by Coca-cola, but the spirit of Santa Claus is ABSOLUTELY real. Santa lives in the minds of millions of children, drives the behavior of millions of parents, and stimulates the imagination of multiple cultures. That’s pretty real to me.
This holiday, I challenge you to find your magic. Re-ignite that childhood sparkle. If nothing else, it’ll make this time of year more fun.
You got this,
Happy Holidays!
-Michael
