I have faith.

No, I haven't suddenly come over all happy clappy, or taken to wearing a burkah down to the post office to get stamps. No, my faith has nothing to do with God, or Allah, but everything to do with me.

I do believe in God, but I do not believe that he is the answer to all of my problems, because that takes those problems out of my hands, and means that I am expecting some other entity to solve them. Miracles do happen, but when you get a flat tyre on a busy road, getting down on your knees and praying for divine intervention isn't going to get the wheel nuts off any quicker. There are many things in heaven and earth that we do not understand, but one thing that is gradually becoming more apparent, is that consciousness can bring about changes in our physical environment. Scientists are just beginning to discover that altering your thought patterns can actually change your life. It's a pretty big concept, and one that takes time to understand, but it is something that I truly believe in. I have always had absolute faith that the answer to my problems lay within me. I have spent many long nights praying; praying for an end to my miserable life, praying for a future for my children, praying for a sign, any kind of sign that things were going to get better. And things did get better. A lot better.

So was that down to God? Well, that's hard to say, but when I was at my lowest ebb, it wasn't the bible I turned to; it was my own inner strength. I went inside myself, inside my mind and I looked for a way to pull myself out of the pit. But at the same time I knew I was getting help. In my bed at night, when the blackness and sorrow threatened to overwhelm me, when there seemed no hope and no future, I would feel hope. I was given hope. I felt like I was being surrounded by love, supported on all sides, and lifted out of the pit. Was it angels? Was it spirits? Was it the crazed workings of a delusional mind? Well, I'll leave that to you to decide, but whatever it was, I knew that I did have the ability to find happiness again. I had the ability to walk out of the dark tunnel and find the light. I walked forward with my eyes wide open. I saw what was coming. I saw the stony path beneath my feet and I knew it was going to hurt. I accepted the pain and I bore it, because I had faith that it wouldn't last forever. I had faith in my ability to survive it.

Why do some people fly, whilst others fall? Why do some people live sad, depressed lives, whilst others live joyous ones? Popular culture would suggest that it's your physical environment, that if you've been dealt a bad hand there's no way to change it; you're bust and you're out of the game.

Bollocks.

I recently heard Madonna being an interviewed on the Vine show. He asked her about the Kabbalah, or the Kah Ba Ha La La , as my daughter Rosie likes to call it. Madge explained about their teachings and said that she has been taught to believe that everything happens for the best. Well, I don't know much about the benefits of wearing a red bracelet, but I do know that everything does not happen for the best. If Guy Ritchie suddenly got bone cancer and died a long, agonising death, Madonna isn't going to sit back after the funeral and say, 'Well, that was for the best, wasn't it kids?'

Everything happens for a reason. If something catastrophic happens the outcome is never certain, because it is within us to decide it.

I have been lax in writing my diary this month, but only because I have had so much mail to answer. Since the Vine show I have been deluged by mail, and that mail falls into three broad categories: Sinkers, swimmers and survivors.

When people write to me I can generally tell straight away if they are going to survive their loss. Something in their writing will show a spark of hope, a germ of resolve. They are barely keeipng their heads above water, but they are still swimming. It only has to be one phrase, or maybe just a single word, but I will know that they are going to be fine. All I do in my writing is reflect back their own faith. All those people need is some sign that things are going to get better. They believe it in their hearts, but don't yet have the strength to acknowledge it. All I do is give them that strength. The sinkers write to me and say, 'I'm a certain age and I don't have this, or that, and my life is over. So what are you going to do about it?' And I want to write back to those people and say, 'Don't ask me for the answer to all your problems, like I have the solution to everything. I'm just one woman, struggling to bring up two children alone. Struggling to do a stressful job, the ironing and cleaning, along with answering an unending stream of emails from people all demanding answers; all demanding strength. Why is it down to me to save you?'

And just when I'm feeling like I have nothing left to give, I get an e-mail from a survivor, which ends with the words, 'God Bless you, Kate.' I read about the experiences of another person who has been given a crap hand, and has gone on and beaten the dealer. People tell me their stories, tell me of their selflessness, and their struggles, but there is no sadness in their words, there is only hope. There is thankfulness and there is joy, but not one ounce of self-pity or regret. And those are the people who give me the strength to carry on what I do. Those few, those happy few, the band of survivors, who refuse to go down, who refuse to let circumstance dictate their happiness; those people are my red bracelet. Those people are my faith. They reinforce my own innate belief that inner strength and positive thought can bring about change. Change in environment and change circumstance.

I learned the technical explanation for the power of positive thought recently. Apparently, when you make a conscious decision to feel happy or sad, the brain produces chemicals called neuro-peptides. These neuro-peptides are absorbed into cells and produce exactly the same effects as amphetamines or anti-depressants. You can think yourself happy, or you can think yourself sad. The brain has pathways over which thought travels; and people who have a history of say, depression, in the family, do have a mental disposition to feeling sad; they are born with pathways in the brain that lead in a certain direction, and that causes them to view life in a certain way. But those pathways in the brain are not hard-wired. They can be changed. You will be sad if you truly believe that sadness in inherent in you. You can spend your whole life thinking that because your mum was miserable, you have to be miserable too. But you don't.

I have been gifted with an insight into the lives of many remarkable people; people who have survived the most terrible tragedy, and yet have come thought it and gone on to find happiness; and the reason that they found that happiness, is because they made a conscious decision early on that it was possible to attain it. They didn't give up. Change the way you think and change your life.

To give you an example of positive thought I'll tell you about my friend Nellie. She is a very practical woman, and she never gives up. She and her husband farm a few sheep, and they recently needed to get them sheared. She could have paid for a shearer, but instead decided to try it herself. She made a conscious decision to address a problem with a practical solution of her own making. A shearer would have done the job in half a day, but Nellie took a bit longer. Having printed the instructions for shearing your own sheep off the Internet, she had a look at the diagrams and set to work. It took her a long time, she got filthy, and I'm not sure what the poor sheep made of it all, but she didn't give up. It was a struggle, but now she knows how to shear a sheep. She did it, and she did it by herself. She has changed her physical environment, learned a new skill and saved herself some money, and all because she refused to be beaten.

Life is what you make it. So make it happy.


© Kate Boydell 2004. All rights reserved. e-mail: [email protected]. Close window.