Faith in the Messy Middle 🌱
A conversation about belief, fear, mystery, and the capacity to trust ourselves.
Welcome back to Capacity Conversations, where two women on opposite coasts explore self-trust, transformation, and the question so many modern millennials quietly carry: Do we actually have the capacity to do all the things we want to do?
As I said at the start of this episode: “I’m a clarity and work strategist supporting deep feelers, purpose-driven individuals who are not money motivated… I help them create their own path toward peace, purpose, and prosperity.”
This month’s topic is faith — not capital-F organized religion, but the inner orientation, the internal compass, the way we relate to the unknown. The way we trust (or don’t trust) what we can’t see. The way we make choices when life is lifing, bills are due, and the world feels increasingly unstable.
As I said in the episode:
“Faith… plays a big part in how we trust the unknown, how we take risk, and how we find ourselves in moments of despair.”
This conversation is part one. Part two will explore organized religion — Christianity, Islam, Judaism — and the cultural, historical, and personal layers that shape how we understand belief.
But today, we start with the personal.
Growing Up in Faith, Growing Out of Fear
I grew up Baptist in southern Florida — a world of Cuban churches, English-speaking churches, salsa-infused worship, and a sense of community that felt like home. As I shared:
“I grew up in a Spanish-speaking household… so it really reflected my own personal identity and narrative.”
There was joy. There was music. There was belonging. And there was fear.
Fear of the apocalypse. Fear of Satan. Fear of doing the wrong thing. Fear of being watched by a divine Big Brother.
“I was filled with fear instead of feeling that faith would carry me through.”
That fear shaped me. It shaped how I left Christianity. It shaped how I learned to trust myself.
Because, as I said in the episode:
“I’m already a small, curvy brown girl in the U.S., not feeling safe within my community sometimes… I have enough fear to deal with.”
Fear-based faith was something I could no longer carry.
Taste-Testing Belief Systems
My family “taste-tested” denominations — Pentecostal, Mormon, different flavors of Baptist — and I learned early that people can believe the same thing but interpret it wildly differently.
Then I moved to Virginia and encountered Vietnamese food, Eastern philosophy, yoga, and a worldview where the divine wasn’t a man in the sky but something woven into everything.
“I liked how God is in the trees and in the wind… I feel a part of something, not just something is watching me.”
That shift changed everything.
I released organized religion.
I embraced spirituality.
I embraced mystery.
I embraced not knowing.
As I said: “Life is mysterious and I’m okay with the mystery.”
Do We Have the Capacity to Challenge Our Own Faith?
This is one of the most powerful questions that emerged in the episode.
“Do I have the capacity to challenge my own faith?”
Because challenging your faith — whatever that faith is — requires energy, emotional bandwidth, and a willingness to confront the unknown.
It’s not just about belief.
It’s about capacity.
Capacity to question.
Capacity to unlearn.
Capacity to rebuild.
Capacity to hold mystery without collapsing into fear.
Faith as a Human Need
We talked about atheism, science, evolution, and the human impulse to believe in something — anything — that gives meaning to the chaos.
I said: “There is something human about needing faith… all cultures in all parts of the world have had something.”
Even scientists aren’t immune.
Even skeptics aren’t immune.
Even those who reject religion still believe in something — logic, science, reason, data.
As I joked to my atheist friend:
“So you believe… you have a belief.”
Faith is universal.
The form just changes.
Fear, Control, and the Feminine
We also explored patriarchy, prophets, and the absence of women in major religious narratives.
I asked: “Why is it that most major religions have male prophets… and why aren’t there enough stories about women?”
This is part of why I stepped away.
Not because Christianity lacked beauty — it has plenty — but because I refused to be controlled by interpretations shaped by fear, hierarchy, and power.
As I said: “I don’t want to be controlled… I just want to understand.”
Lowercase Faith: Trusting the Unknown
Sarah shared a story about letting go of something she wanted — and how a better opportunity appeared the next day.
She called it “lowercase f faith”:
“This subtle belief that things will work out sometimes is what leads to things working out.”
That’s the kind of faith we’re talking about here.
Not dogma.
Not doctrine.
Not fear.
Not hierarchy.
But trust. Orientation. Inner knowing.
The quiet belief that something will meet us when we leap.
Faith in a World on Fire
We also talked about the overwhelm of the world — politics, corruption, Babylon, shadow and light, the resurgence of fundamentalism, and the exhaustion so many of us feel.
As Sarah said:
“There’s so much overwhelm right now in the world that we’re all freaking tired.”
Faith — lowercase or uppercase — becomes a way to stay centered when everything feels unstable.
Not as an escape. But as an anchor.
Where We Landed
Faith is not a fixed point.
It’s not a doctrine.
It’s not a rulebook.
It’s a relationship — with mystery, with ourselves, with the unknown.
It evolves.
It expands.
It contracts.
It breaks.
It rebuilds.
And it shapes our capacity — to risk, to trust, to act, to rest, to hope.
As I said toward the end:
“I am a big person of faith… I feel like we can’t live without having that drive.”
Not to define it.
Not to perfect it.
But to witness it.
To ask:
What do I believe now?
What do I want to believe?
What belief helps me move through the world with more peace, purpose, and capacity?
Part two is coming soon — where we dive into organized religion, history, and the cultural forces that shaped our earliest understandings of faith.
Until then, thank you for being here.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for exploring the mystery with us.
This conversation is part of Capacity Conversations, a podcast where we explore self-trust, transformation, and the reality most modern millennials are facing today. Find us on Substack and wherever you listen to podcasts.
If this resonated with you, we’d love to hear what dark season you’re navigating right now. Share in the comments or reach out—remember, you’re not alone in the darkness.
About the Hosts:
Raquel Sands is a clarity and work strategist supporting deep feelers and purpose-driven individuals to create and sustain their peace, purpose, and prosperity on their own terms. Find her work at [your website].
Sarah Liljegren is a real estate professional whose passion and purpose is to rewild space and bring it into more connection with nature and our natural cycles. She works at the intersection of housing, community, and ecological restoration.
