I wanted to talk about a big topic linked to my diagnosis, which is faith. I went through a lot of different stages and it is interesting to see how my circumstances changed my views and beliefs.

In order to understand my own evolution, I have to go to the beginning. I was born into a non-religious environment. It is often said that the Czech Republic where I am from is one of the most atheistic countries in the world.

My country has Christian traditions and customs and we would be celebrating Christian holidays but there was never a religion per se or religious behaviour that I had to follow. Growing up without a religious guidance is perfect for forming individual beliefs but also leaves a void that can be filled with many things, potentially problematic when person is too impressionable.

Obviously, during my teen age years I flirted with many philosophical ideas and tried to find my own identity. In my late teens I settled on this notion that there is “something” I could call “God”. I believed in personal form of religion and understanding of “God”.

This stayed with me until I was 20 and when I started uni. I used to have quite conservative views mainly regarding topics that I didn’t know much about like Islam or homosexuality.

If you read through my earlier articles about my diagnosis, I mention that the night before I was diagnosed I prayed. I prayed for the results to be OK. Clearly, things took a completely different turn the next day and my life changed quite a bit.

I said that that was the last time I prayed. I think it was almost a feeling of being hurt that my prayers did not come true.

Because of the brain tumour and also being at uni challenged many of my views and made me realise that one’s perspective very much depends on their circumstances. I turned to be more respective of others’ beliefs but also became more sceptical.

I started questioning religion, mainly from a scientific point of view, and started to view myself as an atheist.

Fast forward a few years, thanks to many discoveries through yoga and meditation I now understand that world is not just black or white. Faith has a completely different dimension for me. I have been learning about the brain and psychology and I am fascinated by the power of our minds and what we can do as human beings.

Being open to new ideas and challenging existing views through education and knowledge and still keeping faith and hope can be difficult but, I believe, is the most rewarding.

At the moment, I would identify myself as spiritual, sceptical stoic. If you don’t know much about stoicism, watch this video. Apart from stoicism, I was also influenced by people like Victor Frankl (mentioned in the video) and his logotherapy which talks about how “we can harness our will power to fill our lives with meaning even in the bleakest situations”.

Do I have faith? Yes, I have faith in humanity (although that is fading slowly), in the power of love, kindness, patience, virtue, tolerance, justice and karma. But I also believe religion doesn’t need to be brought into this. We don’t need it to be good to each other and leave something meaningful behind.

Or in Sam Harris’ words: it is a false belief that “in order to have rich, meaningful, important spiritual lives we must somehow continue to endorse religious sectarianism”.

Amen.