hope
New Season. New Hope.
Autumn is my favorite season of the year, and also a time for me to assess, regroup, and move forward with a renewed sense of hope. I feel the same way on January 1st each year. I guess I’m a sucker for second chances…or as many chances as I can get.
The following is a quote that resonated with me from the non-fiction book, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? by Julie Smith. I hope you are able to move towards the end of 2022 relishing all the positive opportunities that might come your way.
What we do and how we do it feeds back to our body and brain about how we feel, so shifting direction towards what matters most, and the person we want to be alongside our problems, can bring about big shifts in mood.
My 2022 Word
Several years ago a friend of mine introduced me to the concept of setting a New Year word – not a resolution. My 2021 word was:
EQUANIMITY: mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in a difficult situation.
For what may seem obvious to many is the fact that that single word – or way of being – really resonated with me leading into 2021. But did I always succeed at upholding that word? Absolutely not, but having that as my daily, or hourly, goal certainly benefited me more than not.
My word for 2022 is more or less from the same word family but some may argue it is the antithesis of equanimity:
HOPE: a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.
It’s far easier to abandon all hope – yet more difficult – than it is to cling to it. I decided to raise a banner of hope for me, my loved ones, and the world at large, regardless of what that action entails. Doing something with an eye to a redeeming new year is that to which I am committed. As I said in my post Hope + Action = Winning Combination, just wishing something to be true doesn’t quite take care of the hope function; we have to do something while hoisting hope onto our backs.
What you do to activate and maintain hope and what I do are individual efforts and may not look at all similar to each other, but that’s the beauty of the hope commitment: what I do supplements you and what you do augments me.
BE WELL AND STAY WELL IN 2022 MY FRIENDS.
CELEBRATE EVERY GOOD THING THAT COMES YOUR WAY, REGARDLESS OF HOW SMALL, BECAUSE EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS – DON’T YOU THINK?
Hope + Action = Winning Combination
Are you tired? Yeah, me too. Tired tired – due to lack of sleep. Emotionally tired – due to the day to day personal challenges we all face. And sick and tired of the status quo in a world that just doesn’t seem to want to get better. My intent with this post is not to single out any causes for the mess we’re in – that would not be a popular post and quite frankly, I just don’t have the energy to address that mess.
Rather, I simply want to state that all of us need to do better at the art of living and how that living affects others. One way in which to do better is to shift from a hopeless base to a hopeful one. Doing so may not be what it takes for you to have a positive mind shift, but it has worked for me in the past so it’s a tool that I am drawing on now.
Please accept the following sentiments as nourishment for your own journey of hope. These are quotes from the book, The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times, by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams:
Hope does not deny all the difficulty and all the danger that exists, but it is not stopped by them. There is a lot of darkness, but our actions create the light. Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.
Hope is what enables us to keep going in the face of adversity. It is what we desire to happen, but we must be prepared to work hard to make it so.
Hope without action dies on the vine; it needs nourishment in the form of constant feeding and forward motion. None of us need to be scientists, psychologists, or world changers in order to be effective, but all of us need to do something positive within the limited real estate of our little corner of the world. Is it easier to just give up and let others take the lead? Yes…and no. Giving up means you have no control and if you’re like me, you don’t want to surrender the reins to just anyone!
I need to pick up this tool – this hope tool – every day and treat it as though it just might be the answer to my well-being and yours. If you and I employ it starting with our own household and then to that which exists within our control, we’ll all be better off as a result. A little bit goes a long way, especially if more people than not opt to disembark from the train of desperation and climb on board the far more promising hope train.
ALL ABOARD! LET’S GO.
A Change of Heart
For many of us, our 2020 outlook was dingy at times and full of sharp edges at other times. It’s now a new year, and boy did it arrive in an explosive way. Last year, and its current new year counterpart, have kind of felt like we’ve experienced an entire lifetime of uncertainty tempered by acute feelings of fear and anxiety with no relief!
Who of us want that to be our 2021 way of being?
Not me. Same-o, same-o just doesn’t work for me. We cannot change what has transpired and have marginal ability to shape what is to come, but I relish the opportunity to control what is within my personal ability to control:
MY RESPONSE.
I choose to enter this new year by altering the way I respond to it. When I change my outlook, I have the chance of changing my response. When I change my response, I might be able to paint the way others choose to respond. If that sounds too good to be true, please know it is not. Everything we say and do influences those around us – whether someone living in our own household or the strangers we encounter in the community. We can choose to come from a place of possibilities rather than defeat; from a place of nourishment rather than a viral place of bitterness.
We are all harboring sad and bitter emotions – many of them resultant from the events of 2020. We can’t change the past, but we can create a better present that might turn into a more hopeful future. And let me tell you a secret…sometimes you just have to fake it until you make it. Who knows, you might be so convincing, you’ll be able to drop your efforts at fakery and actually flourish in your new found well-being.
I want that for me, and I want that for you.
Won’t you give it a try with me?
What you hope for is worth the wait
Contemplating high hopes for the new year | Local News | The Seattle Times.
The Seattle Times newspaper has a Saturday column, Faith & Values, that spotlights a variety of religious denominations. One week there might be an article by a Catholic priest, another week, from a Rabbi, another, an Imam from the Islam faith. On Saturday, January 11th, the one who submitted her article is a minister with the Northwest Ministry Network (Assemblies of God), Jodi Detrick.
Ms. Detrick quotes several of the more well-known scriptures from the Bible that focus on hope, one of which is: “But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?” Romans 8:24
In my experience, I’ve found that there are many messages of hope out in the universe, and not all of them come from a spiritual text. Take Astronaut Mark Kelly’s response to Diane Sawyer on ABC’s 20/20 program a couple years ago. When talking about his wife Gabrielle Gifford’s chances for recovery from a gunshot wound to her brain, Diane Sawyer suggested that he was holding out too much hope for his wife’s successful recovery from the bullet’s onslaught. His response:
“You can’t have too much hope! That’s not practical!”
Isn’t that the truth? How limiting it would be to portion out a wee bit of hope, but not invest fully in that state of being. “In other words, it’s OK to be filled with anticipation for things that seem way out of sight and out of reach … Uncertainty is where hope does its best work,” says the columnist Jodi Detrick. Two years after the 20/20 interview, Gabrielle Giffords is doing “miraculously” better and she would argue that her day-to-day life is very complete, and very worthwhile. Thank goodness neither she, nor her husband, gave up hope!
“Hope outlasts disappointments. Not everything we hope for, happens, it’s true … Unrealized expectations can be an open door to new possibilities – options we hadn’t previously considered.” Jodi Detrick again. I agree with her statement because I’ve experienced those other possibilities. I’ve certainly couched my hopes and dreams to look a certain way, only to discover that the options I hadn’t previously considered managed to transform my hope into something better than I could have imagined.
Interestingly enough, the first hope that Jodi Detrick mentioned when she listed the types of dreams that hopeful people think about, was writing a book. I happen to be writing a book about the effects of Alzheimer’s on family caregivers and the ones for whom they are providing care – a project I started on December 29th, 2012. In the year since then, my novel has been through numerous edits – some of a substantive nature, and many that were grammar related. The mission for my book has always been to put a personal face on Alzheimer’s disease; to expand on the impressive, yet horrific, statistics on this fatal condition by making it more personal, and therefore more real.
One of my first “friendly editors” happens to have the same name as the protagonist in my book, Colleen. When Colleen read the very first draft of the very first 150 pages of my book, her first question was, “Who is your reader?” I insisted then, and I insisted for the past year, that my reader is the current or former caregiver, or the soon-to-be-caregiver who will find themselves amongst the millions of family members caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s or other dementia. “But does the caregiver have time for the luxury of reading a novel? Or does the caregiver even want yet something else that reeks of the challenges they are currently facing?”
Crap. Of course not. But I kept on structuring the novel in my original – and stubborn – way. My second friendly editor was a coworker who was dying of cancer. Dennis wanted me to hurry up and finish my book so he could read it – “before it’s too late.” I gave him what I had. A week later I met with him and one of the constructive suggestions he gave me was, “You should be considering this novel as a textbook.” My response: “Dennis, I’m not writing a textbook. I’m not even writing non-fiction. I chose fiction as the genre because I don’t have any sophisticated initials that signify astute knowledge, such as: MD, PhD, MSW (Masters of Social Work), and the like.”
Dennis responded, “I do have a MSW and I think your novel should be required reading for medical professionals and others directly involved in Alzheimer’s care.” I continued writing, thinking that a textbook might be a secondary use for my novel, but it would primarily be a vehicle that provides hope and promise for those intimately involved on the Alzheimer’s disease journey. (Didn’t I tell you I can be a little stubborn?)
Fast forward ten months. I had lunch two weeks ago with a friend of mine, Gwen, and a woman who lives in the same apartment building as she. This woman, Liz, works for a company that provides a remarkable early-detection testing and monitoring system for those suspected of having mild cognitive impairment. I’m not here to promote the company, I’m merely providing the background of the person I met.
My friend, Gwen, brought up the fact that I was writing a novel about Alzheimer’s with a focus on the caregiver and patient journey. Immediately, Liz suggested that the founder of her company, who among other qualifications, has a PhD in Clinical Psychology, should read my manuscript. The Curriculum Vitae for each member of this company’s scientific advisory board contains more initials after their names than letters in the alphabet. These professionals know their stuff and most of it focuses on Alzheimer’s and other dementia.
I insisted that if the founder were to read my manuscript, Liz had to pave the way and do so without putting any pressure or sense of obligation on this very busy doctor. She met with him and that afternoon, Liz e-mailed me his contact information. Phew! Very long story, short, he is now in possession of the first 150 pages (the much revised version which I printed and overnighted to him) and he is taking it with him on vacation. What?!
Indeed, what? Also – what does this mean? Can I throw all caution to the wind and have even greater hopes that he and/or his advisory board will provide valuable input so that my manuscript carries more credible weight? Can I also wonder if my manuscript’s exposure to these professionals may segue into what my now deceased friend, Dennis, suggested it should be? Required reading? Whoa! The institutions of higher learning to which these professionals are attached, to name a few, are: Duke University Medical Center, University of Washington (Seattle) Medical Center and Memory Disorder Clinic, Stanford University School of Medicine, and UC San Diego School of Medicine.
I know what you’re thinking. “Aren’t you getting way ahead of yourself Irene? You could be setting yourself up for a huge disappointment.” My response to that is: Haven’t you heard? Hope outlasts disappointments.
And so I keep on hoping.
Living: the ultimate team sport 