News
Christmas Hope
There’s a feeling, that seems to be getting stronger and louder every day, that the world is going mad, if it’s not gone mad already. Glaciers are melting, children are dying, with hatred running rampant across national borders…sometimes it feels like there’s no end to all the trauma, vicarious or otherwise.
The antidote to any such despair must surely be hope – one of the most powerful and essential of human mindsets possible to achieve, even when it feels completely out of reach. Hope is a way of thinking and we know it can be learnt. It can be nurtured – it’s not something that we either have or don’t have.
Being hopeful doesn’t mean engaging in mere wishful thinking or having a blind pollyanna-type optimism. Rather, it’s the belief or expectation that the future can be better – having a strength of faith in humankind that gives us the capacity to pursue that future. The opposite of hope, therefore, is not pessimism, but rather apathy, with a loss of motivation. The fundamental difference being that wishing is passive, while hope is about taking action.
Being hopeful is linked to a whole variety of benefits. Our capacity for hope is one of the strongest predictors of well-being. Research suggests that people with more hope throughout their lives have fewer chronic health problems and are less likely to be depressed or anxious. They have a stronger support network and tend to live longer. Even when it feels truly hopeless or unattainable, there are strategies that can help us all cultivate more hope:
- Give yourself permission to be hopeful: remember when you were a kid and adults cautioned you not to get your hopes up? That mentality can linger on into adulthood. The truth is, if we allow ourselves to hope, at some point, yes, we are going to be disappointed, but the solution isn’t about never allowing ourselves to feel hopeful or giving up on hope altogether. Go ahead and grant yourself the chance to look forward to the future with excitement and ambition. Not always easy, I know, but with practice, it can indeed become a new and more useful habit.
- Set at least one useful goal: in order to feel hopeful, people must think in a goal-orientated way. Make it a point to always be working towards something that is intrinsically meaningful to you, however small. It shouldn’t be something that you feel you have to do and cross off your to-do list, but something you really want to do for the benefit of yourself and/or others.
- Brainstorming solutions: if you have set a goal and can’t figure out a way to achieve it, you’ll probably end up feeling even more hopeless. People who are high in hope, meanwhile, tend to brain-dump and produce a whole array of ideas to move forward, without questioning the “how”. If one doesn’t work, they have another option at the ready. If you’re struggling to make a plan, or keep being blocked, sit down with a pen and paper and just wait patiently – give yourself an hour or so and daydream your way through it –relax and write down anything that comes to mind, however ridiculous.
- Call on your support team: people who are hopeful tend to have a lot of “agency”, meaning they possess the motivation to get things done – not always easy to find when despair takes over. One of the best ways to enhance this is to connect with friends – again, not easy if feeling too down to even speak. Who is your biggest cheerleader? Having someone who really cares about you and your welfare, telling you that they believe in you, can give you the biggest kick in the rear you need to light that blue-touch paper. Make a list of your biggest supporters, so when you’re feeling unmotivated, you know exactly who you can call for a boost.
- Tap into your imagination: we all have an imagination for a reason – to use it! It is our instrument of hope. As much as Mr. Spock is one of my all-time heroes, it was Einstein who said that logic is limited – it is imagination that encircles the world. Spend a few minutes going through a mental rehearsal of whatever it is you want to achieve. Picture it in your mind’s eye, using all your senses to bring it to life, with vibrant colours and smells, with all the feelings that such an outcome will give you. We all have this wonderful ability to play out a blockbuster movie in our heads, so when you see yourself in the future, it really does provide the very essence of hope.
Here’s to that United Earth I always dream about – a future fantasy island, perhaps? So, you may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…….
Bless this beautiful planet and all creatures, great and small, who inhabit it. May this Christmas give us some much-needed respite and a more peaceful time, with love, joy and hope, in abundance.
Live Long & Prosper, dear friends, and “May the Force Be With You”, as we see in the New Year.