What is hope, how does it impact on our ability to make positive changes in our lives and sustain us in difficult times?
It is the capacity to feel optimistic about one’s situation and what lies in store in the future.
Hope develops from an expansive inner vision that helps us find positive solutions and take bold action to address and resolve challenging situations that we face and to believe that a beneficial outcome is possible. It comes from an inner confidence that a situation or set of circumstances can work out for the benefit of those involved and in some way, result in a good outcome.
Hope enables us to see the potential in the details of what is happening, even in the midst of adversity and helps us to believe that positive outcomes are possible in spite of the challenges we face. To do so, we need to trust that good things lie ahead and by working hard and being committed and focused, that we can make them become reality. In order to manifest that which has not yet appeared, we need to have faith that, even though we do not see it yet, the only way to bring it into our life is to make a commitment to working at it, for ourselves and our future.
Having hope requires that we trust that the unknown ahead offers the potential for this beneficial outcome. To sustain hope that we need to focus on the potential rather than the limitations in a given situation.
In order to feel hopeful, one needs to believe something better is possible, even if there is no tangible evidence to support that belief at the moment. Hope gives us the sense that there is a reason to keep at it, to keep going, despite the odds, the challenges and potential limitations.
To feel the fear, ambivalence, worry, uncertainty and make a decision to move forward anyway. One moment, one step and one situation at a time.
This is the essence of hope.