Hope

"The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof." -- Barbara Kingsolver

When I think about all the different directions my life has taken, both expected and unexpected, the constant remains in the learning from the paths my life has taken. Each lesson has given me wisdom and drawn inside me a hope for a future that is fuller.

Living for me now is filled with wonderful. There seems to be an everlasting belief that although it isn’t perfect what it is remains phenomenally better so therefore hope is a constant. Looking at the differences I am drawn not by the people involved in my life but by how much of who I am is different and because of that, very much improved.

One of the first concepts taught to anyone in therapy for anything is that change is self driven. If you don’t like your life then change it. This concept can be taken too many different levels and believe, I have seen that. What it meant for me was a complete transformation of the very way I saw my life. It was a journey well worth embarking on. One now, which I am so grateful for.

Covey describes paradigms in a very real way. He sees the concept of “first seek to understand then to be understood”, as a very real way to improve not only business relationships but all of our interactions. I have learned that by trying to comprehend not only what someone is saying to me but even to understand why they are saying it has really helped me to be more in touch with myself and why I feel the way I do.

Bring forward now all the years of tears and pain and misunderstandings and lay them on a table. Look at them. Do they define you? Do they force you into yet another destructive path? Can you really see why making the past your reasons for choices tomorrow will impede a hopeful and full life. Now, before you think I am saying that you should forget the past, please stop. I am not saying that. What I am trying to say is that by bringing the past forward and having it define how you move forward it will take hope away, it will make you distrust the future and you will fail to take the directions in your life that are meant to be taken because of fear. Placing those fears ahead of you just makes for obstacles that become difficult to overcome.

When I see my future, as aware as I am of all the images that can make for a very unhappy life I simple choose to see hope. Flashbacks can be difficult, similarities can scare the very hell out of you but remember that it is not the same and that if you have truly seen yourself and trust the changes you have made in yourself, the past can be left in the past and you can have a brighter hope for the future. The most interesting concept of this way of living is the way in which others are drawn into to your hope and find hope for themselves.

Each day, for me, is an exercise in trusting that there is a brighter and more hopeful future. I cannot nor will allow my past to strip me of living and enjoying the journey I so love. I would have never guessed that I would be where I am today if you would have asked me where I would be a year or two ago. I see each day as yet another to be grateful for and for having the love I have not just from my new husband but from my healing kids. Everything in life is worth it, everything! Finding hope is the secret.

I was watching the news the other day and they were showing pictures of the destruction in Haiti. Here is a place that most people in the world have given up on. Some have even said it was God’s will that the earthquake hit. I won’t judge it. But then, across the screen came a parade of women and children, covered in soot and dried blood and singing, hymns, and praising God. A felt a tear well up. I was sitting in my family room in front of a big screen TV, covered in a blanket with a bowl of popcorn and I doubt I was as grateful to the Lord as those women and children were at that moment. When we can see all that is good in our lives we can then overcome whatever bad there is.

We believe that hope is a belief in things not seen. I believe it so much more than that for me now. Hope is everything that surrounds me and that in everything that makes life better, always. It is in the eyes of W as he looks into mine and in spite of years of difficulty in our past marriages, it’s the belief that we can be different together. It’s in the quiet of our home when we are all here just enjoying the moments we share and it’s in my friends around me who see the smiles and know, just really know, that happiness has finally found us.