Hope Can Be a Struggle

As discussed last week, hope is around every corner. If we open our hearts to a hopeful perspective, it can be found, or somehow it finds us. Hope isn't a strategy, but no strategy survives without hope. Call it the 'placebo effect' or some other minimizing name but it still hope has the power to change the world. There are other forces in the world, and they can seemingly get a death grip once they get a hold of us. Disappointment, humiliation, confusion, overwhelming panic, and harmful scripts can feel like a yoke that is holding you back or down. The weight pulls us into an abyss, and it is difficult to see the horizon. In uncertain times logic has a surety. Hope doesn't appear logical; nonetheless, we have all experienced a miracle moment that didn't fit the expected outcome. Hope isn't an elixir, magic bullet, or a cure-all but rather a tendency. I imagine it as a viewpoint that helps me see a better world. It isn't a trick to use to get your way. It isn't free therapy to the blues or depression, but if we practice hope and lean towards it, even when it feels foolish, it will lift us and keep us afloat. The more practice, the higher we can rise.

I suffer from bipolar disorder. When I was diagnosed, the doctor called it a manic depressive disorder and prescribed an array of antidepressants. For me, the medication didn't work. I hated the flattening of feelings and how I felt about myself, so I needed to find something that works for me. Most days, my alternative concoction of meditation, curiosity, and exercise keeps the cycles manageable. Occasionally, I can feel the air being sucked out of my body, and I need to become more active in my quest for hope, or I can soon find myself with a blanket of isolation over my ears and disturbing thoughts racing through my head.

Knowing hope is around the corner is both comforting and encouraging.

I set out yesterday, ready to meet hope around the corner. She wasn't in the places that I expected her. She wasn't in my time with Sam Harris in a guided meditation. My morning treadmill run was exhilarating and exhausting but the runner's high I usually feel at 12 minutes was absent. She didn't jump out of a closet and surprise me when I was feeling doubt. She didn't whisper in my ear as I struggled to find the right words in my journaling or writing.

She was there in the brokenness of a friend's email. Her voice and graciousness were in the generosity of a conversation. She appeared in the encouragement that I received from a family member. Her shadow crossed my path with a new opportunity and the gentle concern in a random text that I dared to show vulnerability in.

Hope went to battle on the sidelines with depression late in the day and held a shield to protect me from pessimism when I woke up at 2 in the morning. I will continue to seek hope and likely be surprised where she finds me. When I sense hopelessness, I will speak up and share my struggle. I realize that some of the jumble I live in is seasonal, and a long, frigid spell makes the quest more challenging. This year after a season of pandemic, politics, and problems, the heaviness can find a small opening and then bear down, making breathing towards hope challenging.

Hope can see that there is light despite all of the darkness. ~ Desmond Tutu

Today I am on a quest to observe and embrace hope.

B