2.28.15 The Dynamics of Hope

 This morning, upon awakening; while pulling aside curtains, bringing dogs out into the frigid early morning, standing there to greet the day, the land, the spilling light, I found myself feeling hope. I felt it, as palpable as raindrops, rising up inside of me. I found myself remembering one time, long ago, when all hope was gone, and it made not a peep. I stood out there in the crisp cold air, wondering at the origins and dynamics of optimism, the persistence of that small engine inside of us, tenacity.

     Because, despite our best efforts, and genuine intent, we don't always find ourselves filled with these things. Sometimes, we experience life as so unrelenting. And sometimes, so many factors are.

     It seems that part of the eternal springing of hope is personality related. And sometimes, we discover that NOT 'looking on the bright side' feels far more miserable and untenable than heaving ourselves over to optimism.

     We now come from a time where media has engulfed us, sometimes for the better. I remember looking at magazines as a kid. There were for the most part 'women's' magazines, and 'men's' magazines. Do you remember? And the 'women's' magazines always had those titles that promised much, and delivered little. Pabulum.

 I was a voracious reader, a kid, so no ability to do more than be granted weekly trips to the library and allowed a few meager books to bring home. I was always resorting to the Britannica Encyclopedia, in desperation, or those strange adult books in the library, that had titles that stunned the young mind. Titles that no more described 'Debbie going to the farm' or some event, as much as some abstract evocative string of words. I remained confused for years, trying to understand what the books held, and what on earth that title had to do with them.

 What confused me to no end, thought, was how these magazines could assert that they were going to provide valuable, amazing even, information about topics, and then fail miserably. I came to the conclusion that people were buying magazines even if they failed to deliver, over and over again. That kept me busy for awhile, that clue to human nature. I had this idea that these continuing purchases were related to false hope. That somehow, reading crap that provided no substance, while pretending it was going to really have substance, was an act in and of itself. A pretending.

     When I got older, some magazines began to actually have excellent substance. They would assert their ability to provide a template for understanding, or changing, something, and then actually go about doing it. I wondered what had happened, that magazine articles in some places had become honest and worthy. I remember discovering The Christian Science Monitor, wondering what on earth the connection was between the much aligned religion of Christian Science, and the paper that had articles of content. i met up with National Geographic, a font of information, even if i realize now that much was very industrialized-nation centric. U.S. centric. Ms Magazine came along, with such a fortification of information and substance, frightening honesty and intense assertions. Popular Science and Scientific American became interesting, despite the political leanings that filtered all, in a way I only sometimes caught sight of.

      Mothering became a radicalized magazine, for parents like myself, looking for clear information about health and humans and child raising and awareness. The Nation just blew my mind, as well as Mother Jones, a source of concrete, clear information and the beginning of having options, in terms of perspective. The Wall Street Journal even used to run series about people beginning to work part time, people taking naps at their desks to increase productivity and decrease stress and disease, series about the functioning of the nervous system, of many other things.

     I know I'm taking a bit to get round to the point here. Bear with me.

     It seemed as though, slowly, our printed media began delivering substance that made their assertions of hope, from headings and titles, true. We began the era of 'self help', which is all kinds of things now, but initially, was the first time we humans had available books and articles that provided a roadmap for achieving change. For understanding, with some depth, situations we or others found ourselves in. And steps to take to proceed and experience progress. Be it political understanding, depression, inattentiveness, disorganization, or trauma. People began disseminating information that had merit, to come to an understanding of and provide a template to address difficult situations.

     Suddenly, with actual substance, the promises proffered in titles on magazines and books were honest, and true. There was hope.

     Having the experience of a challenge, a difficult situation with your social capacities, your kid in school or with friends, or coming to an understanding politically, of the world you live in, is a vital thing, that soothes the heart and mind. Creating some common sense understanding between what you experience and how you make sense of it.

     It makes it possible to have hope. To turn toward a difficult situation, do a literature review of options, and create a plan.

Some plans we come up with are still pabulum, for sure. Many of us notice that false sense of excitement we bring to a situation with a plant that is neither realistic nor manageable, while we pretend with happy butterflies in our stomach, that things are going to get better now, darn it. It's a funny kind of self-deception, and addiction, the getting all up into what really has no substance at all.

     But sometimes we figure things out, talk with others, share experience, become informed as to the dynamics involved, and we change. Inside. And bring a new perspective to a situation we find ourselves , or a loved one, in.

     And then? Hope makes sense. We learn that, with honest perusal, informed and addressing things, hope makes a whole lot of sense. We have this experience, over and over, and soon? We are optimistic.

      Mindfulness is simply aspects of Buddhism that make a whole lot of sense. Instead of our country's 'stiff upper lip, drink up and shut up, push ahead and keep going' attitude we utilized to re-form this country in our own image, mindfulness offers up ways to BE with what is happening, instead of struggling with it. In this way, it offers hope for being more ok with hard times and hard situations, without being dependent upon the source of physical or emotional pain changing at all. In fact, what the experience is, is that when you manage to slowly learn how to let things come up, and slide over, and go on their way, there is the greatest opportunity for a reduction in physical and emotional pain. In other words, you can't chase it. You have to learn to sit with it. And then, sometimes? It improves.

     So, mindfulness in this era addresses the leftover frontier of hope. It provides tools, in such areas as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) that are templates for learning new ways of reframing what we experience, what we perceive, in a way that enables US to change. To encounter possibility. Very real possibility. We learn to anticipate with hope, because what we are doing, slowly, quietly, intricately, is working well enough to have a very real benefit.

     The better it works, the more hope we feel. We feel hope for what is possible, while we are sitting with and breathing with and waking and walking and doing dishes with simply what IS, right now. What a funny trick. What common sense.

     So, hope. Rising up in us, as we wake; as we live our days, as we fall into sleep at night.

     I am fond of hope. I am delighted when I manage things a bit better. Am a bit clearer. Communicate a bit closer to what I intend. Experience possibility in each and every day.

     Best of all, I like when hope is not a delusional distraction of make believe, but rather a very real, very dependable notion, born of very real strides made from being honest, making intelligent efforts, and reaping the consequence. Sometimes which involves better money management, when we let go of what we wish was different, and instead spend our time on how to best deal with the situation we find ourselves in. Ditto for health. Ditto for age, income, relationships with others, interests, the strange complex world we find ourselves in, and what is possible.

      How cool is it to live in a time when the difficulty involves mediating the sheer volume and impact of media, yet a time when there is so much information available for slowly creating a life that merits hope, every single time we awaken.