“Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Hope is the secret to getting to the other side of anything…
“Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.”
Life has been rough. Anxieties have been running on high and it feels like everything is restricted and tight. And yet, it doesn’t have to feel like that.
We, as humans, have stress responses to difficult times as a defense mechanism, one that served our ancestors in true life or death situations. Today, while it can be the same in certain circumstances, it has also evolved into something a bit more insidious.
It seems we are all stressed and anxious all the time. It’s like almost every situation is cause for heightened, nerve-wracking, on-edge emotions. And they are usually of the more pessimistic kind.
It’s all kinds of messed up.
However, we can flip the script and re-wire our minds and bodies to have a healthy, useful stress-response instead of an out-of-whack, chaotic one.
It all starts with hope. Hope for the next moment, and the next hour, and the next day and so forth.
Hope that while right now might not be great, it won’t always be this way. Hope that while we may be dealing with a hardship right here, right now, soon we may not be. Hope that we can and will get through it and a knowledge that we actually do have the wherewithal and strength within to do it.
It’s not necessarily easy to do, this re-writing of our go-to, almost constant stress response. But, oh, is it ever worth the effort. Once you begin to feel the ease course through your body, feel the tightness that clamps your insides give way to a softness, feel your lungs truly inhale all the way down and exhale the same, you don’t want to go back.
Of course you will, we all will. That’s okay. It takes time and active effort to undo a lifetime of society driven responses to designed to keep us small and “controllable”. Besides which, we are human – and that means we get to slip up and mess up and fail and then try again. It’s literally our jobs to keep falling down and then getting back up!
For today, for this week, try your best to seek out the hope. The hope that lies everywhere and that can be cultivated in even the most trying and darkest if times. Let the hope of tomorrow help you bear whatever hardships you may be facing right now. You’ve got this and you can get through anything!
Namaste ~ Ella
~ Affirmation Mondays are positive words of wisdom, insight and joy to add a bit of cheer to the start of your week and any day you need a bit of a pick-me-up! For even more inspiration please check out my Affirmation Mondays Pinterest Board and my Quote-spirational Board!
Lawhimsy 